Dear Staff, Parents and Friends of the College,
Being the Month of May, the month of Our Lady, I have chosen a few testimonials of former school students that might help encourage devotion to Our Blessed Mother as one of the most powerful means to acquire the virtue of purity. The following two testimonials from a young man and a young woman, chosen from among countless others, demonstrate the purifying and liberating effect of Marian devotion upon the souls of the youth:
“When I was a little older”, wrote a young woman soon to marry, “Mum said to me: ‘In all your difficulties, turn to Mary… She is the Mother of Christ…She is also your heavenly Mother… She will understand you and protect you’. – At fifteen, I had to go to work… it had to be done because the family needed the money. With two sisters and three brothers there wasn’t much money at home, so, I went to earn my keep working in a glass factory. At that age, I already knew quite a lot. Mum had taught me what I had to know and then, I had heard and seen what you can’t help hearing and seeing around you. However, what I saw and heard at my part time job from my workmates and from the young men, even more from the married men, was a terrible daily trial. There was no lack of encouragement to indecent behaviour. I had to fight so as not to fall every morning, when I got up, I begged the Blessed Virgin to protect me, to give me strength! I think that, if I managed to stand firm, it was thanks to the Blessed Virgin.”
“Mary governs a large part of my interior life”, a young man wrote “Since the time when I was an altar boy, when I say the Rosary, I have had the impression that I see the radiant face of the Most Pure Virgin. Even during that part of my life when I was committing sin, this image of Mary never left my mind. I sensed Her gazing on me sadly and sweetly and a great sorrow would fill my soul. However, I was not able to release myself from the grip of vice until the day when the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius revealed to me the gravity and ugliness of sin. You know the rest. I prayed to Mary and invoked Her; She became my ideal. I promised Her to keep my restored purity. The struggle was tough; it still is. But in the thick of battle, I think of Mary, Her eyes fixed on me, and I remain victorious. Every day the fight is renewed, but so is victory. Without this image of ideal purity, which is Mary, I would never manage to remain pure.”
Next week I will write about some important ways that parents can help their children grow closer to Mary and grow stronger in the virtue of purity, but for the moment I would suggest to parents that they do a quick check of their children’s attire to see if they are faithfully wearing two Marian sacramentals the Church offers her children, namely the miraculous medal and the scapular. If your child has lost either of these, you can acquire more from the College reception. The miraculous medal can be sown on to the scapular to ensure both a warn together.
Sincerely yours in the Two Hearts,
Father Andrew Cranshaw – Principal