Saved By The 3 Hail Mary Devotion

[Dawn Marie]

Saved By The 3 Hail Mary Devotion

Pope St. Pius X gave his Apostolic Blessing to this practice and the devotion was raised to an Archconfraternity by Pope Benedict XV.

We read in the life of Blessed Richard de Sainte-Anne: "He arrived in the city where he lived (the contemporary historian does not quote it, but no doubt it was Brussels), it happened that two students, Dissolute and scandalous, they both planned to go with some companions to a house of debauchery. They spent a good part of the night there. One of them said to his companion: "Let's leave, I'm tired of it. "And me, not yet," replied the other. The first leaves him, returns to his apartment, and, on the verge of going to bed, remembers the daily homage he paid to the Blessed Virgin. Although he was more willing to sleep than to pray, he did his devotional practice as best he could. No sooner as he finished his prayer than he hears a knock on the door of his room. A second, a third time, he hears blows without opening, when, suddenly, the door remains closed, he sees enter his mate of debauchery he had just left in the house of scandal. At his appearance, he remains silent, so surprised is he: "Do you recognize me? Asks the unfortunate, after a moment's silence. "In truth, seeing your face and hearing your voice, you are the companion I left earlier; but your appearance, so sudden and so surprising, made me doubt it. The mysterious visitor utters a long sigh. "Know," said he, "that while we wallow in the mud of our immodesty, stripping away all fear of God, Satan sued us in the divine tribunal, and demanded against us both a sentence of damnation. The Sovereign Judge granted him this sentence, and it was only a question of executing it, but the Virgin, your lawyer, intervened in your favor, especially since, at this very moment, you you happened to invoke it. So your judgment is deferred, but mine is executed, because, on leaving this house where I committed my crimes, the devil choked me and, tearing my soul from the body, dragged me to hell where I'm burning now! So after saying, he opened up his cloth showing himself eaten away by worms and devoured by fire.

The young man was stupefied and remained half-dead at this sight. Returning to himself, he prostrated on the ground, gave thanks to his august Advocate, wept bitterly for his errors, and promised to make serious amends now. At the very moment, he hears the bell ring the midnight Matins at the nearby convent of the Friars Minor, and making serious reflections until morning on the kind of life of those angels of the earth who pray and atone for others he planned to go there at break of day. The following morning at the first hint of light he ran there, and throwing himself at the feet of the Father Guardian, told him the event and insisted on the favor of being admitted to the Order.
It was first resolved to go and check the fact in the place where it had happened. In fact, there was found the body of the unhappy, hideous, repulsive, lying on the ground. He was dragged to the road to be buried like the corpse of an animal.

The young convert was later received into the Order of St. Francis, gave rare examples of virtue and especially devotion to the holy Virgin Mary. This event arrived in 1604; Blessed Richard, who was then nineteen years old, was, he said, a spectator, and it was he who later told the story to Father d'Andreda, theologian of the Society of Jesus, that he met in Spain. Such was the spur that stimulated him and determined him to become Friar-Minor Récollet. He received the Franciscan habit in the same year 1604 at the convent of Nivelles. He was martyred in Japan in 1622. This story is quoted by Father Bouvier in the life of the Blessed, whom he published only fifty years after his martyrdom. Father Sebastien Bouvier, born in Fosses, in the province of Namur, died at the Récollets convent, Namur, April 3, 1681.

(Taken From The Life of Blessed Richard of St. Anne of Ham sur-Heure, Brothers-Minors, martyred in Japan, by Fr. Bouvier and Fr. Lejeune, C. SS. R. Society of St. Augustine, 1899)