SANTA BARBARA — Janet Fanucchi has made jewelry since her teenage years.
But it wasn't until three years ago that, at age 50, she made her first rosary -- Indian amber beads with a golden vintage cross -- and came to understand its ability to forge an intimate connection between human and divine.
"I've always loved the rosary," Fanucchi said. "It's a spiritual experience to make one."
Fanucchi joined the guild at St. Raphael's Catholic Church here that makes rosaries for missionaries in impoverished areas of the world. She later recruited six people to start making rosaries for servicemen and women.
Thanks to the Internet, Fanucchi and her guild are united with rosary makers all over the world. They view one another's work, share stories and make trades for elusive beads and crosses.
"It's about this sisterhood of rosary makers," Fanucchi said, adding that a Yahoo! group she joined, Rosary_Makers, prayed for her mother when she was diagnosed with cancer.
The group of about 300 people is shepherded by Margot Blair, the matriarch of her own rosary-making guild in Stephenson, Mich.
"It's like a calling," said Blair, 74. "That's the common thread among rosary makers."
The modern rosary, from the Latin \o7rosarium\f7 or "garland of roses," dates to the 13th century, when St. Dominic used it in his ministry, said Father Dorian Llywelyn, an assistant professor of theology at Loyola Marymount University in Westchester. It is also known as the Dominican rosary because, according to Catholic tradition, the Virgin Mary asked St. Dominic to popularize it.
"It's a form of prayer that people find incredibly consoling, because they feel close to God through the practice of the prayers that they say while holding the rosary," Llywelyn said.
The Dominican rosary recitation traditionally consists of prayers spoken while handling five sets of 10 beads, separated by nine single beads with a crucifix at the end. Four sets of prayers are recited on different days of the week: the Joyful, Sorrowful, Glorious and Luminous mysteries.
Catholics are traditionally buried with a rosary for protection.
For many rosary makers, the craft satisfies the artistic impulse to create while also soothing the soul.
On a recent Saturday morning amid errands clogging Fanucchi's schedule, she squeezed in time to toil away on a few rosaries for the military.
