Remember this?

Yeah, I wrote about this here.   Go, read it if you will and get caught up. Yes, it’s a rosary, but this one…we think it’s kinda special.  Just to recap: that rosary, right up there, is the rosary the Tom/Coffedoc/theDad made for Chris/Brother Peter Joseph as he entered the Novitiate.  All Dominican’s (like many or most or all living in a Catholic religious order – brothers sisters monks priests nuns) wear a full 15 decade rosary attached to the belt of their habit.  Thus, this was one of the items of a very short list we actually were to send along with him as he entered his Novice year.  Tom, being who he is, thought to make the rosary.  And so he did.  Again, read all about it here, it’s kinda cool.

The rosary was working great…so to speak.  Peter Joseph prayed it daily, it hung just right on his habit and all was well.  Until sometime midway through the year…and then, it hit a little snag.  Or, to be precise, it got caught on a doorknob as Peter Joseph was running along a hallway to go grab a guitar (boys are boys are men are boys….).  And it didn’t exactly break.  But it did rather streeetch the rosary out and pull on the (vintage, weaker) loop of the crucifix.  So.  Peter Joseph asked his Dad if anything could be done.

Now, we know the answer to that one:  Of course!

So, Tom decided it was best to not just fix it.  No, it was best to REMAKE it.  You know, “We can rebuild it.  Better. Faster.{..ahem, ok mabye not that part} Stronger...”  And so he did.  It took him months to research a better source for the cord – one that won’t stretch out if pulled, hard, with the translational momentum and torque of running friars.  The loop attaching the crucifix has been finely welded together to be stronger and more secure, despite it’s age.  The knots have been redesigned and retied, my math isn’t up to the precise number of knots but there are knots between each bead and there over 150 of those.  Yeah, my fingers ache just thinking about it….

The knot for the centerpiece has been redone, and in fact created from an original knot design by Tom because he couldn’t find a suitable and strong enough knot that he liked; though he tested out too many to count.  So he designed his own.  Each bead has been prayed over and with.

This rosary, the beads the knots, once again. still, carry Toms heart and head and hands.  They are a gift of himself to his son, in the most complete way. And I’m not trying to blather on about this to  boast…but rather to point out the joy in the effort and the meaning of these simple beads.  

They are, of course, beautiful in and of themselves.  They are beautiful for the prayers they represent and encourage.

But for me, they are beautiful for the simplest reason of all: These beads carry our prayers with them, to our son, and join his.