The Nun Whose Place Our Lady Kept

Related by Cesarius and Father Rho.

Beatrice was a nun in the monastery of Fontevrault, where she served as portress and kept the keys. She fell in love with a young man and agreed to run away with him. One day she went before a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, left the keys of the monastery there, and boldly walked out. In a distant country she lived for fifteen years in grave sin, far from God.

Then one day she happened to meet the monastery's agent in the city where she was living, and, thinking he would not recognize her, asked him whether he knew sister Beatrice. "I know her well," he answered. "She is a holy nun, and she is now the mistress of novices." Astonished and unable to make sense of this, she put on a disguise and went to the monastery to see for herself. She asked for sister Beatrice, and Our Lady appeared to her in the very form of the image to which she had once handed her keys and her habit.

The Blessed Mother said, "Beatrice, know that to save you from disgrace I took your form and filled your place for the fifteen years you lived away from the monastery and from God. My child, come back and do penance, for my Son is still waiting for you. Live a holy life now, and keep the good name I have preserved for you."

Then she disappeared. Beatrice went back into the monastery, took up the religious habit again, and, grateful for Mary's mercy, lived the rest of her life like a saint. Before she died she told the whole story, to the glory of Our Lady.

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Source:

Simplified retellings of the "example" stories that St. Alphonsus Liguori placed at the end of each section of The Glories of Mary. These are paraphrased in plain modern prose, faithful to the substance of the 1888 English translation. Liguori himself, in his author's "Protest," noted that the miracles and apparitions in the book are offered on human authority only, not as articles of faith.