There She is Again!

The following account was told by Father Sineux, during a spiritual retreat given on July 29, 1964:

A Protestant pastor from Scotland had a large number of Irish families in his parish and, consequently, some fervent Catholics. He was extremely annoyed by these people and, being fervent himself in his religion, tried to fight against their beliefs in any way he could. He went readily to children with his ideas.

One day he came across a young Irish girl of about eight years of age on the roadside. He stopped her, spoke a few nice words to her and then asked her to recite a few prayers, promising to give her two pennies if she recited them well. At once, the girl recited Our Father and the pastor congratulated her. “Do you know any others? Can you say another one?” he asked her. The child began the “Hail Mary,” but the pastor interrupted her. “That one is not a prayer, because you mustn’t pray to a woman, you should only pray to the Good Lord.” The small girl was a little embarrassed, but she continued and recited the Creed and the pastor encouraged her this time. However, when she arrived to the words “was born of the Virgin Mary”, the child sighed in annoyance and said, “There she is again! What am I to do?”

The pastor later acknowledged that he almost suffocated when he heard the words of the young Irish girl. He gave her two pennies, sent her home and returned to his own abode very upset. There she is again, that Virgin Mary, even in the Creed, which he had recited so many times without noticing the words he was pronouncing! There she is in the center of our Christian faith! This marked the beginning of long reflections, which resulted in his own abjuration, shortly afterwards. He himself told this story many times, which was so decisive for his vocation, when he had later become a Catholic priest.

From "A Moment With Mary"