Anglican Rosary Prayers: Thy Waves Over Me

As a devotional practice, I have begun writing or adapting prayers to use with the Anglican rosary. If you'd like to know more about how prayer beads work, one of my favorite resources is Full Circle Beads. (I am in no way affiliated with Full Circle Beads, I'm just a huge fan of their resources and the beautiful prayer beads they sell. My personal beads are pictured here). All scripture quotations are from the Revised Standard Version Bible, but for this set of prayers I have used the text of Jonah 2 from the King James Version, because I love the phrasing. 

The Scriptures are filled with water imagery. Water is essential to the Sacrament of baptism, through which God touches us through the material and immaterial to mark us as members of Christ's mystical body.

To quote Florence Welch, "Water is the great overwhelmer." It sustains us and cleanses us but it can also drown us, and the depths of the seas are filled with many mysteries we have yet to plumb. In this set of prayers, I've pulled together some of these Scriptures, including the one the title of this blog comes from. Underneath the great power of God's waves, Jonah learned humility and cried out to God. When I am submerged, it helps to remember that God was good and faithful to Jonah, who, like me, was prone to cowardice, brooding, and a vengeful spirit. The rain falls on the good and bad alike, and the water is for all of us.

The Cross

The earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. 

The Invitatory

And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

The Cruciforms

And all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.

The Weeks (say each phrase on a different bead) 

1. I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.
2. For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me.
3. Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple.
4. The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head.
5. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: 
6. Yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God.
7. When my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord: and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple.

Scriptures: Genesis 1:2, Matthew 3:16, 1 Corinthians 10:2, and selections from Jonah 2:1-7