HOW GREAT SHOULD BE OUR CONFIDENCE IN MARY, WHO IS THE QUEEN OF MERCY

HOW GREAT SHOULD BE OUR CONFIDENCE IN MARY, WHO IS THE QUEEN OF MERCY

As the glorious Virgin Mary has been raised to the dignity of Mother of the King of kings, it is not without reason that the Church honors her, and wishes her to be honored by all, with the glorious title of Queen. ‘If the Son is a King,' says an ancient writer, the Mother who begot him is rightly and truly considered a Queen and Sovereign. No sooner had Mary, says St. Bernardine of Sienna, ' consented to be Mother of the Eternal Word, than she merited by this consent to be made Queen of the world and of all creatures; hence as many creatures as there are who serve God, so many there are who serve Mary : for as angels and men, and all things that are in heaven and on earth, are subject to the empire of God, so are they also under the dominion of Mary.' Mary then is a Queen: but, for our common consolation, be it known that she is a Queen so sweet, clement, and so ready to help us in our miseries, that the holy Church wills that we should salute her under the title of Queen of Mercy. 'The title of Queen,' remarks Blessed Albert the Great, 'differs from that of Empress, which implies severity and rigor, in signifying compassion, and charity towards the poor.' The greatness of kings and queens,' says Seneca,  consists in relieving the wretched; and whereas tyrants, when they reign, have their own good in view, kings should have that of their subjects at heart. Kings should then occupy themselves principally in works of mercy, but not so as to forget the just punishments that are to be inflicted on the guilty. It is however not thus with Mary, who, although a Queen, is not a queen of justice, intent on the punishment of the wicked, but a queen of mercy, intent only on commiserating and pardoning sinners. And this is the reason for which the Church re quires that we should expressly call her ' the Queen of Mercy. But perhaps we may fear that Mary would not deign to interpose for some sinners, on account of their being so overloaded with crimes? Or perhaps we ought to be over awed at the majesty and holiness of this great Queen? No, says St. Gregory,  for the higher and more holy she is, the greater is her sweetness and compassion towards sinners, who have recourse to her with the desire to amend their lives. Kings and queens, with their ostentation of majesty, inspire terror, and cause their subjects to fear to approach them: but what fear, says St. Bernard, can the miserable have to approach this Queen of Mercy, for she inspires no terror, and shows no severity, to those who come to her; but is all sweetness and gentleness. How great then should be our confidence in this Queen, knowing her great power with God, and that she is so rich and full of mercy, that there is no one living on the earth who does not partake of her compassion and favor. This was revealed by our Blessed Lady herself to St. Bridget, saying, 'I am the Queen of heaven and the Mother of Mercy; I am the joy of the just, and the door through which sinners are brought to God. There is no sinner on earth so accursed as to be deprived of my mercy, for all, if they receive nothing else through my intercession, receive the grace of being less tempted by the devils than they would otherwise have been. No one, she adds,  unless the irrevocable sentence has been pronounced' (that is the one pronounced on the damned), is so cast off by God, that he will not return to Him, and enjoy His mercy, if he invokes my aid. I am called by all the Mother of Mercy, and truly the mercy of my Son towards men has made me thus merciful towards them; and she concludes by saying, and therefore miserable will he be, and miserable will he be to all eternity, who, in this life, having it in his power to invoke me, who am so compassionate to all, and so desirous to assist sinners, is miserable enough not to invoke me, and so is damned.' Let us then fly, and fly always to the feet of this most sweet Queen, if we would be certain of salvation; and if we are alarmed and disheartened at the sight of our sins, let us remember, that it is in order to save the greatest and most abandoned sinners, who recommend themselves to her, that Mary is made the Queen of Mercy.

EXAMPLE

A noble youth, named Eschylus, was sent by the prince, his father, to Hildesheim, a city of Saxony, to study, but he gave himself up to a disorderly life. He afterwards fell so dangerously ill that he received Extreme Unction. While in this state he had a vision: he found himself shut up in a fiery furnace, and believed himself already in hell; but he then seemed to escape from it by a hole, and took refuge in a great palace, in an apartment of which he saw the most Blessed Virgin Mary, who said to him, 'Presumptuous man that thou art, dost thou dare to appear before me? Depart hence, and go to that fire which thou hast deserved.' The young man then besought the Blessed Virgin to have mercy on him; and then addressed himself to some persons who were there present, and entreated them to recommend him to Mary. They did so, and the Divine Mother replied, ' But you do not know the wicked life which he leads, and that he does not even deign to salute me with a Hail Mary.' His advocates replied, 'But, Lady, he will change his life;' and the young man added, ' Yes, I promise in good earnest to amend, and I will be thy devout client. The Blessed Virgin's anger was then appeased, and she said to him, Well, I accept thy promise; be faithful to me, and meanwhile, with my blessing, be delivered from death and hell.' With these words the vision disappeared. Eschylus returned to himself, and blessing Mary, related to others the grace which he had received; and from that time he led a holy life, always preserving great devotion to our Blessed Lady. He became archbishop of Lund, in Sweden, where he converted many to the faith. Towards the end of his life, on account of his age, he renounced his archbishopric, and be came a monk in Clairvaux, where he lived for four years, and died a holy death. Hence he is numbered,' by some authors, amongst the Cistercian Saints.

PRAYER

0, Mother of my God, and my Lady Mary: as a beggar, all wounded and sore, presents himself before a great queen, so do I present myself before thee, who art the Queen of heaven and earth. From the lofty throne on which thou sittest, disdain not, I implore thee, to cast thine eyes on me, a poor sinner. God has made thee so rich that thou mightest assist the poor, and has constituted thee Queen of Mercy, in order that thou mightest relieve the miserable. Behold me then, and pity me: be hold me, and abandon me not, until thou seest me changed from a sinner into a saint. I know well that I merit nothing; nay more, that I deserve, on account of my ingratitude, to be deprived of the graces that, through thy means, I have already received from God. But thou, who art the Queen of Mercy, seekest not merits, but miseries, in order to help the needy. But who is more needy than I?  

0, exalted Virgin, well do I know that thou, who art Queen of the universe, art also my queen ; but am I determined to dedicate my self more especially to thy service, in order that thou mayest dispose of me as thou pleasest. Therefore do I address thee in the words of St. Bonaventure, ' Do thou govern me, 0 my Queen, and leave me not to myself. Command me; employ me as thou wilt, and chastise me when I do not obey; for the chastisements that come from thy hands will to me be pledges of salvation. I value more the being thy servant, than being ruler of the earth. I am thine save me.' Accept me, 0 Mary, for thine own, and as thine take charge of my salvation. I will no longer be mine; to thee do I give myself. If, during the time past, I have served thee ill, and lost so many occasions of honoring thee, for the future I will be one of thy most loving and faithful servants. I am determined that from this day forward no one shall surpass me, in honoring and loving thee, my most amiable Queen. This I promise; and this, with thy help, I hope to execute. Amen.

THE HUMILITY OF MARY

                       THE HUMILITY OF MARY

'Humility,' says St. Bernard, ' is the foundation and guardian of virtues and with reason, for without it no other virtue can exist in a soul. Should she possess all virtues, all will depart when humility is gone. But, on the other hand, as St. Francis of Sales wrote to St. Jane de Chantal, ' God so loves humility, that wherever He sees it, He is immediately drawn thither.' This beautiful and so necessary virtue was unknown in the world ; but the Son of God Himself came on earth to teach it by His own example, and willed that, in that virtue in particular, we should endeavor to imitate Him: ' Learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart.' Mary, being the first and most perfect disciple of Jesus Christ in the practice of all virtues, was the first also in that of humility, and by it merited to be exalted above all creatures. 

It was revealed to St. Matilda that the first virtue in which the Blessed Mother particularly exercised herself, from her very childhood, was that of humility. The first effect of humility of heart is a lowly opinion of ourselves. ' Mary had always so humble an opinion of herself, that, as it was revealed to the same St. Matilda, although she saw herself enriched with greater graces than all other creatures, she never preferred herself to any one.' 

The Abbot Rupert, explaining the passage of the sacred Canticles, 'Thou hast wounded my heart, my sister, my spouse, . . . with one hair of thy neck,' says, that the humble opinion which Mary had of herself was precisely that hair of the spouse's neck with which she wounded the heart of God. Not indeed that Mary considered herself a sinner ; for humility is truth, as St. Teresa remarks ; and Mary knew that she had never offended God. Neither was it that she did not acknowledge that she had received greater graces from God than all other creatures; for a humble heart always acknowledges the special favors of the Lord, to humble herself the more; but the Divine Mother, by the greater light where with she knew the infinite greatness and goodness of God, also knew her own nothingness, and therefore, more than all others, humbled herself. 

As a beggar, when clothed with a rich garment which has been bestowed upon her, does not pride herself on it in the presence of the giver, but is rather humbled, being re minded thereby of her own poverty, so also the more Mary saw herself enriched, the more did she humble herself, remembering that all was God's gift. Therefore St. Bernardino says, that ' after the Son of God, no creature in the world was so exalted as Mary, because no creature in the world ever humbled itself so much as she did.' Moreover, it is an act of humility to conceal heavenly gifts. 

Mary wished to conceal from St. Joseph the great favor whereby she had become the Mother of God, although it seemed necessary to make it known to him, if only to remove from the mind of her poor spouse any suspicions as to her virtue, which he might have entertained on seeing her pregnant, or, at least, the perplexity in which it indeed threw him; for St. Joseph, on the one hand unwilling to doubt Mary's chastity, and on the other ignorant of the mystery, ' was minded to put her away privately.' This he would have done, had not the angel revealed to him that his spouse was pregnant by the operation of the Holy Ghost. 

Again, a soul which is truly humble refuses her own praise; and should praises be bestowed on her, she refers them all to God. Behold, Mary is disturbed at hearing herself praised by St. Gabriel; and when St. Elizabeth said, ' Blessed art thou among women . . . and whence is this to me, that the Mother of my Lord should come to me? . . .

Blessed art thou that hast believed, Mary referred all to God, and answered in that humble Canticle, ' My soul doth magnify the Lord,' as if she had said, ' Thou dost praise me, Elizabeth, but I praise the Lord, to whom alone honor is due. Thou wonderest that I should come to thee, and I wonder at the Divine goodness, in which alone my spirit exults: 

"And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior." Thou praisest me, because I have believed; I praise my God because He hath been pleased to exalt my nothingness: "Because He hath regarded the humility of His handmaid." 'It is also a part of humility to serve others. Mary did not refuse to go and serve Elizabeth for three months. Hence St. Bernard says : 'Elizabeth wondered that Mary should have come to visit her ; but that which is still more admirable is, that she came not to be ministered to, but to minister.' Those who are humble are retiring, and choose the last places; and therefore Mary, remarks St. Bernard, when her Son was preaching in a house, as it is related by St. Matthew, wishing to speak to Him, would not of her own accord enter, but 'remained outside, and did not avail herself of her maternal authority to interrupt Him.' For the same reason also, when she was with the Apostles awaiting the coming of the Holy Ghost, she took the lowest place, as St. Luke relates : ' All these were persevering with one mind in prayer, with the women and Mary the Mother of Jesus.' 

Not that St. Luke was ignorant of the Divine Mother's merits, on account of which he should have named her in the first place, but because she had taken the last place amongst the Apostles and women; and therefore he described them all, as an author remarks, in the order in which they were. Hence St. Bernard says: ' Justly has the last become the first, who being the first of all became the last.' In fine, those who are humble love to be contemned; therefore we do not read that Mary showed herself in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, when her Son was received by the people with so much honor; but on the other hand, at the death of her Son, she did not shrink from appearing on Calvary, through fear of the dishonor which would accrue to her when it was known that she was the Mother of Him who was condemned to die an infamous death as a criminal. 

The venerable Sister Paula of Foligno was given to understand, in an ecstasy, how great was the humility of our Blessed Lady; and giving an account of it to her confessor, she was so filled with astonishment at its greatness, that she could only exclaim, ' O, the humility of the Blessed Virgin! O, Father, the humility of the Blessed Virgin, how great was the humility of the Blessed Virgin! In the world there is no such thing as humility, not even in its lowest degree, when you see the humility of Mary.' 

On another occasion our Lord showed St. Bridget two ladies. The one was all pomp and vanity. ' She,' He said, ' is Pride; but the other one whom thou seest with her head Dent down, courteous towards all, having God alone in her mind, and considering herself as no one, is Humility: her name is Mary.' Hereby God was pleased to make known to us that the humility of His Blessed Mother was such that she was humility itself. There can be no doubt, as St. Gregory of Nyssa remarks, that of all virtues there is perhaps none the practice of which is more difficult to our nature, corrupted as it is by sin, than that of humility. But there is no escape; we can never be true children of Mary if we are not humble. 

'If,' says St. Bernard, ' thou canst not imitate the virginity of this humble Virgin, imitate her humility.' She detests the proud, and only invites the humble to come to her: ' Whosoever is a little one, let him come to me.'

EXAMPLE

In one of our missions, after the sermon on Mary, which it is always customary in our congregation to preach, a very old man came to make his confession to one of the Fathers. Filled with consolation, he said: ' Father, our Blessed Lady has granted me a grace.' What grace has she granted you? The confessor asked. 'You must know, Father,' ho replied, 'that for five -and -thirty years I have made sacrilegious confessions; for there is a sin which I was ashamed to confess; and yet I have passed through many dangers, have many times been at the point of death; and had I then died, I should certainly have been lost ; but now our Blessed Lady has touched my heart with grace to tell it.' This he said weeping, and shedding so many tears, that he quite excited compassion. The Father, after hearing his confession, asked him what devotion he had practiced. He replied, that on Saturdays he had never failed to abstain from milk diet, in honor of Mary, and that, on this account, the Blessed Virgin had shown him mercy. At the same time, he gave the Father leave to publish the fact.

PRAYER

O, immaculate and holy Virgin! O, Creature the most humble and the most "exalted before God! Thou wast so lowly in thine own eyes, but so great in the eyes of thy Lord, that He exalted thee to such a degree as to choose thee for His Mother, and then made thee Queen of heaven and earth. I therefore thank God, who so greatly has exalted thee, and rejoice in seeing thee so closely united with Him, that more cannot be granted to a pure creature. Before thee, who art so humble, though endowed with such precious gifts, I am ashamed to appear — I who am so proud in the midst of so many sins. But, miserable as I am, I will also salute thee, ' Hail, Mary, full of grace!' Thou art already full of grace; impart a portion of it to me. 'Our Lord is with thee;' that Lord who was always with thee from the first moment of thy creation has now united Himself more closely to thee by becoming thy Son. 'Blessed art thou amongst women.' 0 Lady, blessed amongst all women, obtain the Divine blessing for us also. 'And blessed is the fruit of thy womb.' O blessed plant, which hath given to the world so noble and holy a Fruit! ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God!' 0 Mary, I acknowledge that thou art the true Mother of God; and in defense of this truth I am ready to give my life a thousand times. 'Pray for us sinners.' But if thou art the Mother of God, thou art also the Mother of our salvation, and of us poor sinners; since God became man to save sinners, and made thee His Mother that thy prayers might have power to save any sinner. Hasten then, 0 Mary, and pray for us, ' now, and at the hour of our death.' Pray always; pray now that we live in the midst of so many temptations and dangers of losing God; but still more, pray for us at the hour of our death, when we are on the point of leaving this world, and being presented before God's tribunal; that being saved by the merits of Jesus Christ, and by thy intercession, we may come one day, without farther danger of being lost, to salute thee and praise thee with thy Son in heaven for all eternity. Amen.

Mary's charity towards God - Glories of Mary

        Mary's charity towards God

St. Anselm says, that ' wherever there is the greatest purity, there is also the greatest charity.' The more a heart is pure and empty of itself, the greater is the fullness of its love towards God. The most holy Mary, because she was all humility, and had nothing of self in her, was filled with Divine love, so that her love towards God surpassed that of all men and angels,' as St. Bernardine writes. Therefore St. Francis of Sales with reason called her, 'the Queen of love.' God has, indeed, given men the precept to love Him with their whole hearts: ' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart.' But, as St. Thomas declares, ' this commandment will be fully and perfectly fulfilled by men in heaven alone, and not on earth, where it is only fulfilled imperfectly. On this subject, blessed Albert the Great remarks, that in a certain sense, it would have been unbecoming had God given a precept, which was never to have been perfectly fulfilled. But this would have been the case had not the Divine Mother perfectly fulfilled it. ' Divine love,' says St. Bernard, ' so penetrated and filled the soul of Mary, that no part of her was left untouched ; so that she loved with her whole heart, with her whole soul, with her whole strength, and was full of grace.' Therefore Mary could well say: 'My Beloved has given Himself all to me, and I have given myself all to Him’: My Beloved to me, and I to Him. Ah, well might even the Seraphim,' says Richard, ' have descended from heaven to learn, in the heart of Mary, how to love God. God, who is love, came on earth to enkindle in the hearts of all the flame of His Divine love; but in no heart did He enkindle it so much as in that of His Mother; for her heart was entirely pure from all earthly affections, and fully prepared to burn with this blessed flame. Thus St. Sophronius says, that ' Divine love so inflamed her, that nothing earthly could enter her affections; she was always burning with this heavenly flame, and, so to say, inebriated with it. Hence the heart of Mary became all fire and flames, as we read of her in the sacred Canticles: ' The lamps thereof are fire and flames;' fire burning within through love, as St. Anselm explains it; and flames shining without, by the example she gave to all in the practice of virtues. St. Thomas of Villanova says, that the bush seen by Moses, which burnt without being consumed, was a real symbol of Mary's heart. Therefore with reason, says St. Bernard, was she seen by St. John clothed with the sun: And there appeared a great wonder in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun; for, continues the Saint, she was so closely united to God by love, and penetrated so deeply the abyss of Divine Wisdom, that, without a personal union with God, it would seem impossible for a creature to have a closer union with Him. Hence St. Bernardine of Sienna asserts that the most holy Virgin was never tempted by hell; for he says: 'As flies are driven away by a great fire, so were the evil spirits driven away by her ardent love, so much so, that they did not even dare approach her.' Mary herself revealed to St. Bridget, that in this world she never had any thought, desire, or joy, but in and for God: ' I thought,' she said, of nothing but God, nothing pleased me but God; so that her blessed soul being in the almost continual contemplation of God whilst on earth, the acts of love which she formed were innumerable, as Father Suarez writes. But a remark of Bernardine de Bustis pleases me still more: he says that Mary did not so much repeat acts of love as other Saints do, but that her whole life was one continued act of it; for, by a special privilege, she always actually loved God. As a royal eagle, she always kept her eyes fixed on the Divine Sun of Justice; ' so that,' as St. Peter Damian says, ' the duties of active life did not prevent her from loving, and love did not prevent her from attending to those duties.' Therefore St. Germanus says, that the altar of propitiation, on which the fire was never extinguished day or night, was a type of Mary. Neither was sleep an obstacle to Mary's love for God; since, as St. Augustine asserts, 'the dreams, when sleeping, of our first parents, in their state of innocence, were as happy as their lives when waking;' and if such a privilege were granted them, it certainly cannot be denied that it was also granted to the Divine Mother, as Suarez, the Abbot Rupert, and St. Ambrose fully admit. In fine, St. Bernardine asserts, that as long as Mary lived in this world she was continually loving God: The mind of the Blessed Virgin was always wrapped in the ardor of love.' The Saint moreover adds, ' that she never did anything which the Divine Wisdom did not show her to be pleasing to Him; and that she loved God as much as she thought He was to be loved by her.' But since Mary loves God so much, there can be nothing which she so much requires of her clients as, that they also should love Him to their utmost. This precisely she one day told blessed Angela of Foligno after communion, saying, 'Angela, be thou blessed by my Son, and endeavor to love Him as much as thou canst.' She also said to St. Bridget, ' Daughter, if thou desirest to bind me to thee, love my Son.' Mary desires nothing more than to see her Beloved, who is God, loved. Novarinus asks why the Blessed Vir gin, with the Spouse in the Canticles, begged the angels to make the great love she bore Him known to our Lord, saying: ' I adjure you, 0 daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my Beloved, that you tell Him I languish with love.' Did not God know how much she loved Him? Why did she seek to show the wound to her Beloved; since He it was who had inflicted it?' The same author answers, that the Divine Mother thereby wished to make her love known to us, not to God; that as she was herself wounded, so might she also be enabled to wound us with Divine love. And ' because Mary was all on fire with the love of God, all who love and approach her are inflamed by her with this same love; for she renders them like unto herself.' For this reason St. Catherine of Sienna called Mary ' the bearer of fire,' the bearer of the flame of Divine love. If we also desire to burn with these blessed flames, let us endeavor always to draw nearer to our Mother by our prayers and the affections of our souls.

EXAMPLE

A young nobleman who was on a sea voyage began to read an obscene book, in which he took much pleasure. A religious noticed it, and said to him: ' Are you disposed to make a present to our Blessed Lady? The young man replied that he was. Well, the other answered, I wish that for the love of the most holy Virgin you would give up that book, and throw it into the sea. Here it is, Father, said the young man. No, replied the religious, you must yourself make Mary this present. He did so, and no sooner had he returned to Genoa, his native place, than the Mother of God so inflamed his heart with Divine love that he entered a religious order.

PRAYER

Ah, Mary, thou Queen of Love, of all creatures the most amiable, the most beloved, and the most loving, as St. Francis of Sales addressed thee, — my own sweet Mother, thou wast always and in all things inflamed with love towards God; deign then to bestow, at least, a spark of it on me. Thou didst pray thy Son for the spouses whose wine had failed: ' They have no wine.' And wilt thou not pray for us, in whom the love of God, whom we are under such obligations to love, is wanting Say also, ' They have no love, and obtain us this love. This is the only grace for which we ask. O Mother, by the love thou bearest to Jesus, graciously hear and pray for us. Amen.

Month of Mary Devotions - St. Alphonsus Liguori

How Great is the clemency and mercy of Mary

"Justice, Mother of God, justice."Our blessed Lady answered:"Justice! do you seekjustice from me?" 

How Great is the clemency and mercy of Mary

Father Charles Bovius relates that in Doinana, in France, lived a married man who had held a criminal connection with another woman. Now the wife being unable to endure this, continually besought God to punish the guilty parties; and one day in particular went to an altar of the blessed Virgin, which was in a certain church to implore vengeance upon the woman who had alienated her husband from her; and this very woman went also every day to the same altar, to repeat a "Hail Mary."

One night the divine mother appeared in a dream to the wife, who, on seeing her, began her accustomed petition: "Justice, Mother of God, justice." But the blessed Lady answered: "Justice! do you seek justice from me? Go and find others to execute justice for you. It belongs not to me to do it for you. Be it known to you," she added, "that this very sinner offers every day a devotion in my honor, and that I cannot allow any sinner who does this, to suffer and be punished for her sins."

The next day the wife went to hear mass in the above named church of our Lady, and on coming out met her husband's friend; at the sight of her she began to reproach her and call her a sorceress, who had even enchanted with her sorceries the blessed Virgin.

"Be silent," cried the people: "what are you saying?"

"I be silent!" she answered: "What I say is only too true; this night the Virgin appeared to me; and when I implored justice of her, she answered me, that she could not grant it on account of a salutation which this wicked woman repeats daily in her honor."

They asked the woman what salutation she repeated to the Mother of God. She answered that it was the "Hail Mary"; and then on hearing that the Blessed Virgin had dealt with her so mercifully in return for that trivial act of devotion, she cast herself on the ground before the sacred image, and there, in the presence of all the people, asked pardon for her scandalous life, and made a vow of perpetual continence.

She afterwards put on a religious habit, built for herself a little cell near the church, where she retired, and persevered in continual penance until the day of her death.

PRAYER
Oh mother of mercy! since thou art so compassionate, and hast so great a desire to do good to us sinners, and to satisfy our demands, I, the most wretched of all men, today have recourse to thy mercy, that thou mayest grant my requests. Let others ask what they will, health of body, wealth, or temporal advantages; I come to ask of thee, oh Lady, those things which thou thyself dost most desire of me, and which are most conformable and most pleasing to thy sacred heart.

Thou who wast so humble, obtain for me humility and love of contempt. Thou who wast so patient in the difficulties of this life, obtain for me patience in things contrary to my wishes. Thou who didst overflow with love to God, obtain for me the gift of a holy and pure love. Thou who wast all charity towards thy neighbor, obtain for me charity towards all men, and especially towards those who are my enemies. Thou who wast wholly united to the divine will, obtain for me a perfect uniformity with the will of that God in all his dispositions concerning me.

Thou, in a word, art the most holy of all creatures; oh Mary, obtain for me the grace to become a saint. Thy love is unfailing; thou canst and wilt obtain all things for me.

Nothing, then, can hinder me from receiving thy graces but my neglect to invoke thee, or my want of confidence in thy intercession. But thou thyself must obtain for me the grace to seek thee, and this grace of confidence in thy intercession.

These two greatest gifts I ask from thee – from thee will I receive them – from thee do I confidently hope for them. Oh Mary! Mary, my mother, my hope, my love, my life, my refuge, and my consolation. Amen.

This "Stories of Mary – Stories of the Rosary" is taken from the Glories of Mary, translated from the Italian of St. Alphonsus Liguori; New Revised Edition, P.J. Kennedy & Sons. Copyright 1888 by P.J

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