A story for every day...

The Venerable Anne-Marie Rivier, foundress of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Presentation of Mary, was still a small child when she already loved to spend whole hours at the feet of her Patroness. She spoke to Her with the naive confidence of a child speaking to her mother. This devotion only grew in her as she grew older, and it burst forth sometimes in lively aspirations, in heartfelt outbursts: “Holy Virgin, help me! quickly, Mother, quickly!” sometimes in prolonged discourses: “Holy Virgin, she would say to Her, we need this or that. Will you refuse me what I ask You? You know very well that it is for Your divine Son and for You.” Her usual resource in her troubles was to send her orphan girls or her Sisters to say the rosary before the statue of the Blessed Virgin. She herself placed on Her altar, with touching simplicity, the requests she had to make to Her; often she repeated to her Congregation that Mary was their Foundress, their Mother, the first Superior, and her most ardent desire was that her community be the Company of Mary. And it can be said that the whole life of this admirable woman was nothing but a reciprocity of prayers and graces, of trust and favor between her and her holy Mother.