Entering Lent
Today we enter the season of Lent, a time when we soberly reflect on the sacrifices our Lord made for us in becoming flesh and dwelling among us, suffering and dying in our stead, and anticipate the joyful celebration of His victory over death at Easter. During Lent, it is customary to turn to more contemplative practices to help us focus our minds and our hearts in gratitude for our redemption. At Accessible Hope, we explore and practice contemplative spiritual practices year-round, but today, on Ash Wednesday, we’d like to invite you into a practice that might support your reflection and worship during this season. It is the practice of praying with prayer beads. This might seem a little different at first, but we have really come to enjoy it.
The practice of using beaded tools for prayer is a very old one. Protestants have largely let go of the practice, though there are some denominations that use them regularly, but other religious traditions have used them for centuries. Like most prayer practices such as saying the Lord’s Prayer, it can become rote, repetitious and meaningless, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
The beads contain a lot of symbolism. The cross is where you start, entering into the presence of Christ, remembering why you have that access in the first place. Immediately following the cross is the invitatory bead – an invitation to have a conversation with your Savior. And then you start into the prayer itself. The rest of the beads are arranged in 4 sets of 7 beads, with larger beads setting them off. The larger beads, there are 4 of them, form the shape of the cross, and are called the cruciform beads. These beads are a reminder of the means by which you come before the throne of grace. The smaller beads are the beads of “weeks.” Seven is the number of perfection and completion in Scripture. Altogether, there are 33 beads, the number of years Christ walked among us.
Praying with prayer beads is a multi-sensory prayer method, engaging the mind, voice, heart, & body in the prayer experience, helping you to stay focused on your prayers, instead of letting your mind start to drift off. There are a variety of ways that you can use prayer beads to maintain focus. One of those might be that you say aloud the names of family members or friends that you want to hold before the Lord as you make your way around the beads. You can also use them to pray Scripture, which is the main way that we have incorporated them into our practice at Accessible Hope.
Engaging various spiritual practices, which ground us in Christ as we do the work of justice in a broken world, has become very meaningful to us as individuals and as a team. Thus, we have looked for ways to integrate these practices into all that we do, and that includes sharing with both the people we serve on the field, and with you, the rest of our team. Some of the women at Rimdin Designs, our Fair Trade Co-op in Sierra Leone, have started making these prayer beads to sell. You have the opportunity to purchase a set, along with a book of Scripture-based prayers to use with the beads. These prayers are all original and many represent themes that the Lord has given us over the years and promises that we hold onto in the midst of challenging Kingdom service.
We invite you during this season of Lent to try out a prayer practice that might be new to you. May you find your spirit drawn by His Word into the heart of the Father who gave everything to redeem you!