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Twelfth Rose

thinking. You only like prayers that men have written as though anybody, even the most inspired man
in the whole world, could possibly know more about how we ought to pray than Jesus Christ Himself!
You look for prayers in books written by other men almost as though you were ashamed of saying
the prayer that Our Lord told us to say.
You have managed to convince yourself that the prayers in these books are for scholars and for rich
people of the upper
classes and that the Rosary is only for women and children and the lower classes. As if the prayers
and praises which you have been reading were more beautiful and more pleasing to God than those
which are to be found in the Lord's Prayer! It is a very dangerous temptation to lose interest in
the prayer that Our Lord gave us and to take up prayers that men have written instead.
Not that I disapprove of prayers that the saints have written so as to encourage the faithful to
praise God, but it is not to be endured that they should prefer the latter to the Prayer which was
uttered by Wisdom Incarnate. If they ignore this Prayer it is just as though they pass up the
spring to go after
the brook and refusing the clear water, drink dirty water
instead. Because the Rosary made up of the Lord's Prayer and the Angelic Salutation. is this clear
and everflowing water which comes from the Fountain of Grace, whereas other prayers which they
look for in books are nothing but tiny streams which spring from this fountain.
People who say Our Lord's Prayer carefully, weighing every word and meditating upon it, may
indeed call themselves
blessed for they find therein everything that they need or can wish for
When we say this wonderful prayer we touch God's heart at the very outset by calling Him by the
sweet name of Father­ Our Father. He is the dearest of fathers: all-powerful in His creation,
wonderful in the way He maintains the world, completely lovable- in His Divine Providence,-always
good and infinitely so in the Redemption. We have God for our Father, so we are all brothers and
heaven is our homeland and our heritage. This should be more than enough to teach us to love God
and our neighbor and to be detached from the things of this world.

So we ought to love our Heavenly Father and should say
to Him over and over again:

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