Rosaries are NOT Necklaces!

Let’s all get something straight. Over the past few years I’ve seen this alarming trend of rosaries (and variations of such) being worn like necklaces. It’s usually the younger crowd (ages 16-24) and I highly doubt they even know what a rosary truly is. You may be one of these offenders. Well I’m here to tell you to STOP IT.

I get it. Rosaries look like ideal necklaces, with the long loop of beads and the small string coming off the bottom, ending with a crucifix (NOT a cross, there's a difference). But they are not jewelry: they are prayer beads. You see, each bead represents a prayer, and yes they are in that certain pattern for a reason. It’s in a circular form because you start with the crucifix, travel around the loop and double back to the crucifix to finish the rosary. I suppose they could’ve just broken the loop to go in a straight line that ends the way it starts, but that wouldn’t be nearly as fun.

Now I could go into major detail about the origin of the rosary, what prayers are said on each bead, the Divine Mysteries associated with the rosary, and all that good stuff, but honestly if you use a rosary properly you would already know those things. But I will tell you that to us Catholics (and especially to those of us that openly embrace the spiritualist and mystic aspects of the faith), the rosary is an incredibly hardcore and powerful instrument of prayer. Saying the rosary can supplant miracles, invoke religious ecstasy, even grant indulgences (reductions) to sentences in Purgatory! So with the rosary seen as such an important and beloved chain of beads, it is distressing to see so many people misuse them for jewelry.

Even worse are the rosary wannabes that replace the crucifix or beads with something completely different, like with pentagrams. What a rape if I ever saw one. Probably the worst thing someone can do though is wear a rosary and think it makes them look or seem religious, but then when someone asks them what it really is they draw a blank or simply don’t care. It makes me sick.

What everyone should be wearing are scapulars. “Huh? What’s that?” A scapular is a rosary’s ‘other half’, as in both are related in tandem to become very powerful religious artifacts. Scapulars are two small square pictures connected together by two pieces of string, in the basic sense. They are designed to be worn over your neck, one square on the front and back of you, but can be affixed to you in various ways (my grandmother used to string hers around her bra strap =P). It’s preferred that some part of it touches your skin. Scapulars simply bless and enhance you as you wear them (though people of little faith will just call BS on them and everything else), but the most famous reason for wearing a scapular is because if you die while wearing one you will ascend directly to Heaven. No Hell, no Purgatory, no questions asked, no kidding. And since any one of us could die at any given moment, a scapular is something you wouldn’t want to be caught dead without! Literally!

Trust me, you're better off wearing the thing on the right.

I’ll admit, a scapular doesn’t look nearly as sexy as a rosary, which is probably why it’s unfairly found its way into Religious Item Purgatory (god I’m loving the wordplay in this post!) but nothing would do my heart better than to see every schlock wearing a rosary like it’s bling instead wearing a scapular. If only they knew what a scapular had to offer them. Then again, if only they knew what a rosary actually was…