Praying with Beads

Prayer is essential to the Christian life, bonding us to God. Yet we find it difficult in our frantic world to keep our minds focused for long. All kinds of external noise and inner voices clamour for our attention. How can we slow down and quiet down so as to truly wait on the Lord? Nan Lewis Doerr and Virginia Stem Owens offer a solution that calls on the physical senses to break through to the spiritual — praying with beads.

The use of prayer beads, which has a long history in practical spirituality, is now becoming more widespread among Protestants. Doerr and Owens here show readers how to use what have become known as Anglican or Christian prayer beads.

Readers can then use the basic prayer structure provided by the beads to pray their way through each day, morning, noon, and night, and through the church year. These prayers, a thoughtfully chosen combination of quotations from Scripture and gleanings from the Book of Common Prayer, can be enhanced and enriched by the mindful and meditative practice of using beads.