Peter Lombardi strives to be strong in his Catholic faith. A long-time parishioner at Our Lady of the Lake Church, he has participated in and led many of its ministries. He drew on his faith during his wife’s long illness and, after her death in 2017, Lombardi found himself frequently praying the Rosary. Lombardi also has a strong understanding of jewelry making, thanks to his many years of work at Cirasella’s Fine Jewelry in Verona. Now, he has combined his jewelry skills with his faith in a new business, Artistic Rosary Designs.
As its name indicates, Artistic Rosary Designs makes custom rosary beads as well as custom pendants to mark baptisms, weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, graduations or memorials for deceased family members and pets. One of the business’ first memorial pendants was for the family of Christopher J. Morgan, the West Point cadet from West Orange who was killed in a training accident in June.
For those not of the Catholic faith, a rosary is a circle of beads that help Catholics recite a series of prayers to the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. Praying the Rosary has been part of Catholicism since the 16th century and received renewed emphasis from Pope Benedict XVI, who was the head of the Catholic Church from 2005 to 2013.
Praying the Rosary, Lombardi emphasizes, is not praying to Mary as a god. “If you wanted to talk to the CEO of a company and your best friend was a friend of his, you would ask your best friend intercede for you,” Lombardi says. “We can go to Jesus directly, but going through his mother is one more way to try to get peace in the world. Through her intercession, things can change.”
Lombardi’s life changed in the direction of his new business when a friend introduced him to Debra Classen, a convert to Catholicism and a self-taught religious artist. Classen had been commissioned by a church in Ohio to paint all 20 mysteries of the rosary and when she finished, parishioners began to ask her for her artwork too. When Lombardi and Classen began talking about ways to make that happen, several things occurred that, for Lombardi, were a sign to launch a business that he views as a ministry. “We decided to do this business in the name of God,” he says.
It took six months for Artistic Rosary Designs to officially open, as Lombardi perfected the gold work to surround Classen’s art. His attention to workmanship is reflected in the prices for their pieces, which range from $275 for a men’s bracelet to $1,495 for a pendant rosary necklace. Ten percent of the business’ profits will be donated to The Mute Swan, a healing ministry and non-profit that Classen founded in 2005.
Though Lombardi recently moved from Verona, he remains in the area–three of his four children live in Verona–and deeply involved with OLL. He has led witness talks at OLL’s Cornerstone retreats, and has served as an usher, liturgy minister, eucharistic minister and lector, among other roles, and has also been a chaperone for OLL’s Youth Ministry mission trips. After his wife died, he joined OLL’s funeral ministry and has since developed a men’s bereavement ministry, that is open to men of all faiths. The next bereavement session will be in October; interested men should call OLL’s rectory at 973-239-5696 to enroll.
Artistic Rosary Designs is a web-based business. You can also follow it on Facebook and Instagram.
