Rosaries crafted by DiLorenzo serve as memento of National Eucharistic Pilgrimage

Father Ignatius Shin, a Franciscan Friar of the Renewal, receives a special Biloxi Pilgrimage Rosary from Tammy Dilorenzo on June 11 at St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Long Beach. Father Shin is one of the pilgrims traveling along the San Juan Diego Route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage.

Photo/Courtesy of Tammy DiLorenzo

BY Terry Dickson

BILOXI — Pilgrims on the St. Juan Diego Route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage will leave the Mississippi Gulf Coast with a special keepsake that has been decades in the making.

Tammy DiLorenzo, director of the Office of Finance for the Diocese of Biloxi, is also an accomplished artist who, in her spare time creates beautiful rosaries. To commemorate the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, DiLorenzo created a special rosary, which contains images of stained-glass windows from five of the churches that were stops in the Diocese of Biloxi on the St. Juan Diego Route.

The windows depicted on this special rosary follow the life of Jesus. They are the Annunciation window inside Our Lady of the Gulf Church in Bay St. Louis; the Crucifixion window inside St. Paul Chapel in Pass Christian; the Nativity of Our Lord window inside St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Long Beach; the Resurrection window inside St. James Church in Gulfport; and the Wedding at Cana window inside Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Cathedral in Biloxi.

On the back of the center medal is a button containing sand from the beach in Long Beach, representing the inaugural Blessing of the Sea, which took place June 12 during the Pilgrimage.

DiLorenzo, a parishioner of St. Thomas the Apostle Parish in Long Beach, has been creative her entire life, but has only become more active in arts and crafts during the last twelve years, after her children were in their late teens and early twenties.  She said that the idea of using images of stained glass windows from St. Thomas the Apostle Church came several years later.

DiLorenzo knew she wanted to do something with those images but wasn’t quite sure what that would be until she had a revelation during a sleepless night. By the morning, the idea had solidified of using the images to create a center medal and the four Our Father beads. Then it was a matter of turning the thoughts into reality. 

 “Those windows are very special,” said DiLorenzo. “They were put into the new church that was built in 1971 after the old church of the 13 Altars was destroyed in Hurricane Camille. There are four large round windows with images depicting the Nativity, Pentecost, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection on each side of the current church, which was built after the previous church was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Those images were calling to me.”

DiLorenzo had not started on the project and didn’t know what she would do with the final product until several days later when a parent from St. Vincent de Paul Catholic School in Long Beach called looking for a donation for a silent auction.

“As soon as she asked me if I had anything to donate, I knew why that idea came to me in the middle of the night,” said DiLorenzo. “I was supposed to do that for this very purpose.”

From there, DiLorenzo’s rosary making snowballed into a regular hobby.

“I asked Father Dennis Carver, who was rector of the cathedral at the time, if he would let me have some images of the windows inside the cathedral so that I could make specialized rosaries for the permanent deacons who were retiring because deacons assist the bishop at the altar at Sunday Mass and other special occasions,” she said. 

Then, shortly after the Covid-19 pandemic had subsided, DiLorenzo was volunteering at the diocesan youth conference and was working on a rosary using the window images at our cathedral for a retiring coworker when Bunny Thompson, a parishioner of Our Mother of Sorrows Parish, a historic African-American parish in East Biloxi, approached her.

“She saw me working on it and asked me what I was doing. I explained that I make these rosaries every now and then. She asked if I could use any images and I told her I could. So, she asked me if I would come and take pictures of the windows inside Our Mother of Sorrows Church and Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos Church right down the road,” said DiLorenzo.

“So, I did, and around the same time, St. Vincent de Paul School was having its annual fundraiser again and I was approached once again about donating to a silent auction. I decided to make another rosary using the images of the windows from St. Thomas. However, since the majority of the kids at that school attended Holy Family Church in Pass Christian, I also asked Father Mike Austin, the pastor at Holy Family, if I could make a rosary using the windows from his church and he agreed.”

Father Austin liked the rosary DiLorenzo made so much he asked her to consider making additional rosaries to sell to his parishioners.

“I didn’t originally set out to sell these rosaries but, the more I thought about it, the stronger I felt about making these available to parishioners,” she said.

“These are very personal to people. People love their parishes. That’s our home. That’s where we celebrate all the sacraments. That’s where we go to Mass every week. That’s where we baptize our people. That’s where we bury our people. That’s where we have weddings. There are so many things that happen in our parish churches. We are very attached to them. So, I decided to do it.”

The rosaries became even more popular after DiLorenzo posted pictures of the rosaries of St. Thomas and Holy Family on her Facebook page.

“I had different people reach out to me and say, ‘Well, my parish has pretty windows. Would you think about coming and doing that at my parish?’ So, I have done it for several parishes in the Diocese of Biloxi, as well as parishes from out of state.”

It typically takes a little more than an hour to create each rosary but she has had help from several family members when needed.

 DiLorenzo said one of her favorites was created using images of the stained-glass windows inside Our Lady of Gulf Church in Gulf Shores, Ala.

“We were there on a family vacation and there was a lady talking before Mass about Mary’s Shelter, an organization in Alabama that helps pregnant women and their families. They house them, they get through their pregnancy, provide housing and access to a vehicle. They do a lot of good things and the lady who was talking about Mary’s Shelter really touched me,” said DiLorenzo. “I thought that was a really great ministry because it was all about getting to the root of helping families.”  

Since DiLorenzo typically gives a portion of the proceeds from the sale of her rosaries to the parish, she reached out to Our Lady of the Gulf Parish in Gulf Shores and asked if she could create a rosary using the windows from their church to benefit Mary’s Shelter.

“They got back to me within a couple of days and were very excited about partnering for these rosaries,” she said. “And then more than a year later, Mary’s Shelter reached out to me directly to ask if I would make one of Our Lady of the Gulf rosaries the  for their silent auction. Of course, I said yes.” 

DiLorenzo tries to accommodate people when they ask her to create a rosary for a particular parish.  In addition to those that are given to parish and school silent auctions, she created a special one for Catholic Charities of South Mississippi. It is and will be auctioned every year for the Bishop’s Gala, a major fundraiser for Catholic Charities of South Mississippi.

“This has been very much a blessing for me,” said DiLorenzo. “I ended up turning one of the rooms in my house into an art studio and that’s where I work in the evenings and weekends. I put a little television in there and, as I’m working, I’ve got a podcast on or I’ve got YouTube on and I’m watching or listening to shows about our Catholic faith. It’s a meditation time for me. “

“When I create these rosaries, I pray for the people who are going to get them. I know it is a gift that was given me to see the beauty of a church and to be able to turn that beauty into a rosary. The rosary is such a beautiful tradition of prayers in our Catholic faith and I love that I can share the beauty that I see.”

DiLorenzo is honored to be able to create the Pilgrimage Rosaries and share them with the pilgrims who are passing through the Mississippi Gulf Coast during St. Juan Diego Route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage.

“When I realized they would be visiting five churches, I thought that would be perfect on a rosary to commemorate the pilgrimage,” she said. “I looked to see what images I had because I had already taken images at each of these churches. I just tried to match it up as best I could.”

Due to pilgrimage team members requesting the Pilgrimage rosary for themselves, DiLorenzo is making these available for sale to the public. The proceeds will benefit the St. Thomas the Apostle Parish adoration chapel.

DiLorenzo also gave the pilgrims a flash drive containing a PowerPoint presentation she created several years ago on how Hurricane Katrina affected the Diocese of Biloxi. Since the Diocese of Biloxi lost one fourth of the church structures and one third of the schools in our diocese, rebuilding and repairs took many years. “They’re coming through here and we are so blessed to have them,” she said. “I just feel like the pilgrims might want to understand who we are and where we come from. The recovery from that storm is a great story of faith.”

Contact Info for Rosaries

by Tammy DiLorenzo

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