of Italy. It is certainly not Italian devotion to the Madonna, which is as solid and beautiful as it is prominent in that country. But to the point: there is not the shadow of such perverted devotion elsewhere — above all, in Ireland. There are, it is true, persons, great sinners, who, even as such, have faith, and a hatred of their sinful ways, and are very conscious of their wretched state; who have a sincere — weak, if you will, — desire to get right with God; and who, because of the misery in which they are, will throw their whole hearts at times into a most sincere and earnest prayer, it may be every day, for grace, strength, mercy, forgiveness. The Italians have a saying that no one cries so loudly and earnestly for help as a person up to the chin in water and likely to be carried by the next wave beyond his depth. So a great sinner, because conscious of his awful danger, will pray at times more earnestly than a saint who is in no such danger. Judgment Day will, we may hope, reveal the wonderful effects of even one form of devotion persevered in through a long life.[1]
- ↑ From "Vetera et Nova," by Rev. N. Walsh, S.J.
