Making prayer beads

December 16, 2025

What skills or lessons have you learned recently?

In the last year or so I have started making prayer beads. In the examples above I have learned to make three types.

  1. The Anglican or Christian Rosary has 33 beads. One this you can prayer the Jesus prayer or the Come Lord Jesus prayer. It has an Invitatory bead, four Cruciform beads and 28 smaller weeks beads.
  2. The one decade rosary has 11 beads – an Our Father bead and 10 Hail Mary’s. This is small enough to be easily carried in your pocket.
  3. The traditional Rosary is the longer one that is used by Catholics to pray the Marian Rosary or the Divine Mercy.

I have mainly making them for my own enjoyment and to learn a new skill. I have given away quite a few of them as gifts to be a blessing.

I have really enjoyed this new skill.

The forgiveness of our sins

December 14, 2025

All of us sin. This is a sad reality of living in this fallen world. We do or say things we do not want to do. We also do not do the things we know are right and helpful to others and ourselves. How then, does God deal with our sins?

The book “To be a Christian” has some great thoughts on page 52…

  1. What are sins?
    Sins are intentions, acts, or failures to act that arise out of my corrupted human nature and fall short of conformity to God’s revealed will. (Psalm 53; Isaiah 59:1–15; Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 3:23; James 4:17; 1 John 3:4–10)
  2. How does God respond to human sin?
    All sin is opposed to the righteousness of God and is therefore subject to God’s holy condemnation; yet God in his mercy offers me forgiveness and salvation from sin through his Son, Jesus Christ, the only Savior. (Psalm 130; Isaiah 1:2–4; Micah 7:18–19; John 3:17–21; Romans 1:18–2:4; 3:24–26; 5:6–10)
  3. How does God forgive your sins?
    By virtue of Christ’s atoning sacrifice, in which I put my trust, God sets aside my sins, accepts me, and adopts me as his child and heir in Jesus Christ. Loving me as his child, he forgives my sins whenever I turn to him in repentance and faith. (Leviticus 26:40–45; Psalm 78:35–39; Matthew 26:27–28; Luke 15:11–32; 2 Co­rinthians 5:16–21; Galatians 4:1–7)
  4. How should you respond to God’s forgiveness?
    Trusting in God’s continual forgiveness, I should live in continual thanks, praise, and obedience to him; and as I have been loved and forgiven by God, so I should love and forgive those who sin against me. (Psalm 51:7–17; Isaiah 44:21–23; Matthew 6:12; 18:21–35; Ephesians 4:32)

I find this really comforting to know that even though I sin, God is willing and able to forgive me because of what Jesus has done for me.

Daily Bible lectionary readings

December 11, 2025

For most of my 36 year Christian walk I have read the Bible every day. I have usually read one chapter a day or have done some sort of Bible reading plan on the Bible app.

Over the last few years I have started doing the lectionary readings of the day. The two main sources I have used are the Revised Common Lectionary or the Daily Catholic Readings.

Both of these resources have a three year cycle that includes an Old Testament reading, a Psalm and a New Testament reading. These readings line up with the seven church seasons of the year (eg. Lent, Ordinary Time, Advent ect).

So if want to start reading the Bible and are not sure where to start, you might like to try the daily lectionary readings. You can find links to them below.

What really matters?

December 8, 2025

Here is a great quote I read today. It is straight to the point of what is most important in life. It is from Pope John Paul II.

What really matters in life is that we are loved by Christ and that we love Him in return. In comparison to the love of Jesus, everything else is secondary. And without the love of Jesus, everything else is useless.