Have you ever noticed that a rosary naturally takes a shield shape when you hold it by the middle of the first and fifth decades?
This seemingly useless tidbit was going through my mind a while back when I become fascinated with the rich symbolism and art of ecclesiastical heraldry, thanks to Fr. Jessie Somosierra, Jr.'s blog at
http://catholiccoatofarms.blogspot.com/
Then the inspiration hit...could we transfer one shield design to the other and have a heraldry-inspired rosary?
Luckily I happened to have a few different color beads on hand, including the right ones for the coat of arms of my childhood archdiocese of Philadelphia:
Compare with the Philadelphian Archdiocesan coat of arms in the pic below. It proved fairly easy to just imagine the rosary in a shield shape and then transfer the colors of the coat of arms to the beads. I used a spare crucifix I had and I like the way it turned out, but I am considering cutting a custom cross shape if I do another. Here are some more ideas:
I never did find a good way to add the elephants!
In case you want to try designing your own heraldic rosaries, here is a full-page template that you can print out and color. I've left the crucifix/medal out so you can draw that in yourself.
And just a quick note: if you are researching the coat of arms for your diocese you may find images where it is combined with the personal arms of the bishop on a single shield. In those cases, the diocesan arms will be always on the left side. Just extrapolate that left half across the whole shield and ignore the right half.
