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I wanted to add that there are other ways of making a Rosary. I have one with 20 decades, and another with just one and a ring at the end, I move it from finger to finger as I complete a decade. And there is "introductory" and "conclusion" material. The main part remains pretty much the same, but there is a Franciscan Rosary which is slightly different.

Yes, we would hold that something certainly happens, some gift is objectively given through the sacraments. But a thing like a Rosary or the medal I wear as lay Dominican prompts me to prayer and God uses the prayer to mess with my life (for which I think Him!) So you COULD say that, since everything works together, the Rosary or the medal KIND of did something. If you write a note to yourself to study the Bible at bedtime, the note KIND of does something ....

I do not agree with your reading of 1667.
-- I mean YES, it is always good to pray when you go to Church. But it is always good to pray when you DON't Go to church, right?
-- Prayer disposes us to ... pray some more! And we all probably know people of prayer who just seem more attuned to God, less likely to flip the bird to someone who cuts them off in traffic; MORE likely to say (and to MEAN) "Bless his heart, maybe he's having a bad day."

-- the whole line in 1667 is "By them men are disposed to receive the chief effect of the sacraments, and various occasions in life are rendered holy."

Wow. That's a doctoral thesis or three in one sentence! (All this is IMHO) Good things come in habits. IF I am in the habit of prayer, then I will,what, enjoy Mass more. That may or may not change the grace of Mass but it might somehow play into the way it works in my life.

Not only that, but with respect to "rendering holy" occasions of our lives, those who are graced with the habit of turning to God will be more likely, I'd guess, to do so when told (as we were once told, incorrectly) that their baby girl would die. It was not a brand new idea for us to take our sorrow and fear to God. We'd taken our joy and happiness to him.

Or to make it totally homely: We "offer thanks" when we eat, right? In a way by that act of prayer and praise and recollection that all good things come from God, we "render holy" the meal.

I HATE talking about prayer and grace because it's right at that place where our action and God's action get all mixed up, so it's easy to slip into sounding like you think that YOU did something because YOU PRAYED. Romans 8 is SO important.

Dawg Summary (or, ahem, "epitome"): I never prayed a good prayer in my life. But the Holy Spirit has bailed me out a LOT and prayed better than I ever could and somehow he brought me along for the ride.

THANKS BE TO HIM! Without him it never would have occurred to me to pray, or that there was a God to pray to, or to see that God's hand in my life, or to bear my sorrows and my joys! I have nothing I have not received and it is HORRID to me to think of claiming a thing! All things come from Him and if I ever gave Him a thing, it was his already -- including my desire to give.

Right about here is where we fall at the foot of his throne.