By Ancie Wilfred
Nagpur, July 13, 2023: Our family had just shifted to this locality in Bengaluru. During our first week here, I went to the nearest church and took membership. It is called the Our Lady of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Church.
The next Sunday we attended our first Mass in the church at 9:30 a.m. At the end of Mass, the priest announced that there is a person called Elsy Mathew who would like to teach the art of Rosary-making to whoever is interested. It was something I had been longing to learn ever since a Dominican friar visited our home in Nagpur and explained the story of how St. Dominic had begun the tradition of saying the Rosary.
He had told us that all Dominicans were taught to make rosaries. He promised that on his next visit, he would teach us too. However, the onset of Corona had brought everything to a halt and my wish to learn the art had been buried under all the concerns and uncertainties of those two years.
I sat up at that announcement but when I stepped out after Mass, I didn’t know where to look for the person. The family was in a hurry to get back home. So I gave up on my wish and just followed them to the car, hoping that I would get another chance soon to learn.
The next Sunday, the priest made the same announcement again along with info on where Mathew could be found. I made a beeline for the location and got the honor of being the first person to register for the class. Elsy aunty promised to call me soon with information on when and where the class will be held. I went home beaming.
Soon afterwards, she called me and informed me about the first Rosary-making class that was to be held in the basement of our church. Since the class was on a Saturday at 11 am., it was quite convenient for me to attend. I got there promptly at 11, but most of the others were already there. Elsy aunty started the class with a small prayer.
She had brought all the material needed to make rosaries – beads of many kinds, the nylon thread, broken ribs of an umbrella (used in a most fascinating way to facilitate tying the knots of the rosary and proving that nothing in the world is ever entirely useless!) and a cigarette-lighter (used to seal the ends of the threads).
Elsy aunty was the epitome of grace, patience and expertise in teaching each of us. Within the hour, even the youngest member, an 11-year-old boy, Jacob, had mastered the art of making a basic Rosary.
Our amazing teacher gave each of us enough material – including the umbrella ribs – to make a few more rosaries and asked us to make as many as we could for practice. The next few weeks each of us shared pictures of our latest accomplishments on the WhatsApp group that was made for the purpose and we encouraged each other and got appreciated by our teacher.
Almost every weekend, Elsy aunty took classes for various groups, sometimes at the church basement, sometimes in her home. So many people learnt to make rosaries thanks to the interest and efforts that aunty took. She also taught us to pray while making the rosary, making the process itself a beautiful devotion.
She also gave us the contact details of the shop in Ernakulam, Kerala, from where we can order all the supplies needed to make a rosary. We call them, they send us the pictures of the material on WhatsApp, we select what we want, they make a bill – for the material as well as the transportation cost – and send its picture to us, we pay them and then they courier the parcel to us. It takes about 3 to 4 working days for the material to reach us once we place the order.
Then, on another fine Saturday, Elsy aunty invited us to her home for a booster, so to speak, session at her home where she taught us a few more accepted designs of the Holy Rosary. In this session, we had a 72-year-old retired gentleman, Noel Fernandes, as our classmate. As it turns out, Uncle Noel, as we fondly call him, makes approximately 30 rosaries every week. He has single-handedly contributed more than 10-times the number of rosaries that the rest of us have made.
These rosaries that all of us make are sent to various substations of our church or to mission stations all over the country. I, for one, find great joy in making rosaries for all members of my immediate and extended family and for my friends and gifting it to them. None of us takes any remuneration for the rosaries. The peace of mind that comes from the act of making a rosary is a great reward in itself.