LADY, BE MY MOTHER

It was the month of November. Yellow and dry, the leaves fell from the trees, just as dry and withered illusions fall from the heart when the winter of old age approaches.

In Ávila, in a noble house, a distinguished and pious lady, Doña Beatriz de Ahumada, lay dying in the springtime of life. The priests gathered there were already reciting the prayers for the dying when the lady opened her eyes, looked around, and in a faint voice said:

— Teresa! Call Teresa.

A girl of about twelve years, of singular modesty and extraordinary beauty, entered the room and approached the bedside of her dying mother. Fixing her gaze upon her daughter, and as if Our Lord were revealing the future destiny of the child, she exclaimed:

— Blessed... blessed!

And she expired.

The girl, overcome with tears, rose, kissed those cold hands one last time, and withdrew to a room where an image of Our Lady hung on the wall. There she let her tears flow freely. Then, lifting her eyes with ineffable tenderness and immense faith, she said from the depths of her soul these moving words:

— Lady, behold, I have no mother; be You my mother from now on.

That child, protected by the Mother of Heaven, became one of the greatest women in history: Saint Teresa of Jesus, honored among the saints.

So much good came to her for having taken the Blessed Virgin Mary as her Mother from the earliest days of her life.