Frustrated through Prayer (the intercession of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart)
From Spain we have the following testimony of our Lady's wonderful protection; it is given by the superior of the Brothers of Charity in that country:
For some time, I have felt duty bound, to publish in the Annals of our Lady of the Sacred Heart, the wonderful help I have experienced in critical circumstances, through invoking her under that beautiful title. At the end of the year 1867 I undertook the reform of our institute and founded a house in Barcelona. I gratefully acknowledge that I owe the completion and success of that work to the power and loving kindness of our Lady of the Sacred Heart, although the undertaking entailed very severe trials and difficulties. Oh, how well protected are they who are sheltered under the mantle of the Queen of Heaven!
My vocation as a priest and Brother of Charity., has brought me in contact with numberless cases of misery and misfortune, especially during the last revolution and civil War in Spain. In such distressing times it behoves the Brother of Charity to be more than ever the comfort and support of the unfortunate victims of such public calamities. On three separate occasions I found myself surrounded by a number of blood-thirsty men whose intentions towards me were manifestly of the worst kind. In the hour of danger I never failed to call upon Mary, the dispenser of the inexhaustible treasures of the Sacred Heart and I have ever been protected in the most marvellous manner.
Once I was actually seized by several armed ruffians who were determined to take my life. In this extremity I felt urged to call on our Lady for help and promised that if I escaped from this danger I would do all in my power to make her name known and honoured under the beautiful title of our Lady of the Sacred Heart. Hardly had I made this promise interiorly when the ruffians who surrounded me most unexpectedly set me free. This happened in the very place where I had made that foundation which cost me so much trouble and anxiety and it seems to me all the more a striking and visible proof that our Lady accepted my promise, for not only did she then grant me my life and freedom but by a- mysterious dispensation of Providence this house eventually became the home of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart and the head-quarters of the Archconfraternity of our Lady of the Sacred Heart, in Spain.
