| For Ten Years a Decade of the Rosary |
| A priest was called to a sick person, who lived at number twenty-eight in X--- street, but by mistake he went to number eighteen. He only found closed doors on the first story, so he mounted to the second, where a child showed him a room in which lay a sick person. There he found a poor woman, by whose bed a man of perhaps some fifty years of age was witting. The priest kindly asked him how his wife was. |
| "That does not concern you," he answered gruffly. "What are you doing here, and who sent for you?" |
| "Someone called me to a sick person, but perhaps I have made a mistake in the number of the house. In any case, I believe I can be of use here also, for it is undoubtedly God's will that I should come to your wife." |
| "Yes, indeed," whispered the woman in a dying voice, "Almighty God has led you here, and I will willingly make my confession." |
| "That you shall not!" called out her husband. "For ten years no priest has put foot in the house, so leave us in peace, reverend sir, and do not trouble yourself about our affairs." |
| "My friend," answered the priest, "your wife's soul does not belong to you. So I will hear her confession and do my duty; please leave us alone for a time." |
| The man continued to grumble, but at length he went out. Then the woman showed the priest a Rosary, hanging near her, and said: --- |
| "Look, Father, this Rosary must have saved me. For ten years I have turned my back on God and religion, for fear of my husband, but every day I have faithfully said a decade of the Rosary." |
| Thereupon the dying woman prepared herself by a contrite confession, for her departure out of this world, and died soon after. |
| (MARIA SANCTISSIMA; Rev. Dom Joseph A. Keller; English trans. and edition by O.S.B.; R. & T. Washbourne; 1899) |