Florida Catholic | Fading Church Flowers Bring New Prayer Life to Mourners, Brides

Old flowers bring new prayer life to mourners, brides

JANET SHELTON | FLORIDA CATHOLIC ST. PETERSBURG BUREAU EDITOR

Published: 09.12.08

JANET SHELTON | FC
Since she taught herself to make rosaries from withered flower petals, Sharyn Gildea has made hundreds of rosaries, perhaps more than 1,000. For Gildea it’s a ministry of love and compassion. She collects many of the flowers at funerals and gives the rosaries she makes to remaining family members, and prays for the deceased throughout the rosary-making process.

DUNEDIN | Everyone loved David, except David himself.

At 26, overcome by unsuccessful attempts to beat his addiction to drugs, Sharyn Gildea’s son took his own life.

That was five and a half years ago. Yet today, a part of David’s life and the tears of those who loved him lives on in beads of prayer. Gildea, the sacristan at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Dunedin, makes rosaries out of rose petals from funerals and other church arrangements. She gives them to the grieving families, first Communion candidates, new brides and people in need.

“She made one for my mother,” said Monique Knapp, an Our Lady of Lourdes parishioner who received a rosary after her mother died last year. “It’s extremely spiritual … and inspiring. It was a wonderful tribute.”

Long before David died, Gildea had been interested in making rosaries from rose petals. She first heard about them years ago, but the religious sister who made them refused to give her instructions.

“She wouldn’t teach me,” Gildea said. “But a wonderful lesson in it is, had she taught me, it wouldn’t have been the same.”

Gildea had no way of knowing then that David would die before her. After his funeral, she saved the rose petals from the floral arrangements, hoping to send them away and have a rosary made. When she found a “recipe” on the Internet, she decided to try making one herself.

It helped working on something spiritual as she grieved for her son and

she made a rosary for every person in her family. But as Gildea’s work neared completion, she wondered what to do next. She was still raw with pain.

“I was in church one night praying, this was maybe three months after he died,” she said. “I was in the church and when I left, the last thing I said (to God) was, ‘What do I do with the pain?’

“The next morning, I finished the last rosary. I was sitting there. I had just a little bit of the goop left. … I thought, ‘I don’t have to stop making them. I have access to roses all the time.’”

Gildea wondered if she should make the rosaries as a ministry to the grieving. She asked God for a sign.

“I was driving down to Seminole and I was just in the car – again, kind of talking to God. I thought, ‘If that’s what I’m supposed to do with the pain, I want a sign.’ I even told God what the sign could be,” she said. “Then I said, ‘You can give me any sign you want.’”

At a party later that day, a friend handed her a vase containing a dozen long-stem roses.

“I thought, ‘That’s a pretty good sign.’”

Making the rosaries is a lengthy, often messy, process. Gildea starts by adding water to the petals, most of which come from floral arrangements at her parish, and running them through a blender. She cooks the mixture for hours to make a pasty dough, then forms each ash-colored bead in her hand. She then inserts the pin that will link it to the others in the rosary, and after attaching a crucifix and center medal, she gently coats the beads with hand lotion and a touch of rose-scented oil.

The process alone, however, doesn’t capture her ministry. Gildea has added numerous spiritual touches. She takes a few petals from each arrangement at a funeral, so that everyone who gave flowers to the family is represented in the rosary. She places the petals in a bag with the person’s name, and when she starts to make the dough, she takes out the name and places it on her kitchen counter as a reminder of her ministry. She always adds a few drops of holy water to the mixture in the pan.

“I always add (paste) from the last batch to the next batch, so there are now hundreds of people represented in them,” she said. “It kind of makes me think of the communion of saints.”

As she assembles the rosaries, Gildea prays the rosary for the person who has died and for those who will receive her gift. As she works, she thinks about things such as how even the joyful mysteries are bittersweet: Each event comes with a touch of sadness – kind of like life.

Gildea has made hundreds of rosaries, perhaps more than 1,000. The beads, which come with a little pamphlet on how to pray the rosary, have been sent to Ireland, Africa and Italy. Flowers from many events are represented in them: weddings, baptisms, anniversaries.

“I think of them mostly as a rosary of life,” she said, “because there are beads from every part of life in them.”

Gildea has taught others in her parish how to make the rosaries. To get them started, she shares a little of the dough. That way, the connection of life and death continues.

Gildea wants to bring consolation and prayer to the grieving. She hopes she helps others; she knows she is helping herself.

“The biggest gift for me is seeing something so good coming from something so horrible,” she said. “It’s just been a real gift to me.”

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