A Circle of Prayer: The Iron Rosary
I have trouble with brevity in describing what the Iron Rosary Ministry means to me personally. There are so many aspects which are both interesting and inspiring to me.
I love that the Iron Rosary is a spirit driven, collaborative project. There are no assigned tasks. Each member of the ministry team has their own unique personality and contributes in their own way. It is almost magical the way the team works together smoothly with each person contributing time when they are inspired and have time available. We have a feeling of family and often share prayers which touch or inspire us. Maybe it is the fact that we are working with prayers that keeps a loving spirit among us.
The initial idea for the Iron Rosary came to me as a temporary project, it would never have become a permanent Ministry of the church without the input and ongoing dedication of each person on the ministry team.
In 2015, I attended a retreat at the Claggett Center and learned about the Episcopal Rosary tradition. I really like that the Episcopal rosary encourages individuals to find their own inspiration rather than reciting prescribed verses. My attention had already been drawn to the historic iron fence around our church yard separating sacred space from the bustling center of a busy town. Inspiration came to me that the fence is like a rosary surrounding the church, with the spokes of the fence as the beads. The Iron Rosary was dedicated in 2016, with a service on the theme of love. We had intended to have a candlelight service around the fence on Valentine's Day, but it was bitter cold, so it was postponed. The idea was to say prayers of your choosing while walking around the fence, marking your progress each day, going full circle during Lent.
When Manoj came to St Anne's in 2019, we discussed a new Iron Rosary project, but Covid interrupted our plans. In 2020, Manoj asked me to come up with a new idea for Advent, leading to the creation of prayer cards to be filled in and left to be laminated and tied on the fence. If the church had not been closed at that time, we probably would have done something involving only the congregation, but as it is, the Iron Rosary serves the whole community.
Staff and clergy thought the project should continue as long as Covid went on, but I was doing the project by myself and it was bigger than me, especially since I was out of town a lot. By the summer of 2021, it was abandoned.
Enter Amy, a friend from Silver Spring who is frequently in Annapolis for sailing. Amy's mother was seriously ill and she came to the fence to leave a prayer for her mother only to find the prayer cards gone. When I told her that I couldn't manage it alone, she offered to help. Manoj immediately approved her participation, allowing us to resume the project and reinforcing that it serves the wider community beyond St Anne's. Had Amy's mother not needed prayers, it would never have become an ongoing ministry.
We needed more help, so I recruited Ariel, my friend from flower Guild. Ariel brings dedication, and constancy to the team. she is good at coordinating , excellent at editing , and keeps the fence looking good during walks around town with her husband Bob.
Still, we needed more help. Enter Julie from St Anthony's by the Bay. One day while driving around Church circle, an unusual squirrel caught her eye and drew her attention to the prayers on the fence. She loved the project and tracked me down to see if she could join in. Julie is a kindred spirit. We had a lovely conversation in which she mentioned meeting someone from the flower guild years earlier. She described a woman arranging flowers in the narthex with her little dog. That could only be one person- Julie had met me years before. Julie is an artist. She made the prayer basket at the back of the church and often makes prayer cards with beautiful drawings.
With 4 on the team, we still needed help to make sure that the prayer box is checked several times a week. Enter Karen. Karen laminates prayers while volunteering at the Parish House. The rest of us check the prayer box when we can, but we rely on Karen's steady support every Tuesday.
It gives our team great joy to see the project grow, as we’ve been able to include prayers of gratitude or life’s concerns from Guatemala, Clay Street, other St. Anne’s ministries and the wider Annapolis community.
Each prayer that we touch, touches us.
We read each prayer when we take it from the box, again as we laminate it, as we tie a ribbon on it, and again as we tie it on the fence. As we walk around the fence doing clean up, we are reading the prayers yet again. Julie is so tenderhearted that she can not bear to remove a prayer for any reason, but in general the prayers stay on the fence until they are too weatherbeaten to read.
Mary-Sophia
