04 MAR - OUR MOTHER OF GUARD (FRANCE)

 Late one afternoon during the 13th century, a solitary fisherman was fishing off the harbor of Marseille. 

    Before he became aware of it, a terrific storm burst upon him. His boat tossed around like a shell, and filled with water faster than he could bail it out. The fisherman thought of the family he would never see again and cast a despairing look at the city. 

    Through the gloom, he suddenly saw a solitary figure of a Mother, dressed in white, standing firmly on the very top of the rock. She seemed to be extending 

    her hand as if she would help him to the shelter and safety of the harbour. At once it came to him that the Mother so calmly defying the wind could only be the 

    Blessed Mother, so he prayed to her to help him. Almost immediately his boat ceased its wild tossing, righted itself and pushed by a friendly gust of wind, 

    raced into the calm water of the harbour until it drove onto the shore at the very foot of the mountain. 

    Stepping onto the shore, the fisherman fell to his knees and poured out his thanks to the Blessed Virgin, and then hurried home to his worried family. 

    This rescue through the assistance of Our Mother quickly spread throughout the port. 

    Soon everyone came to believe that the rock was the spot on which the Blessed Virgin, Our Mother of Guard, would appear whenever her help was desperately required. 

    A golden statue of the Virgin and Child suitably dominates the city from its place on top of the western tower.





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