Holding Them Up To The Light

Long before I knew the rosary was an instrument of prayer, I saw it as something mystical and beautiful.

My grandmother Delphine had one from “the Other Side,” our family’s sobriquet for Italy, with dark green crystals that I thought were emeralds. I was enchanted by its coolness and texture as it slipped through my fingers, the sparkling beads clicking softly and delightfully. Its crystalline brilliance was beguiling; its patterned layout intrigued me. It was ritual and language you could hold, quite literally, in your hands.

In Catholic school, we were dutifully instructed in what it was and how to use it as we prepared to receive the sacrament of First Holy Communion. Our second-grade teacher at Villa Victoria Academy, Sr. Margaret Mary, drew a little diagram on the chalkboard, explaining the meaning of its very specific design.

A symbolic garland of roses, the traditional rosary has 59 beads, a crucifix, and a centerpiece. Each bead represents a specific prayer, mapping a larger meditative sequence. There are five groups of ten beads called “decades,” representing the Mysteries—key events in the lives of Jesus Christ and Mary. Even their names sounded sacred and quiescent: the Joyful, Luminous, Sorrowful, and Glorious Mysteries.

Sr. Margaret Mary held up a rosary in front of the class, its translucent beads catching the sunlight streaming through the windows.She probably recognized the awe in the eyes of the little girls sitting before her, so she quickly pointed out, “The rosary does not belong to vanity or display. It is a sacred object. It belongs to reverence.”

And yet, it still captivated me.

A jeweled necklace—no different, in my second-grade understanding, from something kept in a velvet box atop my grandmother’s shiny wooden dresser. It felt special in the way treasures do. I didn’t see prohibition. I saw something that made the ordinary brown of my school cardigan look almost regal. The beads were too radiant to be hidden in a desk drawer or looped discreetly around folded hands. They needed—no, they wanted—light.

I remember my first indiscretion.

The lower grades of Villa Victoria Academy were gatheredin the pine-paneled assembly room, sitting on utilitarian metal chairs with vinyl cushions, rosaries in hand. Again, it was the sunlight. Looking down, I watched my rosary come alive, exploding into a million prisms over the linoleum floor and the chair backs before me. I was swept away.

Before I knew it, the rosary was over my head. It was not an act of defiance, but rather a pure need to place it where necklaces belonged.

The beads cascaded down the front of my brown plaid jumper, nearly to my waist, their weight both delicate and definite. I had chosen this particular rosary from among dozens in the gift shop at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. Its silvery chain held dark blue aurora borealis crystals that dispersed the light into spectral flashes. In those days, I would have described them simply as rainbow sparkles.

Each movement fractured the light into brief flashes of pink and blue, a private constellation blinking at my collarbone. I was giddy. I stood there admiring the way they caught the light, tilting my chin ever so slightly to watch them, blissfully unaware that I was committing a small but serious transgression.

My reverie did not last long. From across a sea of identical uniforms, Sr. Louise—our principal and a no-nonsense nun—zeroed in on me. Her sensible shoes squeaked with authority as the faint rustle of her habit kept time with her steps. She moved efficiently through the rows of chairs, as though correcting wayward girls was simply another item on her morning agenda.

She stopped in front of me. Her face was stern. “Young lady,” she whispered, “remove those beads right now. Right now!”

The rainbow sparkles had gotten me into trouble.

My stomach dropped, and I sheepishly removed the glittering garland. I thought that was the end of it.

It wasn’t.

I was later summoned to her office for a longer explanation as to why the rosary was absolutely, positively, unequivocally NOT jewelry. It was neither accessory nor decoration. It was sacred.

A note was sent home in my book bag. My mother read it aloud and gently reminded me, “They aren’t meant to be worn, Angel.”

My father winked. “Bet you looked like a princess.”

“Joe!” my grandmother exclaimed, tapping his arm. Then, rhetorically, “Where does this kid get these ideas?”

“Oh, it’s not so bad,” defended my grandfather, Nello. “Have a cookie.”

There were two more transgressions with two different nuns. Neither involved actually wearing the beads, but apparently I continued to find unacceptable ways of appreciating them.

Once, I was corrected for holding a light blue crystal rosary against my starched white uniform blouse, so dangerously close to my neck that it appeared I might be contemplating wearing it.

“Danielle, I know that you are not thinking of wearing that rosary,” quipped eagle-eyed Sr. Maureen from her desk across the room. The vision on that woman was truly remarkable.

Since I was the only Danielle in the seventh grade, I knew she was talking to me. “N-n-no, Sister,” I stuttered halfheartedly.

“Good,” she replied curtly. “Because the rosary is not some casual accessory from a store in Quaker Bridge Mall. It is serious. It is sacred. Am I clear?”

“Y-yes, Sister.”

“Excellent news. Now come to the board and diagram all these sentences,” she beckoned.

I never had a poker face. Sister Maureen read my expression. “Oh yes, every one of them. Come quickly. Come, come.”

I picked up the chalk, the parts of speech swimming in my head. “You will thank me for this later on,” she added. Sidebar: I still do. Sr. Maureen is directly responsible for my keen sense of grammar.

Years later, in the high school library, as afternoon sunlight poured through the windows, I turned my attention away from the declension of Latin words to observe the tiny prisms dancing across my notebook and table from my rose-colored rosary beads.

“Tell me, Miss Barber, what is wrong with you?” Sr. Helen admonished, her voice slicing through the silence ofstudy hall. “Do you think the rosary is some kind of science experiment?”

Everyone looked up from their work. Amy giggled. Mary Rose rolled her eyes. Alena smirked. Holly had skipped study hall.

We did just learn about Isaac Newton’s discovery of the colors of white light, I contemplated silently, but I thought it best not to say that.

“I don’t think you’d want me to tell your father about this,” she continued. “He would be most displeased, would he not, Miss Barber?”

No, not really, I thought quietly, again not daring to speak. Though Joe was a favorite among the nuns, he did love a good science experiment.

But as those little shards of color scattered across the library, I still couldn’t understand why reverence had to mean looking away from beauty. If anything, the light seemed to make the beads more mysterious, more extraordinary—and, to my mind, more sacred.

There are two points to be made here. First, I loved rosary beads so much that I apparently carried them everywhere. And second, I had amassed quite a collection by the time I graduated.

I remain caught between reverence and temptation, even though the strict line between the two has blurred and softened. I have occasionally toyed with the idea of buying a rosary necklace. And though I have never actually purchased one, I have lingered too long, circling the case, pretending to inspect another item while assessing bead quality from the corner of my eye. Cross or crucifix? Crystal or wood?Still, I resist.

I once found compromise in a silver rosary bracelet in Mexico. It seemed like moral diplomacy.

And yet, every time I visit a religious site, I buy a rosary. I have at least twenty. Seed pearls from Notre Dame in Paris. Cloisonné from the Vatican. Virgin Mary blue—named for the robin’s egg hue of her mantle—from Barcelona. Rosewood. Swarovski. I collect them the way some people collect postcards.

My career began in the art department of a jewelry manufacturer. Forget happenstance; it has been my destiny to work against the backdrop of precious metals and gems. Perhaps that little girl, transfixed by her grandmother’s rosary, already knew what would happen later: I would always be drawn to objects of beauty imbued with significance.

The truth is, the rosary sits at the intersection I seem to return to again and again: between what is allowed and what is felt. Between reverence and beauty.

I still don’t wear them. But I do still hold them up to the light.

Danielle Barber

Author’s Note: This blog supports a memoir-in-progress. The essays published here stand on their own and do not represent the full narrative, which continues to unfold.