Help in hand: Michael Saunders on the rosary and Quaker spiritual practice
‘When we pray, we create the God who lives in our imaginations.’
I own a plain rosary. It comes from the Community of the Resurrection in Mirfield. It is made of a handful of simple things: some wooden beads, rope, and a small crucifix. I am also a Quaker and meet for worship with the Friends of the Light (https://friendsofthelight.org.uk), a small group of Quaker Christians based here in Britain. Quakers, of course, are not known for their use of rosaries – not least because hands rummaging for beads would almost certainly risk disturbing our ‘liturgy of silence’ (as Ben Pink Dandelion puts it). No, more than this: the rosary speaks to those outward and worldly things that, as Friends, we feel called to forswear. Our spirituality is a wholly inward spirituality. Quaker prayer is prayer that is woven of stillness and silence. It is, in the fullest sense, a prayer of the heart.
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