Paternosters

Look for new items in early 2010.

"Pater Noster" is Latin for "Our Father" and refers to the Lord's Prayer. The Lord's Prayer recurs repeatedly in the Divine Office, as well as being recited at both the beginning and the end. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, "In many monastic rules, it was enjoined that the lay brothers, who knew no Latin, instead of the Divine office should say the Lord's Prayer a certain number of times (often amounting to more than a hundred) per diem. To count these repetitions they made use of pebbles or beads strung upon a cord, and this apparatus was commonly known as a pater-noster, a name which it retained even when such a string of beads was used to count, not Our Fathers, but Hail Marys in reciting Our Lady's Psalter, or in other words in saying the rosary." In other words, the Pater Noster is the 'original' Christian prayer rope! As the Paternoster evolved, it began to look more and more like modern rosaries and chaplets, with varying numbers of beads, often divided into decades or sets of five or seven smaller beads with larger beads between. The term paternoster was still used for all these prayer beads until the word "rosary" came into use. Our Paternoster returns to the straight rope of beads, NOT brought into a loop like a rosary or chotki. It either has a cross at one end and a tassel at the other, or a cross at each end. We generally make them in sizes of 50, beads, but we also can make a custom Pater Noster with any number of beads, in any material.