of Siena that He had charged Mary to take men, and especially sinners, prisoners, and lead them to Him; and Mary herself told St. Bridget that there was no sinner, no matter how abandoned, who, if he called on her, would not return to God and, by her mediation, obtain forgiveness. Just as the magnet attracts iron, so does she draw the hardest hearts to herself and to God. -"Who," exclaims Innocent III, "has. ever had recourse to Mary, and was not heard?"
"Mary, the Mother of God, is my Mother," St. Aloysius was wont to exclaim in an ecstasy of delight and gratitude, and like a true servant of Mary he was ever anxious to avoid the least thing that could displease her or her divine Son, and always eager to honor and please her by acts of mortification and by the imitation of her virtues. Let us do likewise, let us carefully avoid whatever is displeasing to Almighty God. "Detach thy will from sin," wrote St. Gregory VII to the Countess Matilda, "and you will find in Mary a mother more willing to protect and assist you than any earthly mother." If you love Mary truly, you will please her by a constant struggle against your passions, by striving to become ever more like to her in virtue, by mortifying yourself in little things, and by performing some devotion in her honor every day. Your constant endeavor should be to please your sweet Mother, and this you will do above all by doing the will of her divine Son, by your
