Rosebud

7. I offer you, my little children, a beautiful rosebud; it is one of the small beads of your chaplet, which seems to you so trifling! How precious this bead is! How admirable this rosebud! How wide it will bloom if you say your Hail Mary devoutly! It would be too much to ask you to say an entire Rosary every day. Say at least your chaplet every day with true devotion — a little crown of roses that you place upon the heads of Jesus and Mary. Believe me, listen to this beautiful story and remember it well.

8. Two little girls, both sisters, were at the door of their home saying the chaplet devoutly when a beautiful lady appeared to them, approached the younger one, who was only six or seven years old, took her by the hand, and led her away. Her elder sister, quite astonished, searched for her, and not finding her, came home in tears and said that someone had taken her sister away. The father and mother searched in vain for three days. At the end of the third day, they found her at the door with a joyful and happy face. They asked her where she had been. She said that the lady to whom she had been saying her chaplet had taken her to a beautiful place and had given her good things to eat, and had placed in her arms a lovely little child whom she had kissed over and over. The father and mother, who had recently been converted to the faith, sent for the Reverend Jesuit Father who had instructed them in the faith and the devotion of the Rosary, and they told him what had happened. It is from him that we learned the story. This took place in Paraguay. Imitate these little girls, my dear children, and say your chaplet every day as they did, and you will merit thereby to go to paradise and see Jesus and Mary — if not during this life, then at least after death, for all eternity. So be it. Let the learned, then, and the unlearned, the just and the sinners, the great and the small, praise and greet day and night, by the holy Rosary, Jesus and Mary. Salutate Mariam, quae multum laboravit in vobis (Rom 16:6).