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| Dutch Sailing Ship |
Margaret Mary made pilgrimages to recommend her petition for the conversion of England to the Blessed Mother at a small church with a miraculous image. Mother Frances Raphael Drane related, “The parish church of Assebroeck stands in a sort of sandy desert about five miles out of Bruges. The small marble image known as Our Lady of Assebroeck was brought there in the year 1720 by a pious Fleming whose devotions to the holy image during his homeward voyage so excited the Calvinist bile of the Dutch sailors that at last they contemptuously tossed it overboard. The marble image, however, floated on the waves; and when, in their fury, the sailors sought, by the aid of poles and weights, to force it to the bottom, it continued to elude their violence, and followed the vessel, still floating on the surface of the water. After passing through many hands it found its way at length to Assebroeck, where many honors were paid to it, and an annual Novena was ordered to be celebrated by a decree of the Bishop of Bruges. It was probably this public Novena which Margaret determined on attending. But in order to reach Assebroeck in time to hear Mass and communicate, and then return home before the hour when her domestic services would be required, she had to rise at two o clock in the morning, and to make a painful foot journey through the sandy roads, in the dark. She persevered in this devotion for nine days, at the end of which time her confessor, without any solicitation on her part, announced to her that he withdrew all his objections to her joining the Dominican order, and that she might do so with his full consent. Her joy was great indeed, enhanced by the feeling that she owed this grace to the intercession of Our Lady.”
