San Fernando: Scene 1

Queen Isabel victory speech: 

After 7 centuries, my husband Fernando named after the greatest Catholic king in history has just completed the longest crusade against  the invaders of our land by defeating the last stronghold of the Moorish enemy in Granada. He and I know that if it wasn't for generations of heroes this day would never have come. I especially remember my great friend and the historian Don F. telling my how my great-great-great-grandfather the saintly King Fernando III and his grandfather were the cornerstone of this day that ending today after 740 years. But without my great-great-great grandmother Queen Berenguera's trust in God's mercy and her giving her son Fernando to Our Lady we  would have completed the 700 crusade for Christ and Christoper Columbus have opened a new world to bring the salvation of Christ.

Two hundred years ago, my great ancestor Donna Berenguera in tears was kissing her son just a boy with a body covered with cruel sores causing him unrelieved torture at the door of death. She made a decision then to take him to the Church of Our Lady of Ona to beg the Blessed Mother for the life of Fernando that saved Spain from the invaders and opened the door to a new world being evangelized  for Christ.

Faded away. 

Berenguera in tears at the church with Fernando lying in front of her and Our Lady of Ona behind him, she cries out: 

Mistress of Heaven, remember that you are the Mother of Mercy! Turn your eyes away from my sin as a queen and consider my sufferings as a mother. I know well the mercy of thy Son. You, my Mother, who suffered these same sorrows help me in my need. The reason for his affliction is the punishment for my sins forgive my sins.

Look, oh Mother at this my son because he's yours and never was it heard that whoever is yours and trust in you was left desolate and unaided. Remember that he is your servant and you must cure him if you desire any service of him. 

Berenguera then is quiet with her hands folded in prayer and her head on her hands and then she looks at her son. The sores are gone and she weeps for joy seeing Fernando sitting up cured and she makes the sign of the cross and says:

Thank you, Mother and Queen of Heaven, for my son sores are gone and he is as unblemished as the day he was born. I can see his soul is changed for I see his eyes now shine with a deep light that is proof that you have accepted him as your son and he has eternally chosen you your Son as his King and you as his Queen. 

My God, You and your most Blessed Mother have condescended to answer my prayers. He is now  your servant and son. 

Fade away.

Scene change and a 10 year old Fernando says to his mother:

Thank you for telling me again how Our Lady of miraculously cured me and you consecrated me to her I thank you for your love for me and I thank Holy Mary for her love for you and me. But most of all I thank the King of Kings, 

Berenguera smiles saying: 

I love you very much but she loves you even more and you are consecrated to her and her Son 

Fernando relies: 

Mother as soon as I become a tall man I will build in my land a very great church and will call it Holy Mary  and when I return for making war against the Moors who have invaded our Land and winning great winning great battles I will retake our invaded land and I will hang all their standards before the altar of our Lady.

The boy Fernando's eyes shined as he as he asks the warrior Archbishop:

Tell again me what happened that day when my grandfather King Alfonso saved Spain from total destruction.

Archbishop Rodrigo Jimenez de Rada: 

Remember what your great grandfather and grandfather faced, the Moors desire to destory the Christian kingdom while raping and taking of our wifes, sisters, and daughters as sex slaves as well as trophy beheadings and massacres that were continual. They cut off the knights head dead or alive and send them to the theirs principle towns of the Muslim empire. Sometimes the skulls and corpses were to huge piles of bloody mass.

With this in mind, what you grandfather with his small Christian army proposed to do was courageous sheer madness when he readied to charge down into a Muslim combined army of over a hundred thousand as his troops seemed ready to crumble. 

I remember the battle was seemingly almost lost, your grandfather shouted, "Archbishop, let you and me die here!" I roared back, "Here you shall defeat the enemy! 

He burst into into the battle-lines where we were about to be defeated and the whole battle turned. Seeing your fearless grandfather, the other three kings rallied their knights, with the Christian of banners of Santiago and Our Lady and broke through the line and the Moors huge army fled or were killed. Spain miraculously by Our Lord and Our Lady was saved  

Berenguera beaming says: 

Your grandfather and the archbishop saved Spain, but Our Lady saved you when you were a boy covered with layers of sores of disease and corruption and you belong to Christ the King through her and you will do great things for her.

Scene change next paragraph 

Berenguera is crying but says to Fernando

My son, all of Castile is in mourning for the death of your grandfather the king yet you do not weep.

Fernando who is 16 years old now it says mother:

 I am sorrowful because grandfather was unlike my father he showed me what it was to be a man and a knight. No one was more wise more valiant and more skilled in battle and yet more loving to his family unto his subject I miss him very much oh Lord and our lady have shown me that I have never known a greater man because by God's grace he raised you and me to put God first what remains of his kingdom now what remains of his kingdom now but the good deeds he did for God in Grace the Justice he administered to the poor and the helpers who he protected his deep and practical faith is All that remains nothing else remains I know with certainty that nothing else mattered grandfather fought the good fight and is gone to enjoy the word he married it 

Berenguera:

Son at the funeral mass after receiving our Lord and holy Communion you seemed a million miles away 

Fernando:

Mother, Jesus Christ spoke to me and I spoke to him I told him that he is my king and I am his Knight who will suffer great labors for him in the wars against the Moors I want to shed my blood for him told him and that of his glorious mother 

Sometime later...

Berenguera:

My son, your uncle's death has put in motion many things your uncle Enrique who is only a boy is under the control of the Count Alvaro family, a family who I fear do not put God first, but will be power 

Fernando:

 I know mother and my distant father who I have not seen since I was a boy is calling for me to go to his kingdom and I must go and leave you and my home and leave you in my home but Jesus Christ redeemed us not in his mother sweetheart arms but in the hard arms of the Cross and his night shall not serve him in any other way

Curtains close and it's some years later

Fernando now a young man of 18 arrives looking for his mother: 

Where is my mother and who will soon be my queen, as I was racing to her I was thinking of how she and Our Lady saved me when I was a boy. I rushed here because I know she will be queen with the death of my uncle Enrique. I'm here to defend her against the approaching traitor Count Alvaro and his army who wants to steal the crown. I want nothing more than to defend her honor, my future queen.