Prayer Bead with the Adoration of the Magi and the Crucifixion Prayer Bead with the Adoration of the Magi and the Crucifixion Prayer Bead with the Adoration of the Magi and the Crucifixion (MS 17.190.475) is a small south Netherlandish prayer nut, carved in fine-grained boxwood, and dated to c 1500–10. It is now in the collection of The Cloisters, New York. Originally the bead would have been part of a complete rosary set, and its size suggests its use as an "Ave bead", where the supplicant would recite the "Hail Mary". Objects of this type were in great demand in the early sixteenth century. Apart from use in private veneration,
Catholic Church and Judaism Latin word "perfidis" be properly translated "unbelieving", ensuring that the prayer be understood in its original sense: praying for the Jews who remained "unbelieving" concerning the Messiah. Indeed, the same adjective was used in many of the ancient rituals for receiving non-Christian converts into the Catholic Church. Owing to the enduring potential for confusion and misunderstanding because of the divergence of English usage from the original Latin meaning, Pope John XXIII ordered that the Latin adjective "perfidis" be dropped from the Good Friday prayer for the Jews; in 1960 he ordered it removed from all rituals for the reception of