EVENING SIGH - 18th Day

MY REFUGE  

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People who are poor can find shelter when they are sick, but only in the public hospitals, because all others forsake them on account of their poverty.  In the same way the most wretched of sinners are received by the Mercy of Mary, even when everybody else would abandon them on account of their miserable condition. 

Mary's mercy was given to the world by God to be for sinners, like the public hospital, a refuge for the abandoned and forsaken.  St. Basil tells us this:  "God has established a public hospital for sinners."  St. Ephrem tells us that Mary is a place of refuge where the sinner finds a welcome. 

Mary, my Queen, God had made you great so that you might give shelter to those whose condition is most wretched.  So you cannot cast me away when I come to you, even though I have committed so many sins.  The greater my misery is, the greater also is my right to be taken under your protection.  To you I come;  under your mantle I take shelter.  You are the refuge of sinners, so you are my refuge—the hope of my salvation.  If you cast me out where will I go?

Evening Sigh—Mary, my refuge, save me.