The Rose and the Fire

Sofía walked briskly, as always. High heels, a designer bag hanging from her wrist, and a coffee in the other hand. She wasn’t sure where she was going, but she didn’t care. Lately, her life had been running on comfortable inertia: fashion, social media, parties, music. Everything seemed designed to be seen, to be shared. She was beautiful, and she knew it. But in the last few months, an uncomfortable feeling had been growing inside her, like a murmur she couldn’t silence.

The whole world applauded her, but something inside her felt empty.

That day, she decided to take a detour through a solitary park, with ancient trees that seemed to whisper stories of the past. That’s when she saw her.

Sitting on a stone bench, an old woman was twirling a withered rose between her fingers. Her hands were wrinkled, yet there was something serene, something unbreakable in her posture. Sofía couldn’t help but stop.

—“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”— the old woman said without looking away from the flower.

Sofía nodded, though in reality, the rose looked like it was about to fall apart.

—“It was cut days ago, yet its fragrance still lingers,”— the old woman continued. —“It no longer has yesterday’s freshness, but it still gives off its essence.”

Sofía frowned.

—“And what will happen when it no longer smells?”

The old woman looked at her with clear eyes, so deep that Sofía felt a strange vertigo.

—“It will turn to dust. Like all things that remain only on the surface.”

Sofía shivered.

—“I don’t understand…”

The old woman smiled tenderly, but her gaze was firm.

—“Today, beauty has become a disguise, a deception. We’ve been convinced that to be beautiful is to attract attention, but they never told us that the body is just a wrapping. We were trained to show ourselves, but not to be. We were made to believe that we are valuable for what we reveal, but never for what we conceal.”

Sofía felt a lump in her throat.

—“And what’s wrong with beauty?”— she asked, with a more defensive tone than she intended.

—“Nothing,”— the old woman replied. —“The problem is when beauty is emptied of meaning. When you use it as bait instead of as a gift. When a dress does not enhance dignity but destroys it. When a woman ceases to be a mystery and becomes a display case.”

Sofía felt the ground become unsteady beneath her feet.

—“Women today are like plastic roses,”— the old woman continued. —“They look perfect, but they have no fragrance. They don’t die, but they don’t live either. They don’t hurt, but they don’t love. They have traded fire for artifice, essence for image.”

—“But… isn’t it important to feel good about oneself?”— Sofía insisted, looking for a way to defend herself.

The old woman tilted her head gently.

—“Yes, but tell me, is feeling good the same as being free?”

Sofía opened her mouth, but she didn’t know what to say.

—“Today, they tell you that you are free if you can do whatever you want with your body,”— the old woman continued. —“But true freedom is not following desires that others have planted in you. It is choosing what is good, even if no one else does. It is knowing that you are more than a dress, more than a like, more than a well-shaped body.”

—“But if I dress nicely, what harm is there in that?”— Sofía insisted.

The old woman smiled gently.

—“Nothing, my child. God Himself clothes the lilies of the field in beauty. But notice: their beauty is not forced, nor fake, nor does it provoke disorderly desires in others. They grow with dignity, with grace. True beauty attracts the soul, not just the eyes. Have you ever wondered if what you wear leads someone to look beyond your body?”

Sofía lowered her gaze, unsettled.

—“But… fashion changes,”— she whispered, more to herself than to the old woman.

—“And truth does not,”— the old woman replied firmly. —“Do you know why the world insists so much on undressing women? Because nakedness is not just physical, it is spiritual. The more the body is displayed, the less the soul is valued. The more it is shown, the less it is protected. And the less it is protected, the easier it is for people to treat it as a disposable object.”

The air grew heavy.

—“We have forgotten that the body is a temple,”— the old woman continued. —“And one does not enter a temple in just any manner, nor does one allow just anyone to profane it. A woman who dresses with dignity respects herself, and those who respect themselves teach others to respect them.”

Sofía felt the urge to argue, to justify fashion, to talk about freedom. But a part of her knew she had no answer.

—“And what does it mean to burn?”— she finally asked, her voice weaker than she expected.

—“To burn means not to fear the truth. It means that your beauty is not a lure but a reflection of what you are inside. That instead of attracting glances, you illuminate souls. That you become a woman who inspires others to look upward, not downward.”

Sofía looked at her reflection on her phone’s black screen. Her tight clothes, her rehearsed pose, her perfectly outlined lips. For the first time in years, she felt that none of it truly represented her.

The old woman extended the withered rose. Sofía took it in her hands. Gently, she brought the flower to her nose and inhaled its scent. It still smelled of something.

—“Roses are not born to decorate shop windows,”— the old woman whispered. —“They are born to be a garden, to be a fragrance, to be fire.”

Sofía lifted her gaze, but the old woman was gone.

Only the rose remained.

OMO

THE STORY OF THE DEVIL AND THE THREE MONKS

The devil appeared to three monks and said to them: “if I gave you power to change something from the past, what would you change?”

The first of them, with great apostolic fervor, replied: “I would prevent you from making Adam and Eve fall into sin so that humanity could not turn away from God.”

The second, a man full of mercy, said to him: “I would prevent you from turning away from God.”

The third of them was the simplest and, instead of responding to the tempter, he got on his knees, made the sign of the cross and prayed saying: “Lord, free me from the temptation of what could be and was not”.

The devil, giving a raucous cry and shuddering with pain, vanished.

The other two, surprised, said to him: “Brother, why have you responded like this?”

He replied: “First: we must NEVER dialogue with the devil. Second: NOBODY in the world has the power to change the past. Third: Satan’s INTEREST was not to prove our virtue, but to trap us in the PAST, so that we neglect the present, the only time in which God gives us His grace and we can cooperate with Him to fulfill His will. Of all the demons, the one that catches the most men and prevents them from being happy is that of WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN AND WAS NOT. 

The past is left to the mercy of God and the future to his Providence. Only the present is in our hands.

The Balance of Judgment (story)

There was a woman who was such a devout and fervent Catholic that amazed the most austere religious of the Church of God with her holy life.

She wanted to talk to Saint Dominic. She went to Confession with him, and the saint gave her as penance only one Rosary, and he advised her to pray it every day. She excused herself by saying that she was wearing a cilice, that she scourged herself several times a week, that she fasted almost every day, and countless other penances. Saint Dominic urged her repeatedly to follow his advice, but she did not want to listen; she retired extremely shocked by the behavior of her new director, who wanted to persuade her to a devotion that did not please her.

One day, while being in prayer, and caught up in ecstasy, she saw her soul forced to appear before the Supreme Judge. Saint Michael raised the scales, put her penances and other prayers on one plate, and on the other her sins and imperfections; the plate of good works could not counteract the other; alarmed, she asked for mercy; she addressed the Blessed Virgin Mary, her lawyer, who put on the plate of good works the only Rosary that she had prayed as penance; and its weight was such that it counteracted that of her sins; the Blessed Virgin rebuked her at the same time for not having followed the advice of her server Saint Dominic to pray the Holy Rosary every day. When she regained consciousness, she went to throw herself at the feet of Saint Dominic, and told him what had happened, asked for his forgiveness for her disbelief and promised to pray the Rosary every day. By this means, she came to Christian perfection, and later to eternal glory.

The Protestant Boy and the Virgin Mary

A six-year-old Protestant boy had often heard his fellow Catholics pray the Hail Mary. He liked it so much that he memorized it and prayed it every day. "Look, mommy, what a beautiful prayer," he told his mother one day.

"Do not say it again," replied the mother. "It is a superstitious prayer of Catholics who worship idols and think that Mary is a goddess. She is a woman like any other. Come on. Take this Bible and read it. It contains everything we have to do.” From that day on, the boy stopped praying his Hail Mary every day and spent more time reading the Bible.

One day, while reading the Gospel, he saw the passage on the Annunciation of the Angel to the Virgin. Full of joy, the boy ran to his mother and said: "Mommy, I found the Hail Mary in the Bible: ‘Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women’. Why do you call it a superstitious prayer?" She did not answer. On another occasion, he found the scene of Elizabeth's salutation to the Virgin Mary and the beautiful canticle of the Magnificat, in which Mary announced: 'from now on all generations shall call me blessed'. He did not say anything to his mother and began to pray the Hail Mary every day again, as he used to do. He felt pleasure in telling those beautiful words to the Mother of Jesus, Our Savior.

When he turned fourteen, one day he heard his family discussing about Our Lady. They all said that Mary was an ordinary woman. The boy, after hearing their erroneous reasoning, could not take it anymore and, full of indignation, he interrupted them saying: "Mary is not like any other son of Adam, stained with sin. No! The Angel called her FULL OF GRACE AND BLESSED AMONG WOMEN. Mary is the Mother of Jesus and consequently, the Mother of God. There is no greater dignity to which a creature can aspire. The Gospel says that all generations shall call her blessed, while you try to despise her. Your spirit is not the spirit of the Gospel or the Bible you claim is the foundation of the Christian religion."

The impression made by the boy's words on his mother was so deep that she often wept inconsolably: "Oh, God, I fear that this son of mine will one day join the Catholic religion, the religion of the Popes!" And indeed, a short time later, the son was convinced that the Catholic religion was the only authentic one, he embraced it and became one of his most ardent apostles.

A few years after his conversion, the protagonist of our story found his sister already married. He wanted to greet her and hug her, but she rejected him and said indignantly: "You have no idea how much I love my children. If one of them wanted to become Catholic, I would first bury a dagger in their heart than allow them to embrace the religion of the Popes."

Her anger and temper were as furious as those of St. Paul before his conversion. However, she would soon change her mind, as happened to St. Paul on his way to Damascus. It happened that one of her children fell seriously ill. The doctors gave no hope for his recovery. As soon as her brother found out, he looked for her in the hospital and spoke to her with affection, saying: "Dear sister, you naturally want your child to be cured. Very well, then do what I'm going to ask you. Let us pray together a Hail Mary and promise God, that if your child recovers, you will study the Catholic doctrine. And in case you come to the conclusion that Catholicism is the only true religion, you will embrace it no matter what sacrifices this implies."

His sister was initially reluctant, but she wanted her son to recover, so she accepted his brother's proposal and prayed with him a Hail Mary. The next day, her son was completely healed. The mother fulfilled her promise and began studying the Catholic doctrine. After intense preparation, she received Baptism in the Catholic Church along with her entire family. How much she thanked her brother that he had been an apostle to her.

This story was told by Father Francis Tuckwell in one of his homilies. "Brothers," he concluded, "the Protestant boy who became a Catholic and converted his sister to Catholicism, devoted his whole life to the service of God. He is the priest who speaks to you now. How much I owe to the Blessed Virgin, Our Lady! You too, my dear brothers, dedicate yourselves completely to serving Our Lady and do not let a single day pass without saying the beautiful prayer of the Hail Mary as well as your Rosary. Ask her to enlighten the minds of Protestants who are separated from the true Church of Christ founded on the Rock (Peter) and against which 'the gates of hell will never prevail'."