The Rosary and the reformed abbey

May 13, 2021 • 2 min

From The Glories of Mary, page 683
By St. Alphonsus Liguori

The daughter of a certain prince had entered a monastery, where the discipline was so relaxed, that, although she was a young person of good dispositions, she advanced but little in virtue.

By the advice of a good confessor, she began to say the Rosary with the mysteries, and became so changed that she was an example to all. The other religious, taking offence at her for withdrawing from them, attacked her on all sides, to induce her to abandon her newly-begun way of life.

One day while she was repeating the Rosary, and praying Mary to assist her in that persecution, she saw a letter fall from above. On the outside were written these words: “Mary, mother of God, to her daughter Jane, greeting;” and within: “My dear child, continue to say my Rosary; withdraw from intercourse with those who do not help you to live well; beware of idleness and vanity; take from thy cell two superfluous things, and I will be your protectress with God.”

The abbot of that monastery soon after visited it, and attempted to reform it, but he did not succeed; and one day he saw a great number of demons entering the cells of all the nuns except that of Jane, for the divine mother, before whose image he saw her praying, banished them from that.

When he heard from her of the devotion of the Rosary which she practised, and the letter she had received, he ordered all the others to repeat it, and it is related that this monastery became a paradise.

* Bonif. 1. 4, c. 4, ex. B. Alan. etc.