STUDENT SAVED BY THE PRACTICE OF THE THREE HAIL MARYS

THE STORY OF TWO WAYWARD STUDENTS

Around the year 1604, in Belgium, there lived two young students who gave themselves up to a life of fornication instead of facing their studies.

One night they went to the house of an evil woman; but one of the two, named Dominic, stayed only a while and then returned home. While he was preparing to go to bed, he recalled he had not yet said the "three Hail Marys" which was his daily routine.

He was very tired and half inclined to omit them; still, he forced himself through the routine, saying the words half asleep and with no particular devotion. Then he laid down and fell asleep.

Suddenly he was wakened by a violent knocking at the door. The door was closed, but the figure of a young man, hideously deformed, passed through it and stood before him.

"Who are you?" Dominic inquired.
"You do not know me?" asked the other.
"Ah yes, now I do," said Dominic; "but how changed, with the appearance of a devil!" 

"Alas, unhappy creature that I am," said his companion, "I am damned! When I was leaving that house of sin, a devil came and strangled me. My body lies in the street; my soul is in Hell. 

"And know this --- the same fate awaited you, if not because the Blessed Virgin Mary spared you for that little act of homage of the "three Hail Marys" you pay her. If you are not a fool, heed this warning which the Mother of God has sent." He then opened his mantle, showing the flames and serpents by which he was tormented, and he vanished.

Breaking into a flood of sobs and tears, Dominic went down on his knees to give thanks to Our Lady his guide and guard. Then as he pondered on how to change his life he heard the bell of the Franciscan monastery ringing for matins. "It is there," he said, "that God calls me to do penance."

He immediately for the monastery and asked the Friars to admit him. Since they knew his wicked life, they were reluctant to do so. But he explained in bitter sobs, all that had happened. And when two Priests had been sent to the street and had found the strangled body, which was charred and blackened, they received him amidst them.

From that time on, he led an exemplary life and at length went to preach the Gospel in India, and thence to Japan. There he had the happiness of giving his life for Jesus Christ, being burnt alive for the faith at Nagasaki on September 10, 1622