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older sisters, who were both married. Her sisters had experimented with the Bad Things during the Seventies, and they told Donna that these weren't worth the troublethey caused. Drugs got old and made you paranoid and apathetic–just look around at the 'heads' in your school, they told her. Sex before marriage was either a disappointing downer or a dangerous drug in its own right. Sex could make you stunod –stupid–about selfish men. Don't bother. One of her older sisters, Cindy, had been married briefly, outside of the Church, to an older divorced man, and that had been an ugly scene. The marriage had not been recognized by the Church. "If I hadn't slept with him, I wouldn't have married him," Cindy had counseled Donna.
    Then Donna answered the silent call. She wasn't aware it was a call at the time, but it was a real call nevertheless. It was the call of grace. A simple, lovely invitation from the Blessed Mother. Donna was walking home from schoolalone, and decided to take an alternate route, a route which took her by her parish church, Holy Rosary.
    She found herself walking into the empty church on a sunny winter afternoon, the wind stopping as the thick door closed behind her, and grace flooded unknown into her heart. The Blessed Mother had been keenly following Donna's search for the truth, and had procured from her Son special gracesfor the stout little girl with nice hair and dark brown eyes.
    While sitting in Sam's pick-up, Donna was suddenly back in the church, listening to her shoes tap the tile floor as she walked toward the front, which was filled with stained-glass-colored light reflecting off the marble and brass of the altar. She found herself kneeling before a particularly lifelike statue of Saint Anthony, but curiouslyfound herself asking Our Lady for help. She had one question, which was her only prayer:
    Why should I be good? Just because my parents are good?
    Donna did not feel the grace that flooded her heart on that day, but a sluice door was opened that afternoon which was never closed again.
    In her human perception, the grace came in the form of a prompting to pray the Rosary. Her family had prayed theRosary every evening after dinner, but the prayer had become mere words to Donna over the last few years, even though she had loved the Rosary when she was a little girl. It was useless to try to get out of saying it because both her parents were so insistent.
    Now, in this church, on this day, she felt an urge to say a good Rosary.
    If I say this Rosary, I'll have the answer to my question, shethought, quite correctly.
    She looked up at the statue of Saint Anthony, and then down to her right and saw a set of plastic rosary beads on the kneeler.
    Strange, she thought.
    She picked up the beads and began to pray, not say, the Rosary for the first time in years. She concentrated on the words, her eyes closed, and did not rush through the prayers. She asked sincerely during the last part ofevery Hail Mary, "Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death."
    The words struck her as never before, especially the part about the hour of death.
    The Rosary is a preparation for heaven, she thought.
    Heaven.
    Donna continued to pray, meditating on the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary here and there between concentrating on the words of the prayers. She picturedOur Lady, a young girl herself, accepting the huge responsibility to conceive by the Holy Spirit and bear the Son of God. She pictured Mary visiting her cousin Elizabeth, with John jumping in the womb.
    Why were you good, Mary?
    In Donna's heart, Mary answered the simple question with a simple answer. To Donna, the answer came as a thought, and was not accompanied by lightning bolts or mysticalphenomena.
    Because God is Goodness Itself and she desired to please God.
    The answer made sense to Donna. God is Good. God is Good. I'm here on this earth to please God, she repeated to herself. It was like the axioms she had learned in