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In drawing to close my instructions concerning the fairest flower that can adorn the maiden’s soul, I have kept the most pleasing and attractive subject to the last.
Whither does a child go when anything alarms or oppresses it? To its tender mother, to her gentle, loving heart. Where does it take refuge when dangers threaten, and cruel persons pursue it? It takes hold of its mother’s hand, for safety and protection. To whom does it bring any treasure it may possess, anything it especially values? To its watchful mother, that she may keep and guard the treasure.
You, my dear child, have a very difficult and responsible task—you have to preserve your innocence; therefore go to your mother, to Mary, the sweet Mother of God. Dangers threaten, and hellish foes pursue you; therefore fly to your Mother and cling fast to her protecting hand. You possess a treasure of incalculable value—the tender lily of purity; therefore entreat Mary, your heavenly Mother, to watch over your flower, to protect it, to tend and cherish it.
Beseech Mary to aid you in preserving the fragrant perfume, the dazzling whiteness, of your lily. St. Bernard, who had so great a devotion to Mary, addresses you in these impressive words: “O man, whoever thou art, if thou dost not wish to be swallowed up in the abyss, turn not away thine eye from the shining star, call upon Mary. If thou art tossed hither and thither by the waves of vanity and pride, look up to this star, call upon Mary! If the billows of concupiscence and sensual desires break over thy little bark of life, look up to this star, call upon Mary!
“Keep her in thy heart, let her name be ever on thy lips. If she hold thee up, thou wilt not fall, if she guide thee, thou wilt not go astray; if she protect thee, thou hast no need to fear; if she look favorably upon thee, thou wilt escape the snares of hell, and reach the gate of eternal felicity.”
Yes, dear child, in the bright days of your youth, fix your gaze upon Mary; take her for your model. She is, as the poet says, “Our tainted nature’s solitary boast”; she is the pure, the immaculate, Mother of God. Look up to her, contemplate her, and you will be filled with a more eager desire to cultivate carefully, to preserve and to cherish the lily among the virtues that should adorn your soul.
Amid the dangers which threaten this fair flower, cling tightly to the hand of your Mother Mary. She has power to help, to protect, to deliver you; she will keep the poison of impurity far from you. Countless are the instances in which young persons have been delivered from the temptations of the flesh, and have received grace and strength to overcome them, because they invoked the Mother of God in a spirit of confidence. Here is one example:
A young girl had abandoned herself to a life of sin at a very early age, to the great grief of her pious mother. The latter went to Rome, and laid her burden at the feet of the celebrated Father Succhi. He requested her to bring her daughter to him. His tact and kindness speedily won the young girl’s confidence. She promised every day conscientiously to repeat the following short prayer: “My Queen and my Mother! remember that I belong to thee; preserve and defend me as thy property and possession!”
This brief petition worked wonders. A few years later, Father Succhi again visited Rome. The pious mother sought him out and said, with tears of joy: “O Father, how deeply grateful I am to the Blessed Virgin and to you; my child has become an angel upon earth.”
Do you likewise pray to your Blessed Mother with confidence and perseverance. Cleave closely to her maternal heart; she will guard and care for the lily of your heart, and water it from the fount of grace which flows from the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Mark well, and imprint it deeply on your youthful heart, that if Mary loves one class of persons more than another, she regards the young with peculiar affection. She loves you, my dear child, she knows the dangers which threaten you, the battles you have to fight, the weakness which enfeebles your will. And she has the most sympathizing heart, she feels with your every need, she compassionates your soul, exposed as it is to countless perils.
Oh, what a blessed thing it is to know that there is one whose maternal heart can solace, succor, and rescue us! It is a consoling thought in all the sorrows of life, and especially when death takes your mother from you, that you have still a mother in Mary, a still more loving mother, who will never, never forsake you, unless you are so foolish and unhappy as first to forsake her.
And are you not determined never to forsake your Mother Mary? I am sure that you have already formed this resolution, and that you will frequently renew it, carrying it out into practice by piously praying to the Mother of God and by exercises of devotion in her honor. My consolation, my ground of hope on your behalf is that you are and will remain, a faithful child of Mary.
Whilst I have been giving you these instructions upon the lily of chastity, a feeling of melancholy has sometimes stolen over me, when I have asked myself whether you will follow my exhortations and fatherly counsels. Or whether you will, at a subsequent period, wander from the right way, and finally be lost. But as I have just said, your true, childlike devotion to the Mother of God calms and consoles me. For I know that no true child of Mary can ever be lost.
Therefore often sing this sweet hymn in her honor, and pray with heart and voice to Mary in the well-known lines:
Hail, Queen of Heaven, the ocean Star,
Guide of the wand’rer here below!
Thrown on life’s surge, we claim thy care;
Save us from peril and from woe.