” French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview last month that he plans to set down markers on the entire way Islam is organized in France” http://www.theatlantic.com         

 

A Very Brief Introduction Taken From the Book:  The Blessed Virgin In the Nineteenth Century by Bernard St. John

 

Introduction by The Rev. Edmond Thiriet, O.M.I.                                                                    France, in the course of the nineteenth century, unfaithful in so many ways to her mission as “Eldest Daughter of the Church”, is now astonishing the world further by her deeds of apostasy and impious violence.

It almost seems as if the closing words of her history as until now recorded should be ‘Finis Gallice.

In the presence of her multifold delinquincies in a religious sense, one is almost tempted to ask why retributive justice has not weighed more heavily upon her than it has done.”

 

(This introduction was written May 17, 1903)

 

“By way of answer to this half query, a poem in action, or perfect unity of plan, wrought out by Heaven, and, told in that French tongue known all over the world, presents itself to mind.

It is a theme telling of infinite love and pity for man.

It is one that has already been as water in the desert to countless souls.

It seems to say why, in Heaven’s action with respect to France in recent years, mercy may have more than tempered justice.

It is a poem, each chapter of which is one of those Manifestations of the Blessed Virgin Mary in France.

In short it is a nineteenth century Gospel.”

. Edmond Thirirt, O.M.I.,  Late Superior of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Montmartre      

“Siccle de Marie”