10,000 rosaries and counting
Our Lady’s Rosary Makers at St. John the Evangelist Parish in Waynesville is a group of volunteers that makes rosaries that are distributed to people worldwide. Group members recently celebrated the milestone of crafting 10,000 rosaries. (Photos provided) WAYNESVILLE — With simple beads and cord in hand, their thoughts focused on Mary’s intercession, members of St. John the Evangelist Parish craft rosaries that reach praying hands across the globe.
They are Our Lady’s Rosary Makers. Founded and led by parishioner Carol Kielb, the group recently celebrated making its 10,000th rosary.
Members commemorated the achievement in June at Kielb’s Waynesville home with their pastor, Father Paul McNulty.
“It was absolutely exhilarating to reach this milestone – I couldn’t believe it was happening,” Kielb said. “It’s fantastic to have achieved this in three and a half years.”
Kielb got the idea to start the group in 2021 while visiting her son and daughter-in-law in Florida. After Sunday Mass at a church there, she was invited to sit in with a rosary making group and learn the prayerful craft. The experience was so moving that Kielb decided she wanted to bring it to members of her own parish.
Research led her to Our Lady’s Rosary Makers, a lay apostolate based in the Archdiocese of Louisville. Founded in 1949 by Xaverian Brother Sylvan Mattingly, the nonprofit organization offers instruction and supplies for volunteers to make rosaries that are then distributed all over the world – from mission churches to hospitals to military bases.
The organization’s website states its mission is to provide rosaries to anyone who wants one because Brother Mattingly “envisioned a world in which all God’s children, possessing an instrument of peace and comfort, would work to fulfill Our Lady’s requests at Fatima to pray the rosary daily.”
The Waynesville group relies on donations and fundraisers to raise money to purchase the basic supplies from Louisville. Kielb said the group buys simple beads called mission beads and cord to make cord rosaries, which are the simplest to make.
“We have one knotting tool that we use and there are only four knots used in each rosary,” Kielb said. It takes about two hours of instruction for her to teach new members.
She distributes supplies to members from her home. They return the completed rosaries for her to send off to Louisville, where they are then sent all over the world.
“They bring them back to me in bags of 10, and when I have 150 rosaries completed, I send them off,” she said.
Group members also make specialty rosaries out of materials like amethyst, black onyx, jade and olive wood that they sell at their fundraisers.
The Rosary Makers first met to work together in the church’s basement but that was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, so the 10 members now work out of their homes.
Members often combine the work of their hands with spiritual work as well.
“A lot of our members pray the rosary as they’re making them,” Kielb said. “I have a deep devotion to Our Lady and I pray for the intervention of Our Lady of Fatima when I’m making my rosaries.”
Member Lynn Jefferys said she can complete a rosary in about half an hour and uses the time for prayer and meditation.
“I just do some spontaneous prayer and ask the Blessed Mother to rain blessings down on the rosaries and the people who receive them,” Jefferys said. “You just feel so good when you’re doing this because you know you’re doing something wonderful: providing rosaries for those that need them.”
— Christina Lee Knauss