Latest / Claymore: Become Who You Are / #546 Dr. Helen Hoffner on the Beauty of Rosaries: "The Rosary Collectors Guide"

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#546 Dr. Helen Hoffner on the Beauty of Rosaries: "The Rosary Collectors Guide" · Claymore: Become Who You Are

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Become who you Are podcast, a production of the John Paul II Renewal Center.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I'm Jack Riggers, your host.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Hey, glad you're with me.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: I have Dr Helen Hoffman with me today.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: She wrote a book with her mother.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Actually, the Rosary Collector's got very, very cool.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: I'll just give you a heads up.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: You can enjoy this podcast without the visuals, but Dr Helen does hold up a few rosaries during this.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: So you may want to move over to Rumble and you can find that in the show notes.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: So go to Rumble if you want to see some of the pictures, even though most of this is done without it and you won't need that.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: I think if you're a lover of the rosary, you'll enjoy the interview anyways.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: But again, just a heads up.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: The only other thing is we recently did our fall fundraiser and we were successful.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: We hit our goal.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: We would like to bring on another person or two going forward here.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: We have to help the young people today.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: It's just so important and a little goes a long way.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: You can really change hearts and we're getting to the parents now too, with stolen innocence and love, that and other ways.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: So please consider a monthly donation if you can $10, $20, $30, $50, anything you can send a month.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Again, check it out in the show notes.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Hey, god bless you.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Buckle up and get ready for today's episode.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: I'm excited and delighted to be with Dr Helen Hoffner.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: She wrote a book on the rosary, the Rosary Collector's Guide.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: At first, when I was going to take a look at it, I thought, well, I don't know if I'm going to be interested in looking at a lot of different rosaries.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: I'm a huge rosary fan.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Anybody that listens to our show knows that my life has been changed by the Eucharist and then the rosary show knows that my life has been changed by the Eucharist and then the Rosary.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: And I have other people and maybe we'll even get to those stories that have been really changed by the Rosary.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: But I started to look at this book and I really recommend it.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: It's the incredible beauty in these Rosaries and what is showcased here.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: It's really a delightful book.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: So I am going to bring on Dr Helen Hoffner to talk a little bit about how she got involved with this project and what it's meant to her, and talk to her a little bit about the rosary in her own life.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Dr Helen Hoffner, welcome.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Oh, thank you.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: It's wonderful to be here.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so you just told me you're from Philadelphia.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: You're from there originally.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Mostly, I've always lived in Pennsylvania.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: My mother was born and raised in Philadelphia and most are likely live close to the Philadelphia area.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Yes, well, we've seen some changes right in Pennsylvania, and I'm from the Chicagoland area and I call Illinois the belly of the beast.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Now I mean, it's amazing spiritual battles going on, and the reason I bring up those spiritual battles is maybe we could talk a little bit about how you got involved with the rosary.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: It's a powerful spiritual weapon, and people that pray the rosary they'll never ask you why do we need to pray the rosary?
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: It's only those people that haven't.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Why do we need to pray the rosary?
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: It's only those people that haven't.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: And I think this is a good way to introduce some people that maybe haven't prayed the rosary before and not only seen the beauty that you bring out in the book, but you also talk about the story of how you got involved.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to throw it in your court a little bit.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got involved in this project and what the rosary means to you, dr Helen.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm a professor at Holy Family University in Philadelphia and I attended Catholic elementary school, catholic high school.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: I really was fortunate that my parents provided that background for me.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: My mother grew up as a lifelong Catholic and my mother is now 96.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: When she was a child, missionaries would visit her church in southwest Philadelphia, in St Barnabas if anybody's from that area and she loved when the missionaries would come and tell her stories and they would sell rosaries in the back of the church to raise funds.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: And now she had traditional rosaries and even myself as a little girl I thought well, there's red ones and blue ones, but they're all basically the same Five decade rosary.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: What's different?
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: So my mother collected them all her life.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: One day, as an adult, she went into an antique store and saw one with seven decades.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: She wondered what that was about.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: She started investigating and around the time my mother started looking at gee this rosary has seven decades and then she saw some that branched into two.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: By that time I was an adult and I was working at the university and doing a lot of research.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: So one year when I had a sabbatical I thought I'd help my mother and kind of help her with her research, and it just started a great adventure for the two of us, going literally around the world collecting rosaries and looking at the variations that are approved by the Catholic Church.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: So what was that?
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: With seven decades on it, what did you find out, dr Helen?
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: There's actually two that have seven decades to run the gamut.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: There's a Franciscan crown that celebrates the seven joys of Mary.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: Meditate on very happy events and there's also a sorrowful seven decades.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: It's talking about seven sorrowful events in Mary's life.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Wow, wow, wow, wow.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Is that in the book?
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Did you describe those you did?
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're in the book.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, so I have to admit.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: So I'm going through the book and I got caught up in the pictures.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: I'm going through the book and I got caught up in the pictures.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: I'm an avid reader, but the beauty of the pictures was so much I'm looking forward to going back and reading more of the stories in that I know that there were rosaries based originally on what I did read on the Psalms, right.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: Originally in the Psalms, If you think back to the days when not everyone knew how to read and they were looking for ways that people could pray and not be tied down to anything written.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: So it was meditating on the Psalms and then eventually, when people really didn't have a whole Psalm in their mind and couldn't recite them that way, it was decided to just recite simple prayers like the Hail Mary, the Our Father.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: There are people who say it's repetitive, but actually others would say the repetition is almost a good thing.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: Your mind's not caught up with trying to read something that might be difficult for some people to read.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: You're just constantly reflecting on Mary.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know that's a great point to make, point to make and, of course, for those and maybe we'll back up a little bit, because there's going to be some people listening that maybe don't know a lot about the rosary or where it came from but let me just say this when you're meditating, we're meditating on the Gospels in the rosary as it comes to us now, as most of us are familiar with and as you're repetitively praying, most of us are familiar with, and as you're repetitively praying, you're going back to that decade that we're going, let's say, the joyful mysteries, and we're on the nativity of Christ.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: We're reflecting on that as we're praying, but your mind starts to wander and you bring it back and then God gives you, and our blessed mother gives you, other thoughts, that kind of blend in with this.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: It's a beautiful way to pray, but in the beginning, when it was based on the Psalms, did people have the Psalms memorized, do you think, dr Helen?
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: Not really.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: I'm sure most people couldn't do something like that.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: So a more simple prayer fit the need to the people.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it makes sense.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: So let's back up a little bit, let's talk about a little bit of the history of these rosaries, and have you found, and what's the oldest rosary that you found?
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: Well, and I brought some examples.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: I can hopefully show on the Zoom here.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: I think one of my favorites these are military rosaries.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: They almost look like kind of a pull chain.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: These were given to soldiers during world war one and world war two wow, let's, let's see the crucifix there, can you?
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: can you hold there you go?
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Wow, okay, they were given to soldiers, but in in what country?
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: well united states soldiers, wherever they were serving okay and in those days they were actually paid for with government funds, where you wouldn't have that situation nowadays.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: But they were distributed by chaplains and if you find them nowadays at a flea market or an antique store, I've had people tell me oh, I found one, but it was really dull and I didn't think it was worth anything.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: To me the ones that are dull are even more important Because the soldiers, if they were in a very difficult situation, they didn't want it to shine and let an enemy know where they were, okay, yes, so they would purposely put all kinds of shoe shine or anything to kind of dull the beat.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Oh how interesting.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: Sure, that makes perfect sense, wow so they're among our oldest and I think they're the most special and, like I said, when I find one that's dull, I think that that's one that a soldier actually carried in a difficult situation, isn't that?
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: beautiful.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: And when were the first rosaries being prayed?
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: And let's back up to that.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Do you have a—can you give us a little history on that, because it didn't start right from the beginning.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: There was a time right that rosaries were starting to be prayed About.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: When did that all happen?
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: There are stories way back in history that really, if you think about it in some ways, a rosary is a way of counting your prayers, and there were stories about hermits who would just take maybe an earthenware bowl, put stones in it and just move one stone every time they said a prayer.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: There are stories about the hermit Paul that would fill his pockets with stones and drop one out along the way.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: There are stories about a knotted cord.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: So if you think about a monk robed and maybe had the belt, that was sort of a knotted cord.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: And there's rosaries that people pray nowadays and make called knotted cord rosaries that resemble what the monks would have.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: So for those that are maybe just listening on audio, dr Helen's holding up a rosary, that would actually go around your waist then, right, and would they?
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: That's what the monks did then yeah, yep, yep, beautiful.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: So this was a way perhaps to to count their prayers.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: Huh, in the beginning they put it maybe on beads, then on on a string right, it was really all about counting yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: And so the rosary that we have it today you know they came down to us today was it?
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Was it using some of those counting beads and things like that?
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: And then how did it evolve to where we get it the way we have it today?
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: It was counting and going back in history.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: You had said earlier what's the oldest one that I have, so I don't personally own this one, but in a museum in Chatsworth, england, there is a tenor which is basically a one decade that was owned by king henry the eighth before his famous split with the church.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: But as a young man he had a very elaborately carved one I saw that that was that's amazing.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: So it was one decade and each one of the beads was carved.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: I mean mean I don't see the picture.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: That picture alone is probably worth the book because when you, I meditated on that for a little while and you can see the intricacy of someone carving that with you know.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: I mean it's amazing that they could do that.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Don't you think it's really miraculous, in a way, that people have the talent to do that?
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: It really is, and when you think about the variety of rosaries that are there.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: So, as we were saying, there are some with seven decades, there are Station of the Cross, ones that have 14 sets of three beads each.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: There's my favorite one.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: A lot of times, my mother and I will visit churches and colleges and display our rosaries and give presentations, and the one that I love to show is called a wedding lasso rosary.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: A wedding lasso yeah.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: Lasso.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: As I said, I live in Philadelphia in the eastern part of the United States and it's not very common here, but in areas especially like around Texas in the Philippines a wedding lasso.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: Rosary has two complete five-decade rosaries.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: They're joined at the center medal and then during the wedding ceremony, the priest will put one around the neck of the bride, one around the groom so the rosary hangs between them during the ceremony and prayers are said.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: Now, the one that I have with me today doesn't have the clasps, but some have a clasp, like a necklace would, and you can take them apart.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: And there's a tradition that the couple keeps one and you give one to the family of the bride.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: Some have three rosaries, so you can have one for the couple and then one for the bride's family, one for the groom's family.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: But a really beautiful tradition that in some parts of the United States I really think maybe it's going to start spreading to more places.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: So how long has that been going on?
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Do we have any idea?
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: At least 100 years, because I've been trying to research and there's many people who have kept them in the families.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: Sometimes you'll go to flea markets around Mexico and so forth and the bride will be picking out the rosary for their wedding.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: Others will keep a rosary that's used just at every family wedding.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: What would you say?
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: You know, as I'm speaking, of course, to families, and that's what we're doing a lot of times.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: We're speaking to families all the time and one of the things we ask them to do is you know, is to obviously pray the rosary with their children, and they don't have to pray.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, when you think about what you're just saying now people think they've got to.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: You know, there's so many rules that you got to get the whole rosary done or whatever.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: You know the power comes, I think, with a family, with any of us.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Praying is not exactly what we do or how we do it, but that we do something you know.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: So, with a young family, you pray maybe just one decade with the kids and then you and your wife go off and pray the rest of it or whatever, right, I mean little kids.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Sometimes they don't have the patience and as they get older they pray more.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: But as we start to pray all of these gospels, something happens to the human heart.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: It changes the heart.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: I just think about some couple getting married, dr Helen, and doing it with this rosary ceremony.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: I mean this is a huge blessing, isn't it?
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: I get a goosebumps.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: I mean it has to be a huge blessing to that couple and those families.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: And it's a wonderful way to start your marriage and, like you said, if it's overwhelming to say an entire rosary with young children who maybe can't sit that long, so you start with a decade and that gets things going.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: In the 1940s and 50s there was a priest, father patrick payton, who would have actual rosary rallies.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: He would get thousands of people to come out.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: He's the priest who gave us that slogan about the family that prays together stays together.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, you know, say his name one more time, because that's awesome, father.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: Father Patrick Payton, it's P-E-Y-T-O-N.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, and he's the one that's.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: The families that pray together stay together.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Huh, wow, that's beautiful.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: You know, when you think about it, 40s and 50s is when television and radio was really kind of catching on and people were starting to have that.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: He was smart enough to realize what a wonderful medium radio and television could be, and he would get stars like Frank Sinatra to come to his rosary rallies.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: So maybe the people who don't want to go out on a Saturday well, I'll come out to see Frank Sinatra and he would get that attraction and then have great rallies where people would pray the rosary.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Isn't that beautiful, huh?
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Well, we're starting to see it, and now again.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: You know, the world has become so nefarious in so many ways.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Right All over the world, we're seeing this, and we're starting to see these rosary rallies again, and it's so beautiful to see it.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of men's groups now praying all over Europe and the United States on their knees, and they'll go into a public spot and they're publicly displaying 10 guys, 50 guys.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: I've seen hundreds, though, of guys, of men kneeling in Poland and in France and in the United States, all over, as a countercultural move, and what a beautiful thing it is when you see men praying the rosary and women, of course too, but these are men's rallies that I've been getting notices of, and to see men on their knees praying the rosary, it's a powerful.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: It's really a powerful sign to the culture, I think, and a beautiful sign.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really happening and you're seeing even more celebrities kind of telling people.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: There's slogans you'll see now on the internet and so forth real men pray the rosary, and rosaries made to say this is a strong rosary, almost like the military one, to really encourage that.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: Well, here's an interesting thing.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: I want to throw this out to you, because one of the things we see now are this, and it's a false division in my mind but people that would call themselves trads, right, that are going to say the traditional Latin mass, and people that go, say to Novus Ordo, and, look, I think there's really should be no distinction, you know, look, we're going to mass, and I don't want to get into intricacies of that here but some of the people that are very Orthodox are so traditional and they're trying to do the right thing, right, I mean, everybody's trying to do the right thing.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: I think we have to be careful, though, not to put ourselves in a box always, because God's not in a box.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: He's reaching us in all different ways, and the reason I say all this is because I heard somebody that's pretty well known I won't mention their name.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: He has a big podcast and he said he only prays the, the traditional rosary, which are just a traditional three, three mysteries, right, and, and then or four mysteries, and then or three mysteries, and then john paul added the fourth one, and I, you know, I just want to reach out and just say no, you know, things have evolved through the years.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: You know you don't have to get stuck praying just at a certain time, but you're bringing up up that the rosary has evolved through history and when John Paul added the Luminous Mysteries I love the Luminous Mysteries.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know how you can pray about the baptism, the wedding feast to go out, the transfiguration and the Eucharist itself without loving it.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: So can you comment on that?
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: That the rosary has evolved over time, hasn't it?
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: And I love the point you made earlier about God's not going to be upset if you didn't say it exactly the way you think it should be.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: So it's almost like the people who are afraid to go to confession because they'll forget the form of what they're supposed to say.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: So you can certainly find many places that tell you how to start the rosary and what it should be, but there are times when maybe we like a fatima, but they added an extra prayer after the glory b yes has evolved that way good point and there's a wonderful story that you know Lucia, the oldest of the Fatima children.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: She lived long enough to really write down a lot of what actually happened.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: And this is Sister Lucia, who died in 2005, the same year John Paul II did right, so I mean, she was here until fairly recently.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: I love Sister Lucia.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: So, yes, let's talk about her, Keep talking about her.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: I just love her so what a connection that she had with John Paul too.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: So the world wanted to know, like, exactly what did you see?
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: And get her writings down.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: And she has a wonderful reading her diary, is wonderful to get it from someone who was there.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: But there was a sculptor making a statue.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: He was trying to make a statue that looked like what Lucia saw and the whole time he was working on the statue she was in the studio telling him well, no, I didn't see Mary's hair.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: So if you see Fatima's statue you never see long hair of Mary, because Lucia says I didn't see her hair.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: You know every artist has long brown hair.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: Lucia said she had a veil.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: I didn't see it.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: And she gave the artist other details.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: But there's a funny story.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: The artist says that as she was sitting there she was making a rosary, because that was one thing she did.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: She liked to make rosaries and so forth.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: The rosary that is on the statue is actually at Fatima, at the Shrine of Fatima.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: The real statue that was commissioned and she talked about I don't think most tourists can get close enough to see.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: But one decade has 11 beads and the sculptor said Lucia would be talking and forget what she was doing.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: So one decade has 11 and I think another one might have 9.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: But it's kind of a funny story it is a funny story.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: So she'd get talking, so she'd be making a rosary and add a bead or forget a bead, and we have those rosaries.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Somebody has seen them at least, right.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: They're at Fatima.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: They're in Fatima, in Portugal, right there.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: So if we sometimes make a mistake and say nine Hail Marys instead of 10, or we say 11, well, the saint himself did that.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Yes, oh, thank you.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: But you know, this is awesome because I ride a bicycle a lot and I try to get out as often as I can and I started to say the rosary a long time ago now on my bicycle.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Well, at first I actually had the rosary in my hand, but then I'm trying to steer a bicycle and break, and it was, you know.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: So I decided that it's okay.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, god doesn't care, and our Blessed Mother, she knows me already.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: So I start to just do it on my fingers as I'm right, as I'm going.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: I have the best rosary when I'm riding a bicycle because and I go for an hour and say 10, hour and 15 minutes, it takes me that long sometimes to pray that rosary because my mind starts to meditate on different things.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: I get different messages from our Blessed Mother sometimes, or just the beauty of the nativity scene, you know, and I just get into that nativity scene and it's the most beautiful thing.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: But anyways, my point was going to be sometimes I can't remember if I counted all 10 of my fingers and I say an extra two or three or four, and I always smile at our Blessed Mother and she never seems to get mad at me, dr Helen, for that huh.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: No, she doesn't.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: There's even one.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: I was thinking about you saying on your ride Okay, I have it.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: As you said, the rosary's evolved over the years.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: There's actually a rosary called the Cantangle and it's just one continuous loop.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: It doesn't have the crucifix and the beads hanging down.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: There was a priest years ago who actually patented this because he said people carry the rosary, it gets tangled in your pocket.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: So that was a form that he came up with.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Okay, so say the name again.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: It's called the Cantangle K-A-N-T can't tangle.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: Can't tangle.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, all right, and so yeah, that's awesome, and you're exactly right.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Anybody that carries a rosary a lot knows they can get a little tangled up.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: I started to carry a little case with me.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: My mom gave me a case with Padre Pio's picture on the front of it, and it does help to have something like that, doesn't it?
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: So it doesn't get tangled up in your pocket.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he called it, can't tangle.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: Nowadays the oblates are making one called Circle of Mary.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: It's just the same thing.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: It's just one circle instead of the crucifix and the pendant beads hanging down.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: Now again, for people that can't see it, what Dr Helen's holding up is that the crucifix is actually one large circle.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's one large circle and the crucifix is tied in on both sides, and so there's no loose ends there.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: See how beautiful that is again, you know right, we can pray, and as long as we're praying and meditating on these Gospels and getting closer to her Son, jesus Christ, and the heart of Christ, I mean that's what she wants us to do, isn't it?
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: It really is, and this was Father.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: His name was Father McNamee, from Oklahoma.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: So people in Oklahoma can be proud of the heritage that way.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Beautiful.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: See, we can change.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: We can change a little bit, right.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: We just have to be careful and make sure that we're doing the right thing and discern.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: But everything doesn't stay the same, does it?
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: God allows us to evolve, we're all growing and learning new things, and so tell us what is your favorite?
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: What is your personal favorite rosary?
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: If you had to say, look with all those rosaries, I know that might not be an easy question, but is that a possible thing to answer?
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: It really isn't.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Every time we take our display, someone will say well, this is my favorite, this is my other favorite, my other favorite.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Well, how many rosaries do you think you have?
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: There's over a thousand and it really happened.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: You know when my mother and I got started investigating this.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: Every Christmas Mother's Day, birthday I would think I'd like to get my mother a book that would help her with her research.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: I'd like to find some kind of book that would have pictures and help her know what does this center medal mean and what does that crucifix mean?
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: So I would search and, working at a university, the librarians here would help me look to see what book would help me.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: We found many, many beautiful Rosary prayer books, but nothing like we say.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: It's almost like an antique roadshow.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: Look at the Rosary, what does this mean?
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: So that's really.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: Our book came about because we couldn't find what we needed.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: So for people to understand what you're saying here is that if they start to go out and they start to see rosaries, your book and with all the pictures in there and the history is going to help them identify those rosaries right, like about when it might've came from.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Here's the little idiosyncrasies to see.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: So talk just a little bit about that, because the book isn't just about looking at just beautiful rosaries, which I think it's worth having on your coffee table for that, if nothing else, but also as a collector a way to like a coin collector would say.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Only this is just a much more powerful story to help us identify which, where those rosaries came from and and who may have.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: You know, I go to a garage sale, I see a rosary.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: I pick it up.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: I can use your book to kind of help identify it.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Can you speak to that a little bit?
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: we get a lot of people who say this is my grandmother's rosary, can you help us figure it out?
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: And we love doing that.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: What I would tell people if you find grandmother's rosary, can you help us figure it out?
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: And we love doing that.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: What I would tell people if you find an old rosary, you look at the center metal first, because sometimes over the years people will take a cross or crucifix off and use it for a necklace.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: But it's pretty hard to take the center metal off.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: So a center metal.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: You look to see what that age might look like and then you look to see if the the chain around it looks about the same age.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: It's really old center metal but the chains look too new.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: And there are things like if the center metal faces a certain way, it was made before 1920, if it faces another way, it was later.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: The one thing that gets a lot of people confused many rosaries have a miraculous medal at the center of the rosary.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: And if you go on eBay, they'll say rosary made in 1830, which probably is not true.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: That's when the miraculous medal came out in 1830, right, right yeah.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Well, that's actually when Mary appeared to St Catherine Library.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: And the real metal came out maybe two years later.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: So people on eBay, maybe they think they're probably in their mind, they think that's what it is.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: But if you had a factory making miraculous metals today, they would be stamped 1830.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, so that's a great point, right?
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: So they're stamping when that miraculous medal at least the first visions of it, the idea of it, were coming out.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: That's a great point.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: And just again, for people that may be around the audio, what Dr Helen's describing is that center point where everything ties into the rosary, right?
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: So you have the two ends coming together, you have the crucifix coming off of one end and that's that piece of metal in the middle there.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: So that's what you start with and then see if the rest of the rosary looks like it all came from the same time and place, right?
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: It really did.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: I love looking at materials and, like I said, it takes me a long time to think what's my favorite because it changes constantly.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I, I love this is.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: One of my favorites is mother theresa carried a rosary made out of a seed called jove's tears.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: It's a very hard seed that actually has like a little hole in it that you could string beads, and it gets back to the point.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: There are rosaries made out of actual diamonds and there are rosaries that are extremely expensive, but we can certainly pray just as well on a rosary made out of seeds.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think that would surprise any of us that Mother Teresa found a way to have an inexpensive rosary made right.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: You can almost smile thinking about Mother Teresa using that.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: And have an inexpensive rosary made right.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: You know, you can almost smile thinking about Mother Teresa using that and praying on that rosary, huh.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: You really can yeah.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: So tell us today what this journey has meant for you.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: You know, because you know it sounds like you were a cradle Catholic, but you've seen a lot of changes.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: What are you seeing out there today, and how has this process of collecting rosaries and basically cataloging them so well?
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: What has that done for your own heart, dr Helen, and do you have any stories to share from people that have seen the book and those types of things?
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: I love to talk about individual hearts, because this is what's needed today, isn't it?
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: The hearts that have opened themselves up to our Blessed Mother.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: What we're talking about here.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: It sounds like information, but it's really.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: It's well more than information.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: It's information bringing us into a love story, and that's what's behind all this, isn't it?
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what it's done for me, as you said, I was a cradle Catholic and you go to school and you pretty much do things because your parents taught you or your teachers taught you what it did for me is really give me a much deeper understanding.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: So before I thought, well, you have a red one or a blue one.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: Before I thought, well, you have a red one or a blue one, but I can see where the joyful, the Franciscan crown, where you're focused on the joyful mysteries of Mary, like really thinking about what am I doing?
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: I'm not just saying the decades and sort of like timing myself, I'm really reflecting on the things that happened and the stories have been wonderful.
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: We went one place and a little boy who was 10 years old had heard we were coming and asked his parents to drive him an hour to where we were.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: We were visiting.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: There's a shrine in Pennsylvania the Padre Pio Shrine, the Nazca Shrine of Padre Pio in Bartow, pennsylvania and we were going to be there and they put on their website we were coming and this little boy asked his parent.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: He was only 10 years old and asked his parents if he could come.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: So that's just meeting children that are interested.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: that really did a lot for us yes, well, with, I'm with the john paul two renewal center, as everybody knows, and and that's our focus is really with, with, with young people.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: We're just seeing young people's hearts getting just twisted and distorted with this crazy toxic world that we live in now.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: People aren't sharing their faith and handing it down.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: When you start to pray the rosary with your family, you get somebody did that with this young boy, obviously.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: You know when he got excited to see.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: You know somebody maybe grandma or grandpa, who knows, probably told him a couple of stories.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: You know that's the excited to see.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: You know somebody maybe grandma or grandpa, who knows, probably told him a couple stories.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: You know that's the best way to do it with children, isn't it?
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: You say here's what we're going to be thinking of while we're praying this decade.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: Today we're going to be talking about the joyful mysteries you just mentioned.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: We're going to be talking about the annunciation and if you think about this, in this crazy over-sexualized culture, that here is our Blessed Mother who is going to actually her fiat.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Her yes to God is so beautiful and so profound that it comes out in the form of a person, a child in her womb, and we're all asked to be filled with God, right To be impregnated with God.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: I always, when I'm praying that, dr Helen, I'm envisioning myself sitting with our Blessed Mother, or kneeling with our Blessed Mother, and she looks over to me and she shows me her son and she says you too, you too, pray this decade, and you too, envision yourself to be filled.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: And, of course, we're temples of the Holy Spirit, aren't we?
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it really is a beautiful thing.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: And when you start to pass these stories on to kids, especially in that age of innocence you know when they're young and they haven't been twisted and distorted by this culture it moves their hearts.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: That 10-year-old boy, somebody moved his heart and that's the point I want to make.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: We need to do this to our children.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: We need to give them a chance to be able to be filled with something beautiful and positive, to touch God before the world grabs them.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Because if you wait until after the world grabs them, they may be on a long journey before they can come back and they'll never have that age of innocence again where they feel this movement of the heart, and not that, not in that age of innocence.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: It's a beautiful thing, isn't it?
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: It really is, and we've had a little boy we've ranged from a little boy who was 10 years old to a monsignor in our neighborhood.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: He had a rosary that his aunt, who had been a sister, a sister of the Immaculate Heart, had this rosary and she passed it on to her first nephew who became a Monsignor.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: He gave that to my mother and I to put in our collection because he thought he wanted it to be somewhere safe and someone always to pray his aunt's rosary.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Oh, how beautiful is that.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Now, did that get into the book?
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: No, he gave it to us after the book was published.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: So maybe he's like I am.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so this book was published a little while back initially, right.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: Yes, about 2013.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so as we go along here, are you going to do a second edition and add more?
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: Is that what you're thinking?
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: Because it can't be cheap, right?
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Because this is not a cheap print, because these beautiful colorful pictures aren't they?
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: yeah, and then you weigh that like you want the color pictures but you want it to be affordable, so it's kind of the mid-range it's not easy.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: It's probably not easy to print a book like that.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: It's not cheap, is it?
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: no, but we're lucky we have a publisher who tries to work things out for everyone.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, beautiful, beautiful.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: Well, as we start to wind down here, I could just think of so many stories we could probably tell One of the most beautiful.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: I won't tell the whole story is I have a brother that's.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: We're Irish twins.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: He's only 11 months younger than I am.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: When his wife passed away he couldn't sleep.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: And it was not that long ago, a couple of years ago.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: So he's in his sixties, he's in his mid sixties and never really knew how to pray the rosary, never prayed the rosary, couldn't sleep.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, the anxiety levels just went through the roof he had taken.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: He was her caretaker for many, many years before and now all of a sudden she's gone.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: So I sat down.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: I said Bobby, I said have you ever prayed the rosary?
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: He said not really, jack.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: And I said well, let me just show you and get you started.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: It's amazing.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Within a couple of days, dr Helen, his anxiety level had left him.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: He started to pray it at night and when he would wake up he'd have his hands still on the beads, from where he fell asleep from one decade to the next, and then he would fall asleep again.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: His hands would still be on the bead and he'd start praying Within a couple of weeks he totally changed.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: It was an amazing transformation.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: The power of the rosary, the power of the grace, the power of that whole meditative prayer.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: You know that repetition, which sounds like repetition, but that's what meditation tries to do.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: It clears your mind of all of this outside noise and allows you to go to that deep place where just you and God dwell.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: It's a beautiful thing, isn't it?
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: And you know Pope Francis, in one of his addresses he actually referred to the research.
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: There is research that Crane of Rosary lowers your blood pressure.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's how it helps your family.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: Yes, you know it's a great thing to bring up here.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: As you know, toward the end here, period.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: As you know, toward the end here, if you have some anxiety, even depression, if you struggle with addictions, you grab that rosary and you pray.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: You start to pray on that rosary.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: We forget that temptations are not a sin.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: You know, we're inundated all day long with all of this stuff on social medias and stuff.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: If you can start to open up your heart from those temptations, right, god doesn't want you to push all your passions and desires down.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: He wants to sit with you and open those passions and desires to the infinite source of where they come from in the first place.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: And that's what a rosary is just so powerful to allow.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: And you can carry it around with you, no matter what.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: You can't make it.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: You're traveling someplace, you can't make the daily mass.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: You know you get that rosary out and you pray that around trips and stuff, no matter where you're at, on a bicycle huh, it can be prayed.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: Tell us about the book.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: Where can people get it from?
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: You're going to send me your website, hopefully, and a link, but tell people and then you send it to me.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: If you don't mind, will you?
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: Before you go, I'll give you my email address to make sure that I have all the links that you need our listeners to have.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: Certainly, and the book is called the Rosary Collector's Guide.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: We wanted to make a really obvious title so people can find it.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, hold that up a little higher, will you?
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: There you go.
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: It's the Rosary Collector's Guide.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: The easiest place might be to go to Amazon or Barnes Noble are some of the easiest places to find it.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, all right, very good.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: And how about if they had a question for you?
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Do you have a website or just buy the book?
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: Well, they can email.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: No, we love to answer questions from people.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: Okay, they can email me.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: I'm a professor at Holy Family University, so it's just H Hopper.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: So it's H H Epperson.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: Frank Epperson.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: Frank N-E-R At holyfamilyedu.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: Holyfamilyedu.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: Yes, very good, all right, we got it.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: I might test it out later on and make sure that that works.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: And the Rosary Collector's Guide.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: Hey, god bless you, dr Helen.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: So your mom is still alive.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: Oh, she's 96, and she's home now researching for the next volume coming out.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: Oh well, tell her we said thank you very much, we appreciate your time.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: Hey, thank you.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: Thanks everybody, thanks for tuning in, thanks for joining us.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate your time.