56 ST. MARY DE SOCOS She made a vow of poverty and virginity and worked hard for her living, stiU giving mnch time to prayer. A rich man tried to persuade her to leave her retreat and break her vow. When he was exasperated by her persistent refusal, he hid a valuable silver cup in her cell and accused her of having stolen it. She was condemned to death. She prayed for her accuser and for her own salvation. The executioner en- treated her with tears to forgive him and to pray for him when she arrived in heaven, as he knew she would be there immediately. He then cut off her hands and feet, and she was empaled, and instead of Christian burial, she was thrown into a pit and some earth thrown over her. Her accuser was pos- sessed by a devil and was taken to the shrine of St. Dympna and to many other shrines, but the evil spirit declared there was only one saint who could cast him out and that was St. Mary, the innocent woman who had died as a thief. Accordingly, seven years after her death, he was taken to her grave. When they had prayed to her and obtained the cure of the demoniac, she was taken up from the ground and buried under the altar of the church at Woluwe-Saint-Lambert, and the people called her St. Mary the Unfortunate, in Flemish Die Ellendige. A chapel was built there in her honour in 13G3, and it still stands almost un- changed. AA.SS. from contemporary authority. Biog. Nat. Beige. St. Mary (47) de Socos (of Help), Sept. 25, 19, Dec. 31, 4- 1290. Sbe was of the Order of St. Mary de Mercede (Ransom) for the Eedemption of Cap- tives. Once on a time, Don Bodrigo Guillen, the second son of the noble house of Cervellon in Barcelona, married a good woman of equal rank ; having no children, they gave all their substance to the Order of St. Mary de Mercede. Through the prayers of B. Peter Nolasco, they had a beautiful daughter whom they christened Mary, in honour of the Blessed Vikgin. They brought her up piously, and when she was eighteen she chose a life of celibacy, charity and devotion, and went three times a week to the hospital with her mother. She wished to serve God in His people, but had not yet decided how best to do so, when B. Bernard of Corbaria preached a sermon on the miseries and dangers of the Christian captives who were slaves to the Turks. Mary was so touched by the picture of their woes that she thought of nothing but how she could help them. After her father's death she lived for some years very quietly with her mother, near the church of the Brothers of Mercede. She considered herself a steward for the poor of the ample provision left her by her father. Except the three regular portions of each day which she gave to prayer, she spent all her time in working hard for her poor, preparing food for them, releasing many prisoners, befriending shipwrecked mariners and travellers, and omitting no act of mercy. About 1265, two childless widows of exalted station in the province of Barce- lona took a house near that of the Brothers of St. Mary de Mercede^ and accompanied by a few girls of kindred disposition, spent their time in exercises of devotion and in working for the poor. Mary, who had already had several years' experience in every branch of charitable work, and whose mother was dead, became a member of the little community. B. Bernard of Corbaria, prior of the monastery, was their spiritual director. No women had hitherto been made members of the Order, and they had great difficulty in obtaining his permission - to wear the habit of the brotherhood and to be constituted a Third Order, in imitation of the Ter- tiarios of St. Francis and St. Dominic. As soon as they succeeded, they unani- mously elected Mary their first superior. She was already greatly beloved by the afflicted, and was found so helpful in all sorts of trouble, that her family name was lost in that glorious name of Socos, by which she is honoured to this day in her own country. Besides the usual vows of Third Orders, the members of the Order of Mercede promised to pray for the Christian slaves, to pity their sufferings
