“And you thought of the Holy Mother in the storm?”
“Yes, this Adriatic is full of angels, that come in thoughts, or before the eyes! You remember Paul, tempest tossed a day and a night on this sea, was found by the Divine Messenger that night when the darkness was thickest?”
“And this ‘Star of the Sea?’”
“It tells me mother-love was carried by a dying Savior into the heart of the Triune, Eternal God, and we are His children, and He became Father and Mother to us. You have seen the hen gather her chickens, as human mother shelters with her arm or apron her child in pain or peril?”
“How touching! Think you He felt for us like tenderness in the height of the storm?”
“He sought in His plenteous wisdom mother love to sustain Himself, during the pain and perils of His incarnation, and will ever surely grant a love and care to His own beloved ones in suffering or danger as tender as that He sought and needed for Himself.”
“Surely this is a grateful, natural reasoning; but do you believe Mary presides over the sailor especially?”
“It is enough for me to know that the Father through Mary exemplified His motherliness.”
“I’ll never more call yon bright luminaries Castor and Pollux, but rather Jesus and Mary, the guides and the defenders!” And for a long time they gazed at the double stars, the storm slowly abating. Once the youth, drawing the maiden closely to himself, questioned: