A certain man, on account of his great crimes, was condemned to death. Hearing of this, a priest went to him with the hope of preparing him to die well. The wicked man, however, was so bitterly opposed to anything holy that he would not allow the good priest to speak to him at all about God and eternity. The priest wept for the hardened criminal and begged him not to ruin the salvation of his soul. When he saw that his words were in vain, the priest - desperate to touch the condemned man’s heart - threw himself upon his knees at the criminal’s feet, pleading with even greater sincerity that he realize the great danger his soul was in. But it was all no use; the heart of the criminal, harder than stone, would not yield to the grace of God.

The poor priest was discouraged and worried. The execution was not far away and he did not know how much time he would have to help this poor man. This criminal seemed determined to resist God’s graces, and the priest had used every argument he could think of to change his mind. Who could he call upon in Heaven to break into this man’s hardened heart?

Suddenly, the priest was inspired to call upon Our Lady for this emergency. With as much trust and fervor as he could muster, the priest inwardly prayed to Our Lady to help him know what to do. Then, acting upon an inspiration, he calmly said to the condemned man,

"Before I leave you, will you grant me one little favor?"

The man, more to get rid of the troublesome priest than to please him, answered that he would.

"Let us, then," the priest said, "say together one Hail Mary."

They began to pray the holy prayer, but scarcely had they said the first words of it, when there came over the poor man a great feeling of repentance. Tears fell from his eyes, and the next instant he now was on his knees at the feet of the priest, and once the prayer was ended he begged the man of God to hear his confession immediately.

One may wonder why it took only one short Hail Mary to open up that man’s heart to grace. But far more than one Hail Mary had been offered up for his soul. How many other prayers and sacrifices had the steadfast priest offered for the man’s conversion! The disappointment of his charitable counsel ignored, the fear that his efforts would account for nothing, and even the sacrifice of going to the prison in the first place to help the man when he had no guarantee of success – the merits from all of these sufferings, and most especially the confidence the priest had in our Blessed Mother, gave Mary what She needed to open the criminal’s heart just enough to let all the sacrifices, sufferings, and prayers for his conversion enter in and change him.

No doubt it was Mary’s powerful love, a love so "full of grace", which purified those merits and made the poor man’s contrition perfect and true. And this it was, for the criminal confessed all his sins with every mark of sincere sorrow, and when the time of his execution came he calmly died, pressing an image of Mary to his heart.