hree divine virtues are the
foundation of the Christian life, and that their practise constitutes
Christian life. The true worship of God consists in practising these
virtues which, at the same time, are the sole way to eternal bliss.
Progress in the Christian life keeps pace with the activity of these
virtues. This increase of virtue is, likewise, a gracious gift of God.
We are ever obliged to co-operate with grace. We must strive for the
increase of our faith, hope, and charity, by frequently practising
these virtues, by the worthy reception of the holy Sacraments, by
attentively contemplating the divine truths and, especially, by humble
and heartfelt prayer.

How feeble, indeed, is our faith, how wavering our hope, how
insufficient our love of God and our neighbor. They need the
strengthening grace of God.

To pray rightly, and to be worthy of being heard, we must awaken these
fundamental virtues. Therefore, at the beginning of the Rosary we say
devoutly one Our Father and three Hail Marys to ask God for an increase
of these virtues. Because faith, hope, and charity should be both the
basis and the fruit of the Rosary. Amen.

X. THE EXCELLENCE OF THE ROSARY IN REGARD TO ITS FORM

"She reacheth therefore from end to end mightily, and ordereth all
things sweetly."--Wisdom viii, 1.

The disposition of the heart is in prayer of more consequence than the
manner of expression. Yet an appropriate form of prayer is helpful in
avoiding distraction and in inducing devotion. Our Divine Saviour
taught His disciples to make use of a special form of prayer, the "Our
Father."

The form of the Rosary helps appreciably in rendering the Rosary the
great prayer it is. The Rosary has been aptly called the "lay
breviary." For many centuries the faithful joined in the reciting of
the breviary. As late as in the eleventh century St. Peter Damian
urgently exhorted the faithful to participate in the ecclesiastical
"hours" of prayer. And when gradually participation in the
ecclesiastical prayer ceased, Divine Providence supplied the Rosary to
take for the laity the place of the breviary. It may thus properly be
called the "lay breviary." In fact it reminds of the breviary of
priests, for it contains verbal prayer and meditation, and the hundred
and fifty "Hail Marys" of the Rosary correspond to the hundred and
fifty psalms of the breviary.

Let us now consider how appropriate the form of the Rosary is, and how
it renders the