Aspirations of a Sinner to Mary

REMEMBER, O most compassionate Mother, that from the beginning it has never been heard that any who have fled to thee for protection, or implored thy intercession, have been forsaken by thee. For to this end hath the Fountain of forgiveness been given to thee as thy Son, that thou mightest obtain grace for all who need, and that thine abundant charity might cover the multitude of our sins and our many defects. Wherefore, encouraged by this assurance, I have recourse to thee, and stand before thee in my misery and my defilement. Oh, despise me not for my innumerable and grievous sins, nor cast me away because of the exceeding loathsomeness and hardness of my heart. Thou knowest, O Mary, how deeply I am sunk in sins and vices, and how justly I have deserved all the most dreadful anger of thy Son. Cast me not away from thy favour, O most compassionate Mother, for thou art, after God, my surest confidence, and the chief, the only ground of my hope. For such is the trust I have in thee, that I shall never believe that I can perish, as long as I love thee and serve thee. O most holy Mother of God and of man, thou joy of all saints, thou solace of the wretched and refuge of the poor, I beseech thee, by that ineffable joy and sweetness thou didst feel when the incomprehensible Divinity took flesh of thee, and thus deigned to unite human nature to himself for ever in thy virginal womb, vouchsafe to undertake my cause, and to render me well-pleasing to the same thy well-beloved Son. Show him, O Mother, the breasts which he has sucked and the arms with which thou didst embrace him; set now before him all the toils and all the dolours thou didst suffer for his sake; show him that heart of thine, sweeter than the honeycomb, all glowing with the fire of his love; and so render him propitious unto me. O my most faithful advocate, turn on me, thy most unworthy servant, those pitying eyes of thine; and by the fragrance of that unimaginable delight thou didst feel as thou wentest up from this world to the royal court of heaven, leaning blissfully on thy Beloved, vouchsafe to be with me in the hour of my death; and in that dread hour offer for me to the most Holy Trinity the merits of that tranquil and consummate perfection which raised thee, on the day of thine Assumption, far above all human and angelic dignity, and made thee the object of his supreme and everlasting complacency. Amen.