ELKTON—At Holy Infant Catholic Church, Sidney Lam's lesson plan turned into a mission.

Last October, Lam formed a group of women to make rosaries. The project began as a means of teaching youth at Holy Infant more about one of their faith's most sacred rites: a personal ritual referred to as "praying the rosary," which involves prayers said while holding a string of beads connected to a cross.

"I wanted children in a catechism class I was teaching to make rosaries as a project," said Lam, 72, who lives in Shenandoah and is a retired loan technician with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Harrisonburg office.

The focus of Lam's idea broadened when Father Alex P. Credo, the priest at Holy Infant, suggested that Lam's team make rosaries for the church. Since starting their work, the eight women in the rosary group have sold more than $1,000 worth of rosaries, making fivefold what they spent in materials, said group member Lee Hurtubise. Buyers of the rosaries may spend anywhere from $9 to $45, said Hurtubise.

"We try to make a variety [of rosaries], so people don't have to spend $45," said Hurtubise, 72, from Penn Laird, who buys some of her material at jewelry shows in Miami, Fla. Hurtubise says the rosary beads are made of everything from wood to crystal.

Tool for Prayer

Among Catholics, rosaries serve as a devotional meditation on the life of Christ and the Blessed Mother. A typical rosary contains 59 beads, most of which are used in four common prayers, representing six Our Fathers and 53 Hail Marys, along with other prayers. People praying the rosary often use selected beads for certain prayers. The Catholic religion encourages members to pray the rosary daily.

According to the Holy Rosary Web site, rosary prayers began around the second century. Rosary means "a crown of roses."

According to the Web site, praying rosaries likely began as a practice by laity to mirror daily prayers by Catholic monks. The first clear historical reference to the rosary comes from the life of St. Dominic, founder of the Order of Preachers. Saint Dominic, says the site, preached a form of the rosary in France as a means of fighting what he saw as heresy in that nation. Catholic tradition holds that the Virgin Mary believed the rosary to be a cure for heresy and other sin.

One of Dominic's disciples, Alain de Roche, created a rosary society to promote praying of the rosary. Today's rosary is believed to date from Dominic's time. The Catholic Church ranks the rosary as one of the religion's most important prayers, behind Mass and Liturgy of the Hours.

Helping the Church, Others

The rosary project at Holy Infant is twofold, said Lam: to give rosaries to special missions, or to sell, with proceeds funding church programs. Some of the rosaries go to a mission in Illinois that distributes them, added Hurtubise.

The art of making rosaries is popular with many Catholic families, say members of the rosary group at Blessed Sacrament. Church member Kristen Lanier, 37, services manager for the Virginia Skyline Council of Girls Scouts' Rockingham County office, said that she learned how to make rosaries by the age of 8. Now, in her spare time, Lanier crafts rosaries at her leisure.

Often, said Lanier, observers see her at work and end up placing orders: not all of her customers are Catholics, she adds.

Said Lanier: "There are people out there who just like beads."

Contact Tom Mitchell at 574-6275 or mitchell@dnronline.com