Cervantes

"Now: this is the present, which lasts but a moment of eternity. It is the life of the flesh waylaid by sickness, accidents, by the very course of time itself which brings you to the 'mouth' of your life as men, and sends you into eternity.

"'In the hour of death': that hour which stops your heart, and that hour— always threatening— which paralyzes your spirit and leads it to death.

"I want you to think of this true, eternal death, when you invoke Most Holy Mary. From the first death you will rise again if you have died in Christ. But from the second you will never rise again.

"Do not cause the infernal Enemy, the fascinating Serpent, the roaring Lion who always prowls around you to knock you down— do not cause him to seize hold of you like sure prey. So that even though you are now alive, you are already of those dead in spirit.

"Mary is the Conqueress of Satan, and [just] the gleam of Her smile suffices to put him to flight. Against the snares of Satan and the weakness and appetites of the flesh, call on Mary.

"If you invoke Her for that sleep from which you immediately awake, or about heavenly peace or infernal damnation— both these latter two being eternal— why should you not invoke Her [about] this atrocious sleep which brings death: the death of the fallen spirit— a sleep which, if not conquered, extinguishes you in the arms of Sat an ?

"When death prowls around your spirit, let these invocations, made to Mary with the fullness of their significance, rise up as a defense.

"Every time the hour of spiritual death looms over you, pray to the universal Mother: for all Her poor children; for the spirit of these Her poor children; for that spirit made and given to creatures by that same God Who had created and chosen Her for His Spouse and Mother. [Pray for that spirit] made and given in order to make [these creatures] Her children, and subjects of His eternal Kingdom.

"Upon all of you there is the most pure and beloved Blood. That Blood which came from Her Immaculate Heart, and which has been the Seed for the Flower born of the love of God with the Virgin, and of Her perfect obedience to the Divine Will. It is the Seed of Me, the Word, become flesh in order to be Master and Redeemer, whence to be able to wash you in His Blood, wholly poured out for you all. And upon all of you there is also all the weeping of Mary, [both] My Mother and yours: another washing of [Her] co-redemption.

"Through Her nature as Mother of the Savior, She has the power of salvation. Invoke Her with true faith and She will save you: now, and at the hour of death." Amen.