Red Rose

3. It is to you, poor sinners, that a greater sinner than you offers this red rose, reddened by the Blood of Jesus Christ, to adorn you and to save you. The wicked and impenitent sinners cry out every day: Coronemus nos rosis — let us crown ourselves with roses. Let us also sing: Let us crown ourselves with the roses of the holy Rosary. How different their roses are from ours! Their roses are their carnal pleasures, their vain honors, and their perishable riches, which will soon be withered and rotten; but ours, which are our Our Fathers and Hail Marys well said, joined with our good works of penance, will never wither or fade, and their splendor will be as brilliant a hundred thousand years from now as it is today. Their so-called roses have only the appearance of roses; in reality they are nothing but piercing thorns during life, through the stings of conscience; piercing at death, through remorse; and burning for all eternity, through rage and despair. If our roses have thorns, they are the thorns of Jesus Christ, who changes our thorns into roses. If our roses prick, they prick only for a time; they prick only to heal us of sin and to save us.

4. Let us then vie with one another in crowning ourselves with such roses of paradise, by reciting the Rosary every day — that is, three chaplets of five decades each, or three little crowns of flowers: first, to honor the three crowns of Jesus and Mary — the crown of grace of Jesus in his Incarnation, his crown of thorns in his Passion, and his crown of glory in Heaven, and the triple crown that Mary received in Heaven from the Most Holy Trinity; second, to receive from Jesus and Mary three crowns — the first, of merit during life; the second, of peace at death; and the third, of glory in paradise. If you are faithful in saying it devoutly until death, despite the greatness of your sins, believe me: Percipietis coronam immarcescibilem — you will receive a crown of glory that will never fade. Even if you were on the brink of the abyss, even if you already had one foot in hell, even if you had sold your soul to the devil like a sorcerer, even if you were a hardened and obstinate heretic like a demon, you would sooner or later be converted and saved, provided — and I repeat this, and mark well the words and terms of my counsel — you say the holy Rosary devoutly every day until death, in order to know the truth and obtain contrition and the pardon of your sins. You will see in this work several stories of great sinners converted by the power of the holy Rosary. Read them and meditate upon them. God alone.