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| MEDITATIONS ON THE LITANY OF OUR LADY | LITANIES FOR PASSIONTIDE |
MAY & OCTOBER—TRADITIONAL MONTHS FOR RECITING THE LITANY OF OUR LORETO
It is a traditional practice in the Church, to recite the Litany of Loreto during the months of May and October. The Litany of the Blessed Virgin–also called the Litany of Loreto–is one of the many Marian litanies, or praises of Mary, composed during the Middle Ages. The place of honor it now holds, in the life of the Church, is due its faithful use at the shrine of the Holy House at Loreto, which, according to tradition, was the small cottage-like home where the Holy Family had lived and which was miraculously transported by angels, in 1291, from the Holy Land to its present location in Loreto. It was definitely recommended by Pope Clement VII and approved by Pope Sixtus V in 1587, and all other Marian litanies were suppressed, at least for public use.
Its forty-nine titles (fifty, or fifty-one, or even more, in some versions: with “Mother of the Church” and “Mother of Mercy” and, being the ‘official newcomers’ in recent times, are included on the Vatican website version and invocations set before us Mary's exalted privileges, her holiness of life, her amiability and power, her motherly spirit and queenly majesty. Reflection on the titles of the litany, therefore, will unfold before us a magnificent picture of our heavenly Mother, even though we know little from Holy Scripture about her life.
In its form, the Litany of Loreto is composed on a fixed plan common to several Marian litanies already in existence during the second half of the fifteenth century, which, in turn, are connected with a notable series of Marian litanies that began to appear in the twelfth century and became numerous in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Loreto text had, however, the good fortune to be adopted in the famous shrine, and in this way to become known, more than any other, to the many pilgrims who flocked there during the sixteenth century. The text was brought home to the various countries of Christendom, and finally it received for all time the supreme ecclesiastical sanction.
Pope Sixtus V, who had entertained a singular devotion for Loreto, by the Papal Bull Reddituri of 11 July, 1587, gave formal approval to it, as to the litany of the Holy Name of Jesus, and recommended preachers everywhere to propagate its use among the faithful.
The Litany of the Blessed Virgin–also called the Litany of Loreto–is one of the many Marian litanies, or praises of Mary, composed during the Middle Ages. The place of honor it now holds, in the life of the Church, is due its faithful use at the shrine of the Holy House at Loreto, which, according to tradition, was the small cottage-like home where the Holy Family had lived and which was miraculously transported by angels, in 1291, from the Holy Land to its present location in Loreto. It was definitely recommended by Pope Clement VII and approved by Pope Sixtus V in 1587, and all other Marian litanies were suppressed, at least for public use.
Its forty-nine titles (fifty, or fifty-one, or even more, in some versions: with “Mother of the Church” and “Mother of Mercy” and, being the ‘official newcomers’ in recent times, are included on the Vatican website version and invocations set before us Mary's exalted privileges, her holiness of life, her amiability and power, her motherly spirit and queenly majesty. Reflection on the titles of the litany, therefore, will unfold before us a magnificent picture of our heavenly Mother, even though we know little from Holy Scripture about her life.
In its form, the Litany of Loreto is composed on a fixed plan common to several Marian litanies already in existence during the second half of the fifteenth century, which, in turn, are connected with a notable series of Marian litanies that began to appear in the twelfth century and became numerous in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Loreto text had, however, the good fortune to be adopted in the famous shrine, and in this way to become known, more than any other, to the many pilgrims who flocked there during the sixteenth century. The text was brought home to the various countries of Christendom, and finally it received for all time the supreme ecclesiastical sanction.
Pope Sixtus V, who had entertained a singular devotion for Loreto, by the Papal Bull Reddituri of 11 July, 1587, gave formal approval to it, as to the litany of the Holy Name of Jesus, and recommended preachers everywhere to propagate its use among the faithful.
Its forty-nine titles (fifty, or fifty-one, or even more, in some versions: with “Mother of the Church” and “Mother of Mercy” and, being the ‘official newcomers’ in recent times, are included on the Vatican website version and invocations set before us Mary's exalted privileges, her holiness of life, her amiability and power, her motherly spirit and queenly majesty. Reflection on the titles of the litany, therefore, will unfold before us a magnificent picture of our heavenly Mother, even though we know little from Holy Scripture about her life.
In its form, the Litany of Loreto is composed on a fixed plan common to several Marian litanies already in existence during the second half of the fifteenth century, which, in turn, are connected with a notable series of Marian litanies that began to appear in the twelfth century and became numerous in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Loreto text had, however, the good fortune to be adopted in the famous shrine, and in this way to become known, more than any other, to the many pilgrims who flocked there during the sixteenth century. The text was brought home to the various countries of Christendom, and finally it received for all time the supreme ecclesiastical sanction.
Pope Sixtus V, who had entertained a singular devotion for Loreto, by the Papal Bull Reddituri of 11 July, 1587, gave formal approval to it, as to the litany of the Holy Name of Jesus, and recommended preachers everywhere to propagate its use among the faithful.
The Litany of the Blessed Virgin–also called the Litany of Loreto–is one of the many Marian litanies, or praises of Mary, composed during the Middle Ages. The place of honor it now holds, in the life of the Church, is due its faithful use at the shrine of the Holy House at Loreto, which, according to tradition, was the small cottage-like home where the Holy Family had lived and which was miraculously transported by angels, in 1291, from the Holy Land to its present location in Loreto. It was definitely recommended by Pope Clement VII and approved by Pope Sixtus V in 1587, and all other Marian litanies were suppressed, at least for public use.
Its forty-nine titles (fifty, or fifty-one, or even more, in some versions: with “Mother of the Church” and “Mother of Mercy” and, being the ‘official newcomers’ in recent times, are included on the Vatican website version and invocations set before us Mary's exalted privileges, her holiness of life, her amiability and power, her motherly spirit and queenly majesty. Reflection on the titles of the litany, therefore, will unfold before us a magnificent picture of our heavenly Mother, even though we know little from Holy Scripture about her life.
In its form, the Litany of Loreto is composed on a fixed plan common to several Marian litanies already in existence during the second half of the fifteenth century, which, in turn, are connected with a notable series of Marian litanies that began to appear in the twelfth century and became numerous in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Loreto text had, however, the good fortune to be adopted in the famous shrine, and in this way to become known, more than any other, to the many pilgrims who flocked there during the sixteenth century. The text was brought home to the various countries of Christendom, and finally it received for all time the supreme ecclesiastical sanction.
Pope Sixtus V, who had entertained a singular devotion for Loreto, by the Papal Bull Reddituri of 11 July, 1587, gave formal approval to it, as to the litany of the Holy Name of Jesus, and recommended preachers everywhere to propagate its use among the faithful.
1. HOLY MARY
Why Holy?
Holy Mary! Holy, because she was chosen to be the Mother of God, while remaining the Holy Virgin of Virgins. Always holy! Holy one! And justly so, because it is in fact her real name—“the holy one.” Scholars have had endless discussion about the meaning of the name Mary, but to no practical end. I wish we knew the real meaning of it. It would be illuminating, for it is quite impossible to believe that God left to chance the naming of His Mother. She was too tremendous a creation for that. But so far, it is one of God's secrets, a secret that is perhaps reserved for us for the moment we get by the gates of Heaven.
The Name Mary
So whether Mary means "Star of the Sea" or "Drop of the Sea" or "Exalted" or "Strong" or "Powerful" or “Illuminating" or "Well-Beloved" or "Lady" or "The Beautiful or Perfect one" or "Bitter Sea," we are not absolutely sure in the way of knowing. But when all is said and done, God did give her her true name, even though He may not have chosen "Mary." He sent her, through Gabriel, her real name. Her first troubadour, pronounced it with his "Hail, full of grace!" That is the name that distinguishes her from other Mary's, the name that sets her apart as the "Holy Mary," the holy one, because she is full of the grace of God.
Holy comes before Mary
It is that grace, that holiness, added to the name Mary, that emblazons it against the blue of the sky, the Woman clothed with the Sun. Holiness—that is the essential meaning of Mary, the Mother of God; and holiness has to be the essential element in our own lives. St. Jerome had a like thought when he said--"What is there to name Mary but sanctification." Likewise, what is there that we can wish to possess in this world more than holiness?
“There is none holy as the Lord is” (1 Kings 2:2). “It is written: ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’” (1 Peter 1:16) ...“You shall be holy, because I am holy” (Leviticus 11:46). Jesus said to us: “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).
If God is so holy, then the more we let God into our loves, the holier will be become. To Our Lady the Angel Gabriel said: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee” (Luke 1:35). As a result, she would be “born…of…the Holy Ghost” (John 3:5) and “grow up into a holy temple in the Lord” (Ephesians 2:21) … “holy, pleasing unto God” (Romans 12:1).
Pinnacle of Creation
We learn from the book of Genesis that after His various creations God examined them, and saw that they were good. God loves all the things which He has created, loves them with an everlasting love; He loves men and minds and matter; He loves everything because everything that is, is good, that is, everything except sin. Sin He hates because He is infinitely holy, and because sin is the one big, black blotch on the face of creation. But that foul monster never touched or tainted the Immaculate Mother.
When He made His beautiful, His spotless one, He carefully numbered her. With what number, it may be asked? Surely number one, for she was the first of all creatures, the chef d’oeuvre, the masterpiece of the whole of God’s creation. We know that when a piece of choice material is folded together, it may seem faultless and clean, for we cannot see what is folded-away inside; but if it is opened out in broad daylight, many a flaw may be discovered, many a crease and perhaps unsightly spot will stand revealed; but in Mary’s holy, not a speck was visible, even to the searching gaze of the Maker. Nothing but a wide expanse of glittering, peerless brilliancy and holiness unrolled itself before Him. When my turn comes to be measured, what will come to light? One's mind shrinks in fear from the thought of our infinitely holy God handling anything so unholy. What will be shaken out of the endless creases? The imagination recoils in horror from the picture conjured up.
“He created her in the Holy Ghost, and saw her, and numbered her, and measured her. And He poured her out upon all His works, and upon all flesh according to His gift, and hath given her to them that love Him” (Ecclesiasticus 1:9-10). "He measured her." There is a calmness of purpose shown by that phrase. When we measure a thing we are in earnest about it. We want no mistakes, no ocular delusions. We take down our measurements. We examine if they are long enough, sufficiently wide for our purpose. Now God was deeply in earnest when He measured Mary. He was not like the foolish man against whom we are warned in the Gospel, who began to build a house, not having wherewith to finish it. He wanted her for a definite purpose. He wanted a mother for Himself, and so He "sanctified His tabernacle" (Psalm 45:5). He wanted, too, a mother for His brethren, and so, having measured her, and not finding her wanting, "He poured her out on all mankind."
Children Resemble their Parents
Mary, the Mother of the Holy One and full of grace, must be holy; the Queen of all saints must possess the highest degree of holiness. This holy Mother is also our Mother, and she desires nothing more than to see her children resemble her and her divine Son.
“In My holy mountain, in the high mountain of Israel, saith the Lord God, there shall all the house of Israel serve Me” (Ezechiel 20:40). Mary can be said to the that ‘mountain’—like Mount Carmel—who rises up above all the lowly hills of holiness that surround her. “That He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy, and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:27). The less ‘blemishes’ on the soul, the more powerful that soul’s prayer is before God: “Now we know that God doth not hear sinners: but if a man be a server of God, and doth his will, him He heareth” (John 9:31). The holiness of Mary is a holiness without blemish—hence her prayers possess a supreme power.
Power of Mary’s Holiness
“Now therefore pray for us, for thou art a holy woman, and one fearing God” (Judith 8:29). “And thou shalt sanctify all, and they shall be most holy” (Exodus 30:29). As Mary sanctified the household of Zachary, Elizabeth and the child in her womb—John the Baptist—so too can she sanctify our household if she is invited and listened to. Mary is the holy and believing daughter, mother and spouse of God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Her holiness radiates to and sanctifies those who approach her. As St. Paul says: “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife; and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the believing husband: otherwise your children should be unclean; but now they are holy” (1 Corinthians 7:14). Likewise, the faithful and believing Mary will sanctify and save the unfaithful and unbelieving that we are, or once have been.
We Must Also Be Holy
It is not only Mary who has to be and is holy; nor is it—out the millions and billions of souls that have ever existed and will exist— just a few saints that have to be holy. No, every single soul was created by God to be holy. “Let them therefore be holy, because I also am holy, the Lord, Who sanctify them” (Leviticus 21:8). “Know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, Who is in you, Whom you have from God; and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19). “But if any man violate the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the temple of God is holy, which you are” (1 Corinthians 3:17). “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in His sight in charity” (Ephesians 1:4). “The Lord will raise thee up to be a holy people to Himself, as He swore to thee: if thou keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, and walk in His ways” (Deuteronomy 28:9). In virtue of this life we are holy, but we are to become more holy from day to day, "for this is the will of God, your sanctification" (1 Thessalonians 4:3).
Sin Brings Death to Holiness
Sin and mediocrity, even though it exists, was not the desire, intention and plan of God. As Holy Scripture says, looking at the work of His creation “God saw that it was good… And God saw all the things that He had made, and they were very good.” (Genesis 1:10; 1:31). Sin and mediocrity came into the world through the works of the devil and man. “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned” (Romans 5:12). “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23) and “the sting of death is sin” (1 Corinthians 15:56). “When concupiscence hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin. But sin, when it is completed, begetteth death” (James 1:15).
The Medicine of Mary’s Holiness
We need the holiness of Mary to counter the evil of our sins. She is the holy masterpiece of God, the holy Temple of God: “The Lord is in His holy temple” (Psalms 10:5). “Know ye also that the Lord hath made his holy one wonderful” (Psalms 4:4). Holy Mary is without sin—her holiness is a perfect holiness—and she can help pull us out of the mire of sin: “Pray to the Lord your God, that He take away from me this death” (Exodus 10:17). We cry out to God and beg Him to give us Holy Mary as a help in our predicament: “Send her out of Thy holy Heaven, and from the throne of Thy majesty, that she may be with me, and may labor with me, that I may know what is acceptable with Thee” (Wisdom 9:10). “He created her in the Holy Ghost, and saw her, and numbered her, and measured her. And He poured her out upon all His works, and upon all flesh according to His gift, and hath given her to them that love Him” (Ecclesiasticus 1:9-10). “They that serve her, shall be servants to the holy one: and God loveth them that love her” (Ecclesiasticus 4:15).
God will gladly give Holy Mary to them that love Him and who want to be like Him—that is to say, holy: “And thou shalt sanctify all, and they shall be most holy” (Exodus 30:29). For holiness is our vocation; holiness is what perfects our being made in the image and likeness of God; holiness is a command of God’s; holiness is the means for attaining eternal life and avoiding the death of sin.
Catholics—like the Chosen People—have an
Obligation to Holiness
The words God addressed to the Chosen People of the Old Testament, apply equally to the Chosen People of the New Testament—the Catholics. God Himself says: “Be ye holy, because I the Lord your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2). “Sanctify yourselves, and be ye holy, because I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 20:7). “You shall be holy unto Me, because I the Lord am holy, and I have separated you from other people, that you should be Mine” (Leviticus 20:26). “Because thou art a holy people to the Lord thy God. The Lord thy God hath chosen thee, to be His peculiar people of all peoples that are upon the earth” (Deuteronomy 7:6). These are the commands of God.
Universal Vocation of Holiness
This vocation to holiness and the role that Holy Mary has to play in it, is beautifully stated by St. Louis Marie de Montfort, in his book The Secret of Mary:
“Chosen soul, living image of God and redeemed by the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, God wants you to become holy like Him in this life, and glorious like Him in the next. It is certain that growth in the holiness of God is your vocation. All your thoughts, words, actions, everything you suffer or undertake, must lead you towards that end. Otherwise you are resisting God, in not doing the work for which He created you and for which He is even now keeping you in being ... Chosen soul, how will you bring this about? What steps will you take to reach the high level to which God is calling you? The means of holiness and salvation are known to everybody, since they are found in the Gospel; the masters of the spiritual life have explained them; the saints have practiced them and shown how essential they are for those who wish to be saved and attain perfection. These means are: sincere humility, unceasing prayer, complete self-denial, abandonment to divine Providence, and obedience to the will of God. The grace and help of God are absolutely necessary for us to practice all these. We are sure that grace will be given to all, though not in the same measure. No one can contest these principles. It all comes to this, then. We must discover a simple means to obtain from God the grace needed to become holy. It is precisely this I wish to teach you. My contention is that you must first discover Mary if you would obtain this grace from God” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of Mary).
The Name Mary
We first pronounce the world “Holy” and only then do we say “Mary.” Just as the soul gives life to the body; so too does holiness give life to the soul. A soul in the state that is opposed to holiness—namely, the state of sin—is either dying to God (as in the case of venial sin) or is already dead to God (as in the case of mortal sin). “For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?” (Matthew 8:36). What good is it giving someone a beautiful name if they are not also given the beauty of holiness? Will the beautiful name save them? No. The beauty of holiness will save them. Mary’s name is so powerful because she is so holy. Without that holiness, that name would lose its power.
What a reverence St. Bernard had for the Name of Mary! "In the Name of Mary every knee bows; the devils not only fear but tremble at the very sound of this name." And likewise Thomas à Kempis: "Glorious, indeed, and admirable is thy name, O Mary: for those who pronounce it at death need not fear all the powers of Hell." It brings to mind the verse concerning the woman clothed with the sun from the Book of Apocalypse, who is "like an army set in battle array."
Power and Weakness; Life and Death
Holiness brings a power in battle; sinfulness brings a weakness in battle. Holiness leads to life—eternal life in Heaven; sinfulness leads to death—eternal ‘death’ in Hell.
St Paul tells us our warfare is not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers and the spirits of evil in high places. And did Mary not withstand them? St Bonaventure says: "Mary alone was free from every vice and shone with every virtue. To pride she opposed humility most lowly; to envy, charity most loving; to sloth, diligence most unwearied; to anger, meekness most gentle; to avarice, poverty most straitened; to gluttony, sobriety most temperate; to sensuality, virginity most chaste" (Speculum B.V.M., Lect. 10).
To be holy is the first and foremost task of the Christian. A certain minimum of holiness is necessary for salvation, but the higher degrees of holiness are the aspiration and hope of all true lovers of God. Nothing bestows upon man greater worth and dignity. The beginning of Christian holiness was given us in baptism, and it is the will of God that we guard and develop it. Therefore St. Peter writes, “As the One who called you is holy, be you also holy in all your conversation; for it is written, ‘You shall be holy, because I am holy’” (1 Peter 1:15). As Mary is our leader to Christ, so she is our leader to holiness. The more we appreciate and desire her guidance, the more freely she can act.
That is why we, who are sinners, and who, of ourselves can do nothing but sin, have still Faith enough to call on Mary in our trials and our necessities. If we live in dread to approach her, because she is so holy, we must always remember the merciful titles which the hope and trust of all centuries have given her. As the pale, yet lovely moon does nothing but shine, so Mary, the holy woman, does nothing but love God and intercede for sinners—intercede and is never refused—That is why from the depths of our sinning hearts we say: “Holy Mary ... pray for us, pray for us sinners!”
Holy Mary! Holy, because she was chosen to be the Mother of God, while remaining the Holy Virgin of Virgins. Always holy! Holy one! And justly so, because it is in fact her real name—“the holy one.” Scholars have had endless discussion about the meaning of the name Mary, but to no practical end. I wish we knew the real meaning of it. It would be illuminating, for it is quite impossible to believe that God left to chance the naming of His Mother. She was too tremendous a creation for that. But so far, it is one of God's secrets, a secret that is perhaps reserved for us for the moment we get by the gates of Heaven.
The Name Mary
So whether Mary means "Star of the Sea" or "Drop of the Sea" or "Exalted" or "Strong" or "Powerful" or “Illuminating" or "Well-Beloved" or "Lady" or "The Beautiful or Perfect one" or "Bitter Sea," we are not absolutely sure in the way of knowing. But when all is said and done, God did give her her true name, even though He may not have chosen "Mary." He sent her, through Gabriel, her real name. Her first troubadour, pronounced it with his "Hail, full of grace!" That is the name that distinguishes her from other Mary's, the name that sets her apart as the "Holy Mary," the holy one, because she is full of the grace of God.
Holy comes before Mary
It is that grace, that holiness, added to the name Mary, that emblazons it against the blue of the sky, the Woman clothed with the Sun. Holiness—that is the essential meaning of Mary, the Mother of God; and holiness has to be the essential element in our own lives. St. Jerome had a like thought when he said--"What is there to name Mary but sanctification." Likewise, what is there that we can wish to possess in this world more than holiness?
“There is none holy as the Lord is” (1 Kings 2:2). “It is written: ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’” (1 Peter 1:16) ...“You shall be holy, because I am holy” (Leviticus 11:46). Jesus said to us: “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).
If God is so holy, then the more we let God into our loves, the holier will be become. To Our Lady the Angel Gabriel said: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee” (Luke 1:35). As a result, she would be “born…of…the Holy Ghost” (John 3:5) and “grow up into a holy temple in the Lord” (Ephesians 2:21) … “holy, pleasing unto God” (Romans 12:1).
Pinnacle of Creation
We learn from the book of Genesis that after His various creations God examined them, and saw that they were good. God loves all the things which He has created, loves them with an everlasting love; He loves men and minds and matter; He loves everything because everything that is, is good, that is, everything except sin. Sin He hates because He is infinitely holy, and because sin is the one big, black blotch on the face of creation. But that foul monster never touched or tainted the Immaculate Mother.
When He made His beautiful, His spotless one, He carefully numbered her. With what number, it may be asked? Surely number one, for she was the first of all creatures, the chef d’oeuvre, the masterpiece of the whole of God’s creation. We know that when a piece of choice material is folded together, it may seem faultless and clean, for we cannot see what is folded-away inside; but if it is opened out in broad daylight, many a flaw may be discovered, many a crease and perhaps unsightly spot will stand revealed; but in Mary’s holy, not a speck was visible, even to the searching gaze of the Maker. Nothing but a wide expanse of glittering, peerless brilliancy and holiness unrolled itself before Him. When my turn comes to be measured, what will come to light? One's mind shrinks in fear from the thought of our infinitely holy God handling anything so unholy. What will be shaken out of the endless creases? The imagination recoils in horror from the picture conjured up.
“He created her in the Holy Ghost, and saw her, and numbered her, and measured her. And He poured her out upon all His works, and upon all flesh according to His gift, and hath given her to them that love Him” (Ecclesiasticus 1:9-10). "He measured her." There is a calmness of purpose shown by that phrase. When we measure a thing we are in earnest about it. We want no mistakes, no ocular delusions. We take down our measurements. We examine if they are long enough, sufficiently wide for our purpose. Now God was deeply in earnest when He measured Mary. He was not like the foolish man against whom we are warned in the Gospel, who began to build a house, not having wherewith to finish it. He wanted her for a definite purpose. He wanted a mother for Himself, and so He "sanctified His tabernacle" (Psalm 45:5). He wanted, too, a mother for His brethren, and so, having measured her, and not finding her wanting, "He poured her out on all mankind."
Children Resemble their Parents
Mary, the Mother of the Holy One and full of grace, must be holy; the Queen of all saints must possess the highest degree of holiness. This holy Mother is also our Mother, and she desires nothing more than to see her children resemble her and her divine Son.
“In My holy mountain, in the high mountain of Israel, saith the Lord God, there shall all the house of Israel serve Me” (Ezechiel 20:40). Mary can be said to the that ‘mountain’—like Mount Carmel—who rises up above all the lowly hills of holiness that surround her. “That He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy, and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:27). The less ‘blemishes’ on the soul, the more powerful that soul’s prayer is before God: “Now we know that God doth not hear sinners: but if a man be a server of God, and doth his will, him He heareth” (John 9:31). The holiness of Mary is a holiness without blemish—hence her prayers possess a supreme power.
Power of Mary’s Holiness
“Now therefore pray for us, for thou art a holy woman, and one fearing God” (Judith 8:29). “And thou shalt sanctify all, and they shall be most holy” (Exodus 30:29). As Mary sanctified the household of Zachary, Elizabeth and the child in her womb—John the Baptist—so too can she sanctify our household if she is invited and listened to. Mary is the holy and believing daughter, mother and spouse of God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Her holiness radiates to and sanctifies those who approach her. As St. Paul says: “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife; and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the believing husband: otherwise your children should be unclean; but now they are holy” (1 Corinthians 7:14). Likewise, the faithful and believing Mary will sanctify and save the unfaithful and unbelieving that we are, or once have been.
We Must Also Be Holy
It is not only Mary who has to be and is holy; nor is it—out the millions and billions of souls that have ever existed and will exist— just a few saints that have to be holy. No, every single soul was created by God to be holy. “Let them therefore be holy, because I also am holy, the Lord, Who sanctify them” (Leviticus 21:8). “Know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, Who is in you, Whom you have from God; and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19). “But if any man violate the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the temple of God is holy, which you are” (1 Corinthians 3:17). “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in His sight in charity” (Ephesians 1:4). “The Lord will raise thee up to be a holy people to Himself, as He swore to thee: if thou keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, and walk in His ways” (Deuteronomy 28:9). In virtue of this life we are holy, but we are to become more holy from day to day, "for this is the will of God, your sanctification" (1 Thessalonians 4:3).
Sin Brings Death to Holiness
Sin and mediocrity, even though it exists, was not the desire, intention and plan of God. As Holy Scripture says, looking at the work of His creation “God saw that it was good… And God saw all the things that He had made, and they were very good.” (Genesis 1:10; 1:31). Sin and mediocrity came into the world through the works of the devil and man. “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned” (Romans 5:12). “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23) and “the sting of death is sin” (1 Corinthians 15:56). “When concupiscence hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin. But sin, when it is completed, begetteth death” (James 1:15).
The Medicine of Mary’s Holiness
We need the holiness of Mary to counter the evil of our sins. She is the holy masterpiece of God, the holy Temple of God: “The Lord is in His holy temple” (Psalms 10:5). “Know ye also that the Lord hath made his holy one wonderful” (Psalms 4:4). Holy Mary is without sin—her holiness is a perfect holiness—and she can help pull us out of the mire of sin: “Pray to the Lord your God, that He take away from me this death” (Exodus 10:17). We cry out to God and beg Him to give us Holy Mary as a help in our predicament: “Send her out of Thy holy Heaven, and from the throne of Thy majesty, that she may be with me, and may labor with me, that I may know what is acceptable with Thee” (Wisdom 9:10). “He created her in the Holy Ghost, and saw her, and numbered her, and measured her. And He poured her out upon all His works, and upon all flesh according to His gift, and hath given her to them that love Him” (Ecclesiasticus 1:9-10). “They that serve her, shall be servants to the holy one: and God loveth them that love her” (Ecclesiasticus 4:15).
God will gladly give Holy Mary to them that love Him and who want to be like Him—that is to say, holy: “And thou shalt sanctify all, and they shall be most holy” (Exodus 30:29). For holiness is our vocation; holiness is what perfects our being made in the image and likeness of God; holiness is a command of God’s; holiness is the means for attaining eternal life and avoiding the death of sin.
Catholics—like the Chosen People—have an
Obligation to Holiness
The words God addressed to the Chosen People of the Old Testament, apply equally to the Chosen People of the New Testament—the Catholics. God Himself says: “Be ye holy, because I the Lord your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2). “Sanctify yourselves, and be ye holy, because I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 20:7). “You shall be holy unto Me, because I the Lord am holy, and I have separated you from other people, that you should be Mine” (Leviticus 20:26). “Because thou art a holy people to the Lord thy God. The Lord thy God hath chosen thee, to be His peculiar people of all peoples that are upon the earth” (Deuteronomy 7:6). These are the commands of God.
Universal Vocation of Holiness
This vocation to holiness and the role that Holy Mary has to play in it, is beautifully stated by St. Louis Marie de Montfort, in his book The Secret of Mary:
“Chosen soul, living image of God and redeemed by the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, God wants you to become holy like Him in this life, and glorious like Him in the next. It is certain that growth in the holiness of God is your vocation. All your thoughts, words, actions, everything you suffer or undertake, must lead you towards that end. Otherwise you are resisting God, in not doing the work for which He created you and for which He is even now keeping you in being ... Chosen soul, how will you bring this about? What steps will you take to reach the high level to which God is calling you? The means of holiness and salvation are known to everybody, since they are found in the Gospel; the masters of the spiritual life have explained them; the saints have practiced them and shown how essential they are for those who wish to be saved and attain perfection. These means are: sincere humility, unceasing prayer, complete self-denial, abandonment to divine Providence, and obedience to the will of God. The grace and help of God are absolutely necessary for us to practice all these. We are sure that grace will be given to all, though not in the same measure. No one can contest these principles. It all comes to this, then. We must discover a simple means to obtain from God the grace needed to become holy. It is precisely this I wish to teach you. My contention is that you must first discover Mary if you would obtain this grace from God” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of Mary).
The Name Mary
We first pronounce the world “Holy” and only then do we say “Mary.” Just as the soul gives life to the body; so too does holiness give life to the soul. A soul in the state that is opposed to holiness—namely, the state of sin—is either dying to God (as in the case of venial sin) or is already dead to God (as in the case of mortal sin). “For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?” (Matthew 8:36). What good is it giving someone a beautiful name if they are not also given the beauty of holiness? Will the beautiful name save them? No. The beauty of holiness will save them. Mary’s name is so powerful because she is so holy. Without that holiness, that name would lose its power.
What a reverence St. Bernard had for the Name of Mary! "In the Name of Mary every knee bows; the devils not only fear but tremble at the very sound of this name." And likewise Thomas à Kempis: "Glorious, indeed, and admirable is thy name, O Mary: for those who pronounce it at death need not fear all the powers of Hell." It brings to mind the verse concerning the woman clothed with the sun from the Book of Apocalypse, who is "like an army set in battle array."
Power and Weakness; Life and Death
Holiness brings a power in battle; sinfulness brings a weakness in battle. Holiness leads to life—eternal life in Heaven; sinfulness leads to death—eternal ‘death’ in Hell.
St Paul tells us our warfare is not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers and the spirits of evil in high places. And did Mary not withstand them? St Bonaventure says: "Mary alone was free from every vice and shone with every virtue. To pride she opposed humility most lowly; to envy, charity most loving; to sloth, diligence most unwearied; to anger, meekness most gentle; to avarice, poverty most straitened; to gluttony, sobriety most temperate; to sensuality, virginity most chaste" (Speculum B.V.M., Lect. 10).
To be holy is the first and foremost task of the Christian. A certain minimum of holiness is necessary for salvation, but the higher degrees of holiness are the aspiration and hope of all true lovers of God. Nothing bestows upon man greater worth and dignity. The beginning of Christian holiness was given us in baptism, and it is the will of God that we guard and develop it. Therefore St. Peter writes, “As the One who called you is holy, be you also holy in all your conversation; for it is written, ‘You shall be holy, because I am holy’” (1 Peter 1:15). As Mary is our leader to Christ, so she is our leader to holiness. The more we appreciate and desire her guidance, the more freely she can act.
That is why we, who are sinners, and who, of ourselves can do nothing but sin, have still Faith enough to call on Mary in our trials and our necessities. If we live in dread to approach her, because she is so holy, we must always remember the merciful titles which the hope and trust of all centuries have given her. As the pale, yet lovely moon does nothing but shine, so Mary, the holy woman, does nothing but love God and intercede for sinners—intercede and is never refused—That is why from the depths of our sinning hearts we say: “Holy Mary ... pray for us, pray for us sinners!”
2. HOLY MOTHER OF GOD
What An Honor!
“Whence is this to me,” Mary’s cousin, Elizabeth, asked one day, “that the Mother of my God should come to me?” The answer, of course, is love. Men and women have always gloried in their titles to honor or to fame. They love to be called sir, madam, king, queen, etc. Soldiers serving their country and defending their flag, covet their well‑earned titles. And, yet, Mary shuddered at the thought of the most sublime title ever to be bestowed by God Himself.
Tradition has it that she was alone with God in the solitude of prayer when the Archangel Gabriel became the messenger of the Annunciation. It would be a great glory and a magnificent tribute to one’s greatness to be, say, mother of a Caesar, of a King, of a President of the United States. But all such names pale into dim insignificance before the essential glory of being the Mother of God. This Mary became when the Archangel said: “The Lord is with thee.”
A Title Rejected by Heretics
This dignity, always believed, had been disputed and disclaimed for four hundred years, because a host of heretics had denied the Incarnation. The most rabid of them maintained that Christ was a real man, man at his best, but fell short of being God. The error, like a fire fanned by contrary winds, spread through the nascent Church of Asia Minor and Greece, until all the Christian Bishops assembled at Ephesus, and in the year 431, defined as an Article of Faith that Christ was true God and true Man; and that, as a consequence, Mary is the Mother of God. Thus Gabriel’s salutation determined her mission: she was to have God, and she was to give God to the world.
If God is With His Creation, Then...
Those of us who have ever wandered alone by the seashore, or in the forest, who have stood alone in the open fields or on the summits of the mountains, will have felt that in the great free voice of nature which surrounds us, the soulless, voiceless things of God are forever singing Him a song of praise, a song of love. He who has not heard it is an exile in the Babylon of sin, a stranger to the harmonies of God. For, there is not a wind that sighs, not a flower that blooms, not a blade of grass that moves, each in itself almost an annunciation, but which whispers to the listening soul what the angel whispered to Mary: “The Lord is with thee.”
These words summed up the designs of God on the Blessed Virgin, and it is in them also that we can find the purpose of our own lives. For we are not cast upon the shores of time like wreckage from the ocean, thrown flotsam and jetsam aimlessly upon the strand. The main purpose in the life of the Blessed Virgin was to be filled with God, to have God, and in the fullness of time to give Him to the world, in word, in example and in literal reality.
A Masterpiece of God's Hands
At the very beginning of her life she came fresh from the hands of the Eternal Father, filled with innocence and glowing with the grace of God; and she saw, with the very first glimmerings of her reason, what God reveals to every soul, sooner or later, that, namely, all is vanity but to love Him and Him alone. Many a time, even before the Annunciation, the angels must have cried and called to her from Heaven: “The Lord is with thee.” When the fullness of time had come, they stood still in Heaven, and Mary received Christ into her heart, hid Him in her womb. “The Lord is with thee,” sang the angel, and loud and long the courts of Heaven echoed the refrain: “The Lord is with thee.”
So Close to God!
Because she was His Mother, Jesus was with her from the Annunciation to the Nativity; He was with her in the days of Bethlehem and Egypt. He was with her during the hidden life of Nazareth. A Mother’s eyes watched over Him, her mother arms entwined Him; a mother’s home guarded Him from winter cold and summer sun. She was His Mother, and He was with her in the poverty of Bethlehem, in the loneliness of exile, in her daily toil and daily prayer; with her as He was never with another before, except in the family of the Godhead in Heaven.
A Sharing Mother
But the purpose of the life of the Blessed Mother was also to give God to the world. Mary needed God because she needed love. Still, the greatness of her maternal heart would not suffer hers to be a selfish love. Through her maternity, Jesus chose to give Himself to the world. Scarcely had she folded for the first time the Son of God in her arms, when for the first time of many times, she gave Him to that saint of saints, Saint Joseph, solitary among all the saints, in his sanctity and in his simplicity.
She gave Him in turn to each of the shepherds, those rugged men, who in the simplicity of the accomplishment of their duty were keeping vigils over their flocks. She gave Him to the Wise Men, who when He had called, were undaunted by the length or the hardships of the journey. She gave her Divine Son to women as utterly distinct in sympathies as were Elizabeth and Magdalen. She gave Him freely to sinners. She gave Him with streaming eyes and breaking heart to the world where He was so much misrepresented and so little understood. Mary, the Mother of God, gave Him to Calvary and to the tomb; she gave Him to everyone and to everything, giving with Him consolation and hope and joy.
Not Counting the Cost
She did not count the cost; and it was because she gave Him so abundantly and gracefully, that He came back to her, only more completely, when on the day after His Resurrection she received Him again from the hands of her new‑found son, St. John. The Mother’s work is done, as far as her relations with Jesus are concerned. She passes from the pages of the Gospel thereafter forever.
Mother of the Man of Sorrows
It was on a day of bitterness and sorrow some thirty-three years after the Nativity, that the same Mother became, by the last testament of her only begotten Son, written in His Precious Blood on the death‑bed of a wooden Cross, became the Mother also of humanity redeemed.
The mysterious darkness had gathered around Golgotha, and the words, “Behold thy Mother” are the very last that Christ addressed to any human being. John is there, as is also Mary Magdalen, she had been at His feet before, on the evening of a day when her heart was breaking by some new betrayal and the rich ones of Jerusalem were feasting.
But the scene is different now. The lights of the banquet hall are dimmed, there is only the blackness of Calvary now; the voices of the revelers are hushed, and Jesus moans out His agony alone; the wine no longer gurgles in the goblets, but the blood of the Savior trickles down upon the Cross, and falls in saving benediction upon the crimes of the world.
Behold, another figure moves in, a woman sad and pale has taken her stand beneath the Cross. It is the Mother again, this time a Mother of Sorrows. She lifts her eyes, sees her Son, and is well‑nigh crushed and torn with grief; He is still her living Son; He is still the One who owes His human life to her.
Mother of Men
Then it was that the office of motherhood was born to her anew; it was her other Annunciation of the motherhood of men: “Behold thy son.” He thus bade her take St. John under her maternal care; and since that hour, the Church has always in her prayers and devotions looked upon the Mother of Jesus as also the Mother of mankind that He saved.
Since that day of divine sorrow the Catholic world has also taken Mary to its heart, has showered upon her all the love, reverence and piety that the fondest child could bestow on an earthly mother. It has called her Mother, and thrown itself in its joys and sorrows entirely and unreservedly under the cloak of her Immaculate protection. After her Son, she is our all in love and dignity.
Mother Disregarded and Discarded
Unfortunately, sh is also a mother that has been disregarded and discarded by modern man. In the last 50 years or so, devotion to her has grown, if we may use the words of Fr. Faber, "low and thin and poor! Mary is not half enough preached.
It is not the prominent characteristic of our religion which it ought to be. It has no faith in itself. Hence it is that Jesus is not loved, that heretics are not converted, that the Church is not exalted; that souls which might be saints wither and dwindle; that the Sacraments are not rightly frequented, or souls enthusiastically evangelized. Jesus is obscured because Mary is kept in the background. Thousands of souls perish because Mary is withheld from them. It is the miserable, unworthy shadow which we call our devotion to the Blessed Virgin that is the cause of all these wants and blights, these evils and omissions and declines" (Fr. Faber, Preface to his translation of True Devotion to Mary).
Her Dignity
Because she is the Mother of God, says St. Thomas Aquinas, the Blessed Virgin has a species of dignity that is infinite, because it is derived from the infinite God; on this account, therefore, there cannot be anything better, just as there cannot be anything better than God.
Mary is the Mother of God, because her Son was God. She is the Mother for the same reason that any woman is mother of her child. But someone will object that Mary did not give her Son His Divine Nature, and therefore, she is not the Mother of God. No woman gives her child his spiritual soul, which is a direct gift of God. But, still she is none the less the child’s mother on that account.
Nor is Mary any the less her Child’s Mother though His soul and Divinity did not come from her. Other women are justly called the mothers of men, and Mary is justly called the Mother of God. God in giving us Mary as our Mother―Mary of Bethlehem, Mary of Cana, Mary who stood beside the Cross appeals to the human nature He has given us, which is so responsive to the name of “Mother.” It is His will that through Mary we should learn something of the infinitely greater tenderness of His own love for us.
We shall close this consideration of the motherhood of Mary by the Church’s prayer for the Feast of the day she became a mother: “O God, who didst please that Thy Word at the message of an angel, should take flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary; grant that we who believe her to be I truly the Mother of God, may be aided by her intercession. Amen.”
“Whence is this to me,” Mary’s cousin, Elizabeth, asked one day, “that the Mother of my God should come to me?” The answer, of course, is love. Men and women have always gloried in their titles to honor or to fame. They love to be called sir, madam, king, queen, etc. Soldiers serving their country and defending their flag, covet their well‑earned titles. And, yet, Mary shuddered at the thought of the most sublime title ever to be bestowed by God Himself.
Tradition has it that she was alone with God in the solitude of prayer when the Archangel Gabriel became the messenger of the Annunciation. It would be a great glory and a magnificent tribute to one’s greatness to be, say, mother of a Caesar, of a King, of a President of the United States. But all such names pale into dim insignificance before the essential glory of being the Mother of God. This Mary became when the Archangel said: “The Lord is with thee.”
A Title Rejected by Heretics
This dignity, always believed, had been disputed and disclaimed for four hundred years, because a host of heretics had denied the Incarnation. The most rabid of them maintained that Christ was a real man, man at his best, but fell short of being God. The error, like a fire fanned by contrary winds, spread through the nascent Church of Asia Minor and Greece, until all the Christian Bishops assembled at Ephesus, and in the year 431, defined as an Article of Faith that Christ was true God and true Man; and that, as a consequence, Mary is the Mother of God. Thus Gabriel’s salutation determined her mission: she was to have God, and she was to give God to the world.
If God is With His Creation, Then...
Those of us who have ever wandered alone by the seashore, or in the forest, who have stood alone in the open fields or on the summits of the mountains, will have felt that in the great free voice of nature which surrounds us, the soulless, voiceless things of God are forever singing Him a song of praise, a song of love. He who has not heard it is an exile in the Babylon of sin, a stranger to the harmonies of God. For, there is not a wind that sighs, not a flower that blooms, not a blade of grass that moves, each in itself almost an annunciation, but which whispers to the listening soul what the angel whispered to Mary: “The Lord is with thee.”
These words summed up the designs of God on the Blessed Virgin, and it is in them also that we can find the purpose of our own lives. For we are not cast upon the shores of time like wreckage from the ocean, thrown flotsam and jetsam aimlessly upon the strand. The main purpose in the life of the Blessed Virgin was to be filled with God, to have God, and in the fullness of time to give Him to the world, in word, in example and in literal reality.
A Masterpiece of God's Hands
At the very beginning of her life she came fresh from the hands of the Eternal Father, filled with innocence and glowing with the grace of God; and she saw, with the very first glimmerings of her reason, what God reveals to every soul, sooner or later, that, namely, all is vanity but to love Him and Him alone. Many a time, even before the Annunciation, the angels must have cried and called to her from Heaven: “The Lord is with thee.” When the fullness of time had come, they stood still in Heaven, and Mary received Christ into her heart, hid Him in her womb. “The Lord is with thee,” sang the angel, and loud and long the courts of Heaven echoed the refrain: “The Lord is with thee.”
So Close to God!
Because she was His Mother, Jesus was with her from the Annunciation to the Nativity; He was with her in the days of Bethlehem and Egypt. He was with her during the hidden life of Nazareth. A Mother’s eyes watched over Him, her mother arms entwined Him; a mother’s home guarded Him from winter cold and summer sun. She was His Mother, and He was with her in the poverty of Bethlehem, in the loneliness of exile, in her daily toil and daily prayer; with her as He was never with another before, except in the family of the Godhead in Heaven.
A Sharing Mother
But the purpose of the life of the Blessed Mother was also to give God to the world. Mary needed God because she needed love. Still, the greatness of her maternal heart would not suffer hers to be a selfish love. Through her maternity, Jesus chose to give Himself to the world. Scarcely had she folded for the first time the Son of God in her arms, when for the first time of many times, she gave Him to that saint of saints, Saint Joseph, solitary among all the saints, in his sanctity and in his simplicity.
She gave Him in turn to each of the shepherds, those rugged men, who in the simplicity of the accomplishment of their duty were keeping vigils over their flocks. She gave Him to the Wise Men, who when He had called, were undaunted by the length or the hardships of the journey. She gave her Divine Son to women as utterly distinct in sympathies as were Elizabeth and Magdalen. She gave Him freely to sinners. She gave Him with streaming eyes and breaking heart to the world where He was so much misrepresented and so little understood. Mary, the Mother of God, gave Him to Calvary and to the tomb; she gave Him to everyone and to everything, giving with Him consolation and hope and joy.
Not Counting the Cost
She did not count the cost; and it was because she gave Him so abundantly and gracefully, that He came back to her, only more completely, when on the day after His Resurrection she received Him again from the hands of her new‑found son, St. John. The Mother’s work is done, as far as her relations with Jesus are concerned. She passes from the pages of the Gospel thereafter forever.
Mother of the Man of Sorrows
It was on a day of bitterness and sorrow some thirty-three years after the Nativity, that the same Mother became, by the last testament of her only begotten Son, written in His Precious Blood on the death‑bed of a wooden Cross, became the Mother also of humanity redeemed.
The mysterious darkness had gathered around Golgotha, and the words, “Behold thy Mother” are the very last that Christ addressed to any human being. John is there, as is also Mary Magdalen, she had been at His feet before, on the evening of a day when her heart was breaking by some new betrayal and the rich ones of Jerusalem were feasting.
But the scene is different now. The lights of the banquet hall are dimmed, there is only the blackness of Calvary now; the voices of the revelers are hushed, and Jesus moans out His agony alone; the wine no longer gurgles in the goblets, but the blood of the Savior trickles down upon the Cross, and falls in saving benediction upon the crimes of the world.
Behold, another figure moves in, a woman sad and pale has taken her stand beneath the Cross. It is the Mother again, this time a Mother of Sorrows. She lifts her eyes, sees her Son, and is well‑nigh crushed and torn with grief; He is still her living Son; He is still the One who owes His human life to her.
Mother of Men
Then it was that the office of motherhood was born to her anew; it was her other Annunciation of the motherhood of men: “Behold thy son.” He thus bade her take St. John under her maternal care; and since that hour, the Church has always in her prayers and devotions looked upon the Mother of Jesus as also the Mother of mankind that He saved.
Since that day of divine sorrow the Catholic world has also taken Mary to its heart, has showered upon her all the love, reverence and piety that the fondest child could bestow on an earthly mother. It has called her Mother, and thrown itself in its joys and sorrows entirely and unreservedly under the cloak of her Immaculate protection. After her Son, she is our all in love and dignity.
Mother Disregarded and Discarded
Unfortunately, sh is also a mother that has been disregarded and discarded by modern man. In the last 50 years or so, devotion to her has grown, if we may use the words of Fr. Faber, "low and thin and poor! Mary is not half enough preached.
It is not the prominent characteristic of our religion which it ought to be. It has no faith in itself. Hence it is that Jesus is not loved, that heretics are not converted, that the Church is not exalted; that souls which might be saints wither and dwindle; that the Sacraments are not rightly frequented, or souls enthusiastically evangelized. Jesus is obscured because Mary is kept in the background. Thousands of souls perish because Mary is withheld from them. It is the miserable, unworthy shadow which we call our devotion to the Blessed Virgin that is the cause of all these wants and blights, these evils and omissions and declines" (Fr. Faber, Preface to his translation of True Devotion to Mary).
Her Dignity
Because she is the Mother of God, says St. Thomas Aquinas, the Blessed Virgin has a species of dignity that is infinite, because it is derived from the infinite God; on this account, therefore, there cannot be anything better, just as there cannot be anything better than God.
Mary is the Mother of God, because her Son was God. She is the Mother for the same reason that any woman is mother of her child. But someone will object that Mary did not give her Son His Divine Nature, and therefore, she is not the Mother of God. No woman gives her child his spiritual soul, which is a direct gift of God. But, still she is none the less the child’s mother on that account.
Nor is Mary any the less her Child’s Mother though His soul and Divinity did not come from her. Other women are justly called the mothers of men, and Mary is justly called the Mother of God. God in giving us Mary as our Mother―Mary of Bethlehem, Mary of Cana, Mary who stood beside the Cross appeals to the human nature He has given us, which is so responsive to the name of “Mother.” It is His will that through Mary we should learn something of the infinitely greater tenderness of His own love for us.
We shall close this consideration of the motherhood of Mary by the Church’s prayer for the Feast of the day she became a mother: “O God, who didst please that Thy Word at the message of an angel, should take flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary; grant that we who believe her to be I truly the Mother of God, may be aided by her intercession. Amen.”
3. HOLY VIRGIN OF VIRGINS
Clean of Heart
No one can ever hope to be worthy of an angel’s visit, as was the Mother of God; and that she was so honored is part reason for the veneration in which she is held. We are reminded of the words of Our Lord, concerning one of the Eight Beatitudes: “Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). Impurity blinds the spiritual mind, because it engrosses itself in lust and blinds itself to the things above. Mary was a virgin, a holy virgin—thus it is not surprising that she saw the things of God more frequently than others.
She heard from one of God’s most exalted messengers the greatest and the most sublime secret ever whispered to a human heart. From the sweet, prayerful simplicity of an otherwise ordinary existence, she was called up from among all creatures, and asked to be the mother of God. And her first reaction to the call has astounded the world to this day.
Honor Brings Humility
Usually when a person is asked to accept an honor, trifling or sublime, to be the leader of a small group or leader of an army, he rejoices; and before he counts the cost of his own ineptitude, he accepts it and is proud, proud of honors that do not nourish his family but only his pride. Not so, our Blessed Lady.
The Sacrifice of Virginity
Between her and God there had been a deep secret, as strange as it was deep. For, when every spiritual minded Jewish maiden, especially if she belonged to the royal family of David, had one thought for her future, and that was marriage, in the fond hope of becoming mother of the Messias, Mary, with a humility and love of God surpassing all human understanding would forego her chances for such an honor. She had made a vow of virginity. That is the interpretation which spiritual writers put on her words: “I know not man.” Virginity and motherhood were incompatible; Mary would renounce the latter, be it that even of Emmanuel, in order to be true to the former.
God’s Dignity Requires Virginity
Now, that the Immaculate Conception has been defined (1854), and the thousands of testimonies of the Fathers and Writers of the Church of all ages have been examined and classified, these seem to have crystallized into a teaching that makes us positively certain of Mary’s virginity. It seems abhorrent to think of her at any time, before or after the coming of Christ, as being anything but a Virgin.
The dignity of God the Father seemed to require it; because since His Son was also Mary’s, it is certain that He would not wish to share with another the paternity of Christ, whose own sinlessness demanded that He should take flesh from a virgin without the cooperation of man. It is, then, the constant and pious belief of all Christian ages that Mary was a vowed Virgin; that her body, her life, her heart were never to know the alleged ecstasy of passion; that her undefiled and beautiful body was never to respond to man’s importunate caresses. The white lily of her spotless purity was never to be blighted by man’s sensual touch.
She Sacrificed Being A Mother, And So Became A Mother!
This was her vision; this was her ideal; it was a vision of beauty and of loyalty never to be a mother, be it even the Mother of God. It was the solemn promise to which she clung with all the burning enthusiasm of her nature even when the extraordinary message of an angel swept suddenly like a summer storm into her life.
To be mother, mother, we repeat, even of God could not make her waver from that vow. She was a virgin, and virgin she would always remain. And she was so determined on that course that her first answer to the Archangel would imply a refusal: “How can this be, for I know not man?” And God would have to perform some new, some unprecedented miracle before she would change her mind.
One could paraphrase her words to mean that she would consent to be Mother of the Messias, on one only condition, that namely, she would never be asked to break her vow. Only when she had been reassured, did she answer her Fiat: “Be it done unto me according to thy word.”
This very thought that a virgin conceived, a virgin bore a child, a virgin was fruitful, a virgin was forever a virgin puts a new and sublime interpretation on the Catholic doctrine of virginity.
Chastity and Virginity
There is a distinction between chastity and virginity, although the words are sometimes used indiscriminately. Virginity is the virtue of constancy in preserving oneself free from all sexual pleasures, whereas chastity preserves a person from inordinate or excessive pleasures only. Not everyone can be virginal, but everybody can and should be chaste. One may not be a virgin and be sinless; but a person can never be unchaste and still be without sin. Whenever in Holy Writ there is question of chastity the reference generally is to virginity, which is a distinctive result and effect of Christianity. It required nothing less than the virginal Son of a virgin Mother to create a condition of life so strange that it could be never understood by the greatest minds of the pagan world.
Mary had vowed to God her absolute abstinence from all sense pleasures; she had chosen it as a heritage; and Jesus chose to be born of it. This is the origin, source and cause of all the glorification showered on virginal life. We have mentioned how it was regarded by the Jews; and all history is witness that, in the rest of the known world, the tidal wave of sensuality had so broken down all reasonable barriers, that it, itself, had become an act of worship―much like it has become today, where sexual delight is the universal god that the neo-pagans worship and pursue.
A New Law of Purity
In the height of this pagan orgy, Jesus was born of a Virgin, and He became the great Law Maker of virginal chastity. His life, His example, the life and example of His Mother, became the fountain of the Christian reverence for such a vocation of purity. This new doctrine comes without interruption from Christ and Mary through Paul and John; and it grew and spread beyond any human or natural understanding. It was not merely a sentiment or a theory; it was an event, a historical fact, a reality.
A New Powerful Army
As suddenly as the sun rifts the lowering clouds, in a sex that had become chained to every human passion and indignity, there appeared countless maidens, despising what their own intimate associates had cherished, and giving a new glory to Christianity. “Look upon these troops of virgins and holy youths, as they address the Lord,” says Saint Augustine, “in Thy Church this race was nurtured; for Thee the vigorous bloom burst forth from the mother’s breast; there it lisped its first accents unto Thy name; Thee they made their prize; to Thee they offered their vow, and for the kingdom of heaven shut themselves off from marriage, not through dread of Thy threats, but through love of Thy promises.”
No sooner had Jesus drawn His virginal life from a virginal Mother, than a crowd of souls, betrothed to Him, sprang up over the face of the universe. No race on Earth had produced such a phenomenon; and now, the very weakest can boast of those who choose that self-denying life, on which the propagation of the supernatural life is based.
Fruitful Virginity
Virginity, since Mary, has become the condition of the Church’s fecundity, that shines forth in all its grandeur in the freely elected life of the clergy and the Religious Orders of men and women. They offer their sacrifice publicly, and seal their offering by a vow to virginity. They stand today, the glory of the Church, bidding an eternal defiance to worldliness and to the intimation of the futility of their lives for society. They can look back to day through the ever narrowing vistas of nineteen hundred years, and point to a Mary, an Agatha, a Cecilia, an Agnes, a John, an Ignatius, and Alphonsus, an Aloysius; they can point to thousands of men and women of their own age and condition, turning their backs daily on the mirage of earthly happiness, considering the most alluring pleasures as the passing pageant of an hour ‘ and be serenely content at its grandeur. Yes, to vow a life of virginity because one wants only God for a lover is a vocation that millions have followed and found in it peace and love.
Virginity Worthy of Motherhood
Now, this was the vow that Mary made to be worthy of her Son. She accepted motherhood only on the condition of a tremendous miracle. She was looking at Gabriel in a human form, yet making himself known, looking in amazed astonishment: “I know no man,” she said.
Was she actually refusing the proffered honor? Yes, no doubt, had not Gabriel come to her rescue. Softly, like the melody of an enchanting song, the solution broke upon her. The All wise God has ways unknown to man: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee.”
This new and mysterious motherhood is to unite her to God in an inexpressibly marvelous way. Her Son will not be a human person, albeit having a human body and a human soul. His Person is Divine. And, therefore, His coming, far from destroying His Mother’s virginity, will only enhance and consecrate it. There is now no further objection on Mary’s part; her virginity will remain untarnished, and her answer, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord,” is, and must ever remain the answer of Faith, the bowing to the Will of God. “Thy Will be done.”
And so, Mary is a Virgin, because she pledged her body to God; and because of her great dignity of the Mother of God, she is the most wonderful of all; she is truly Virgin of all virgins. She is the Virgin of all those who worship before the throne, and who sing the song that no man could sing. They, too, are virgins, and they follow the Lamb wherever He goes; they were purchased by Him from among man, and “are found without spot before God.”
“Mother of Christ, Virgin of virgins!
Come with thy Jesus to me,
Though the world be cold,
My heart shall hold,
A shelter for Him and Thee.”
No one can ever hope to be worthy of an angel’s visit, as was the Mother of God; and that she was so honored is part reason for the veneration in which she is held. We are reminded of the words of Our Lord, concerning one of the Eight Beatitudes: “Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). Impurity blinds the spiritual mind, because it engrosses itself in lust and blinds itself to the things above. Mary was a virgin, a holy virgin—thus it is not surprising that she saw the things of God more frequently than others.
She heard from one of God’s most exalted messengers the greatest and the most sublime secret ever whispered to a human heart. From the sweet, prayerful simplicity of an otherwise ordinary existence, she was called up from among all creatures, and asked to be the mother of God. And her first reaction to the call has astounded the world to this day.
Honor Brings Humility
Usually when a person is asked to accept an honor, trifling or sublime, to be the leader of a small group or leader of an army, he rejoices; and before he counts the cost of his own ineptitude, he accepts it and is proud, proud of honors that do not nourish his family but only his pride. Not so, our Blessed Lady.
The Sacrifice of Virginity
Between her and God there had been a deep secret, as strange as it was deep. For, when every spiritual minded Jewish maiden, especially if she belonged to the royal family of David, had one thought for her future, and that was marriage, in the fond hope of becoming mother of the Messias, Mary, with a humility and love of God surpassing all human understanding would forego her chances for such an honor. She had made a vow of virginity. That is the interpretation which spiritual writers put on her words: “I know not man.” Virginity and motherhood were incompatible; Mary would renounce the latter, be it that even of Emmanuel, in order to be true to the former.
God’s Dignity Requires Virginity
Now, that the Immaculate Conception has been defined (1854), and the thousands of testimonies of the Fathers and Writers of the Church of all ages have been examined and classified, these seem to have crystallized into a teaching that makes us positively certain of Mary’s virginity. It seems abhorrent to think of her at any time, before or after the coming of Christ, as being anything but a Virgin.
The dignity of God the Father seemed to require it; because since His Son was also Mary’s, it is certain that He would not wish to share with another the paternity of Christ, whose own sinlessness demanded that He should take flesh from a virgin without the cooperation of man. It is, then, the constant and pious belief of all Christian ages that Mary was a vowed Virgin; that her body, her life, her heart were never to know the alleged ecstasy of passion; that her undefiled and beautiful body was never to respond to man’s importunate caresses. The white lily of her spotless purity was never to be blighted by man’s sensual touch.
She Sacrificed Being A Mother, And So Became A Mother!
This was her vision; this was her ideal; it was a vision of beauty and of loyalty never to be a mother, be it even the Mother of God. It was the solemn promise to which she clung with all the burning enthusiasm of her nature even when the extraordinary message of an angel swept suddenly like a summer storm into her life.
To be mother, mother, we repeat, even of God could not make her waver from that vow. She was a virgin, and virgin she would always remain. And she was so determined on that course that her first answer to the Archangel would imply a refusal: “How can this be, for I know not man?” And God would have to perform some new, some unprecedented miracle before she would change her mind.
One could paraphrase her words to mean that she would consent to be Mother of the Messias, on one only condition, that namely, she would never be asked to break her vow. Only when she had been reassured, did she answer her Fiat: “Be it done unto me according to thy word.”
This very thought that a virgin conceived, a virgin bore a child, a virgin was fruitful, a virgin was forever a virgin puts a new and sublime interpretation on the Catholic doctrine of virginity.
Chastity and Virginity
There is a distinction between chastity and virginity, although the words are sometimes used indiscriminately. Virginity is the virtue of constancy in preserving oneself free from all sexual pleasures, whereas chastity preserves a person from inordinate or excessive pleasures only. Not everyone can be virginal, but everybody can and should be chaste. One may not be a virgin and be sinless; but a person can never be unchaste and still be without sin. Whenever in Holy Writ there is question of chastity the reference generally is to virginity, which is a distinctive result and effect of Christianity. It required nothing less than the virginal Son of a virgin Mother to create a condition of life so strange that it could be never understood by the greatest minds of the pagan world.
Mary had vowed to God her absolute abstinence from all sense pleasures; she had chosen it as a heritage; and Jesus chose to be born of it. This is the origin, source and cause of all the glorification showered on virginal life. We have mentioned how it was regarded by the Jews; and all history is witness that, in the rest of the known world, the tidal wave of sensuality had so broken down all reasonable barriers, that it, itself, had become an act of worship―much like it has become today, where sexual delight is the universal god that the neo-pagans worship and pursue.
A New Law of Purity
In the height of this pagan orgy, Jesus was born of a Virgin, and He became the great Law Maker of virginal chastity. His life, His example, the life and example of His Mother, became the fountain of the Christian reverence for such a vocation of purity. This new doctrine comes without interruption from Christ and Mary through Paul and John; and it grew and spread beyond any human or natural understanding. It was not merely a sentiment or a theory; it was an event, a historical fact, a reality.
A New Powerful Army
As suddenly as the sun rifts the lowering clouds, in a sex that had become chained to every human passion and indignity, there appeared countless maidens, despising what their own intimate associates had cherished, and giving a new glory to Christianity. “Look upon these troops of virgins and holy youths, as they address the Lord,” says Saint Augustine, “in Thy Church this race was nurtured; for Thee the vigorous bloom burst forth from the mother’s breast; there it lisped its first accents unto Thy name; Thee they made their prize; to Thee they offered their vow, and for the kingdom of heaven shut themselves off from marriage, not through dread of Thy threats, but through love of Thy promises.”
No sooner had Jesus drawn His virginal life from a virginal Mother, than a crowd of souls, betrothed to Him, sprang up over the face of the universe. No race on Earth had produced such a phenomenon; and now, the very weakest can boast of those who choose that self-denying life, on which the propagation of the supernatural life is based.
Fruitful Virginity
Virginity, since Mary, has become the condition of the Church’s fecundity, that shines forth in all its grandeur in the freely elected life of the clergy and the Religious Orders of men and women. They offer their sacrifice publicly, and seal their offering by a vow to virginity. They stand today, the glory of the Church, bidding an eternal defiance to worldliness and to the intimation of the futility of their lives for society. They can look back to day through the ever narrowing vistas of nineteen hundred years, and point to a Mary, an Agatha, a Cecilia, an Agnes, a John, an Ignatius, and Alphonsus, an Aloysius; they can point to thousands of men and women of their own age and condition, turning their backs daily on the mirage of earthly happiness, considering the most alluring pleasures as the passing pageant of an hour ‘ and be serenely content at its grandeur. Yes, to vow a life of virginity because one wants only God for a lover is a vocation that millions have followed and found in it peace and love.
Virginity Worthy of Motherhood
Now, this was the vow that Mary made to be worthy of her Son. She accepted motherhood only on the condition of a tremendous miracle. She was looking at Gabriel in a human form, yet making himself known, looking in amazed astonishment: “I know no man,” she said.
Was she actually refusing the proffered honor? Yes, no doubt, had not Gabriel come to her rescue. Softly, like the melody of an enchanting song, the solution broke upon her. The All wise God has ways unknown to man: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee.”
This new and mysterious motherhood is to unite her to God in an inexpressibly marvelous way. Her Son will not be a human person, albeit having a human body and a human soul. His Person is Divine. And, therefore, His coming, far from destroying His Mother’s virginity, will only enhance and consecrate it. There is now no further objection on Mary’s part; her virginity will remain untarnished, and her answer, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord,” is, and must ever remain the answer of Faith, the bowing to the Will of God. “Thy Will be done.”
And so, Mary is a Virgin, because she pledged her body to God; and because of her great dignity of the Mother of God, she is the most wonderful of all; she is truly Virgin of all virgins. She is the Virgin of all those who worship before the throne, and who sing the song that no man could sing. They, too, are virgins, and they follow the Lamb wherever He goes; they were purchased by Him from among man, and “are found without spot before God.”
“Mother of Christ, Virgin of virgins!
Come with thy Jesus to me,
Though the world be cold,
My heart shall hold,
A shelter for Him and Thee.”
4. MOTHER OF CHRIST
The Meaning of “Mother of Christ”
It would seem at first sight that since Jesus Christ is God, to call her “Mother of Christ” is but a repetition, being the same as calling her “Mother of God.” That is essentially so, of course. There is none of her titles that can approach in glory—”Mother of God.” You can say no more than that, and could make a litany out of that one name. But just as all the other titles are special qualifications, calling attention to some of her special offices or graces or dignities, so is it with her name “Mother of Christ.”
A Royal Title
It is her accolade of royalty that distinguishes her as Queen, because she is the Mother of the King; Queen of Prophets, because she is the Mother of the Prophet-King; and Queen of the Clergy, a title that is added to the Litany in our seminaries, because she is the Mother of the High Priest, or King-Priest. Thus it is a title full of beauty, crowning her as the Virgin Mother who gave birth to the Christ, the expected Deliverer of the people, the Expected of the nations.
The Mother of the “Anointed One”
Jesus is the personal name of Our Lord, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Joshua, meaning Jehovah, the Savior. And “Christ” is His title, a qualifying title, also Greek, and a translation of the Hebrew “Messias,” or “Anointed One.”
How that word “anointed” opens up the whole treasury of the Scriptures! We see the long line of prophets, priests and kings, set apart for their special offices as the oil was poured upon their head. It would take us too far afield to go into the history of the custom of anointing. It is lost in antiquity. It is found in the history of every people, being one of the most primitive of rites in pagan religions.
History of Anointings
From the very beginning we find it in the Jewish law. The oil of the olive which was used was ever a symbol of the illuminating spirit, no doubt because it was used for light. To the Oriental, so dependent upon the olive-tree for many things, it meant fruitfulness, beauty, strength and everlasting life. One readily sees how applicable that significance is to Christ. Chrism, the Greek word from which Christ is derived, means anything smeared or anointed. So that Christ, being anointed as Prophet, Priest and King, is fittingly called from several points of view the Christ or the Anointed One.
We are all familiar with the many occasions when the anointing with Holy Oil is used in our Catholic ritual. The blessing of those oils is a solemn thing, filled with poetry as well as religion.
There is a beautiful prayer for the blessing of the Chrism, from the Gelasian sacramentary : “Send forth O Lord, we beseech Thee, Thy Holy Spirit the Paraclete from Heaven into this fatness of oil, which Thou hast deigned to bring forth out of the green wood for the refreshing of mind and body, of soul and spirit, for the expulsion of all pains, of every infirmity, of every sickness of mind and body. For with the same Thou hast anointed priests, kings, and prophets and martyrs with this Thy Chrism, perfected by Thee, O Lord, blessed, abiding within our bowels in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Mother of the Messias
The realization of Jesus as the Messias, the Christ, the Anointed One, gives a special point to Mary’s title of “Mother
of Christ.” It endows her with a special glory. The fact that she was found worthy to be the Mother of the Messias is not the least of her merits. It is not just another title; Mary had her part and an important part in fulfilling prophecy. Were it not for her, perhaps the Messias would not yet have come. We have seen how some theologians say that the Son of God was so attracted by the beauty of her soul that He anticipated the time of the Incarnation.
There is a hint of that in the Gradual of the Mass of the Feast of the Assumption--“Hearken, O daughter, and see, and incline thine ear; for the King hath greatly desired thy beauty” (Psalm 44). Nor is it too much to believe that her prayer did hasten the Incarnation, though, of course, as St. Thomas Aquinas says, she could not merit it. It was a matter in which she, even as an ordinary daughter of Israel, was deeply interested, just the same as many holy souls of her day and during the long ages before her.
Waiting for the Messias
The vital religious strain running all through Jewish history, especially during the times of defeat and oppression, was the expectation of and the longing for the Deliverer. This Deliverer they called the Messias, the Christ. He had been promised in the Garden of Eden. That promise had given hope to man and it had never been forgotten. True, as time went on and men forgot God, they lost sight of that vision of hope; but with the Jewish people that hope and sure expectation persisted so that it was very part of their nation.
No need to go into the details of that expectation, as noted in Scripture. Already in the Pentateuch a Liberator and Prophet is promised, Who shall come from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The identification becomes more definite. In the reigns of David and Solomon this Liberator is foretold as coming from their royal line, and finally, so as to leave no doubt about His complete identification, the Prophets not only tell His origin but even go into the details of His birth, His life, His passion and death and the perpetuity of His celestial Kingdom. As the Talmud puts it—“All the prophets only prophesied of the days of the Messias.”
The Jews of Mary’s time knew their Scriptures. They knew that the Messias would come one day. But most of them wrested the Scriptures to their own destruction. The reason of it was this. At that time theirs was on conquered nation. The heel of the oppressing Romans was on their necks. They hated the Romans, despised them. The Jews thought themselves superior, intellectually and every other way, to their conquerors.
Blind to the Messias
But in their pride of heart they had lost the spiritual touch. They were no longer interested in a spiritual Deliverer, and as for a suffering Messias, they would not deign to consider such a one. They wanted a King, a King as good as the Romans, stronger than the Romans, to give the Jews again their place in the sun. It was a perverted notion, a violation of all the spiritual glories for which their fathers had longed. They blinded themselves, and as we know, went blinded to their graves in spite of the glorious Sun of the Resurrection.
A Few Remained Faithful
But there was a remnant in Israel that was not so perverted, and a goodly remnant at that. How, otherwise, can you explain the high spirituality of Zachary and Elizabeth, Simeon and Anna, and the many others who were ready to follow John the Baptist and eventually Our Lord? Let the nation follow material things, embroil itself in petty politics. There were many who saw still through the eyes of God, and knew that nothing else mattered but the elemental things.
Now if there were these faithful ones who saw clearly what the Messias would be, and longed for His coming, what must
have been the thoughts of the Immaculate Mary, even before she had any hint that she was going to play such an important part in the fulfillment of the Messianic expectation. She knew the Scriptures by heart. How deep that knowledge was is evident from her composition of the Magnificat. The memorizing of Scripture was an easy thing to the Jews. They were well accustomed to it. And in the holy circle to which Mary belonged it was a labor of love. It may all be summed up in saying that she was a devout Jewess.
The Sinless Mother of the Sinless One
Yet there was more to it than that. As I have said, with our knowledge of the Immaculate Conception and its accompanying graces and power and knowledge, for she must have known at least all concerning the love of God and His Will, it would be quite impossible to over-estimate her spiritual concern about her own salvation and the salvation of the world.
She, the sinless one, was living in the midst of sin. She saw every manner of sin about her, and while it could not sully her, she hated it. She longed for the coming of Him Who would take away the sins of the world. We do not know of course, the great part that the prayers of the faithful had in hastening the coming of the Messias. We can believe these prayers were powerful, as all prayer is powerful. But if any prayer was powerful, what a power was the prayer of her who, though she herself had no clear idea of it, was all the while—yes, even from the beginning, being prepared for the most intimate association that could be with the Christ. We want to believe, we know, that the prayers of her immaculate lips did hasten the Deliverance of the World.
Then, when “to Nazareth, where Gabriel opened his wings.” (Dante) the Annunciation came to her that she was to be the Mother of the Messias, all was made to depend on her assent. Had she not assented—incredible, of course—we might still be waiting for our Messias to come, still beating our hands upon the gates of the Heavenly Kingdom to open to us, and to the dews of Heaven to rain down the Just One.
But “Christ, the Prince” (Daniel 9:25), has come, and thanks to Mary. That is the thought of the Church in the Introit of the Mass of her Nativity--“Hail, Holy Mother, who didst bring forth the King, Who ruleth Heaven and Earth for ever.” Mother of Christ--“for she was imaged there by Whom the Key did open to God’s love” (Dante).
The Incarnation of Christ
The Incarnation reveals the stupendous grandeur of the divine plan in regard to mankind. God not only would create, but He would lift up the whole of creation to Himself, to a participation in His divine life. He Himself would become man and be mankind’s Teacher, King, and Priest — the Christ, God’s Anointed. And so Mary, “in a marvelous birth . . . brought Him forth as source of all supernatural life and presented Him, new-born, as Prophet, King and Priest to those, who were the first come of Jews and Gentiles to adore Him” (Pope Pius XII, encyclical Mystici Corporis). As Mother of Christ Mary is not only the foremost beneficiary of the Incarnation but also most intimately associated with her divine Son in the exercise of His prophetic, royal, and priestly office.
Christ the Incarnate Word of God
It is a tragic fact of history that man, endowed with a mind to know God and with a will to love Him, should have fallen into those unspeakable aberrations of pagan idolatry, and should follow in our own days the even more degrading errors of atheistic and materialistic philosophy. “While professing to be wise, they have become fools” (Romans 1:22). It is a fearful illustration of the havoc original sin has wrought in the minds of men and of the influence Satan exercises in the world. Christ, the incarnate Word of God, came to speak to men the words of God and to teach them the ways of truth. He solemnly declares before Pilate: “This is why I was born, and why I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth” (John 18:37). To make sure that this truth would reach all men, He founds the Church and commissions her to make all men His disciples; and in order to protect His Church against all falsifications of the truth, He bestows upon the head of the Church the gift of infallibility in matters of faith and morals.
Christ the King
Christ is King; His is a spiritual kingdom. It is of this fact that Christ speaks to Pilate, in order to allay his fears of a political uprising: “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my followers would have fought that I might not have been delivered to the Jews. But, as it is, my kingdom is not from here” (John 18:36). The royal command for the spiritual conquest of the world is given when Christ sends out His Apostles to teach all men to observe all things He has taught. Since words teach, but examples draw, He places Himself at the head of His followers and shows the way. He does the will of the Father so as always to please Him; He humbles Himself and becomes obedient to death, even death on a cross. But obedience leads to victory; Christ’s death upon the cross is His eternal triumph.
Christ the Priest
It is for this reason that Jesus, although foretelling persecutions and suffering, can inspire all His followers with invincible courage: “In the world you will have affliction. But take courage, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). And so Christ rules as the King and Center of hearts; no earthly king ever possessed the love and loyalty of his followers as He does.
The most excellent of Christ’s offices is the priestly office, and the first and foremost function of the priestly office is the offering of sacrifice, in which our relations to God as our Creator and Last End find their most perfect expression. Isaias speaks of the Messias as a sheep led to slaughter because of our sins, the psalmist sees Him as the priest forever according to the order of Melchisedech, and St. Paul speaks of the eternal priesthood of Christ.
Christ the Victim
Christ accepted His priestly mission in the very first moment of His earthly existence: “Therefore in coming into the world he says, ‘Sacrifice and oblation thou wouldst not, but a body thou hast fitted to me. . . . Behold I come — to do thy will, O God’” (Hebrews 10:5 ff.). He actually offered His sacrifice, “on the altar of the cross, offering Himself as a stainless peace-offering in order to accomplish the mystery of man’s redemption” (Preface, Feast of Christ the King). He wished to perpetuate this bloody sacrifice in an unbloody manner through the instrumentality of priests in Holy Mass: “Do this in remembrance of Me. . . . For as often as you shall eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord, until He comes” (1 Corinthians 11:24 ff.).
Yet the sacrifice of the cross and that of the altar are substantially the same, since “the Victim is one and the same, the same is the offering priest . . . the manner of offering alone being different.” This is the definite teaching of the Council of Trent. Thus through the sacrifice of Christ sin is atoned, God’s justice satisfied, and the whole of creation returned to God from whom it came forth.
Christ’s Mother
The mere fact that Mary is the Mother of Christ makes her inseparable from all blessings which Christ has brought to the world as Teacher, King, and Priest. Destined, however, to be also the spiritual Mother of men, she has taken and is taking an eminent part in the work of Christ.
Teacher of Christians
Mary, too, is teacher. She teaches in ways that can neither be seen nor heard externally, but are perceived by faith and experienced by the heart. She teaches by the sinlessness of her life, by her closeness to God in prayer, thought, and desire, by her absolute conformity to the will of God, by her love of souls, by her sufferings for the salvation of men.
Mary is Queen, Queen of the heavens, Queen of all angels and saints, Queen of the human race. She rules by the grace and authority of her divine Son. “Behold,” she says, “my Lord has delivered to me all things; there is nothing that is not within my power, nothing that He has not turned over to me” (Feast of Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces). Therefore she is called the suppliant omnipotence. With queenly authority, then, she calls upon men in her Fatima apparitions to stop offending her divine Son and to do penance.
Mother of the Priest
The Mother of Christ, the divine High Priest, though not vested with the priestly office in the strict sense of the word, nevertheless had a more eminent share in the offering of the sacrifice of our salvation than any other saint, for, the Victim on the cross is her Son, and His sentiments and priestly mind are also hers. Her whole life is part and parcel of this sacrifice and so profound and penetrating are her sufferings that she is the Queen of all martyrs.
And so Mary’s part in Christ’s sacrifice is the call and pattern for our participation, by which we must fill up in our bodies what is as yet wanting to the Passion of Christ. St. Peter speaks of the faithful as a royal, a holy priesthood, called to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. These spiritual sacrifices of the faithful receive their consecration, so to say, through union with the Eucharistic sacrifice, which they offer, “not only by the hands of the priest, but also to a certain extent, in union with him” (Mediator Dei).
The threefold office of Christ, Teacher, King, and Priest, and the part which the Mother of Christ has in the exercise of these offices, point out the only way in which the world can be saved and peace restored to mankind: return to God. “But man turns properly to God, when he acknowledges His supreme majesty and supreme authority; when he accepts divinely revealed truths with a submissive mind; when he scrupulously obeys divine law, centering in God his every act and aspiration; when he accords, in short, due worship to the one true God” (Pope Pius XII, encyclical Mediator Dei).
This means that Christ must be accepted as Teacher, King, and Priest. May Mary, the Mother of Christ, save the world by leading it to her divine Son.
It would seem at first sight that since Jesus Christ is God, to call her “Mother of Christ” is but a repetition, being the same as calling her “Mother of God.” That is essentially so, of course. There is none of her titles that can approach in glory—”Mother of God.” You can say no more than that, and could make a litany out of that one name. But just as all the other titles are special qualifications, calling attention to some of her special offices or graces or dignities, so is it with her name “Mother of Christ.”
A Royal Title
It is her accolade of royalty that distinguishes her as Queen, because she is the Mother of the King; Queen of Prophets, because she is the Mother of the Prophet-King; and Queen of the Clergy, a title that is added to the Litany in our seminaries, because she is the Mother of the High Priest, or King-Priest. Thus it is a title full of beauty, crowning her as the Virgin Mother who gave birth to the Christ, the expected Deliverer of the people, the Expected of the nations.
The Mother of the “Anointed One”
Jesus is the personal name of Our Lord, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Joshua, meaning Jehovah, the Savior. And “Christ” is His title, a qualifying title, also Greek, and a translation of the Hebrew “Messias,” or “Anointed One.”
How that word “anointed” opens up the whole treasury of the Scriptures! We see the long line of prophets, priests and kings, set apart for their special offices as the oil was poured upon their head. It would take us too far afield to go into the history of the custom of anointing. It is lost in antiquity. It is found in the history of every people, being one of the most primitive of rites in pagan religions.
History of Anointings
From the very beginning we find it in the Jewish law. The oil of the olive which was used was ever a symbol of the illuminating spirit, no doubt because it was used for light. To the Oriental, so dependent upon the olive-tree for many things, it meant fruitfulness, beauty, strength and everlasting life. One readily sees how applicable that significance is to Christ. Chrism, the Greek word from which Christ is derived, means anything smeared or anointed. So that Christ, being anointed as Prophet, Priest and King, is fittingly called from several points of view the Christ or the Anointed One.
We are all familiar with the many occasions when the anointing with Holy Oil is used in our Catholic ritual. The blessing of those oils is a solemn thing, filled with poetry as well as religion.
There is a beautiful prayer for the blessing of the Chrism, from the Gelasian sacramentary : “Send forth O Lord, we beseech Thee, Thy Holy Spirit the Paraclete from Heaven into this fatness of oil, which Thou hast deigned to bring forth out of the green wood for the refreshing of mind and body, of soul and spirit, for the expulsion of all pains, of every infirmity, of every sickness of mind and body. For with the same Thou hast anointed priests, kings, and prophets and martyrs with this Thy Chrism, perfected by Thee, O Lord, blessed, abiding within our bowels in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Mother of the Messias
The realization of Jesus as the Messias, the Christ, the Anointed One, gives a special point to Mary’s title of “Mother
of Christ.” It endows her with a special glory. The fact that she was found worthy to be the Mother of the Messias is not the least of her merits. It is not just another title; Mary had her part and an important part in fulfilling prophecy. Were it not for her, perhaps the Messias would not yet have come. We have seen how some theologians say that the Son of God was so attracted by the beauty of her soul that He anticipated the time of the Incarnation.
There is a hint of that in the Gradual of the Mass of the Feast of the Assumption--“Hearken, O daughter, and see, and incline thine ear; for the King hath greatly desired thy beauty” (Psalm 44). Nor is it too much to believe that her prayer did hasten the Incarnation, though, of course, as St. Thomas Aquinas says, she could not merit it. It was a matter in which she, even as an ordinary daughter of Israel, was deeply interested, just the same as many holy souls of her day and during the long ages before her.
Waiting for the Messias
The vital religious strain running all through Jewish history, especially during the times of defeat and oppression, was the expectation of and the longing for the Deliverer. This Deliverer they called the Messias, the Christ. He had been promised in the Garden of Eden. That promise had given hope to man and it had never been forgotten. True, as time went on and men forgot God, they lost sight of that vision of hope; but with the Jewish people that hope and sure expectation persisted so that it was very part of their nation.
No need to go into the details of that expectation, as noted in Scripture. Already in the Pentateuch a Liberator and Prophet is promised, Who shall come from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The identification becomes more definite. In the reigns of David and Solomon this Liberator is foretold as coming from their royal line, and finally, so as to leave no doubt about His complete identification, the Prophets not only tell His origin but even go into the details of His birth, His life, His passion and death and the perpetuity of His celestial Kingdom. As the Talmud puts it—“All the prophets only prophesied of the days of the Messias.”
The Jews of Mary’s time knew their Scriptures. They knew that the Messias would come one day. But most of them wrested the Scriptures to their own destruction. The reason of it was this. At that time theirs was on conquered nation. The heel of the oppressing Romans was on their necks. They hated the Romans, despised them. The Jews thought themselves superior, intellectually and every other way, to their conquerors.
Blind to the Messias
But in their pride of heart they had lost the spiritual touch. They were no longer interested in a spiritual Deliverer, and as for a suffering Messias, they would not deign to consider such a one. They wanted a King, a King as good as the Romans, stronger than the Romans, to give the Jews again their place in the sun. It was a perverted notion, a violation of all the spiritual glories for which their fathers had longed. They blinded themselves, and as we know, went blinded to their graves in spite of the glorious Sun of the Resurrection.
A Few Remained Faithful
But there was a remnant in Israel that was not so perverted, and a goodly remnant at that. How, otherwise, can you explain the high spirituality of Zachary and Elizabeth, Simeon and Anna, and the many others who were ready to follow John the Baptist and eventually Our Lord? Let the nation follow material things, embroil itself in petty politics. There were many who saw still through the eyes of God, and knew that nothing else mattered but the elemental things.
Now if there were these faithful ones who saw clearly what the Messias would be, and longed for His coming, what must
have been the thoughts of the Immaculate Mary, even before she had any hint that she was going to play such an important part in the fulfillment of the Messianic expectation. She knew the Scriptures by heart. How deep that knowledge was is evident from her composition of the Magnificat. The memorizing of Scripture was an easy thing to the Jews. They were well accustomed to it. And in the holy circle to which Mary belonged it was a labor of love. It may all be summed up in saying that she was a devout Jewess.
The Sinless Mother of the Sinless One
Yet there was more to it than that. As I have said, with our knowledge of the Immaculate Conception and its accompanying graces and power and knowledge, for she must have known at least all concerning the love of God and His Will, it would be quite impossible to over-estimate her spiritual concern about her own salvation and the salvation of the world.
She, the sinless one, was living in the midst of sin. She saw every manner of sin about her, and while it could not sully her, she hated it. She longed for the coming of Him Who would take away the sins of the world. We do not know of course, the great part that the prayers of the faithful had in hastening the coming of the Messias. We can believe these prayers were powerful, as all prayer is powerful. But if any prayer was powerful, what a power was the prayer of her who, though she herself had no clear idea of it, was all the while—yes, even from the beginning, being prepared for the most intimate association that could be with the Christ. We want to believe, we know, that the prayers of her immaculate lips did hasten the Deliverance of the World.
Then, when “to Nazareth, where Gabriel opened his wings.” (Dante) the Annunciation came to her that she was to be the Mother of the Messias, all was made to depend on her assent. Had she not assented—incredible, of course—we might still be waiting for our Messias to come, still beating our hands upon the gates of the Heavenly Kingdom to open to us, and to the dews of Heaven to rain down the Just One.
But “Christ, the Prince” (Daniel 9:25), has come, and thanks to Mary. That is the thought of the Church in the Introit of the Mass of her Nativity--“Hail, Holy Mother, who didst bring forth the King, Who ruleth Heaven and Earth for ever.” Mother of Christ--“for she was imaged there by Whom the Key did open to God’s love” (Dante).
The Incarnation of Christ
The Incarnation reveals the stupendous grandeur of the divine plan in regard to mankind. God not only would create, but He would lift up the whole of creation to Himself, to a participation in His divine life. He Himself would become man and be mankind’s Teacher, King, and Priest — the Christ, God’s Anointed. And so Mary, “in a marvelous birth . . . brought Him forth as source of all supernatural life and presented Him, new-born, as Prophet, King and Priest to those, who were the first come of Jews and Gentiles to adore Him” (Pope Pius XII, encyclical Mystici Corporis). As Mother of Christ Mary is not only the foremost beneficiary of the Incarnation but also most intimately associated with her divine Son in the exercise of His prophetic, royal, and priestly office.
Christ the Incarnate Word of God
It is a tragic fact of history that man, endowed with a mind to know God and with a will to love Him, should have fallen into those unspeakable aberrations of pagan idolatry, and should follow in our own days the even more degrading errors of atheistic and materialistic philosophy. “While professing to be wise, they have become fools” (Romans 1:22). It is a fearful illustration of the havoc original sin has wrought in the minds of men and of the influence Satan exercises in the world. Christ, the incarnate Word of God, came to speak to men the words of God and to teach them the ways of truth. He solemnly declares before Pilate: “This is why I was born, and why I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth” (John 18:37). To make sure that this truth would reach all men, He founds the Church and commissions her to make all men His disciples; and in order to protect His Church against all falsifications of the truth, He bestows upon the head of the Church the gift of infallibility in matters of faith and morals.
Christ the King
Christ is King; His is a spiritual kingdom. It is of this fact that Christ speaks to Pilate, in order to allay his fears of a political uprising: “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my followers would have fought that I might not have been delivered to the Jews. But, as it is, my kingdom is not from here” (John 18:36). The royal command for the spiritual conquest of the world is given when Christ sends out His Apostles to teach all men to observe all things He has taught. Since words teach, but examples draw, He places Himself at the head of His followers and shows the way. He does the will of the Father so as always to please Him; He humbles Himself and becomes obedient to death, even death on a cross. But obedience leads to victory; Christ’s death upon the cross is His eternal triumph.
Christ the Priest
It is for this reason that Jesus, although foretelling persecutions and suffering, can inspire all His followers with invincible courage: “In the world you will have affliction. But take courage, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). And so Christ rules as the King and Center of hearts; no earthly king ever possessed the love and loyalty of his followers as He does.
The most excellent of Christ’s offices is the priestly office, and the first and foremost function of the priestly office is the offering of sacrifice, in which our relations to God as our Creator and Last End find their most perfect expression. Isaias speaks of the Messias as a sheep led to slaughter because of our sins, the psalmist sees Him as the priest forever according to the order of Melchisedech, and St. Paul speaks of the eternal priesthood of Christ.
Christ the Victim
Christ accepted His priestly mission in the very first moment of His earthly existence: “Therefore in coming into the world he says, ‘Sacrifice and oblation thou wouldst not, but a body thou hast fitted to me. . . . Behold I come — to do thy will, O God’” (Hebrews 10:5 ff.). He actually offered His sacrifice, “on the altar of the cross, offering Himself as a stainless peace-offering in order to accomplish the mystery of man’s redemption” (Preface, Feast of Christ the King). He wished to perpetuate this bloody sacrifice in an unbloody manner through the instrumentality of priests in Holy Mass: “Do this in remembrance of Me. . . . For as often as you shall eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord, until He comes” (1 Corinthians 11:24 ff.).
Yet the sacrifice of the cross and that of the altar are substantially the same, since “the Victim is one and the same, the same is the offering priest . . . the manner of offering alone being different.” This is the definite teaching of the Council of Trent. Thus through the sacrifice of Christ sin is atoned, God’s justice satisfied, and the whole of creation returned to God from whom it came forth.
Christ’s Mother
The mere fact that Mary is the Mother of Christ makes her inseparable from all blessings which Christ has brought to the world as Teacher, King, and Priest. Destined, however, to be also the spiritual Mother of men, she has taken and is taking an eminent part in the work of Christ.
Teacher of Christians
Mary, too, is teacher. She teaches in ways that can neither be seen nor heard externally, but are perceived by faith and experienced by the heart. She teaches by the sinlessness of her life, by her closeness to God in prayer, thought, and desire, by her absolute conformity to the will of God, by her love of souls, by her sufferings for the salvation of men.
Mary is Queen, Queen of the heavens, Queen of all angels and saints, Queen of the human race. She rules by the grace and authority of her divine Son. “Behold,” she says, “my Lord has delivered to me all things; there is nothing that is not within my power, nothing that He has not turned over to me” (Feast of Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces). Therefore she is called the suppliant omnipotence. With queenly authority, then, she calls upon men in her Fatima apparitions to stop offending her divine Son and to do penance.
Mother of the Priest
The Mother of Christ, the divine High Priest, though not vested with the priestly office in the strict sense of the word, nevertheless had a more eminent share in the offering of the sacrifice of our salvation than any other saint, for, the Victim on the cross is her Son, and His sentiments and priestly mind are also hers. Her whole life is part and parcel of this sacrifice and so profound and penetrating are her sufferings that she is the Queen of all martyrs.
And so Mary’s part in Christ’s sacrifice is the call and pattern for our participation, by which we must fill up in our bodies what is as yet wanting to the Passion of Christ. St. Peter speaks of the faithful as a royal, a holy priesthood, called to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. These spiritual sacrifices of the faithful receive their consecration, so to say, through union with the Eucharistic sacrifice, which they offer, “not only by the hands of the priest, but also to a certain extent, in union with him” (Mediator Dei).
The threefold office of Christ, Teacher, King, and Priest, and the part which the Mother of Christ has in the exercise of these offices, point out the only way in which the world can be saved and peace restored to mankind: return to God. “But man turns properly to God, when he acknowledges His supreme majesty and supreme authority; when he accepts divinely revealed truths with a submissive mind; when he scrupulously obeys divine law, centering in God his every act and aspiration; when he accords, in short, due worship to the one true God” (Pope Pius XII, encyclical Mediator Dei).
This means that Christ must be accepted as Teacher, King, and Priest. May Mary, the Mother of Christ, save the world by leading it to her divine Son.
5. MOTHER OF DIVINE GRACE
A Twofold Power
What deep thoughts are aroused by this high praise of Mary, so consoling to Holy Church who names her Mother of Divine Grace! The title “Mother of Christ” implies Mary’s actual, physical motherhood; her spiritual maternity, on the other hand, arises from a pact whereby Mary as almoner bestows upon others the abundance of those graces which she, as His Mother, receives from Christ. Mary has by right, then, a twofold gift and power:
1. She acquires and possesses grace in a degree hitherto unknown and unprecedented, and
2. She is consumed with her desire to communicate graces to others.
This is why we shall find in Mary (if we are fortunate enough and blessed enough to ask her) the fullness of that prerogative which this title in her Litany implies. “Mother of Divine Grace!” It is praise and prayer! May we offer her both each time we repeat her Litany with loving hearts.
What is Grace?
That we may better fathom the depths of this ocean of grace in Mary’s heart, that we may better appreciate the plenitude of its bounty, it seems necessary that we first define the word grace — a word so often used, so seldom carefully considered.
Grace, by definition, is a gratuity — a free gift — designed by God’s loving providence to bring to us the special helps we need at different times, in various circumstances, and thus to assure our salvation. Consider the wide variety of these needs, changing not only with each individual, but even in the same person, changing again and again with changing times and circumstances. Grace, then, is the kind gift of a loving Father bending down to help His children on Earth in every condition of life. And since Mary is His Mother, her pure heart is His divine treasury of graces.
Types of Grace
Grace is of various kinds, to meet and satisfy varying needs: habitual, actual, sanctifying, sacramental. Sanctifying grace is nothing other than the state of a soul in union with God, a union resulting from the sheer goodness and graciousness of the Infinite Creator for His finite creatures. As we can never merit it, so can we never hope to match it or repay it in kind. It originates in the free gift of faith, conferred on each of us in holy Baptism. No act has merited that first grace. It is solely and simply the proof of a special choice by Omnipotence, of me, my individual soul, to be the recipient of those divine gifts by which I acquire the means of becoming a saint. Therefore, sanctifying grace, which is what we refer to when we speak of the state of grace, supposes a continuing state or condition in which we live for a considerable period of time in the love and intimate friendship of God. This state admits of no artifice, nothing but utter, complete sincerity between the soul and God.
Sanctifying Grace
The soul of the infant before Baptism is like a ship, perfectly equipped, seaworthy, prepared for the voyage of life,
but awaiting the master-touch of the Great Captain, and the wind of grace to fill its sails, before the port can be cleared. Sanctifying grace is this favorable wind: it fills the soul, renders it pleasing to God and launches it on its long voyage heavenward.
Sanctifying grace first makes us children of God, and then sustains us as living members of Our Lord’s Mystical Body, children of His Church on Earth and heirs of His heavenly kingdom. Mary co-operated with her Divine Son who obtained this grace for us through the Incarnation, when her beautiful soul and body became the first tabernacle of the Son of God on Earth and she received into her heart the plenitude of celestial graces. Before that time, divine "prevenient grace" (a fore-running grace, or a preparatory grace) had brought about her Immaculate Conception; Heaven’s choicest graces had illumined her infant crib. She strove ever to live in humility and obscurity, unknown to all but God, at Nazareth with her spouse, the humble carpenter Joseph.
Full of Grace
Yet though Earth knew her not, God’s Angels from Heaven watched with loving awe, for all their cumulative graces and favors were as nothing in comparison with the privileges and blessedness of the soul of the Maiden Mary. What then can we say of the added graces that enriched her soul at the Incarnation? Indeed, it was this mystery that enthroned Mary as Mother of Divine Grace, since by it she became Mother of God, the Author and Source of all grace.
Picture a pure mountain lake, ice-bound, high up amid eternal snows, while far below stretches a waste of arid desert. So before the Incarnation were all divine graces pent up within the eternal spheres, inaccessible to man, who wandered the hot, thankless desert of the Old Testament world. Then, in the fullness of time, God smiled upon Mary, His Mother; her willing Fiat melted that ice-bound lake and she became the channel through which, after four thousand arid years, the torrents of God’s grace came to fructify anew this parched Earth.
Among the many paradoxes of human existence is this reality that we are born children of nature, yet destined to be children of God. The beginnings of our life are rooted in the soil of the natural order, and the end of it points to, and is destined for Heaven. It is another chasm, such as that between Lazarus and Dives. God alone can bridge the impasse; and this He does by a gift known as grace. To appreciate as best we may the beautiful name of Mary, Mother of Divine Grace, because Mother of Him Who is the author of all favors bestowed on man in the supernatural order, we must know more about this divine aid; at least we should know more than the name, grace.
We Need the Help of Grace
We are destined for Heaven; but we cannot attain it without help from God. “No man can come to Me except the Father draw him,” is Christ’s own word; and St. Paul had the same thought in mind when he wrote we can neither think a good thought nor speak a good word, which can be of use to our salvation, without the assistance of God. Grace means a favor; it means a gift, or something done for somebody, out of sheer goodness on the part of the benefactor, and no peculiar merit on the part of the beneficiary. The word, however, is usually understood in a spiritual sense, as a gift from God, the purpose of which is to make one holy, pleasing to God, and, eventually, qualified for Heaven.
Actual Grace
There is a grace, and it is called actual, that might be described as the initial motion given us by God on the road to holiness. Of itself it does not constitute sanctity. A good example of this would be the urge or determination to renounce a Protestant sect and to become a Catholic. This is a mysterious change of sentiment, or change of mind; an4 it sometimes happens instantaneously.
St. Paul was galloping on horseback to persecute Christ and the Christians of Damascus, when he suddenly uttered his “What wilt Thou have me to do?” Actual grace is supernatural in its origin and in its object; because it is a help and an inspiration, a definite determination to shun one’s evil ways and to enter on a life of goodness. It is like the lifting of a cloud from the face of the sun; it is like a sudden light that shines and shows what is good, and, therefore, what a person should do. This initial help, this impulsive elan comes to souls, to whom the merits of Christ have been applied.
Sufficient Grace
Not the least difficult angle of this question of grace is that of its sufficiency for salvation,—a point to be touched on in passing. Since God wills that all men be saved, it stands to reason that He gives all men even the hardest sinners enough to help to work out their own salvation. That is what St. Paul meant when, writing to the Church at Ephesus, he said: “To every man is given grace.” Nay, more, to everyone is given more than enough for salvation, if he only cooperates with it.
For, as St. Augustine expresses it: God who created man without man, cannot save man without man. And still, this grace never interferes with human liberty; it does not force man to do anything against his will; but it does enable him to will and do that of which he was utterly incapable by himself. Hence free-will, an essential part of human nature, is in no way interfered with by grace, which only strengthens it, rectifies and perfects it.
The Grace of Friendship
The grace, however, that makes man a friend of God, pleasing to God, united with God, the grace that divinizes him, so to speak, and which, when persevered in, opens Heaven is sanctifying grace.
One of man’s most humiliating characteristics is the fact of his dependence on someone else from cradle to grave. He is born in another’s pain and he dies upon his own. And between these two milestones he is forever needing assistance from outside. He depends on his parents for his life; on the soil for sustenance; on the sun and the stars to guide his passage on the Earth.
He begins to die at the instant of birth; and unless everybody and everything in the whole expanse of the world lends him a hand, he must lay down the load of his life, as a burden too heavy to bear, and that, long before he has reached the zenith of his power or the pinnacle of his prestige.
Without Grace, We Can Do Nothing
Nor is that all. Man, we said, is destined for higher things, for Heaven, which is his hereafter, his home. And of this supernatural destiny Christ said: “Without me, you can do nothing.” Without Him, there is no faith, no hope, no love, no Heaven. Without Christ there is nothing but sinfulness and sin. For, by coming down from Heaven, by His life and death He opened the gates of this new order of grace,—the supernatural order—to man.
This life of holiness on Earth as in Heaven is infinitely beyond man’s reach; and for it he needs light and strength from above. He needs the supernatural aid for his native weakness and helplessness to see the light for himself, to direct his steps in the darkness of this valley of exile, to maintain for himself a sort of heavenly paradise in the universe of God. It is grace that turns the eyes of his soul towards what is lasting beauty; and it is grace—sanctifying grace—that guides his feet towards the vast expanse of the sea of divine love.
Graceful Temples
The moment a soul receives this precious gift, it passes into a state of intimate union with God, and it receives a new honor, a new inheritance, as it thereby becomes an heir to the kingdom of Heaven. Sanctifying grace makes men temples of the Holy Ghost, gives special quality of merit to everything they do. It beautifies the soul, as it clothes it in a mantle of all Christian virtues.
It was Saint Paul who said that it is the love of God, poured into men’s hearts by the Holy Ghost. The gift of grace, Saint Thomas tells us, excels every gift that any creature can receive, since it is a participation of the divine nature. Kingdoms and thrones art not to be compared with it; nor are riches or honors, or health or beauty.
From Christ, Through Mary
Grace, then, is from Christ, whose Mother is Mary. She is, accordingly, the Mother of Divine Grace. One of the most beautiful and touching qualities of our Faith is that we have been taught from infancy to go to Jesus through Mary. Our lips have long ago learned to say those prayerful words: “Never has it been known that anyone who had recourse to thee was left unaided.”
And just as our first love in life was mother-love, and just as we had gone to that dear angel of our cradle days; and just as it was she who first folded us in her maternal arms, fed us from her own substance; and represented for us everything that was noble and good and beautiful and true; so, too, it was to Mary that we turned when our infant lips first began to pray. Like Gabriel, we did not call her by her rightful name; like him we said: “Hail, full of grace.”
Being Mother of God—and this cannot be repeated too often, to make our devotion profound —she must have whatever was necessary for that divine dignity. She must have the corresponding grace and endowments because her Son was God, the same Son as had Our Father in Heaven. The Blessed Virgin, says Saint Thomas, by the very fact that she is the Mother of God, has a certain infinite dignity from the infinite good that is God. Her purity, says the same Saint, under Christ was supreme.
Pinnacle of Grace
The fact that she was the Mother of God gave her a special office, and so, she must have a special sanctity from which even her intellect was not excluded. God owed it to His honor that in all that knowledge by which the human mind is ennobled, Mary should surpass the rest of mankind. Though seemingly but a poor peasant woman, busy about the daily tasks of her humble home, she was full of divine wisdom because she was full of divine grace; she saw more clearly than any saint, or intellectual or scientist the manifestation of the glory of God in the realm of nature, and she had a vision of the beauty of His world to which no poet can ever attain.
Mediatrix of All Grace
In virtue of her mission of Mother of Grace, she has been called the great Mediatrix of all graces. The reason is evident; she is the Mother of the Redeemer, who, by His Blood, has purchased all the graces that have been given, or shall be given since the Fall. Then, too, she became a spiritual Mother of men at the Incarnation, a title she actually received on Calvary from her expiring Son. Hence the belief that it is through her hands we receive all the graces we seek in prayer, all the graces that lead us to the Sacraments, and prepare us for their worthy reception.
Truly is she the Mother of Divine Grace, full to overflowing with all the treasures of Heaven. And Jesus has given her to mankind, to be the channel through which all His graces flow, and all His blessings are bestowed—the blessings of faith and love, of hope and Heaven.
What deep thoughts are aroused by this high praise of Mary, so consoling to Holy Church who names her Mother of Divine Grace! The title “Mother of Christ” implies Mary’s actual, physical motherhood; her spiritual maternity, on the other hand, arises from a pact whereby Mary as almoner bestows upon others the abundance of those graces which she, as His Mother, receives from Christ. Mary has by right, then, a twofold gift and power:
1. She acquires and possesses grace in a degree hitherto unknown and unprecedented, and
2. She is consumed with her desire to communicate graces to others.
This is why we shall find in Mary (if we are fortunate enough and blessed enough to ask her) the fullness of that prerogative which this title in her Litany implies. “Mother of Divine Grace!” It is praise and prayer! May we offer her both each time we repeat her Litany with loving hearts.
What is Grace?
That we may better fathom the depths of this ocean of grace in Mary’s heart, that we may better appreciate the plenitude of its bounty, it seems necessary that we first define the word grace — a word so often used, so seldom carefully considered.
Grace, by definition, is a gratuity — a free gift — designed by God’s loving providence to bring to us the special helps we need at different times, in various circumstances, and thus to assure our salvation. Consider the wide variety of these needs, changing not only with each individual, but even in the same person, changing again and again with changing times and circumstances. Grace, then, is the kind gift of a loving Father bending down to help His children on Earth in every condition of life. And since Mary is His Mother, her pure heart is His divine treasury of graces.
Types of Grace
Grace is of various kinds, to meet and satisfy varying needs: habitual, actual, sanctifying, sacramental. Sanctifying grace is nothing other than the state of a soul in union with God, a union resulting from the sheer goodness and graciousness of the Infinite Creator for His finite creatures. As we can never merit it, so can we never hope to match it or repay it in kind. It originates in the free gift of faith, conferred on each of us in holy Baptism. No act has merited that first grace. It is solely and simply the proof of a special choice by Omnipotence, of me, my individual soul, to be the recipient of those divine gifts by which I acquire the means of becoming a saint. Therefore, sanctifying grace, which is what we refer to when we speak of the state of grace, supposes a continuing state or condition in which we live for a considerable period of time in the love and intimate friendship of God. This state admits of no artifice, nothing but utter, complete sincerity between the soul and God.
Sanctifying Grace
The soul of the infant before Baptism is like a ship, perfectly equipped, seaworthy, prepared for the voyage of life,
but awaiting the master-touch of the Great Captain, and the wind of grace to fill its sails, before the port can be cleared. Sanctifying grace is this favorable wind: it fills the soul, renders it pleasing to God and launches it on its long voyage heavenward.
Sanctifying grace first makes us children of God, and then sustains us as living members of Our Lord’s Mystical Body, children of His Church on Earth and heirs of His heavenly kingdom. Mary co-operated with her Divine Son who obtained this grace for us through the Incarnation, when her beautiful soul and body became the first tabernacle of the Son of God on Earth and she received into her heart the plenitude of celestial graces. Before that time, divine "prevenient grace" (a fore-running grace, or a preparatory grace) had brought about her Immaculate Conception; Heaven’s choicest graces had illumined her infant crib. She strove ever to live in humility and obscurity, unknown to all but God, at Nazareth with her spouse, the humble carpenter Joseph.
Full of Grace
Yet though Earth knew her not, God’s Angels from Heaven watched with loving awe, for all their cumulative graces and favors were as nothing in comparison with the privileges and blessedness of the soul of the Maiden Mary. What then can we say of the added graces that enriched her soul at the Incarnation? Indeed, it was this mystery that enthroned Mary as Mother of Divine Grace, since by it she became Mother of God, the Author and Source of all grace.
Picture a pure mountain lake, ice-bound, high up amid eternal snows, while far below stretches a waste of arid desert. So before the Incarnation were all divine graces pent up within the eternal spheres, inaccessible to man, who wandered the hot, thankless desert of the Old Testament world. Then, in the fullness of time, God smiled upon Mary, His Mother; her willing Fiat melted that ice-bound lake and she became the channel through which, after four thousand arid years, the torrents of God’s grace came to fructify anew this parched Earth.
Among the many paradoxes of human existence is this reality that we are born children of nature, yet destined to be children of God. The beginnings of our life are rooted in the soil of the natural order, and the end of it points to, and is destined for Heaven. It is another chasm, such as that between Lazarus and Dives. God alone can bridge the impasse; and this He does by a gift known as grace. To appreciate as best we may the beautiful name of Mary, Mother of Divine Grace, because Mother of Him Who is the author of all favors bestowed on man in the supernatural order, we must know more about this divine aid; at least we should know more than the name, grace.
We Need the Help of Grace
We are destined for Heaven; but we cannot attain it without help from God. “No man can come to Me except the Father draw him,” is Christ’s own word; and St. Paul had the same thought in mind when he wrote we can neither think a good thought nor speak a good word, which can be of use to our salvation, without the assistance of God. Grace means a favor; it means a gift, or something done for somebody, out of sheer goodness on the part of the benefactor, and no peculiar merit on the part of the beneficiary. The word, however, is usually understood in a spiritual sense, as a gift from God, the purpose of which is to make one holy, pleasing to God, and, eventually, qualified for Heaven.
Actual Grace
There is a grace, and it is called actual, that might be described as the initial motion given us by God on the road to holiness. Of itself it does not constitute sanctity. A good example of this would be the urge or determination to renounce a Protestant sect and to become a Catholic. This is a mysterious change of sentiment, or change of mind; an4 it sometimes happens instantaneously.
St. Paul was galloping on horseback to persecute Christ and the Christians of Damascus, when he suddenly uttered his “What wilt Thou have me to do?” Actual grace is supernatural in its origin and in its object; because it is a help and an inspiration, a definite determination to shun one’s evil ways and to enter on a life of goodness. It is like the lifting of a cloud from the face of the sun; it is like a sudden light that shines and shows what is good, and, therefore, what a person should do. This initial help, this impulsive elan comes to souls, to whom the merits of Christ have been applied.
Sufficient Grace
Not the least difficult angle of this question of grace is that of its sufficiency for salvation,—a point to be touched on in passing. Since God wills that all men be saved, it stands to reason that He gives all men even the hardest sinners enough to help to work out their own salvation. That is what St. Paul meant when, writing to the Church at Ephesus, he said: “To every man is given grace.” Nay, more, to everyone is given more than enough for salvation, if he only cooperates with it.
For, as St. Augustine expresses it: God who created man without man, cannot save man without man. And still, this grace never interferes with human liberty; it does not force man to do anything against his will; but it does enable him to will and do that of which he was utterly incapable by himself. Hence free-will, an essential part of human nature, is in no way interfered with by grace, which only strengthens it, rectifies and perfects it.
The Grace of Friendship
The grace, however, that makes man a friend of God, pleasing to God, united with God, the grace that divinizes him, so to speak, and which, when persevered in, opens Heaven is sanctifying grace.
One of man’s most humiliating characteristics is the fact of his dependence on someone else from cradle to grave. He is born in another’s pain and he dies upon his own. And between these two milestones he is forever needing assistance from outside. He depends on his parents for his life; on the soil for sustenance; on the sun and the stars to guide his passage on the Earth.
He begins to die at the instant of birth; and unless everybody and everything in the whole expanse of the world lends him a hand, he must lay down the load of his life, as a burden too heavy to bear, and that, long before he has reached the zenith of his power or the pinnacle of his prestige.
Without Grace, We Can Do Nothing
Nor is that all. Man, we said, is destined for higher things, for Heaven, which is his hereafter, his home. And of this supernatural destiny Christ said: “Without me, you can do nothing.” Without Him, there is no faith, no hope, no love, no Heaven. Without Christ there is nothing but sinfulness and sin. For, by coming down from Heaven, by His life and death He opened the gates of this new order of grace,—the supernatural order—to man.
This life of holiness on Earth as in Heaven is infinitely beyond man’s reach; and for it he needs light and strength from above. He needs the supernatural aid for his native weakness and helplessness to see the light for himself, to direct his steps in the darkness of this valley of exile, to maintain for himself a sort of heavenly paradise in the universe of God. It is grace that turns the eyes of his soul towards what is lasting beauty; and it is grace—sanctifying grace—that guides his feet towards the vast expanse of the sea of divine love.
Graceful Temples
The moment a soul receives this precious gift, it passes into a state of intimate union with God, and it receives a new honor, a new inheritance, as it thereby becomes an heir to the kingdom of Heaven. Sanctifying grace makes men temples of the Holy Ghost, gives special quality of merit to everything they do. It beautifies the soul, as it clothes it in a mantle of all Christian virtues.
It was Saint Paul who said that it is the love of God, poured into men’s hearts by the Holy Ghost. The gift of grace, Saint Thomas tells us, excels every gift that any creature can receive, since it is a participation of the divine nature. Kingdoms and thrones art not to be compared with it; nor are riches or honors, or health or beauty.
From Christ, Through Mary
Grace, then, is from Christ, whose Mother is Mary. She is, accordingly, the Mother of Divine Grace. One of the most beautiful and touching qualities of our Faith is that we have been taught from infancy to go to Jesus through Mary. Our lips have long ago learned to say those prayerful words: “Never has it been known that anyone who had recourse to thee was left unaided.”
And just as our first love in life was mother-love, and just as we had gone to that dear angel of our cradle days; and just as it was she who first folded us in her maternal arms, fed us from her own substance; and represented for us everything that was noble and good and beautiful and true; so, too, it was to Mary that we turned when our infant lips first began to pray. Like Gabriel, we did not call her by her rightful name; like him we said: “Hail, full of grace.”
Being Mother of God—and this cannot be repeated too often, to make our devotion profound —she must have whatever was necessary for that divine dignity. She must have the corresponding grace and endowments because her Son was God, the same Son as had Our Father in Heaven. The Blessed Virgin, says Saint Thomas, by the very fact that she is the Mother of God, has a certain infinite dignity from the infinite good that is God. Her purity, says the same Saint, under Christ was supreme.
Pinnacle of Grace
The fact that she was the Mother of God gave her a special office, and so, she must have a special sanctity from which even her intellect was not excluded. God owed it to His honor that in all that knowledge by which the human mind is ennobled, Mary should surpass the rest of mankind. Though seemingly but a poor peasant woman, busy about the daily tasks of her humble home, she was full of divine wisdom because she was full of divine grace; she saw more clearly than any saint, or intellectual or scientist the manifestation of the glory of God in the realm of nature, and she had a vision of the beauty of His world to which no poet can ever attain.
Mediatrix of All Grace
In virtue of her mission of Mother of Grace, she has been called the great Mediatrix of all graces. The reason is evident; she is the Mother of the Redeemer, who, by His Blood, has purchased all the graces that have been given, or shall be given since the Fall. Then, too, she became a spiritual Mother of men at the Incarnation, a title she actually received on Calvary from her expiring Son. Hence the belief that it is through her hands we receive all the graces we seek in prayer, all the graces that lead us to the Sacraments, and prepare us for their worthy reception.
Truly is she the Mother of Divine Grace, full to overflowing with all the treasures of Heaven. And Jesus has given her to mankind, to be the channel through which all His graces flow, and all His blessings are bestowed—the blessings of faith and love, of hope and Heaven.
6. MOTHER MOST PURE
A Lost Virtue
"Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God" said Our Lord (Matthew 5:6). Today, very few have a clear view of God because the world has become so impure, unchaste and immodest. So much so, that, back in the early 1900's, Our Lady revealed to Blessed Jacinta Marto that most souls that are damned, are damned for sins of impurity in either thought, word or deed.
We think also of Amelia, the older friend of Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta at Fatima, who had died aged around 18 years of age and Our Lady revealed that she would burn in the fires of Purgatory until the end of the world. Curious inquiries turned up information that it was probably for some sin or sins of impurity that she had been guilty, but had confessed.
It reminds us, too, the revelation made to Mother Mariana in Quito (to whom Our Lady of Good Success and Our Lord were appearing). Mother Mariana was shownOur Lord beginning His Agony, and she heard the voice of the Eternal Father saying, “This punishment will be for the 20th century.” She saw three swords hanging over the head of Christ. On each was written, “I shall punish heresy, blasphemy and impurity.” With this, she was given to understand all that would take place in the present era.
Tracing the Roots to Original Sin
Original Sin, besides darkening the understanding and weakening the will, has left as a sad heritage to man a strong inclination to evil; this tendency, fungus-like, feeds on every fiber of human life, but flourishes and fattens most of all in the generative powers of the human organism.
The Devil of Impurity
The demon of impurity attacks man long before he can use his reason, and swoops down like a wicked vulture to prey upon him before he knows right from wrong. He scrapes the surface of man’s curiosity, tempts him to evil thoughts, words and deeds. In the words of Holy Scripture, he calls in seven other devils worse than himself; he calls in older companions, bigger and more rueful than they. He calls in small groups to tell evil stories, use foul language, before they ultimately dare and defy the innocent to be bad.
No Escape, No Safe Haven
Today, it bombards the children from every angle—TV, internet, movies, billboards, fashions, everyday dress habits—wherever you turn, you find it brazenly staring at you. Thus it is that many a boy and girl are steeped in the venomous baths of impurity, before their years have time to be counted, and thus initiated, plunge into the very whirlpool of sinfulness, from which nothing but a miracle of God’s grace can extricate them.
No place, no condition of life, no age seems free from its diseased effects. City and country, the high and the low, the young and the old are carried away with the desire and practice of impurity. It is organized in every community by agents of Satan, and it flaunts its glaring seduction in streets and public places. No vice does more soul: scarring work than impurity; its allurements are to be found in social gatherings and conversation. It is a syren, bewitching the hearts of all.
Battles Many—Victories Few
It was of impurity that Saint Augustine wrote, that in all the encounters with which a Christian comes face to face, where purity is at stake, the battles are frequent and the victories are rare. What is more the demon of impurity never rests, never relaxes, never relents, never dies; he teases and tortures and ceases his temptings only in death. Indeed, this is one of the most consoling thoughts about death, that if it is the end of life, it is also the end of temptation.
But the answer is not despair; nor is the situation entirely hopeless. For, man, endowed with free-will can help himself, even naturally. He can have clean thoughts, clean reading, clean glances, clean environment. And it is a matter of experience that, when one looks down, all he sees is dust and dirt and mud and mire; but when he looks up into the sky, he can see blue skies and sunshine and white snow cradled in the unspotted mountain tops. When he lifts up his eyes unto the hills, he sees beauty always. It is ever thus, even to the point that a pure soul will always be encased in a pure body. These are the natural helps.
Supernatural Sources and Helps for Purity
In the supernatural order prayer is the first means of preserving purity. For prayer is union with God; it is to see God; and God said that it was the clean of heart, the pure that would see Him.
Next comes the frequent reception of the Sacraments. “Love the study of Holy Scripture,” was St. Jerome’s advice, “and thou wilt not love the voice of the flesh.”
Finally, “idleness has taught much evil;” and it was Saint Jerome who advised: “Do some work, so that the devil may always find thee employed.”
The Help of the Mother Most Pure
And, furthermore, God has given man a wonderful mother in Mary. She passed through every stage of human life—child, girl, maiden, wife and mother. And after nineteen hundred years, the world hails her and calls her by the most beautiful, the most attractive and most heavenly title known; for it calls her mother, and, as if that were not sufficient, it adds the words: “Most Pure.” This is a distinct creation of Christianity. And the origin of all the glory and all the honor that have accrued to purity of life, and particularly of body is the fact that Mary was so pure that Jesus chose to be born of her.
The Total Purity of Mary
Holy Mother Church, in the Mass for the Purest Heart of Mary, applies to her these words from the Book of Wisdom: “No defiled thing cometh into her. She is the brightness of eternal light and the spotless mirror of God’s majesty and the image of his goodness” (Wisdom 7:25). Mary was preserved not only from Original Sin, but even from the least fault and imperfection.
This is the doctrine of the Church, as stated by the Council of Trent: “If anyone shall say that a person once justified ... can for the rest of his life avoid all sins, even the least, unless it is by a special privilege of God, such as the Church holds concerning the Blessed Virgin, let him be anathema” (Denzinger 833).
Long before the Council of Trent, St. Ephrem had expressed the faith of the Church in these beautiful words: “Thou alone, O Lord, and Thy Mother, Thou alone are perfectly holy; for in Thee, O Lord, there is no stain, nor is there any blemish in Thy Mother.”
Absence of sin is only the negative element in holiness; there must be added the positive element of virtue and progress. Though full of grace at all times, the Blessed Virgin could and did grow in holiness through her faithful co-operation with grace. The light and splendor of her holy life were like the sun hastening to his noonday brightness. Where there is no darkness there is light, but light can increase in intensity; where there is no sickness there is health, but health can increase in vigor and vitality.
Such was the progress of the Blessed Mother of God that from day to day and from hour to hour she reflected more brightly the brightness of eternal light and expressed more definitely and distinctly the image of His goodness.
Pure Devotion
“When Jesus had seen His Mother and the disciple standing whom He loved, He said to His Mother, ‘Woman, behold thy son.” Because Jesus loves the soul He commends it to His Mother’s care, telling her to treat that soul as her own child. And such a word of commendation from Jesus is a law to Mary. “And to the disciple whom He loved (and because He loved him) He said: ‘Behold thy mother.’” Look upon her as your mother, treat her as a mother, and expect from her the tenderness, gentleness, compassion, that experience tells us may be expected from a mother’s heart.
Devotion to the Pure Heart of Mary is, therefore, devotion to the Maternal Heart of Mary, to this heart that embraces, in a love wider than the ocean, all the souls that Jesus died to save. Just as devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus means devotion to Him who is the supreme lover of mankind, the greatest of all lovers, so devotion to the Heart of Mary means devotion to her who loves us with a mother’s tenderness.
The Sacred Heart of Jesus
We speak habitually of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Heart that is indescribably sacred, because it is the Heart of the Word Incarnate. His Heart is holy with the untreated holiness of God, because it is actually the Heart of God Himself. It is sacred because consecrated by its union with the Divinity. “For Him hath God the Father sealed” (John 6:27).
The Most Pure Heart of Mary
Many may well remember the May devotions when we sang the hymn “O Purest of Creatures.” For many folk, when they hear the word “purest,” no matter what it is about, they instinctively think of Our Blessed Lady. Now, Mary’s Heart is pure and spotless because it has been sanctified, beyond all other hearts, by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, making it to be the dwelling-place of the sacred and divinely-sanctified Heart of Jesus. The Catholic Church, therefore, pays boundless respect to the Heart of the Mother, because it was the dwelling-place of the Son. Mary is the spotless tabernacle, the earthly resting-place prepared for the Son of God.
The Pure Heart of the Virgin John
It was on the Cross of Calvary that the pure Heart of Jesus gave His pure Mother Mary, to the pure and virginal John, His beloved Apostle. In His dying moments, Jesus gives her a mother’s heart for those whom He loves. She is bidden to regard, as her son, the “disciple whom Jesus loves.” If saints have overflowed with tenderness for human souls, even when steeped in sin, just because “Jesus loved them,” how must Mary’s heart be filled with tenderness for Christ’s little ones! How great, then, should be our confidence in her motherly love for us!
We Have to Be Pure to Receive Mary as Our Mother
Remember that, if Mary received a special commission from the dying lips of Jesus to regard as her children those whom Jesus loves, we, too, have received a commission from Him to regard and treat her as a mother. After that He saith to the disciple, “Behold thy Mother.” And we are told how St. John acted. “From that hour the disciple took her to his own”; she became part of his daily life, she was henceforward as a mother in his household.
So should we also take Mary into our daily life. She should manage our household for us, she should preside over the affairs of our soul, which is the household in which God reigns. In that interior mansion the busy life of prayer, worship and devotion, should proceed in an orderly way, just as in the life of a regular household. In the early hours of the morning takes place the supreme event of the day — namely, the visit of the Master and Lord of the Mansion. With Him come radiance and joy, light and strength and comfort. He comes to give us the kiss of peace, to fold us to His Sacred Heart, in order to tell us of His love. To know that love is the supremest of all facts for each one of us. To be sure of that, to taste that reality, is religion, is peace on earth, and is the essence of heaven, since heaven means the perfect realization that God loves you.
Clean Inside and Out
All the world hates―or it should hate―whatever is sordid, tainted and impure. Health authorities, everywhere, are waging a warfare of propaganda to stamp out impure food, impure air, impure water; and all because of the natural instinct for cleanliness, which is next to godliness.
Now, all this is good; it is very good; and yet, it is all very superficial. It is little more than cleaning the outside of the cup and of the dish. Because in last analysis, the only purity that matters is purity of soul that makes one like unto God, and like unto Mary, who, as St. Thomas so admirably expresses it, after God Himself, is the most pure. After God, she is everything that is superlatively good and spotless and beautiful.
Becoming Like Christ
It is the belief that, in physical appearance, Jesus looked like Mary because of the fact that all His flesh came from her alone. On the other hand we can say, therefore, that Mary looked like Jesus. Not only did she look like Him, but she was the most like to Him of any creature. It is a physical truism that husband and wife, who have lived together for years, get to resemble each other physically. The long years of association, of thinking the same thoughts, of having the same interests, of loving each other, of depending on each other, make them not only like each other in soul, but gradually eliminate the different facial characteristics.
Taking the physical and spiritual association of Jesus and Mary, one could develop that thought indefinitely. Whoever were as close as they? He the Redeemer, she His Co-operator. She had no will but to do His Will. We can never lift the veil that hides from our eyes the hidden years at Nazareth. But it requires no stretch of imagination to see their exchange of thought, their marks of mutual love, their intimate union, both thinking of nothing but the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
But Jesus, the All-Pure, could not tolerate such association with Him, except if it was with one who was most pure. That purity of hers must be such that even He would like to gaze upon it. He made her most pure at the moment of her creation. And when He came to her, to be born of her, to live with her, He could but keep on adding to that purity—thus making her more and more like Himself with each day they spent together.
The Church Speaks
Holy Mother Church, in the Mass for the Purest Heart of Mary, applies to her these words from the Book of Wisdom: “No defiled thing cometh into her. She is the brightness of eternal light and the spotless mirror of God’s majesty and the image of his goodness” (Wisdom 7:25). Mary was preserved not only from Original Sin, but even from the least fault and imperfection.
This is the doctrine of the Church, as stated by the Council of Trent: “If anyone shall say that a person once justified ... can for the rest of his life avoid all sins, even the least, unless it is by a special privilege of God, such as the Church holds concerning the Blessed Virgin, let him be anathema” (Denzinger 833).
Long before the Council of Trent, St. Ephrem had expressed the faith of the Church in these beautiful words: “Thou alone, O Lord, and Thy Mother, Thou alone are perfectly holy; for in Thee, O Lord, there is no stain, nor is there any blemish in Thy Mother.”
Absence of sin is only the negative element in holiness; there must be added the positive element of virtue and progress. Though full of grace at all times, the Blessed Virgin could and did grow in holiness through her faithful co-operation with grace. The light and splendor of her holy life were like the sun hastening to his noonday brightness. Where there is no darkness there is light, but light can increase in intensity; where there is no sickness there is health, but health can increase in vigor and vitality.
Such was the progress of the Blessed Mother of God that from day to day and from hour to hour she reflected more brightly the brightness of eternal light and expressed more definitely and distinctly the image of His goodness.
"Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God" said Our Lord (Matthew 5:6). Today, very few have a clear view of God because the world has become so impure, unchaste and immodest. So much so, that, back in the early 1900's, Our Lady revealed to Blessed Jacinta Marto that most souls that are damned, are damned for sins of impurity in either thought, word or deed.
We think also of Amelia, the older friend of Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta at Fatima, who had died aged around 18 years of age and Our Lady revealed that she would burn in the fires of Purgatory until the end of the world. Curious inquiries turned up information that it was probably for some sin or sins of impurity that she had been guilty, but had confessed.
It reminds us, too, the revelation made to Mother Mariana in Quito (to whom Our Lady of Good Success and Our Lord were appearing). Mother Mariana was shownOur Lord beginning His Agony, and she heard the voice of the Eternal Father saying, “This punishment will be for the 20th century.” She saw three swords hanging over the head of Christ. On each was written, “I shall punish heresy, blasphemy and impurity.” With this, she was given to understand all that would take place in the present era.
Tracing the Roots to Original Sin
Original Sin, besides darkening the understanding and weakening the will, has left as a sad heritage to man a strong inclination to evil; this tendency, fungus-like, feeds on every fiber of human life, but flourishes and fattens most of all in the generative powers of the human organism.
The Devil of Impurity
The demon of impurity attacks man long before he can use his reason, and swoops down like a wicked vulture to prey upon him before he knows right from wrong. He scrapes the surface of man’s curiosity, tempts him to evil thoughts, words and deeds. In the words of Holy Scripture, he calls in seven other devils worse than himself; he calls in older companions, bigger and more rueful than they. He calls in small groups to tell evil stories, use foul language, before they ultimately dare and defy the innocent to be bad.
No Escape, No Safe Haven
Today, it bombards the children from every angle—TV, internet, movies, billboards, fashions, everyday dress habits—wherever you turn, you find it brazenly staring at you. Thus it is that many a boy and girl are steeped in the venomous baths of impurity, before their years have time to be counted, and thus initiated, plunge into the very whirlpool of sinfulness, from which nothing but a miracle of God’s grace can extricate them.
No place, no condition of life, no age seems free from its diseased effects. City and country, the high and the low, the young and the old are carried away with the desire and practice of impurity. It is organized in every community by agents of Satan, and it flaunts its glaring seduction in streets and public places. No vice does more soul: scarring work than impurity; its allurements are to be found in social gatherings and conversation. It is a syren, bewitching the hearts of all.
Battles Many—Victories Few
It was of impurity that Saint Augustine wrote, that in all the encounters with which a Christian comes face to face, where purity is at stake, the battles are frequent and the victories are rare. What is more the demon of impurity never rests, never relaxes, never relents, never dies; he teases and tortures and ceases his temptings only in death. Indeed, this is one of the most consoling thoughts about death, that if it is the end of life, it is also the end of temptation.
But the answer is not despair; nor is the situation entirely hopeless. For, man, endowed with free-will can help himself, even naturally. He can have clean thoughts, clean reading, clean glances, clean environment. And it is a matter of experience that, when one looks down, all he sees is dust and dirt and mud and mire; but when he looks up into the sky, he can see blue skies and sunshine and white snow cradled in the unspotted mountain tops. When he lifts up his eyes unto the hills, he sees beauty always. It is ever thus, even to the point that a pure soul will always be encased in a pure body. These are the natural helps.
Supernatural Sources and Helps for Purity
In the supernatural order prayer is the first means of preserving purity. For prayer is union with God; it is to see God; and God said that it was the clean of heart, the pure that would see Him.
Next comes the frequent reception of the Sacraments. “Love the study of Holy Scripture,” was St. Jerome’s advice, “and thou wilt not love the voice of the flesh.”
Finally, “idleness has taught much evil;” and it was Saint Jerome who advised: “Do some work, so that the devil may always find thee employed.”
The Help of the Mother Most Pure
And, furthermore, God has given man a wonderful mother in Mary. She passed through every stage of human life—child, girl, maiden, wife and mother. And after nineteen hundred years, the world hails her and calls her by the most beautiful, the most attractive and most heavenly title known; for it calls her mother, and, as if that were not sufficient, it adds the words: “Most Pure.” This is a distinct creation of Christianity. And the origin of all the glory and all the honor that have accrued to purity of life, and particularly of body is the fact that Mary was so pure that Jesus chose to be born of her.
The Total Purity of Mary
Holy Mother Church, in the Mass for the Purest Heart of Mary, applies to her these words from the Book of Wisdom: “No defiled thing cometh into her. She is the brightness of eternal light and the spotless mirror of God’s majesty and the image of his goodness” (Wisdom 7:25). Mary was preserved not only from Original Sin, but even from the least fault and imperfection.
This is the doctrine of the Church, as stated by the Council of Trent: “If anyone shall say that a person once justified ... can for the rest of his life avoid all sins, even the least, unless it is by a special privilege of God, such as the Church holds concerning the Blessed Virgin, let him be anathema” (Denzinger 833).
Long before the Council of Trent, St. Ephrem had expressed the faith of the Church in these beautiful words: “Thou alone, O Lord, and Thy Mother, Thou alone are perfectly holy; for in Thee, O Lord, there is no stain, nor is there any blemish in Thy Mother.”
Absence of sin is only the negative element in holiness; there must be added the positive element of virtue and progress. Though full of grace at all times, the Blessed Virgin could and did grow in holiness through her faithful co-operation with grace. The light and splendor of her holy life were like the sun hastening to his noonday brightness. Where there is no darkness there is light, but light can increase in intensity; where there is no sickness there is health, but health can increase in vigor and vitality.
Such was the progress of the Blessed Mother of God that from day to day and from hour to hour she reflected more brightly the brightness of eternal light and expressed more definitely and distinctly the image of His goodness.
Pure Devotion
“When Jesus had seen His Mother and the disciple standing whom He loved, He said to His Mother, ‘Woman, behold thy son.” Because Jesus loves the soul He commends it to His Mother’s care, telling her to treat that soul as her own child. And such a word of commendation from Jesus is a law to Mary. “And to the disciple whom He loved (and because He loved him) He said: ‘Behold thy mother.’” Look upon her as your mother, treat her as a mother, and expect from her the tenderness, gentleness, compassion, that experience tells us may be expected from a mother’s heart.
Devotion to the Pure Heart of Mary is, therefore, devotion to the Maternal Heart of Mary, to this heart that embraces, in a love wider than the ocean, all the souls that Jesus died to save. Just as devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus means devotion to Him who is the supreme lover of mankind, the greatest of all lovers, so devotion to the Heart of Mary means devotion to her who loves us with a mother’s tenderness.
The Sacred Heart of Jesus
We speak habitually of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Heart that is indescribably sacred, because it is the Heart of the Word Incarnate. His Heart is holy with the untreated holiness of God, because it is actually the Heart of God Himself. It is sacred because consecrated by its union with the Divinity. “For Him hath God the Father sealed” (John 6:27).
The Most Pure Heart of Mary
Many may well remember the May devotions when we sang the hymn “O Purest of Creatures.” For many folk, when they hear the word “purest,” no matter what it is about, they instinctively think of Our Blessed Lady. Now, Mary’s Heart is pure and spotless because it has been sanctified, beyond all other hearts, by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, making it to be the dwelling-place of the sacred and divinely-sanctified Heart of Jesus. The Catholic Church, therefore, pays boundless respect to the Heart of the Mother, because it was the dwelling-place of the Son. Mary is the spotless tabernacle, the earthly resting-place prepared for the Son of God.
The Pure Heart of the Virgin John
It was on the Cross of Calvary that the pure Heart of Jesus gave His pure Mother Mary, to the pure and virginal John, His beloved Apostle. In His dying moments, Jesus gives her a mother’s heart for those whom He loves. She is bidden to regard, as her son, the “disciple whom Jesus loves.” If saints have overflowed with tenderness for human souls, even when steeped in sin, just because “Jesus loved them,” how must Mary’s heart be filled with tenderness for Christ’s little ones! How great, then, should be our confidence in her motherly love for us!
We Have to Be Pure to Receive Mary as Our Mother
Remember that, if Mary received a special commission from the dying lips of Jesus to regard as her children those whom Jesus loves, we, too, have received a commission from Him to regard and treat her as a mother. After that He saith to the disciple, “Behold thy Mother.” And we are told how St. John acted. “From that hour the disciple took her to his own”; she became part of his daily life, she was henceforward as a mother in his household.
So should we also take Mary into our daily life. She should manage our household for us, she should preside over the affairs of our soul, which is the household in which God reigns. In that interior mansion the busy life of prayer, worship and devotion, should proceed in an orderly way, just as in the life of a regular household. In the early hours of the morning takes place the supreme event of the day — namely, the visit of the Master and Lord of the Mansion. With Him come radiance and joy, light and strength and comfort. He comes to give us the kiss of peace, to fold us to His Sacred Heart, in order to tell us of His love. To know that love is the supremest of all facts for each one of us. To be sure of that, to taste that reality, is religion, is peace on earth, and is the essence of heaven, since heaven means the perfect realization that God loves you.
Clean Inside and Out
All the world hates―or it should hate―whatever is sordid, tainted and impure. Health authorities, everywhere, are waging a warfare of propaganda to stamp out impure food, impure air, impure water; and all because of the natural instinct for cleanliness, which is next to godliness.
Now, all this is good; it is very good; and yet, it is all very superficial. It is little more than cleaning the outside of the cup and of the dish. Because in last analysis, the only purity that matters is purity of soul that makes one like unto God, and like unto Mary, who, as St. Thomas so admirably expresses it, after God Himself, is the most pure. After God, she is everything that is superlatively good and spotless and beautiful.
Becoming Like Christ
It is the belief that, in physical appearance, Jesus looked like Mary because of the fact that all His flesh came from her alone. On the other hand we can say, therefore, that Mary looked like Jesus. Not only did she look like Him, but she was the most like to Him of any creature. It is a physical truism that husband and wife, who have lived together for years, get to resemble each other physically. The long years of association, of thinking the same thoughts, of having the same interests, of loving each other, of depending on each other, make them not only like each other in soul, but gradually eliminate the different facial characteristics.
Taking the physical and spiritual association of Jesus and Mary, one could develop that thought indefinitely. Whoever were as close as they? He the Redeemer, she His Co-operator. She had no will but to do His Will. We can never lift the veil that hides from our eyes the hidden years at Nazareth. But it requires no stretch of imagination to see their exchange of thought, their marks of mutual love, their intimate union, both thinking of nothing but the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
But Jesus, the All-Pure, could not tolerate such association with Him, except if it was with one who was most pure. That purity of hers must be such that even He would like to gaze upon it. He made her most pure at the moment of her creation. And when He came to her, to be born of her, to live with her, He could but keep on adding to that purity—thus making her more and more like Himself with each day they spent together.
The Church Speaks
Holy Mother Church, in the Mass for the Purest Heart of Mary, applies to her these words from the Book of Wisdom: “No defiled thing cometh into her. She is the brightness of eternal light and the spotless mirror of God’s majesty and the image of his goodness” (Wisdom 7:25). Mary was preserved not only from Original Sin, but even from the least fault and imperfection.
This is the doctrine of the Church, as stated by the Council of Trent: “If anyone shall say that a person once justified ... can for the rest of his life avoid all sins, even the least, unless it is by a special privilege of God, such as the Church holds concerning the Blessed Virgin, let him be anathema” (Denzinger 833).
Long before the Council of Trent, St. Ephrem had expressed the faith of the Church in these beautiful words: “Thou alone, O Lord, and Thy Mother, Thou alone are perfectly holy; for in Thee, O Lord, there is no stain, nor is there any blemish in Thy Mother.”
Absence of sin is only the negative element in holiness; there must be added the positive element of virtue and progress. Though full of grace at all times, the Blessed Virgin could and did grow in holiness through her faithful co-operation with grace. The light and splendor of her holy life were like the sun hastening to his noonday brightness. Where there is no darkness there is light, but light can increase in intensity; where there is no sickness there is health, but health can increase in vigor and vitality.
Such was the progress of the Blessed Mother of God that from day to day and from hour to hour she reflected more brightly the brightness of eternal light and expressed more definitely and distinctly the image of His goodness.
7. MOTHER MOST CHASTE
Overkill?
After having called the Blessed Virgin "Virgin of Virgins" and "Mother Most Pure," it would seem to be something of a let-down to talk of Chastity, since Virginity is the more perfect form of Chastity. Perfect chastity, or virginity, means to refrain from all sexual pleasure whether sinful (as outside of marriage), or permissible (as in marriage). But imperfect chastity, which means refraining only from sinful pleasures, is the real meaning of the particular term "Chastity".
The Nuts and Bolts of Chastity
This chastity exists in the young person who, before marriage, refrains from illicit sexual pleasure, and it is then called an "imperfect virginity" unless he has the avowed purpose of ever preserving his bodily integrity from sinful gratification, and of never marrying. And chastity, in the strict meaning of the word, taken aside from virginity or perfect chastity, may even exist in the married state, in that it refrains from permissible sexual pleasures. This is called conjugal chastity, or marital chastity, which does not exclude non-sinful sensual pleasure, but moderates it.
The Perfect Chastity of Mary
The title "Mother Most Chaste" would mean therefore her perfect chastity, and consequently her perfect virginity. There can be no thought of mere chastity, or imperfect chastity, in reference to Our Lady. We know that Joseph also had the vow of virginity. Theirs was a virgin marriage. So that even the hint of anything sensual in regard to Mary would be blasphemous. She was all pure in body and soul, always the virgin of virgins, and, so we have said, very likely the application of the title of "Mother Most Chaste" is but a variant term, another repetition of the fact that she is the purest of creatures, all immaculate, all holy in body and soul.
And yet I like to think that the Church, in using this term "Mother Most Chaste", does not use a term meaning absolutely the same thing as the preceding expression "Mother Most Pure." For that would be a needless repetition.
Needless Repetition?
Being applied to Mary, "Mother Most Chaste" must be essentially the same since there can be no idea of whittling away or limiting to the lower meaning of a word. So for that reason I want to believe that even while we cannot mention her virgin marriage in connection with any other marriage, even the most chaste marriage, and even the virginal marriages of some of the saints, we can take this title and apply it in a special way to her as the exemplar or model of a holy marriage and in view of her role as the great protectress of Christian marriage.
Chaste Marriages
Mary has her titles of dominion over angels, virgins, martyrs, confessors, and every class of servants of God. Why should she not have a special title of. Queen of the Home, Queen of the Family? Perhaps, one day, a pope may add that title? Who knows? Marriage is sacred to God. He made it a sacrament. He wants every marriage to be a chaste marriage.
One of St. Joseph's titles is "Chaste Spouse." Today marriage is being violated as it never was before. Now more than ever does it need the mothering care of the Chaste Mother of God. For today marriage has been dragged into the mire and is, like the man who fell victim to the robbers in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, beaten, robbed, stripped naked and half dead.
No Synonym for Chastity
There are many synonyms given for chastity—it may mean continent, innocent, virtuous, pious, religious, holy, sacred. Yet there never was found a perfect synonym. Every word has its peculiar shade of meaning. But every one of these variants of chaste needs to be applied to the true Christian marriage. And to be such, marriage must be modeled as far as possible after the holy marriage of Mary and Joseph. The Holy Family is the only ideal for any family.
Exaggeration of Chastity
Mary did not disdain marriage; she glorified it as the Church has glorified it against the constant attacks upon it. When the Manicheans, the Marcionites, and others denounced marriage as a sinful thing, St. John Chrysostom said--"the worst licentiousness is not as wicked as their chastity" ― meaning that they exaggerated the demands of chastity to the point of sinfulness. Even Chastity, perfect Chastity, is not everything. One recalls how the nuns of Port-Royal were excoriated--"Pure as angels, proud as devils."
A monk of the Middle Ages, Brother Berthold of Ratisbon, preached thus in a sermon--"God sanctified Matrimony by making it one of His seven Sacraments. It is holier than any order ever founded, more sacred than that of the barefooted friars, or the preachers, or the grey monks. In certain respects none of these orders can be compared with marriage, because marriage is a necessary order, and therefore strictly enjoined by God, whereas all other-orders are merely of counsel. How could the predestined member of the elect ever be reached without Matrimony?"
The Sacredness of the Human Body
It is through bodily union of the sexes that the human race is propagated — God creating in each case the human soul. “Thus among the blessings of marriage the child holds the first place and, indeed, the Creator of the human race Himself, who in His goodness wished to use men as His helpers in the propagation of life, taught this when, instituting marriage in Paradise, He said to our first parents, and through them to all future spouses, ‘Increase and multiply and fill the Earth” (Pius XI, Encyclical on Christian Marriage).
Destination to so sacred a purpose reveals the sacredness of man, not only as to soul, but also as to his body. Indeed, the human body is sacred, fashioned according to the laws which God laid upon human nature, enlivened by a soul which the divine Spirit breathed into it.
The whole man, soul and body, is destined to become a temple of God, member of the mystical body of Christ, and to live eternally in heavenly joy. Does not this idea of the dignity and destiny of man and, consequently, the sacredness of co-operation with the almighty God in giving existence to new human beings also show the intrinsic malice and hideousness of abusing the body in immoral and lustful mingling of the sexes?
The great Apostle impresses this idea forcibly upon the Corinthians when he writes: “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ: Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? ... Or, do you not know that your members are the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God and that you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:15.)
The abuse of the body for the gratification of lust poisons the very fountains of life. Once this poison has been injected into a nation and is not stopped in its spread, that nation is on the way to extinction, for, “If anyone destroys the temple of God, him will God destroy; for holy is the temple of God, and this temple you are” (1 Corinthians 3:17). And again, “The nation and kingdom that will not serve Thee shall perish, and the Gentiles shall be wasted with desolation” (Feast of Christ the King).
Marriage consecrates the human body to God in the most important function of which it is capable. This consecration to be effective and permanent must be based, according to Pius XI, on love — love of God, love of the spouse, love of offspring. Abuse of the generative faculty is a criminal injury inflicted upon the partner under the mask of love. Thus a life of conjugal chastity is in an eminent sense a life of love.
In view of human weakness such a life is impossible unless lived in close union with God. Mary, the Mother most chaste, though free from evil concupiscence and all inordinate inclinations, nevertheless practices all those things which insure victory over all evil lusts and temptations. She is given to prayer; God fills her mind and heart. She is always occupied doing the work God has assigned to her; idleness invites the tempter. There is reserve in her contacts with people excluding idle conversations; her eyes and ears are closed to whatever might contaminate the soul.
Above all, her heart is all aflame with the love of God, and where God is loved with the whole heart, unlawful love of creatures becomes an impossibility. In like manner the remembrance of God must sanctify the home and keep out of it the spirit of the world, strength must be sought in the frequent reception of the sacraments, the occasions of sin must be avoided. A chaste married life is the fruit of loving consecration of the body, with all its faculties and functions, to the sublime purpose of marriage, that is, consecration of the married in their whole person to God, their Creator and Last End. Let Mary, the Mother most chaste, be their inspiration and exemplar or model.
Chastity Requires Chastisement
Since the general notion of virtue consists in moderating some activity, but in a reasonable fashion, and since the word chastity is derived from an act of chastising, it is clear that chastity is a virtue. It is, moreover, a special virtue, with an object that no other virtue possesses, as it moderates those propensities of the flesh that incite to carnal pleasure. The word, moreover, comes from a custom, as old as the world, of chastising unruly children.
These pleasurable feelings, says Saint Thomas, are very like the antics of a child. The sensations are natural to man in all things pertaining to the conservation of the species and are much more incessant, much more compelling than those concerning the well-being of the individual. Hence, if these carnal movements are fostered by willfully consenting to, and dwelling upon them, they soon become unmanageable; and just as a child who has been allowed to follow his own whims becomes spoiled, so this longing for tactile pleasure needs an especial chastisement.
And although the danger of excess in this matter may be modified by matrimony, which gives free rein to these emotions, and even sanctifies them by a Sacrament, still this very freedom needs a special bridle and curb, lest it degenerate into an orgy of unrestrained passion. Marriage must ever be sacred to God; the dignity of the Sacrament must be maintained, according to which every marriage must be a chaste marriage. And, today, when marriage is being abused as never before, it needs the protection and guidance of her whom the Church calls the Mother Most Chaste, who, with her divine Son and St. Joseph constituted the ideal family —the Holy Family.
The World and Marriage Has DIstanced Itself From God
In a world that has gone so far away from Christ and, in so many ways, His teaching on marriage is, it would seem, the least respected and the most misunderstood. The sublime story of matrimony has its foundation, law and binding force in the “profunda Dei,” the deep things of God.
When the Creator looked complacently on His work, He said that it was good; but looking at His own masterpiece, man, He said: “It is not good for man to be alone.” But, to remedy the situation, He will consult the divine family; and then, He will not vivify other morsels of native dust to form a companion, for this would be only multiplication of the same image, and not a more explicit representation of the divine family, in which God the Father begets God and Son, and the Father and Son breathe forth the Holy Spirit, Who proceeds from them as their mutual Love. And the Divine Family is complete.
So, too, the decree of Heaven is that man be made into a family--”to our own image and likeness.” Let his partner proceed from him, bone from bone and flesh from flesh. Then, let the vital energy and chaste passion of two persons produce a third, who in an effusion of tenderness both will call their own dear love. Thus the family of God has impressed His image on a human family: the image of His paternity and of His government.
Having become the image of God, by the holy prerogative of parenthood, father and mother should govern their little world, which is their flesh and blood, as God governs His world of creation by His power, His wisdom and His love.
To the father, more especially, belongs the exercise of power and wisdom; his it is to provide, to work, to bend under the yoke; his to keep peace and order, by a kindly exercise of his authority as head of the home. The great function of the mother is love. If the Father is the head, the mother is the heart of the family. Hers is a love that gives and does not always receive; her heart is the cradle where all her love is lavished, and little, apparently, returned.
Reflecting the Divine Family
One step more: God, the Divine Family, is also God, made Man. He, too, has a spouse called the Catholic Church; and He has children, humanity redeemed; and on it, He will imprint His image. Saint Paul says that the union of man and wife is a great Sacrament in Jesus Christ; and again he tells us that man is the head of the woman as Christ is head of the Church.
So that as Christ gives to His Church both His name and His honor; as He loves and protects her; and as He promises to be with her all days even to the consummation of the world; so, too, does the husband give his name and his honor to his wife; he loves and protects her; and his pledged word is to remain with her forever. And as Jesus demands a holy posterity from His Church, so should the husband demand a holy offspring of his wife.
Now, it is a safe assertion to make that when God established the family, He would also give stability to an institution bearing the impression of His perfection. And thus from the beginning He decreed that the bond of marriage could never be broken except by the death of the husband or wife: “What God hath joined together, let no man separate.”
Neither violence, nor entreaties, nor influence, nor plotting, nor loss of fortune, nor crime can break that bond. Human legislation, to its own detriment, has dared a violation; godless courts are marrying and giving in marriage, and just as freely separating and taking away, until they have made society something hideous to behold; their records are taken from the files of a nation’s defilement, and an indication of its gradual decline.
Divorce is not only a sin against God, it is also an insult to womanhood. In the question of chasteness there is here no parity; woman is in a higher sphere than man. A man may be most immoral; yet if in his social life he is well-behaved, his weakness is readily condoned, and he can leave his shame where he has left the victim of his sin.
But a woman who has fallen from her throne of purity carries her shame about with her, and brings it back to be the dishonor of her home. And it is a vile insult to her to think that her love can be tasted and then flung aside like the fruit that has lost its flavor. The love of a chaste woman is the gift of her whole life, and either it is to be reverently left untouched, or it is to be lovingly cherished till death.
After having called the Blessed Virgin "Virgin of Virgins" and "Mother Most Pure," it would seem to be something of a let-down to talk of Chastity, since Virginity is the more perfect form of Chastity. Perfect chastity, or virginity, means to refrain from all sexual pleasure whether sinful (as outside of marriage), or permissible (as in marriage). But imperfect chastity, which means refraining only from sinful pleasures, is the real meaning of the particular term "Chastity".
The Nuts and Bolts of Chastity
This chastity exists in the young person who, before marriage, refrains from illicit sexual pleasure, and it is then called an "imperfect virginity" unless he has the avowed purpose of ever preserving his bodily integrity from sinful gratification, and of never marrying. And chastity, in the strict meaning of the word, taken aside from virginity or perfect chastity, may even exist in the married state, in that it refrains from permissible sexual pleasures. This is called conjugal chastity, or marital chastity, which does not exclude non-sinful sensual pleasure, but moderates it.
The Perfect Chastity of Mary
The title "Mother Most Chaste" would mean therefore her perfect chastity, and consequently her perfect virginity. There can be no thought of mere chastity, or imperfect chastity, in reference to Our Lady. We know that Joseph also had the vow of virginity. Theirs was a virgin marriage. So that even the hint of anything sensual in regard to Mary would be blasphemous. She was all pure in body and soul, always the virgin of virgins, and, so we have said, very likely the application of the title of "Mother Most Chaste" is but a variant term, another repetition of the fact that she is the purest of creatures, all immaculate, all holy in body and soul.
And yet I like to think that the Church, in using this term "Mother Most Chaste", does not use a term meaning absolutely the same thing as the preceding expression "Mother Most Pure." For that would be a needless repetition.
Needless Repetition?
Being applied to Mary, "Mother Most Chaste" must be essentially the same since there can be no idea of whittling away or limiting to the lower meaning of a word. So for that reason I want to believe that even while we cannot mention her virgin marriage in connection with any other marriage, even the most chaste marriage, and even the virginal marriages of some of the saints, we can take this title and apply it in a special way to her as the exemplar or model of a holy marriage and in view of her role as the great protectress of Christian marriage.
Chaste Marriages
Mary has her titles of dominion over angels, virgins, martyrs, confessors, and every class of servants of God. Why should she not have a special title of. Queen of the Home, Queen of the Family? Perhaps, one day, a pope may add that title? Who knows? Marriage is sacred to God. He made it a sacrament. He wants every marriage to be a chaste marriage.
One of St. Joseph's titles is "Chaste Spouse." Today marriage is being violated as it never was before. Now more than ever does it need the mothering care of the Chaste Mother of God. For today marriage has been dragged into the mire and is, like the man who fell victim to the robbers in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, beaten, robbed, stripped naked and half dead.
No Synonym for Chastity
There are many synonyms given for chastity—it may mean continent, innocent, virtuous, pious, religious, holy, sacred. Yet there never was found a perfect synonym. Every word has its peculiar shade of meaning. But every one of these variants of chaste needs to be applied to the true Christian marriage. And to be such, marriage must be modeled as far as possible after the holy marriage of Mary and Joseph. The Holy Family is the only ideal for any family.
Exaggeration of Chastity
Mary did not disdain marriage; she glorified it as the Church has glorified it against the constant attacks upon it. When the Manicheans, the Marcionites, and others denounced marriage as a sinful thing, St. John Chrysostom said--"the worst licentiousness is not as wicked as their chastity" ― meaning that they exaggerated the demands of chastity to the point of sinfulness. Even Chastity, perfect Chastity, is not everything. One recalls how the nuns of Port-Royal were excoriated--"Pure as angels, proud as devils."
A monk of the Middle Ages, Brother Berthold of Ratisbon, preached thus in a sermon--"God sanctified Matrimony by making it one of His seven Sacraments. It is holier than any order ever founded, more sacred than that of the barefooted friars, or the preachers, or the grey monks. In certain respects none of these orders can be compared with marriage, because marriage is a necessary order, and therefore strictly enjoined by God, whereas all other-orders are merely of counsel. How could the predestined member of the elect ever be reached without Matrimony?"
The Sacredness of the Human Body
It is through bodily union of the sexes that the human race is propagated — God creating in each case the human soul. “Thus among the blessings of marriage the child holds the first place and, indeed, the Creator of the human race Himself, who in His goodness wished to use men as His helpers in the propagation of life, taught this when, instituting marriage in Paradise, He said to our first parents, and through them to all future spouses, ‘Increase and multiply and fill the Earth” (Pius XI, Encyclical on Christian Marriage).
Destination to so sacred a purpose reveals the sacredness of man, not only as to soul, but also as to his body. Indeed, the human body is sacred, fashioned according to the laws which God laid upon human nature, enlivened by a soul which the divine Spirit breathed into it.
The whole man, soul and body, is destined to become a temple of God, member of the mystical body of Christ, and to live eternally in heavenly joy. Does not this idea of the dignity and destiny of man and, consequently, the sacredness of co-operation with the almighty God in giving existence to new human beings also show the intrinsic malice and hideousness of abusing the body in immoral and lustful mingling of the sexes?
The great Apostle impresses this idea forcibly upon the Corinthians when he writes: “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ: Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? ... Or, do you not know that your members are the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God and that you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:15.)
The abuse of the body for the gratification of lust poisons the very fountains of life. Once this poison has been injected into a nation and is not stopped in its spread, that nation is on the way to extinction, for, “If anyone destroys the temple of God, him will God destroy; for holy is the temple of God, and this temple you are” (1 Corinthians 3:17). And again, “The nation and kingdom that will not serve Thee shall perish, and the Gentiles shall be wasted with desolation” (Feast of Christ the King).
Marriage consecrates the human body to God in the most important function of which it is capable. This consecration to be effective and permanent must be based, according to Pius XI, on love — love of God, love of the spouse, love of offspring. Abuse of the generative faculty is a criminal injury inflicted upon the partner under the mask of love. Thus a life of conjugal chastity is in an eminent sense a life of love.
In view of human weakness such a life is impossible unless lived in close union with God. Mary, the Mother most chaste, though free from evil concupiscence and all inordinate inclinations, nevertheless practices all those things which insure victory over all evil lusts and temptations. She is given to prayer; God fills her mind and heart. She is always occupied doing the work God has assigned to her; idleness invites the tempter. There is reserve in her contacts with people excluding idle conversations; her eyes and ears are closed to whatever might contaminate the soul.
Above all, her heart is all aflame with the love of God, and where God is loved with the whole heart, unlawful love of creatures becomes an impossibility. In like manner the remembrance of God must sanctify the home and keep out of it the spirit of the world, strength must be sought in the frequent reception of the sacraments, the occasions of sin must be avoided. A chaste married life is the fruit of loving consecration of the body, with all its faculties and functions, to the sublime purpose of marriage, that is, consecration of the married in their whole person to God, their Creator and Last End. Let Mary, the Mother most chaste, be their inspiration and exemplar or model.
Chastity Requires Chastisement
Since the general notion of virtue consists in moderating some activity, but in a reasonable fashion, and since the word chastity is derived from an act of chastising, it is clear that chastity is a virtue. It is, moreover, a special virtue, with an object that no other virtue possesses, as it moderates those propensities of the flesh that incite to carnal pleasure. The word, moreover, comes from a custom, as old as the world, of chastising unruly children.
These pleasurable feelings, says Saint Thomas, are very like the antics of a child. The sensations are natural to man in all things pertaining to the conservation of the species and are much more incessant, much more compelling than those concerning the well-being of the individual. Hence, if these carnal movements are fostered by willfully consenting to, and dwelling upon them, they soon become unmanageable; and just as a child who has been allowed to follow his own whims becomes spoiled, so this longing for tactile pleasure needs an especial chastisement.
And although the danger of excess in this matter may be modified by matrimony, which gives free rein to these emotions, and even sanctifies them by a Sacrament, still this very freedom needs a special bridle and curb, lest it degenerate into an orgy of unrestrained passion. Marriage must ever be sacred to God; the dignity of the Sacrament must be maintained, according to which every marriage must be a chaste marriage. And, today, when marriage is being abused as never before, it needs the protection and guidance of her whom the Church calls the Mother Most Chaste, who, with her divine Son and St. Joseph constituted the ideal family —the Holy Family.
The World and Marriage Has DIstanced Itself From God
In a world that has gone so far away from Christ and, in so many ways, His teaching on marriage is, it would seem, the least respected and the most misunderstood. The sublime story of matrimony has its foundation, law and binding force in the “profunda Dei,” the deep things of God.
When the Creator looked complacently on His work, He said that it was good; but looking at His own masterpiece, man, He said: “It is not good for man to be alone.” But, to remedy the situation, He will consult the divine family; and then, He will not vivify other morsels of native dust to form a companion, for this would be only multiplication of the same image, and not a more explicit representation of the divine family, in which God the Father begets God and Son, and the Father and Son breathe forth the Holy Spirit, Who proceeds from them as their mutual Love. And the Divine Family is complete.
So, too, the decree of Heaven is that man be made into a family--”to our own image and likeness.” Let his partner proceed from him, bone from bone and flesh from flesh. Then, let the vital energy and chaste passion of two persons produce a third, who in an effusion of tenderness both will call their own dear love. Thus the family of God has impressed His image on a human family: the image of His paternity and of His government.
Having become the image of God, by the holy prerogative of parenthood, father and mother should govern their little world, which is their flesh and blood, as God governs His world of creation by His power, His wisdom and His love.
To the father, more especially, belongs the exercise of power and wisdom; his it is to provide, to work, to bend under the yoke; his to keep peace and order, by a kindly exercise of his authority as head of the home. The great function of the mother is love. If the Father is the head, the mother is the heart of the family. Hers is a love that gives and does not always receive; her heart is the cradle where all her love is lavished, and little, apparently, returned.
Reflecting the Divine Family
One step more: God, the Divine Family, is also God, made Man. He, too, has a spouse called the Catholic Church; and He has children, humanity redeemed; and on it, He will imprint His image. Saint Paul says that the union of man and wife is a great Sacrament in Jesus Christ; and again he tells us that man is the head of the woman as Christ is head of the Church.
So that as Christ gives to His Church both His name and His honor; as He loves and protects her; and as He promises to be with her all days even to the consummation of the world; so, too, does the husband give his name and his honor to his wife; he loves and protects her; and his pledged word is to remain with her forever. And as Jesus demands a holy posterity from His Church, so should the husband demand a holy offspring of his wife.
Now, it is a safe assertion to make that when God established the family, He would also give stability to an institution bearing the impression of His perfection. And thus from the beginning He decreed that the bond of marriage could never be broken except by the death of the husband or wife: “What God hath joined together, let no man separate.”
Neither violence, nor entreaties, nor influence, nor plotting, nor loss of fortune, nor crime can break that bond. Human legislation, to its own detriment, has dared a violation; godless courts are marrying and giving in marriage, and just as freely separating and taking away, until they have made society something hideous to behold; their records are taken from the files of a nation’s defilement, and an indication of its gradual decline.
Divorce is not only a sin against God, it is also an insult to womanhood. In the question of chasteness there is here no parity; woman is in a higher sphere than man. A man may be most immoral; yet if in his social life he is well-behaved, his weakness is readily condoned, and he can leave his shame where he has left the victim of his sin.
But a woman who has fallen from her throne of purity carries her shame about with her, and brings it back to be the dishonor of her home. And it is a vile insult to her to think that her love can be tasted and then flung aside like the fruit that has lost its flavor. The love of a chaste woman is the gift of her whole life, and either it is to be reverently left untouched, or it is to be lovingly cherished till death.
8. MOTHER INVIOLATE
Inviolate to the End
“An exceeding comely maid, and a most beautiful virgin, and not known to man ... whom the Lord hath prepared for my Master’s Son” (Genesis 24:44), therefore “no defiled thing cometh unto her” (Wisdom 7:25).
“No defiled thing cometh unto her.” From the first moment of her existence Mary kept so firm and courageous a guard over her soul, that priceless treasure given her by her Creator, that naught displeasing to Him ever found an entrance into her mind or heart. Her thoughts were all of, or for, Him. He was all in all to her, and so she became the garden enclosed in which He ever found delight.
St Jerome writes: “The most holy Virgin is a garden enclosed where-into sin and Satan have never entered to sully the blossoms; a fountain sealed, sealed with the seal of the Trinity” (St Jerome, sermon on the Assumption). And that precious seal remained intact and inviolate to the end. Never was it broken by any unexpected rush of water, by any sudden impulse, so faithful was the guard kept over it. “She was a virgin not in body only, but in mind also; the purity of her thoughts had been defiled by no evil suggestions” (St. Ambrose). Our lives, our thoughts especially, are like a mad torrent, pent in by the banks of our passions, our likes and dislikes, ever and anon falling over some steep cliff, down to a lower level, and we have little, if any, control over the raging waters.
Not that we must imagine that there was aught cramped or narrow in the mind of Mary, for we read that “her thoughts are more deep than the sea, and more vast than the great ocean.” But she had perfect mastery over herself. The water that flowed from her fountain with its triple seal was clear and limpid, and so precious in the sight of her Maker, for whom, and for whom alone, it played unceasingly, that He made His angels to gather up and convey to Heaven the overflow, where it formed the crystal sea spoken of by St John (Apocalypse 4:6), which spread itself before the throne of God, and was mingled with fire; for even as Mary’s thoughts were not narrow and shallow, neither were they cold and impassive.
The fire of the love of God ever burning in her heart, mingled with them, and great and vast as was the ocean to which her thoughts are compared, the flames found their way through it and rode triumphantly on the surface, for we know that “many waters cannot quench charity, neither can the floods drown it.”
Let us bathe our minds in that crystalline sea, that our thoughts may be purified, washed clean in its depths, and like those of our mother Mary, be henceforth more subject to our control, more stable, solid and reliable—for notice, the sea was of crystal, and those who had overcome were able to stand on it before the throne of God, showing the support our Lady is to those who seek God. May they, too, be charitable and inflamed with the love of God and their neighbour. In fine, may our hearts and minds resemble our Mother’s, and be “a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed.”
A Garden Enclosed
“My Spouse is a garden enclosed” (Canticles 4:12). The Divine Office speaks of “Mary’s Rosarium,” Mary’s Garden of Roses, to which she brings us to let us taste the fragrance of Christ’s life. The walks in the garden are the mysteries: on each separate walk are growing various species of Heavenly roses which Mary wishes us to see and admire. The celestial aroma of these flowers is to lift our souls above the things of Earth and make us yearn for God. Mary wishes to cause in us this thirst for God, although she knows this desire for the Infinite will bring us pain, will make the world distasteful to us; yet she knows, too, that this blessed thirst is the soul’s salvation and healing.
The soul is a spirit, and can be satisfied only with the Infinite Spirit. “Deep calls to deep,” the deep of the soul which is so profound that no created good can fill it, calls to the deep Essence of God, which, being infinite, can satisfy every longing. And the Rosary is a Heaven-sent means for stirring up this longing of the soul, and awakening it to its true interests. Men would dream away the hours in the lotus-laden atmosphere of created things, but if they continue sleeping thus they will be lost to God. And so, Ulysses-like, we must be up and away, and out on to the dancing waves where the soul is free!
Mary’s Roses
Mary’s Garden of Roses is all fragrant with the breath of Heaven. Jesus, the God-Man, with the light of Heaven in His eyes and the sweetness of the Divinity permeating His Being, is the subject of our contemplation in this garden. Mary has one supreme subject of interest to occupy us with — namely, her Divine Son, His life, virtues, teaching, principles, interests.
Hence, day by day she invites us to this blessed garden, to rest by its fountains and running brooks, and breathe the scent of its flowers. We go there to learn more about the soul of Jesus. For we study our Lord’s external life as the manifestation of His soul, just as we are interested in all external human action because of the soul behind it. It is souls we are ever thinking about, it is souls that attract or repel us.
Now the soul of Jesus and His thoughts and affections we wish to study. The soul of Jesus is different from all other souls in this, that it is bathed in the glory of the Divinity, being personally united to the Word: it is the soul, sinless and infinitely holy, of God Himself. When Mary Magdalen, the sinner, wept at His feet, it was the tenderness of His soul, the gentle affection and mercy of His soul, that moved her and caused a fountain of tears to flow from the heart that had so long been deadened by worldly pleasures. So Mary, His Mother, wishes to bring us into contact with His Sacred Soul, and so leads us to the various scenes of His life.
The Angel’s greeting
In October, the Month of the Rosary, is also celebrated the Feast of the Holy Angels, and we may combine the devotion to them with our devotion to the Rosary. For we may claim the Angels’ help in a special way when saying the Rosary. It is really an Angel’s prayer, since the “Ave Maria” is Gabriel’s greeting; and the Angels are given to us as our friends in order to help us to pray.
See how they trooped down joyously to help the shepherds to pray at Bethlehem! since to send the shepherds to the crib and make them return praising and blessing God for all they had heard and seen was surely to teach them to pray. In like manner, the Angels will surely come to help us when we would have tidings of Him and seek a sign whereby we may identify Him. And with especial willingness will our own Angel Guardian come to do us this kindness.
Seeking Gold
To pray is, after all, just this, to seek to find Jesus. And just as the seeker after gold will ask an experienced miner to guide him, so when looking for the rich gold that is Jesus we turn to those experienced Angel guides who have already found Him and are in happy possession of Him in order that they may teach us their secret. For the snares and pitfalls and dangers by the way are many, and we see in the case of the shepherds and the Magi that supernatural guidance was necessary to reach Jesus. The world is full of spies from the devil’s army, and unless our intelligence department is properly worked, we shall be betrayed to the enemy by those traitors.
Now, our intelligence department officers are the Angels; they it is must warn us and save us from surprises. We are groping our way through life, playing our part in a huge battle, knowing very inadequately how the fight is going; and our Angels must help us or we shall be lost. If God has willed to appoint to each an Angel Protector, you may be sure there was good reason and urgent necessity for it. Men walk along happily, blind to their dangers. But God is solicitous for us. Hence the Saints had much devotion to their Angels. St. Frances of Rome had a constant vision of her Angel Guardian. So let us pray God to give us more faith in the existence of our Guardian Angel, and more devotion to this Heavenly friend, that through his help we may daily say our Rosary more perfectly.
“An exceeding comely maid, and a most beautiful virgin, and not known to man ... whom the Lord hath prepared for my Master’s Son” (Genesis 24:44), therefore “no defiled thing cometh unto her” (Wisdom 7:25).
“No defiled thing cometh unto her.” From the first moment of her existence Mary kept so firm and courageous a guard over her soul, that priceless treasure given her by her Creator, that naught displeasing to Him ever found an entrance into her mind or heart. Her thoughts were all of, or for, Him. He was all in all to her, and so she became the garden enclosed in which He ever found delight.
St Jerome writes: “The most holy Virgin is a garden enclosed where-into sin and Satan have never entered to sully the blossoms; a fountain sealed, sealed with the seal of the Trinity” (St Jerome, sermon on the Assumption). And that precious seal remained intact and inviolate to the end. Never was it broken by any unexpected rush of water, by any sudden impulse, so faithful was the guard kept over it. “She was a virgin not in body only, but in mind also; the purity of her thoughts had been defiled by no evil suggestions” (St. Ambrose). Our lives, our thoughts especially, are like a mad torrent, pent in by the banks of our passions, our likes and dislikes, ever and anon falling over some steep cliff, down to a lower level, and we have little, if any, control over the raging waters.
Not that we must imagine that there was aught cramped or narrow in the mind of Mary, for we read that “her thoughts are more deep than the sea, and more vast than the great ocean.” But she had perfect mastery over herself. The water that flowed from her fountain with its triple seal was clear and limpid, and so precious in the sight of her Maker, for whom, and for whom alone, it played unceasingly, that He made His angels to gather up and convey to Heaven the overflow, where it formed the crystal sea spoken of by St John (Apocalypse 4:6), which spread itself before the throne of God, and was mingled with fire; for even as Mary’s thoughts were not narrow and shallow, neither were they cold and impassive.
The fire of the love of God ever burning in her heart, mingled with them, and great and vast as was the ocean to which her thoughts are compared, the flames found their way through it and rode triumphantly on the surface, for we know that “many waters cannot quench charity, neither can the floods drown it.”
Let us bathe our minds in that crystalline sea, that our thoughts may be purified, washed clean in its depths, and like those of our mother Mary, be henceforth more subject to our control, more stable, solid and reliable—for notice, the sea was of crystal, and those who had overcome were able to stand on it before the throne of God, showing the support our Lady is to those who seek God. May they, too, be charitable and inflamed with the love of God and their neighbour. In fine, may our hearts and minds resemble our Mother’s, and be “a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed.”
A Garden Enclosed
“My Spouse is a garden enclosed” (Canticles 4:12). The Divine Office speaks of “Mary’s Rosarium,” Mary’s Garden of Roses, to which she brings us to let us taste the fragrance of Christ’s life. The walks in the garden are the mysteries: on each separate walk are growing various species of Heavenly roses which Mary wishes us to see and admire. The celestial aroma of these flowers is to lift our souls above the things of Earth and make us yearn for God. Mary wishes to cause in us this thirst for God, although she knows this desire for the Infinite will bring us pain, will make the world distasteful to us; yet she knows, too, that this blessed thirst is the soul’s salvation and healing.
The soul is a spirit, and can be satisfied only with the Infinite Spirit. “Deep calls to deep,” the deep of the soul which is so profound that no created good can fill it, calls to the deep Essence of God, which, being infinite, can satisfy every longing. And the Rosary is a Heaven-sent means for stirring up this longing of the soul, and awakening it to its true interests. Men would dream away the hours in the lotus-laden atmosphere of created things, but if they continue sleeping thus they will be lost to God. And so, Ulysses-like, we must be up and away, and out on to the dancing waves where the soul is free!
Mary’s Roses
Mary’s Garden of Roses is all fragrant with the breath of Heaven. Jesus, the God-Man, with the light of Heaven in His eyes and the sweetness of the Divinity permeating His Being, is the subject of our contemplation in this garden. Mary has one supreme subject of interest to occupy us with — namely, her Divine Son, His life, virtues, teaching, principles, interests.
Hence, day by day she invites us to this blessed garden, to rest by its fountains and running brooks, and breathe the scent of its flowers. We go there to learn more about the soul of Jesus. For we study our Lord’s external life as the manifestation of His soul, just as we are interested in all external human action because of the soul behind it. It is souls we are ever thinking about, it is souls that attract or repel us.
Now the soul of Jesus and His thoughts and affections we wish to study. The soul of Jesus is different from all other souls in this, that it is bathed in the glory of the Divinity, being personally united to the Word: it is the soul, sinless and infinitely holy, of God Himself. When Mary Magdalen, the sinner, wept at His feet, it was the tenderness of His soul, the gentle affection and mercy of His soul, that moved her and caused a fountain of tears to flow from the heart that had so long been deadened by worldly pleasures. So Mary, His Mother, wishes to bring us into contact with His Sacred Soul, and so leads us to the various scenes of His life.
The Angel’s greeting
In October, the Month of the Rosary, is also celebrated the Feast of the Holy Angels, and we may combine the devotion to them with our devotion to the Rosary. For we may claim the Angels’ help in a special way when saying the Rosary. It is really an Angel’s prayer, since the “Ave Maria” is Gabriel’s greeting; and the Angels are given to us as our friends in order to help us to pray.
See how they trooped down joyously to help the shepherds to pray at Bethlehem! since to send the shepherds to the crib and make them return praising and blessing God for all they had heard and seen was surely to teach them to pray. In like manner, the Angels will surely come to help us when we would have tidings of Him and seek a sign whereby we may identify Him. And with especial willingness will our own Angel Guardian come to do us this kindness.
Seeking Gold
To pray is, after all, just this, to seek to find Jesus. And just as the seeker after gold will ask an experienced miner to guide him, so when looking for the rich gold that is Jesus we turn to those experienced Angel guides who have already found Him and are in happy possession of Him in order that they may teach us their secret. For the snares and pitfalls and dangers by the way are many, and we see in the case of the shepherds and the Magi that supernatural guidance was necessary to reach Jesus. The world is full of spies from the devil’s army, and unless our intelligence department is properly worked, we shall be betrayed to the enemy by those traitors.
Now, our intelligence department officers are the Angels; they it is must warn us and save us from surprises. We are groping our way through life, playing our part in a huge battle, knowing very inadequately how the fight is going; and our Angels must help us or we shall be lost. If God has willed to appoint to each an Angel Protector, you may be sure there was good reason and urgent necessity for it. Men walk along happily, blind to their dangers. But God is solicitous for us. Hence the Saints had much devotion to their Angels. St. Frances of Rome had a constant vision of her Angel Guardian. So let us pray God to give us more faith in the existence of our Guardian Angel, and more devotion to this Heavenly friend, that through his help we may daily say our Rosary more perfectly.
9. MOTHER UNDEFILED
A Spotless Life
We have already discussed Mary’s perpetual virginity, her supremacy of sanctity, which made her the Mother Most Pure, Most Chaste and, now, Undefiled. It is almost unnecessary to speak of her as untouched by sin. We take it for granted. But we get a better idea of her sinlessness if we view her in her own surroundings. She, the sinless one, was surrounded by sin. She was like a pure lily growing out of a heap of refuse.
“Thou art all fair, O My love, and there is not a spot in thee” (Canticles 4:7).
“Thou shalt be perfect and without spot before the Lord thy God” (Deuteronomy 18:13).
“She is the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God’s Majesty” (Wisdom 7:26).
The expression “Mother Undefiled” may have been suggested by these texts, although it is more likely that it came from the Psalm 118—“Blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk in the law of the Lord”; and more likely still from the Canticle of Canticles, which is in almost every word applied to Our Lady—“Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled” (5:2).
From Inviolate to Undefiled
When, in the year 1854 Pope Pius IX proclaimed that the Blessed Virgin Mother of God, by a singular privilege of grace, bestowed on her through the merits of her Divine Son, was preserved free from the guilt of Original Sin, and when he declared that this same privilege was henceforth to be called the Immaculate Conception, to be incorporated in the deposit of Faith, he settled for Catholics, and forever, all doubt as to the sinless conception of our Blessed Lady. That doctrine was intended to be expressed in the words of the Litany, “Mother Inviolate” and will later be further specified by the later addition to the Litany of the title “Queen conceived without Original Sin” which puts, so to speak, the “icing on the cake” of “Mother Inviolate”. And so enough has been said on that subject to warrant our passing to that other title of purity, “Mother Undefiled”. So we could say that Mary was conceived “Inviolate” and that she lived a life that was “Undefiled”.
There is a passage in the Epistle of St. James (1:27) which he perhaps wrote, having in mind the Blessed Virgin, whose life he knew so personally and so intimately. “Religion clear and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their tribulation: and to keep one’s self unspotted from this world.” St. Paul speaks of Jesus, as “a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled” (Hebrews 7:26).
Pure Undefiled Wine
In any case, the word means supremely stainless, uncorrupted, not touched even by the breath of sin. Virgil uses the word intemeratum (undefiled) in connection with wine, “pure wine,” wine unmixed with any vitiating substance. In that connection one necessarily thinks of Cana where the water was turned into wine, and the words of the chief steward to the bridegroom--“Thou hast kept the best wine until now.” Mary played such an important part in getting Jesus to work that miracle, her very presence there when Jesus raised marriage to the dignity of a sacrament, that holy marriage of which she was so beautiful an exemplar, would let us see a secondary, a mystical meaning in those words, “the best wine until now,” Mary the pure wine, the undefiled one.
Staying Spotless is Not Easy
“Thou shalt be perfect and without spot before the Lord thy God.” Without spot. Could there be anything more expressive of the unsullied whiteness of Mary’s soul? We all know the difficulty of preserving unstained a light-colored garment, even for the space of a few weeks.
We know that the luster of the fairest lily is tarnished by a single drop of rain, but Mary’s beauty was not only unblemished by passing through the storms of life, and the waters of tribulation, but was positively enhanced by them, so that when the call came: “Rise up, my dove, my fair one, for the winter is past, the rain is over and gone”; “come from Lebanon, My spouse, come; thou shalt be crowned,” she went to her God in all the radiance of her spotlessness.
St Jerome, commenting on this last passage, says: “Not unjustly is she bidden to come from Lebanon, for Lebanon is so named on account of its stainless and glistening whiteness. The earthly Lebanon is white with snow, but the lovely heights of Mary’s holiness are white with purity and grace, brilliantly fair, whiter far than snow, sparkling with the gifts of the Holy Ghost. She is undefiled like a dove, all clean, all upright, full of grace and truth. She is full of mercy, and of righteousness that hath looked down from Heaven, and therefore is she without stain, because in her hath never been any corruption.” (St. Jerome, Sermon on the Assumption).
No Self-Seeking
Nor was there any shadow of self-seeking in Mary’s endeavors to preserve her soul without spot. It was as if some exquisite painting endowed with reason and other powers were to continually exert itself to preserve its surface from being scratched or otherwise injured, not for the sake of the satisfaction of hearing its beauty praised by a crowd of admirers, but purely that the talent and capabilities of the artist might be recognized by all. She desired to sing for ever her canticle of loving gratitude: “My soul doth magnify the Lord.”
Perfect Reflection of God
A cracked or partially defaced mirror distorts the countenance it seeks to reflect, but the soul of our Lady was ever bright and without speck or flaw, and God’s beauty was reflected in it without let or hindrance, and all men praise Him for the perfection of His work in her. Sweet Mother, do not turn from thy poor children who have taken no pains to preserve unstained their baptismal robe; who daily contract a thousand spots and blemishes, and who scarce trouble to have recourse to the cleansing powers of the sacraments to restore them to at least some degree of whiteness. Whisper in our ears that it is the clean of heart who see God, and seeing Him love Him, and loving Him become more and more purified by those divine flames which preserved thee without spot from the first moment of thy existence till the last.
No Defiling Fires of Passion
When a fire breaks out in a forest, all the wild animals flee away in terror: so, if God’s love is lit up within us, the evil beasts, our passions and bad inclinations, will either be consumed or driven out. In Mary’s soul there were no such savage creatures, but like a prudent traveler in the desert she ever kept her beacon burning during the dark night of her journey through life, and so preserved her innocence unsullied till the day broke and the shadows retired, and she responded to the call of her Beloved: “Come from Lebanon, My spouse, come: thou shalt be crowned.”
Then did the fire within her leap up in one great jubilant flame, the “flamma amoris jubilantis,” to use St Bernardine of Siena’s term, which soaring upwards ever higher and higher, joined itself and became united for ever with Him who is the Light of the world, the Author of Light, “who enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world.”
The Undefiled One Wants to Help the Defiled
Satan was throwing it up before her eyes every moment of the day, taunting her with the thought of the countless host of his followers. From the royal court, from the temple, from the schools, from the little houses of the people, sin stalked brazenly, sin of unbelief, sin of uncharitableness, sin of impurity. It would seem almost an impossible task to cope with such enormity of sin. There were some splendid souls, but she alone, being absolutely undefiled, was, after her Son, conscious of the magnitude of the work of delivering mankind from the power of the devil. And because she knew that, she the Undefiled hated sin. Sin was going to cost her plenty before she died. But—“I will put enmities between thee and the woman.” She had her part in saving the world from sin, and valiant woman, she would do her part cost what it would.
But Forget Your False Ideas!
We are apt to get false notions about the mercy of Mary. Some people write as if she were more forgiving than God, as if Jesus were Justice and she is mercy; as if she laughed at sin; made little of it and was bound to get people into Heaven no matter how they cling to their sins. But that is blasphemy, treason. She loves the sinners, yes, but that is different from saying that she is tolerant of sin. She is the refuge of sinners, but of repentant sinners. John the Baptist had one message, repent. Jesus had one message, repent. And Mary had one message, repent. She wants us to be undefiled by sin.
Quit Sin! Pay for Sin!
On the eighth apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes—“I am the Immaculate Conception,” the sinless one—little Bernadette was transformed for an hour, and when she turned to the people, the message she gave them from Our Lady was: “Penance! Penance! Penance!” which includes and requires a prior “Repentance! Repentance! Repentance!” from sin. In other leave sin (repentance) then pay for sin (penance). It was the same when she appeared at La Salette. To the two children she gave a message for the people. She complained of the impiety of Christians, and threatened God’s chastisement, but promised mercy for those who would repent. She is not to be placated by any divided allegiance.
And that is one of the messages that we can take to ourselves from this title of the Litany, “Mother Undefiled”, that it is silly for us to think that we are singing the praises of her sinlessness, unless we try to approach and imitate her sinlessness. Oh, we know, how immeasurably we fall below that ideal, but we should have what the poet calls—“the transport of the aim.” Christ Himself has set the ideal for us in the Sermon on the Mount—“Be ye therefore perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). No less than perfection, and that entails at least freedom from sin. So that it is not far-fetched to say that the Mother Undefiled is set for our example, when even the Heavenly Father is our model. And being the Mother Undefiled herself, hating sin and seeking to remove it from the face of the Earth, she has no greater desire than to free us from it, to deliver us from the enemy that would destroy us.
Try Quit Sin and Have Confidence in Her
That is what the saints mean when they turn to her intercession as the great hope of salvation. So St. John Damien prayed to her--“Having confidence in you, O Mother of God, I shall be saved; being under your protection, I shall fear nothing; with your succor, I shall give battle to my enemies and put them to flight; for devotion to you is an arm of salvation, which God gives to those whom it is His Will to save.” St. Ignatius knew that, too. On his conversion he chose her as his mother, his patroness. Sometimes he would spend whole nights before her image and could hardly be torn away. Well has Dante spoken of her as the one “by whom the key did open to God’s love.”
Nothing Defiled Shall Enter Heaven
But there is another thought that arises from a consideration of “Mother Undefiled.” It is the thought particularly of the undefiled body of Mary. St. John says of Heaven (Apocalypse 21:27), “There shall not enter into it anything defiled,” but she, the undefiled in soul and body, is already reigning there, even bodily, as Queen. Her immaculate body was never subject to the corruption of the grave. Although the Church has not yet defined the Assumption, it is the easiest of doctrines to believe, and the Church has always believed it from the beginning.
The Assumption of the Undefiled One
And why not? Everyone of us hopes that he too one day, by the grace of God, will be in Heaven body and soul, that he will have his own glorious assumption. So, is it not fitting to believe that Mary has already had her Assumption? Must she wait, like us, till the Day of Judgment? No, God does not do things that way. He anticipated the Day of Judgment for her. She balanced the scales of justice and holiness. It is all traced back to her Immaculate Conception. Had Adam and Eve remained sinless, they too would never have died but would have been assumed body and soul into Heaven. They would have had their assumption.
So Mary, being sinless—although she consented to die, to conform her life more to that of her Son Who consented to die—must have had her victory over the corruption of the grave. It was only fitting that Jesus Who was flesh of her flesh should single her out to be free from death’s corruption, as He singled her out for the Immaculate Conception. It is the infallible teaching of the Church, that this same body of Mary, although subject to death and the grave as was the body of her Son, never knew the humiliation of corruption. This beautiful thought and belief, long held in reverence in the Church, is now crystalized as a dogma, for―under the reign of Pope Pius XII—the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, body and soul into Heaven, was declared to be, like her Immaculate Conception, an article of Catholic Faith.
The story of the Assumption comes to us from the pen of Saint John Damascene (676-750), one of the greatest writers of all times and a great Doctor of the Church; and he called it, in his day, an ancient tradition. When the Blessed Virgin was dying, it is the Saint’s account—as found in the Roman Breviary—that the Apostles, as if inspired, suddenly appeared in Jerusalem. They had gone to the distant parts of the known world in keeping with their God-given Mission, “Going therefore, teach ye all nations.”
A vision appeared to the accompaniment of heavenly melodies; and, in their presence, Mary died. Her body, that had been the tabernacle of Jesus Christ, was borne by the Apostles to the melody of angelic song to the Garden of Gethsemane, and laid in a tomb, around which the heavenly chant continued for the space of three days. When the singing ceased, the apostles consented to open the tomb, so that St. Thomas could view the body—for he was absent as he had been once before—but all they could find was the winding-sheet, which exuded a sweet aroma. They then closed the tomb.
Awed by this miracle, they concluded that He who took flesh, became man and was born of the Virgin Mary, and who preserved her virginity after His birth, was pleased also after her death to keep her body from corruption, and have it borne to Heaven before the day of general resurrection. Since all of us hope for Heaven, it would seem incongruous that Christ should have His own Mother await another Annunciation from the trumpet of Gabriel to crown her body triumphantly in Heaven.
The Witnesses
St. John Damascene goes on to say that besides the Apostles, among whom were included James, the brother of the Lord and Peter the highest and most ancient of theologians, there were also present St. Timothy, bishop of Ephesus, St. Dennis, the Areopagite, and a St. Hierotheus. Many other holy brethren, he continued, came to view that body which gave the world the Principle of life and enfolded God within itself; and having seen it, celebrated in song as best they may, the infinite goodness of divine power. On this discourse “On the Sleep of the Blessed Virgin” the Church posits its doctrine today.
Our Blessed Lady really departed from this life and has been admitted to the Beatific Vision. These two graces she has in common with every saint. But by the word Assumption is understood that she was exempt from the law of corruption, to which human bodies after death are subjected; and that by a special providence of God, she rose again after death, just as the saints shall rise at the last day, body and soul, glorious and immortal from the tomb; and that she was thus admitted into Heaven.
Assumption implies also that it was not by the exercise of her own power, but rather by the omnipotent love of her divine Son that Mary was thus glorified. It is our belief, says Saint Thomas, that after death the Blessed Virgin was raised to life again and carried into Heaven, according to the Psalm, “Arise, O Lord, into thy rest, thou and the ark which thou hast made holy.”
No Relic
There is no relic of Mary; the Church never possessed one, whilst she has of every other canonized saint. Either then, she who has always manifested extraordinary solicitude about the bodies of the servants of God, took no care to preserve the sacred remains of her who gave flesh and blood to the Redeemer of the world, or else the Assumption of Our Blessed Lady is an indisputable fact. This belief is simply that tradition of the Church which originated with the Apostles, who stood beside the grave of the Virgin of virgins and found that God had preserved her body from corruption as He had preserved her soul from sin.
Moreover, her purity of body and soul seems to postulate this privilege. After the divine purity hers was the greatest; and perfect purity can no more consist with corruption than light with darkness. Then, too, among the children of Adam, Mary is “Our tainted nature’s solitary boast.” Her singular purity above those who live should warrant a crowning exception to the lot of those who die.
There is much food for thought, too, in the consideration that Mary bore of all creatures the closest likeness to her divine Son. She was like Him as God; and He was like her as man. His fair beauty of body was her very own. His face had its comeliness from her chaste features; His eyes reflected the brightness of her vision; the heart, of which He had said that it was meek and lowly, beat and throbbed in unison with a mother’s heart that was meek and humble too. They were twin souls in sorrow and in joy, and even death could not find them unalike. As we believe Christ “died and was buried, that He arose the third day, and that He ascended into Heaven,” so do we believe that Mary died, that she was buried, that she lived again and was taken up into Heaven.
The Wage of Defilement is Death
Finally, although death, dissolution seems the natural end of whatever is material, and so not necessarily the wages of sin, corruption of the body is an effect of Original Sin. But, only in two persons of all who ever lived on this Earth was there found no germ of corruption, namely our Savior and His Blessed Mother. Incorruption was His by nature; it was hers through the fullness of His grace. He was the other Adam, and she was the second Eve. And just as our first parents forfeited their right to incorruption by an act of disobedience, our second parents won the right to incorruption by obedience.
And so, once again, the doctrine of Mary’s Assumption is but a corollary of her Immaculate Conception. If other saints were taken up body and soul to Heaven after death—and we believe they were—that was by a very exceptional privilege. But it was entirely meet and fitting that the Mother of our Redeemer, she who is also the Queen of Heaven, should enter into her kingdom not by privilege but by right. Her lovely body in death must not be clogged with fulsome dust. Her head and heart and hands must never be ringed round with the household worms of corruption. In death as in life, Mary must be truly the "Mother Undefiled".
We have already discussed Mary’s perpetual virginity, her supremacy of sanctity, which made her the Mother Most Pure, Most Chaste and, now, Undefiled. It is almost unnecessary to speak of her as untouched by sin. We take it for granted. But we get a better idea of her sinlessness if we view her in her own surroundings. She, the sinless one, was surrounded by sin. She was like a pure lily growing out of a heap of refuse.
“Thou art all fair, O My love, and there is not a spot in thee” (Canticles 4:7).
“Thou shalt be perfect and without spot before the Lord thy God” (Deuteronomy 18:13).
“She is the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God’s Majesty” (Wisdom 7:26).
The expression “Mother Undefiled” may have been suggested by these texts, although it is more likely that it came from the Psalm 118—“Blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk in the law of the Lord”; and more likely still from the Canticle of Canticles, which is in almost every word applied to Our Lady—“Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled” (5:2).
From Inviolate to Undefiled
When, in the year 1854 Pope Pius IX proclaimed that the Blessed Virgin Mother of God, by a singular privilege of grace, bestowed on her through the merits of her Divine Son, was preserved free from the guilt of Original Sin, and when he declared that this same privilege was henceforth to be called the Immaculate Conception, to be incorporated in the deposit of Faith, he settled for Catholics, and forever, all doubt as to the sinless conception of our Blessed Lady. That doctrine was intended to be expressed in the words of the Litany, “Mother Inviolate” and will later be further specified by the later addition to the Litany of the title “Queen conceived without Original Sin” which puts, so to speak, the “icing on the cake” of “Mother Inviolate”. And so enough has been said on that subject to warrant our passing to that other title of purity, “Mother Undefiled”. So we could say that Mary was conceived “Inviolate” and that she lived a life that was “Undefiled”.
There is a passage in the Epistle of St. James (1:27) which he perhaps wrote, having in mind the Blessed Virgin, whose life he knew so personally and so intimately. “Religion clear and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their tribulation: and to keep one’s self unspotted from this world.” St. Paul speaks of Jesus, as “a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled” (Hebrews 7:26).
Pure Undefiled Wine
In any case, the word means supremely stainless, uncorrupted, not touched even by the breath of sin. Virgil uses the word intemeratum (undefiled) in connection with wine, “pure wine,” wine unmixed with any vitiating substance. In that connection one necessarily thinks of Cana where the water was turned into wine, and the words of the chief steward to the bridegroom--“Thou hast kept the best wine until now.” Mary played such an important part in getting Jesus to work that miracle, her very presence there when Jesus raised marriage to the dignity of a sacrament, that holy marriage of which she was so beautiful an exemplar, would let us see a secondary, a mystical meaning in those words, “the best wine until now,” Mary the pure wine, the undefiled one.
Staying Spotless is Not Easy
“Thou shalt be perfect and without spot before the Lord thy God.” Without spot. Could there be anything more expressive of the unsullied whiteness of Mary’s soul? We all know the difficulty of preserving unstained a light-colored garment, even for the space of a few weeks.
We know that the luster of the fairest lily is tarnished by a single drop of rain, but Mary’s beauty was not only unblemished by passing through the storms of life, and the waters of tribulation, but was positively enhanced by them, so that when the call came: “Rise up, my dove, my fair one, for the winter is past, the rain is over and gone”; “come from Lebanon, My spouse, come; thou shalt be crowned,” she went to her God in all the radiance of her spotlessness.
St Jerome, commenting on this last passage, says: “Not unjustly is she bidden to come from Lebanon, for Lebanon is so named on account of its stainless and glistening whiteness. The earthly Lebanon is white with snow, but the lovely heights of Mary’s holiness are white with purity and grace, brilliantly fair, whiter far than snow, sparkling with the gifts of the Holy Ghost. She is undefiled like a dove, all clean, all upright, full of grace and truth. She is full of mercy, and of righteousness that hath looked down from Heaven, and therefore is she without stain, because in her hath never been any corruption.” (St. Jerome, Sermon on the Assumption).
No Self-Seeking
Nor was there any shadow of self-seeking in Mary’s endeavors to preserve her soul without spot. It was as if some exquisite painting endowed with reason and other powers were to continually exert itself to preserve its surface from being scratched or otherwise injured, not for the sake of the satisfaction of hearing its beauty praised by a crowd of admirers, but purely that the talent and capabilities of the artist might be recognized by all. She desired to sing for ever her canticle of loving gratitude: “My soul doth magnify the Lord.”
Perfect Reflection of God
A cracked or partially defaced mirror distorts the countenance it seeks to reflect, but the soul of our Lady was ever bright and without speck or flaw, and God’s beauty was reflected in it without let or hindrance, and all men praise Him for the perfection of His work in her. Sweet Mother, do not turn from thy poor children who have taken no pains to preserve unstained their baptismal robe; who daily contract a thousand spots and blemishes, and who scarce trouble to have recourse to the cleansing powers of the sacraments to restore them to at least some degree of whiteness. Whisper in our ears that it is the clean of heart who see God, and seeing Him love Him, and loving Him become more and more purified by those divine flames which preserved thee without spot from the first moment of thy existence till the last.
No Defiling Fires of Passion
When a fire breaks out in a forest, all the wild animals flee away in terror: so, if God’s love is lit up within us, the evil beasts, our passions and bad inclinations, will either be consumed or driven out. In Mary’s soul there were no such savage creatures, but like a prudent traveler in the desert she ever kept her beacon burning during the dark night of her journey through life, and so preserved her innocence unsullied till the day broke and the shadows retired, and she responded to the call of her Beloved: “Come from Lebanon, My spouse, come: thou shalt be crowned.”
Then did the fire within her leap up in one great jubilant flame, the “flamma amoris jubilantis,” to use St Bernardine of Siena’s term, which soaring upwards ever higher and higher, joined itself and became united for ever with Him who is the Light of the world, the Author of Light, “who enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world.”
The Undefiled One Wants to Help the Defiled
Satan was throwing it up before her eyes every moment of the day, taunting her with the thought of the countless host of his followers. From the royal court, from the temple, from the schools, from the little houses of the people, sin stalked brazenly, sin of unbelief, sin of uncharitableness, sin of impurity. It would seem almost an impossible task to cope with such enormity of sin. There were some splendid souls, but she alone, being absolutely undefiled, was, after her Son, conscious of the magnitude of the work of delivering mankind from the power of the devil. And because she knew that, she the Undefiled hated sin. Sin was going to cost her plenty before she died. But—“I will put enmities between thee and the woman.” She had her part in saving the world from sin, and valiant woman, she would do her part cost what it would.
But Forget Your False Ideas!
We are apt to get false notions about the mercy of Mary. Some people write as if she were more forgiving than God, as if Jesus were Justice and she is mercy; as if she laughed at sin; made little of it and was bound to get people into Heaven no matter how they cling to their sins. But that is blasphemy, treason. She loves the sinners, yes, but that is different from saying that she is tolerant of sin. She is the refuge of sinners, but of repentant sinners. John the Baptist had one message, repent. Jesus had one message, repent. And Mary had one message, repent. She wants us to be undefiled by sin.
Quit Sin! Pay for Sin!
On the eighth apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes—“I am the Immaculate Conception,” the sinless one—little Bernadette was transformed for an hour, and when she turned to the people, the message she gave them from Our Lady was: “Penance! Penance! Penance!” which includes and requires a prior “Repentance! Repentance! Repentance!” from sin. In other leave sin (repentance) then pay for sin (penance). It was the same when she appeared at La Salette. To the two children she gave a message for the people. She complained of the impiety of Christians, and threatened God’s chastisement, but promised mercy for those who would repent. She is not to be placated by any divided allegiance.
And that is one of the messages that we can take to ourselves from this title of the Litany, “Mother Undefiled”, that it is silly for us to think that we are singing the praises of her sinlessness, unless we try to approach and imitate her sinlessness. Oh, we know, how immeasurably we fall below that ideal, but we should have what the poet calls—“the transport of the aim.” Christ Himself has set the ideal for us in the Sermon on the Mount—“Be ye therefore perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). No less than perfection, and that entails at least freedom from sin. So that it is not far-fetched to say that the Mother Undefiled is set for our example, when even the Heavenly Father is our model. And being the Mother Undefiled herself, hating sin and seeking to remove it from the face of the Earth, she has no greater desire than to free us from it, to deliver us from the enemy that would destroy us.
Try Quit Sin and Have Confidence in Her
That is what the saints mean when they turn to her intercession as the great hope of salvation. So St. John Damien prayed to her--“Having confidence in you, O Mother of God, I shall be saved; being under your protection, I shall fear nothing; with your succor, I shall give battle to my enemies and put them to flight; for devotion to you is an arm of salvation, which God gives to those whom it is His Will to save.” St. Ignatius knew that, too. On his conversion he chose her as his mother, his patroness. Sometimes he would spend whole nights before her image and could hardly be torn away. Well has Dante spoken of her as the one “by whom the key did open to God’s love.”
Nothing Defiled Shall Enter Heaven
But there is another thought that arises from a consideration of “Mother Undefiled.” It is the thought particularly of the undefiled body of Mary. St. John says of Heaven (Apocalypse 21:27), “There shall not enter into it anything defiled,” but she, the undefiled in soul and body, is already reigning there, even bodily, as Queen. Her immaculate body was never subject to the corruption of the grave. Although the Church has not yet defined the Assumption, it is the easiest of doctrines to believe, and the Church has always believed it from the beginning.
The Assumption of the Undefiled One
And why not? Everyone of us hopes that he too one day, by the grace of God, will be in Heaven body and soul, that he will have his own glorious assumption. So, is it not fitting to believe that Mary has already had her Assumption? Must she wait, like us, till the Day of Judgment? No, God does not do things that way. He anticipated the Day of Judgment for her. She balanced the scales of justice and holiness. It is all traced back to her Immaculate Conception. Had Adam and Eve remained sinless, they too would never have died but would have been assumed body and soul into Heaven. They would have had their assumption.
So Mary, being sinless—although she consented to die, to conform her life more to that of her Son Who consented to die—must have had her victory over the corruption of the grave. It was only fitting that Jesus Who was flesh of her flesh should single her out to be free from death’s corruption, as He singled her out for the Immaculate Conception. It is the infallible teaching of the Church, that this same body of Mary, although subject to death and the grave as was the body of her Son, never knew the humiliation of corruption. This beautiful thought and belief, long held in reverence in the Church, is now crystalized as a dogma, for―under the reign of Pope Pius XII—the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, body and soul into Heaven, was declared to be, like her Immaculate Conception, an article of Catholic Faith.
The story of the Assumption comes to us from the pen of Saint John Damascene (676-750), one of the greatest writers of all times and a great Doctor of the Church; and he called it, in his day, an ancient tradition. When the Blessed Virgin was dying, it is the Saint’s account—as found in the Roman Breviary—that the Apostles, as if inspired, suddenly appeared in Jerusalem. They had gone to the distant parts of the known world in keeping with their God-given Mission, “Going therefore, teach ye all nations.”
A vision appeared to the accompaniment of heavenly melodies; and, in their presence, Mary died. Her body, that had been the tabernacle of Jesus Christ, was borne by the Apostles to the melody of angelic song to the Garden of Gethsemane, and laid in a tomb, around which the heavenly chant continued for the space of three days. When the singing ceased, the apostles consented to open the tomb, so that St. Thomas could view the body—for he was absent as he had been once before—but all they could find was the winding-sheet, which exuded a sweet aroma. They then closed the tomb.
Awed by this miracle, they concluded that He who took flesh, became man and was born of the Virgin Mary, and who preserved her virginity after His birth, was pleased also after her death to keep her body from corruption, and have it borne to Heaven before the day of general resurrection. Since all of us hope for Heaven, it would seem incongruous that Christ should have His own Mother await another Annunciation from the trumpet of Gabriel to crown her body triumphantly in Heaven.
The Witnesses
St. John Damascene goes on to say that besides the Apostles, among whom were included James, the brother of the Lord and Peter the highest and most ancient of theologians, there were also present St. Timothy, bishop of Ephesus, St. Dennis, the Areopagite, and a St. Hierotheus. Many other holy brethren, he continued, came to view that body which gave the world the Principle of life and enfolded God within itself; and having seen it, celebrated in song as best they may, the infinite goodness of divine power. On this discourse “On the Sleep of the Blessed Virgin” the Church posits its doctrine today.
Our Blessed Lady really departed from this life and has been admitted to the Beatific Vision. These two graces she has in common with every saint. But by the word Assumption is understood that she was exempt from the law of corruption, to which human bodies after death are subjected; and that by a special providence of God, she rose again after death, just as the saints shall rise at the last day, body and soul, glorious and immortal from the tomb; and that she was thus admitted into Heaven.
Assumption implies also that it was not by the exercise of her own power, but rather by the omnipotent love of her divine Son that Mary was thus glorified. It is our belief, says Saint Thomas, that after death the Blessed Virgin was raised to life again and carried into Heaven, according to the Psalm, “Arise, O Lord, into thy rest, thou and the ark which thou hast made holy.”
No Relic
There is no relic of Mary; the Church never possessed one, whilst she has of every other canonized saint. Either then, she who has always manifested extraordinary solicitude about the bodies of the servants of God, took no care to preserve the sacred remains of her who gave flesh and blood to the Redeemer of the world, or else the Assumption of Our Blessed Lady is an indisputable fact. This belief is simply that tradition of the Church which originated with the Apostles, who stood beside the grave of the Virgin of virgins and found that God had preserved her body from corruption as He had preserved her soul from sin.
Moreover, her purity of body and soul seems to postulate this privilege. After the divine purity hers was the greatest; and perfect purity can no more consist with corruption than light with darkness. Then, too, among the children of Adam, Mary is “Our tainted nature’s solitary boast.” Her singular purity above those who live should warrant a crowning exception to the lot of those who die.
There is much food for thought, too, in the consideration that Mary bore of all creatures the closest likeness to her divine Son. She was like Him as God; and He was like her as man. His fair beauty of body was her very own. His face had its comeliness from her chaste features; His eyes reflected the brightness of her vision; the heart, of which He had said that it was meek and lowly, beat and throbbed in unison with a mother’s heart that was meek and humble too. They were twin souls in sorrow and in joy, and even death could not find them unalike. As we believe Christ “died and was buried, that He arose the third day, and that He ascended into Heaven,” so do we believe that Mary died, that she was buried, that she lived again and was taken up into Heaven.
The Wage of Defilement is Death
Finally, although death, dissolution seems the natural end of whatever is material, and so not necessarily the wages of sin, corruption of the body is an effect of Original Sin. But, only in two persons of all who ever lived on this Earth was there found no germ of corruption, namely our Savior and His Blessed Mother. Incorruption was His by nature; it was hers through the fullness of His grace. He was the other Adam, and she was the second Eve. And just as our first parents forfeited their right to incorruption by an act of disobedience, our second parents won the right to incorruption by obedience.
And so, once again, the doctrine of Mary’s Assumption is but a corollary of her Immaculate Conception. If other saints were taken up body and soul to Heaven after death—and we believe they were—that was by a very exceptional privilege. But it was entirely meet and fitting that the Mother of our Redeemer, she who is also the Queen of Heaven, should enter into her kingdom not by privilege but by right. Her lovely body in death must not be clogged with fulsome dust. Her head and heart and hands must never be ringed round with the household worms of corruption. In death as in life, Mary must be truly the "Mother Undefiled".
10. MOTHER MOST AMIABLE
“Her ways are beautiful ways, and all her paths are peaceable” (Proverbs 3:17).
“Her conversation hath no bitterness nor her company any tediousness, but joy and gladness” (Wisdom 8:16).
“In her is the spirit of understanding ... eloquent, active, undefiled, sure, sweet, loving that which is good, quick, which nothing hindereth, beneficent, gentle, kind, steadfast, assured, secure” (Wisdom 7:22-23).
“She was exceeding fair, and her incredible beauty made her appear agreeable and amiable in the eyes of all” (Esther 2:15). “Yea, and the Lord of all things hath loved her” (Wisdom 8:3).
Amiable
Amiable is what deserves our love. The word comes from the Latin “amabile” which is derived from the Latin verb “amare” meaning “to love.” We could say “loveable” or “amiable” which seems to be a notch above the more common expression of “loveable.”
Amiable means lovable; it means having qualities of heart that makes one person become enamored with another. It signifies that natural sweetness, affability or kindliness that makes a person be admired, taken into one’s circle of friends and becoming there the object of special consideration and affection. This admiration grows as the object of one’s love becomes known more intimately. For, with the exception perhaps of parental love, there is no real love in a heart for a person entirely unknown. The reason is that the will―of which love is the chief manifestation―is a blind faculty, and can tend only to what the intellect presents as being good. So that once the kindliness and tenderness of a person are appreciated, that person will be loved—loved because they are amiable.
Love is a Duty
Now, since it is co-natural to man to rise from the known to the unknown, from the sensible to the super-sensible, from the visible to the invisible, Mary’s name of Mother Most Amiable can become a living active and dynamic force towards a lasting love of the Blessed Virgin if we cast but a cursory glance at the lovableness of any earthly mother.
No one ever outgrows a mother’s love, a love that begins before a child knows what it is to be loved, and then never, never ends. That child has felt her kindly arms around him from the beginning; he has heard her soothing voice, and looked into two adoring eyes. He has been nursed and washed and clothed by her; he has found a mother his friend, his comforter, his all, a part of his very life, whom he has called, and many, many times the most wonderful person in the world. That filial love and parental love are taken for granted, and are too sacred to be brought into the open.
God is infinitely amiable because He possesses in an infinite degree whatever is lovable. Created beings are amiable or lovable to the extent to which they partake in the perfection of God. Next to God, the Mother of God is the most amiable, because she is the most perfect of all created beings―God Himself loves her above all His creation.
One of the reasons which makes Mary the “Mother Most Amiable” is her beauty. In an age that is besotted with beauty, looks, and appearances, perhaps it appropriate to look upon true beauty. Mary is that true beauty. The conclusions that we arrive at might suggest that we abandon all pursuit of vain beauty and must make ourselves more beautiful by becoming her lovable children by loving and imitating her.
What is Beauty?
According to St. Thomas Aquinas, beauty is whatever pleases by its very sight or perception. God is the Author and Prototype of all beauty, He is Beauty Itself. He has made the world so beautiful with its starry sky, its enchanting landscapes, lovely mountains and valleys, rivers and lakes, its flowers and birds. Surely, then, He must have made Mary the most beautiful of all, for she was to be the Queen of all creation.
If the types or prefigurations of the Blessed Virgin, in the Old Testament, were celebrated because of their beauty, what must we not expect of the antitype, of Mary, who was to impress the likeness of her features upon the Son of the eternal Father.
Judith, who slew Holofernes, the leader of her people’s enemies, “appeared to all men’s eyes incomparably lovely” (Judith 10:4). Should she who crushed the head of the hellish serpent and brought liberty to all nations be less beautiful? Of Queen Esther we read that, “she was exceeding fair and her incredible beauty made her appear agreeable and amiable in the eyes of all” (Esther 2:15). By her beauty she appeased the king and saved her people from destruction. Should Mary, with whom the King of kings was so enamored, as to choose her for His Mother and Queen of His kingdom, be less beautiful?
The spouse in the Canticle is spoken of as the fairest among women: “How beautiful art thou, my love, how beautiful art thou ... Thou art all fair, O my love, and there is not a spot in thee” (Canticles 10:6-9; 4:1, 7). St. Andrew of Crete says that Mary was, as it were, a statue sculptured by God, an exquisitely wrought image of the divine Archetype. St. Bernadette would not look at a picture of the Blessed Virgin after having seen her in vision; the difference would be too distressing. The children of Fatima speak only of the beautiful Lady and all attempts of artists to produce an image of her remain disappointing.
Physical or Spiritual Beauty?
Physical beauty is surpassed by the beauty of the soul, the beauty of innocence, virtue, and holiness. Where it is absent, where sin has left its trace upon the human face, we cannot speak of real beauty anymore; there may be a bewitching makeup, the trappings of sensuality, but something will be missing: the reflection of the Beauty ever ancient, ever new.
Spiritual beauty is a participation in the beauty of God. It is for this reason that saints tell us, if we could see a soul in the state of sanctifying grace, we would die with delight. This divine beauty also shines through man’s mortal frame and explains why saints are so attractive, even though they may be of homely features. Yet among all angels and saints there is none that can compare in grace and holiness with the Blessed Mother of God. So Holy Mother Church can ask the wondering question in the Divine Office for the feast of the Assumption: “Who is she coming up like the morning dawn, beautiful as the moon, chosen as the sun, terrible like an army in battle formation?”
Come To Me!
“Whosoever is a little one, let Him come to me,” and to the unwise she said: “Come.” When we see any persons drawing children to themselves, winning their affections, showing care and attention to those who are imbecile or in any way mentally afflicted, we know they are kind-hearted, and we feel at once attracted towards them. Kindness is a striking characteristic of the heart of Mary, our amiable, lovable mother, of whom St. Bernard says: “There is nothing austere or frightening about her; she is all sweetness.”
Listen to the proclamation made by the gentle Queen of Heaven to her subjects: “Whosoever is a little one, let him come to me.” So after all there is some advantage in being small, something to be gained by not being great. We have the privilege of a free entrance to the court of our gracious sovereign at all hours, day or night, for there is no particular time fixed. We have only to represent to her angelic retinue that we are a little one, and have come by the Queen’s special invitation. And who is there that could resist a child’s simple confidence? Will not the arms of our loving and lovable Mother be held out to receive us? Will she not listen patiently to all we have to say as we pour out into her heart our joys, our sorrows, our desires? And there is also another class who are always welcome in her audience chamber—the unwise.
Which of us does not come into that category, at some times, at any rate? And when we have made a blunder, a mistake, do we not long for someone into whose ear we can pour out our tale, and feel that they will not utterly condemn us? Let us, when this is the case, fly to Mary. In her is the spirit of understanding; milk and honey are under her tongue; her conversation hath no bitterness; her spirit is sweet above honey and the honeycomb. There will be no reproaches, even though in our folly we have sold our birthright, bartered away the eternal for that which passes like smoke, cast away priceless jewels and picked up some gaudy, worthless tinsel in their place. We can rely on her helping us, for she is “steadfast, assured, secure.” We may trust her implicitly, for she loves to do kindnesses, nor does she dally and put off, for she is quick, and allows no hindrance to stand in the way of her active charity.
Into either of these categories we can all easily fall, for are we not all little in virtue, and who can say he is truly wise?
Study That Amiable Mother
Let us often study the ways of our lovable Mother, for her ways are beautiful ones, and let us strive to imitate them. We read of her prototype, Queen Esther, that she was “exceeding fair, and her incredible beauty made her appear agreeable and amiable in the eyes of all.”
But there must have been more than mere beauty of grace and form to render her so general a favorite, for Vashti, too, was “exceeding beautiful,” but nowhere is it recorded that she was beloved by others. Where lay the difference? Vashti was proud, self-willed and obstinate, whereas we find that Esther was unselfish, unexacting and a model of obedience. So little did she care about her personal appearance that she never chose her own clothing, but was quite contented with what was given her. She was humble and docile, for even after she was raised to the dignity of queen, we notice that she still observed all that her uncle commanded, and did all things in the same manner as she was used to doing at that time, when he brought her up a little one; while her unselfishness was so great that she risked the king’s displeasure, nay, even her own life, for the sake of her people.
Now, Mary, our lovable Mother, excelled in all those qualities. Her obedience and docility to St Joseph we see by the readiness with which she went to him to Bethlehem at a time when it must have cost her sore, fled into Egypt at his bidding, and returned to Nazareth when he willed it. She was ready to put herself aside to help or assist others, and, as we know, is ever pleading with God for us His people. Nor need we ever fear a cold uncordial glance from Mary when we turn to her as our Mother. “Her eyes are dove’s eyes, besides what is hidden within.” The light of the Holy Ghost, whose spouse she is, who descended upon her, and who deigned to appear under the form of a dove, shines out of them. They are lit up by the fire of love which He, the Spirit of love, has kindled within.
Our Duty of Love
Love of God is the great commandment of the law. God must be loved above all created things because of His infinite perfection. Catholic teaching is that the more a person possesses of the perfection of God, the more that person deserves our love. So the simple conclusion drawn by theologians is that the angels and saints of God in heaven must be loved most next to God, more even than those who are closest to us in life. Yet, among all angels and saints there is none so close to God, possessing so much of His perfection, as the Blessed Mother of God; therefore it is our duty to love her, next to God, above any and every created being.
We are children of Mary; we ought to be the loving and lovable children of the Mother amiable. We prove our love of Mary by frequent loving thoughts of her. Her wonderful virtues are an inexhaustible source of light and inspiration for a holy life. Loving thoughts are followed by loving desires and deeds. We can daily recite the rosary, the litany, short ejaculations; we can celebrate her feasts with childlike joy, and there will be found innumerable other ways of honoring her, for love is inventive. Such love will lead to the imitation of her virtues, and these virtues will produce in us more and more the likeness of our heavenly Mother and make us pleasing in the sight of God.
The likeness of Mary is the likeness of her divine Son, and likeness with Jesus is the sign of predestination, “For those whom he has foreknown, he has also predestined to become conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29). For those, who do not love Mary, there is no place in heaven; they do not fit into the heavenly company, for in heaven all love Mary. The Father loves her as His most faithful daughter, the Son loves her as His Virgin Mother and faithful companion in the labors and sufferings of His life, the Holy Spirit loves her as His immaculate Spouse, and all the angels and saints love her as their most glorious Queen and Mother.
Mother amiable, I love thee — increase my love for thee.
“Her conversation hath no bitterness nor her company any tediousness, but joy and gladness” (Wisdom 8:16).
“In her is the spirit of understanding ... eloquent, active, undefiled, sure, sweet, loving that which is good, quick, which nothing hindereth, beneficent, gentle, kind, steadfast, assured, secure” (Wisdom 7:22-23).
“She was exceeding fair, and her incredible beauty made her appear agreeable and amiable in the eyes of all” (Esther 2:15). “Yea, and the Lord of all things hath loved her” (Wisdom 8:3).
Amiable
Amiable is what deserves our love. The word comes from the Latin “amabile” which is derived from the Latin verb “amare” meaning “to love.” We could say “loveable” or “amiable” which seems to be a notch above the more common expression of “loveable.”
Amiable means lovable; it means having qualities of heart that makes one person become enamored with another. It signifies that natural sweetness, affability or kindliness that makes a person be admired, taken into one’s circle of friends and becoming there the object of special consideration and affection. This admiration grows as the object of one’s love becomes known more intimately. For, with the exception perhaps of parental love, there is no real love in a heart for a person entirely unknown. The reason is that the will―of which love is the chief manifestation―is a blind faculty, and can tend only to what the intellect presents as being good. So that once the kindliness and tenderness of a person are appreciated, that person will be loved—loved because they are amiable.
Love is a Duty
Now, since it is co-natural to man to rise from the known to the unknown, from the sensible to the super-sensible, from the visible to the invisible, Mary’s name of Mother Most Amiable can become a living active and dynamic force towards a lasting love of the Blessed Virgin if we cast but a cursory glance at the lovableness of any earthly mother.
No one ever outgrows a mother’s love, a love that begins before a child knows what it is to be loved, and then never, never ends. That child has felt her kindly arms around him from the beginning; he has heard her soothing voice, and looked into two adoring eyes. He has been nursed and washed and clothed by her; he has found a mother his friend, his comforter, his all, a part of his very life, whom he has called, and many, many times the most wonderful person in the world. That filial love and parental love are taken for granted, and are too sacred to be brought into the open.
God is infinitely amiable because He possesses in an infinite degree whatever is lovable. Created beings are amiable or lovable to the extent to which they partake in the perfection of God. Next to God, the Mother of God is the most amiable, because she is the most perfect of all created beings―God Himself loves her above all His creation.
One of the reasons which makes Mary the “Mother Most Amiable” is her beauty. In an age that is besotted with beauty, looks, and appearances, perhaps it appropriate to look upon true beauty. Mary is that true beauty. The conclusions that we arrive at might suggest that we abandon all pursuit of vain beauty and must make ourselves more beautiful by becoming her lovable children by loving and imitating her.
What is Beauty?
According to St. Thomas Aquinas, beauty is whatever pleases by its very sight or perception. God is the Author and Prototype of all beauty, He is Beauty Itself. He has made the world so beautiful with its starry sky, its enchanting landscapes, lovely mountains and valleys, rivers and lakes, its flowers and birds. Surely, then, He must have made Mary the most beautiful of all, for she was to be the Queen of all creation.
If the types or prefigurations of the Blessed Virgin, in the Old Testament, were celebrated because of their beauty, what must we not expect of the antitype, of Mary, who was to impress the likeness of her features upon the Son of the eternal Father.
Judith, who slew Holofernes, the leader of her people’s enemies, “appeared to all men’s eyes incomparably lovely” (Judith 10:4). Should she who crushed the head of the hellish serpent and brought liberty to all nations be less beautiful? Of Queen Esther we read that, “she was exceeding fair and her incredible beauty made her appear agreeable and amiable in the eyes of all” (Esther 2:15). By her beauty she appeased the king and saved her people from destruction. Should Mary, with whom the King of kings was so enamored, as to choose her for His Mother and Queen of His kingdom, be less beautiful?
The spouse in the Canticle is spoken of as the fairest among women: “How beautiful art thou, my love, how beautiful art thou ... Thou art all fair, O my love, and there is not a spot in thee” (Canticles 10:6-9; 4:1, 7). St. Andrew of Crete says that Mary was, as it were, a statue sculptured by God, an exquisitely wrought image of the divine Archetype. St. Bernadette would not look at a picture of the Blessed Virgin after having seen her in vision; the difference would be too distressing. The children of Fatima speak only of the beautiful Lady and all attempts of artists to produce an image of her remain disappointing.
Physical or Spiritual Beauty?
Physical beauty is surpassed by the beauty of the soul, the beauty of innocence, virtue, and holiness. Where it is absent, where sin has left its trace upon the human face, we cannot speak of real beauty anymore; there may be a bewitching makeup, the trappings of sensuality, but something will be missing: the reflection of the Beauty ever ancient, ever new.
Spiritual beauty is a participation in the beauty of God. It is for this reason that saints tell us, if we could see a soul in the state of sanctifying grace, we would die with delight. This divine beauty also shines through man’s mortal frame and explains why saints are so attractive, even though they may be of homely features. Yet among all angels and saints there is none that can compare in grace and holiness with the Blessed Mother of God. So Holy Mother Church can ask the wondering question in the Divine Office for the feast of the Assumption: “Who is she coming up like the morning dawn, beautiful as the moon, chosen as the sun, terrible like an army in battle formation?”
Come To Me!
“Whosoever is a little one, let Him come to me,” and to the unwise she said: “Come.” When we see any persons drawing children to themselves, winning their affections, showing care and attention to those who are imbecile or in any way mentally afflicted, we know they are kind-hearted, and we feel at once attracted towards them. Kindness is a striking characteristic of the heart of Mary, our amiable, lovable mother, of whom St. Bernard says: “There is nothing austere or frightening about her; she is all sweetness.”
Listen to the proclamation made by the gentle Queen of Heaven to her subjects: “Whosoever is a little one, let him come to me.” So after all there is some advantage in being small, something to be gained by not being great. We have the privilege of a free entrance to the court of our gracious sovereign at all hours, day or night, for there is no particular time fixed. We have only to represent to her angelic retinue that we are a little one, and have come by the Queen’s special invitation. And who is there that could resist a child’s simple confidence? Will not the arms of our loving and lovable Mother be held out to receive us? Will she not listen patiently to all we have to say as we pour out into her heart our joys, our sorrows, our desires? And there is also another class who are always welcome in her audience chamber—the unwise.
Which of us does not come into that category, at some times, at any rate? And when we have made a blunder, a mistake, do we not long for someone into whose ear we can pour out our tale, and feel that they will not utterly condemn us? Let us, when this is the case, fly to Mary. In her is the spirit of understanding; milk and honey are under her tongue; her conversation hath no bitterness; her spirit is sweet above honey and the honeycomb. There will be no reproaches, even though in our folly we have sold our birthright, bartered away the eternal for that which passes like smoke, cast away priceless jewels and picked up some gaudy, worthless tinsel in their place. We can rely on her helping us, for she is “steadfast, assured, secure.” We may trust her implicitly, for she loves to do kindnesses, nor does she dally and put off, for she is quick, and allows no hindrance to stand in the way of her active charity.
Into either of these categories we can all easily fall, for are we not all little in virtue, and who can say he is truly wise?
Study That Amiable Mother
Let us often study the ways of our lovable Mother, for her ways are beautiful ones, and let us strive to imitate them. We read of her prototype, Queen Esther, that she was “exceeding fair, and her incredible beauty made her appear agreeable and amiable in the eyes of all.”
But there must have been more than mere beauty of grace and form to render her so general a favorite, for Vashti, too, was “exceeding beautiful,” but nowhere is it recorded that she was beloved by others. Where lay the difference? Vashti was proud, self-willed and obstinate, whereas we find that Esther was unselfish, unexacting and a model of obedience. So little did she care about her personal appearance that she never chose her own clothing, but was quite contented with what was given her. She was humble and docile, for even after she was raised to the dignity of queen, we notice that she still observed all that her uncle commanded, and did all things in the same manner as she was used to doing at that time, when he brought her up a little one; while her unselfishness was so great that she risked the king’s displeasure, nay, even her own life, for the sake of her people.
Now, Mary, our lovable Mother, excelled in all those qualities. Her obedience and docility to St Joseph we see by the readiness with which she went to him to Bethlehem at a time when it must have cost her sore, fled into Egypt at his bidding, and returned to Nazareth when he willed it. She was ready to put herself aside to help or assist others, and, as we know, is ever pleading with God for us His people. Nor need we ever fear a cold uncordial glance from Mary when we turn to her as our Mother. “Her eyes are dove’s eyes, besides what is hidden within.” The light of the Holy Ghost, whose spouse she is, who descended upon her, and who deigned to appear under the form of a dove, shines out of them. They are lit up by the fire of love which He, the Spirit of love, has kindled within.
Our Duty of Love
Love of God is the great commandment of the law. God must be loved above all created things because of His infinite perfection. Catholic teaching is that the more a person possesses of the perfection of God, the more that person deserves our love. So the simple conclusion drawn by theologians is that the angels and saints of God in heaven must be loved most next to God, more even than those who are closest to us in life. Yet, among all angels and saints there is none so close to God, possessing so much of His perfection, as the Blessed Mother of God; therefore it is our duty to love her, next to God, above any and every created being.
We are children of Mary; we ought to be the loving and lovable children of the Mother amiable. We prove our love of Mary by frequent loving thoughts of her. Her wonderful virtues are an inexhaustible source of light and inspiration for a holy life. Loving thoughts are followed by loving desires and deeds. We can daily recite the rosary, the litany, short ejaculations; we can celebrate her feasts with childlike joy, and there will be found innumerable other ways of honoring her, for love is inventive. Such love will lead to the imitation of her virtues, and these virtues will produce in us more and more the likeness of our heavenly Mother and make us pleasing in the sight of God.
The likeness of Mary is the likeness of her divine Son, and likeness with Jesus is the sign of predestination, “For those whom he has foreknown, he has also predestined to become conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29). For those, who do not love Mary, there is no place in heaven; they do not fit into the heavenly company, for in heaven all love Mary. The Father loves her as His most faithful daughter, the Son loves her as His Virgin Mother and faithful companion in the labors and sufferings of His life, the Holy Spirit loves her as His immaculate Spouse, and all the angels and saints love her as their most glorious Queen and Mother.
Mother amiable, I love thee — increase my love for thee.
11. MOTHER MOST ADMIRABLE
“Now the mother was to be admired above measure, and worthy to be remembered by good men” (2 Machabees 7:20).
“‘Thou wast perfect through My beauty, which I had put upon thee,’ saith the Lord God” (Ezechiel 16:14).
“How beautiful art thou, My love! How beautiful art thou! Thy eyes are dove’s eyes, besides what is hid within ... Thy lips are as a scarlet lace” (Canticles 4:1), “and thy speech sweet ... Thy cheeks are beautiful as a turtle dove’s, thy neck as jewels” (Canticles 1:9).
How Beautiful!
“How beautiful thou art, my beloved, how beautiful!” Such is the Creator's exclamation when gazing on the work of His hands. When He made the Earth, the sea, the heavens, we read that “He saw that they were good.” If He saw that in His irrational creation, how much more good does He find a soul that He has made to His image and likeness, on which is reflected some of His own incomparable beauty, and which He destined to be His own spotless Mother! And if He, the Almighty, can gaze with admiration on His creatures, should we not be unsympathetic and out of touch with what interests Him if we too did not exclaim, viewing His creation: “How beautiful thou art, how beautiful!” (Canticles 4:1).
Provided we never forget who is their Maker, can we too much admire His works? Do they not show forth His goodness, His beauty, His power? Do we not give pleasure to an artist when we stand in rapt admiration before a picture over which he has spent weeks or months, and into which he has worked all his conception of what is beautiful? If we wish to be of one mind with God we must admire His works. Thus David showed he was in sympathy with his Creator when he cried out: “O Lord, our Lord, how admirable is Thy name throughout the whole world!” (Psalm 8:2).
The Greatest of All God’s Works
But of all God's works, which is the most perfect, the most beautiful, the most highly finished? Undoubtedly, Mary. So that she even evoked admiration from her Maker, for He does not say of her merely that she is “good,” which was the utmost He said of the rest of His marvelous creation, the starry heavens with all their splendor, this fair earth and all its beauties; but He cries out as if in astonishment at the work of His hands: “How beautiful thou art, my beloved, how beautiful!”
Then, as if the vision of her as a whole were not enough, He goes on to describe and dwell on the perfection of her different parts in detail, and it must please Him when we do the same. If we greatly admire a poem or any other work of art, what a pleasure it is to find another dwelling lovingly on the points that have most struck us. Such sympathy in tastes makes at once a bond of union, and so let us be united with God, and go over in spirit the various points of beauty to be found in His chef d'oeuvre, His incomparable Mother.
Rejoicing in Admiration
In those whom we love, we rejoice to see whatever is good and excellent, whatever distinguishes and raises them above the common. Mary, the Mother amiable, loved more than any earthly mother ever was loved, presents to our affectionate gaze, excellencies so great and exalted, that they cannot but add to our love profoundest admiration, speechless awe, and exultant jubilation. She is the Mother admirable, because her motherhood is divine and priestly, universal and ever active.
Divine Motherhood
Even natural motherhood is something mysterious, something divine. God works in the mother. He forms the body of the child, not out of the slime of the earth, but out of the flesh and blood of the mother; not directly and immediately, but by the laws which He has laid down in human nature; then He Himself directly and immediately creates the soul and makes the fruit of the mother's womb a human person. Every mother must agree with the pious and valiant mother of the Machabees as she addressed her youngest son, “I know not how your were formed in my womb; for I neither gave you breath, nor soul, nor life, neither did I form the limbs of every one of you. But the Creator of the world, that formed the nativity of man and that found out the origin of all” (Machabees 7:22).
In Mary the mystery of motherhood is infinitely more profound. She becomes Mother without the co-operation of a father. Her motherhood calls for the direct operation of divine power not only as to the soul but also as to the body of her offspring. In a much more comprehensive sense than any human mother is she the Mother of Jesus. All that is in Christ's body has taken its origin from her; and He, who is born of her, is not only man but also God, the incarnate Word divine. “Admirable” is His name, admirable is His Mother.
Priestly Motherhood
The son of an ordinary human mother may become a priest, but the mother's participation in the holy sacrifice offered by her son does not go beyond the participation in the sacrifice that is common to all the faithful. The ordinary human priest offers the divine Victim, not his own body and blood; consequently there is nothing of the mother that enters the sacrifice offered by her son. In the sacrifice offered by our Saviour upon the cross the body nailed to the cross, the blood shed in Christ's Passion is also her flesh and blood; the victim is in the fullest sense of the word her Son, and she offers Him with all her love and all her maternal rights. She is a priestly Mother; her motherhood a priestly, sacrificial motherhood.
Universal Motherhood
Ordinary motherhood extends to only a limited number of children. In their regard the mother is the proximate cause of their physical life, and she takes care of their education until they have reached maturity; at all events, any direct influence upon the child comes to an end when she dies. Mary's motherhood reaches as far as Christ's redeeming sacrifice. Since Christ died for all, Mary is the Mother of all and her motherhood is active so long as life lasts.
“However, Mary is not Mother of the faithful and of infidels, of the just and sinners in exactly the same way ... Mary is Mother of infidels in that she is destined to engender them to grace, and in that she obtains for them actual grace, which disposes them for the faith and for justification. She is the Mother of the faithful who are in the state of mortal sin in that she watches over them by obtaining for them the graces necessary for acts of faith and hope, and for disposing themselves for justification. Of those who have died in the state of mortal sin she is no longer the Mother; she was their Mother. She is fully the Mother of the just, since they have received sanctifying grace and charity through her. She cares for them with tender solicitude, so that they may continue in grace and grow in charity. She is in an eminent way the Mother of the blessed, who no longer can lose the life of grace” (Garrigou-Lagrange, The Mother of the Savior).
In Her Care
Thus, next to Christ as the principal cause, Mary is active as the secondary cause in giving to the soul the life of grace. Then she continues to be active in her spiritual children's behalf, not only through the years of their physical childhood, but throughout life. Spiritually we remain children, in need of her motherly care, as long as we live.
Hence the axioms: “There is no salvation without Mary,” and “No one will be lost who has a tender devotion to Mary,” rest on solid foundation. All this also explains why in our days, when the salvation of the faithful is exposed to greater dangers than ever before, Mary shows such a striking solicitude in behalf of the world, and why the Church with ever increasing trust and love turns to her for protection and safety.
This is the meaning of the words of Pius XII in consecrating the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary: “In this tragic hour of human history we confide, entrust, and consecrate to thy Immaculate Heart the holy Church, the mystical body of thy Son Jesus, which bleeds now from so many wounds and is so sorely tried. We consecrate likewise to thy Immaculate Heart the whole world, torn as it is by deadly strife, afire with hatred and paying the penalty of its own wickedness.”
There is no end to the discoveries we shall make in contemplating the wonders of Mary's motherhood. Admiration will then pass over into veneration, veneration into imitation, imitation into love and trustful surrender of ourselves to her motherly care.
“‘Thou wast perfect through My beauty, which I had put upon thee,’ saith the Lord God” (Ezechiel 16:14).
“How beautiful art thou, My love! How beautiful art thou! Thy eyes are dove’s eyes, besides what is hid within ... Thy lips are as a scarlet lace” (Canticles 4:1), “and thy speech sweet ... Thy cheeks are beautiful as a turtle dove’s, thy neck as jewels” (Canticles 1:9).
How Beautiful!
“How beautiful thou art, my beloved, how beautiful!” Such is the Creator's exclamation when gazing on the work of His hands. When He made the Earth, the sea, the heavens, we read that “He saw that they were good.” If He saw that in His irrational creation, how much more good does He find a soul that He has made to His image and likeness, on which is reflected some of His own incomparable beauty, and which He destined to be His own spotless Mother! And if He, the Almighty, can gaze with admiration on His creatures, should we not be unsympathetic and out of touch with what interests Him if we too did not exclaim, viewing His creation: “How beautiful thou art, how beautiful!” (Canticles 4:1).
Provided we never forget who is their Maker, can we too much admire His works? Do they not show forth His goodness, His beauty, His power? Do we not give pleasure to an artist when we stand in rapt admiration before a picture over which he has spent weeks or months, and into which he has worked all his conception of what is beautiful? If we wish to be of one mind with God we must admire His works. Thus David showed he was in sympathy with his Creator when he cried out: “O Lord, our Lord, how admirable is Thy name throughout the whole world!” (Psalm 8:2).
The Greatest of All God’s Works
But of all God's works, which is the most perfect, the most beautiful, the most highly finished? Undoubtedly, Mary. So that she even evoked admiration from her Maker, for He does not say of her merely that she is “good,” which was the utmost He said of the rest of His marvelous creation, the starry heavens with all their splendor, this fair earth and all its beauties; but He cries out as if in astonishment at the work of His hands: “How beautiful thou art, my beloved, how beautiful!”
Then, as if the vision of her as a whole were not enough, He goes on to describe and dwell on the perfection of her different parts in detail, and it must please Him when we do the same. If we greatly admire a poem or any other work of art, what a pleasure it is to find another dwelling lovingly on the points that have most struck us. Such sympathy in tastes makes at once a bond of union, and so let us be united with God, and go over in spirit the various points of beauty to be found in His chef d'oeuvre, His incomparable Mother.
Rejoicing in Admiration
In those whom we love, we rejoice to see whatever is good and excellent, whatever distinguishes and raises them above the common. Mary, the Mother amiable, loved more than any earthly mother ever was loved, presents to our affectionate gaze, excellencies so great and exalted, that they cannot but add to our love profoundest admiration, speechless awe, and exultant jubilation. She is the Mother admirable, because her motherhood is divine and priestly, universal and ever active.
Divine Motherhood
Even natural motherhood is something mysterious, something divine. God works in the mother. He forms the body of the child, not out of the slime of the earth, but out of the flesh and blood of the mother; not directly and immediately, but by the laws which He has laid down in human nature; then He Himself directly and immediately creates the soul and makes the fruit of the mother's womb a human person. Every mother must agree with the pious and valiant mother of the Machabees as she addressed her youngest son, “I know not how your were formed in my womb; for I neither gave you breath, nor soul, nor life, neither did I form the limbs of every one of you. But the Creator of the world, that formed the nativity of man and that found out the origin of all” (Machabees 7:22).
In Mary the mystery of motherhood is infinitely more profound. She becomes Mother without the co-operation of a father. Her motherhood calls for the direct operation of divine power not only as to the soul but also as to the body of her offspring. In a much more comprehensive sense than any human mother is she the Mother of Jesus. All that is in Christ's body has taken its origin from her; and He, who is born of her, is not only man but also God, the incarnate Word divine. “Admirable” is His name, admirable is His Mother.
Priestly Motherhood
The son of an ordinary human mother may become a priest, but the mother's participation in the holy sacrifice offered by her son does not go beyond the participation in the sacrifice that is common to all the faithful. The ordinary human priest offers the divine Victim, not his own body and blood; consequently there is nothing of the mother that enters the sacrifice offered by her son. In the sacrifice offered by our Saviour upon the cross the body nailed to the cross, the blood shed in Christ's Passion is also her flesh and blood; the victim is in the fullest sense of the word her Son, and she offers Him with all her love and all her maternal rights. She is a priestly Mother; her motherhood a priestly, sacrificial motherhood.
Universal Motherhood
Ordinary motherhood extends to only a limited number of children. In their regard the mother is the proximate cause of their physical life, and she takes care of their education until they have reached maturity; at all events, any direct influence upon the child comes to an end when she dies. Mary's motherhood reaches as far as Christ's redeeming sacrifice. Since Christ died for all, Mary is the Mother of all and her motherhood is active so long as life lasts.
“However, Mary is not Mother of the faithful and of infidels, of the just and sinners in exactly the same way ... Mary is Mother of infidels in that she is destined to engender them to grace, and in that she obtains for them actual grace, which disposes them for the faith and for justification. She is the Mother of the faithful who are in the state of mortal sin in that she watches over them by obtaining for them the graces necessary for acts of faith and hope, and for disposing themselves for justification. Of those who have died in the state of mortal sin she is no longer the Mother; she was their Mother. She is fully the Mother of the just, since they have received sanctifying grace and charity through her. She cares for them with tender solicitude, so that they may continue in grace and grow in charity. She is in an eminent way the Mother of the blessed, who no longer can lose the life of grace” (Garrigou-Lagrange, The Mother of the Savior).
In Her Care
Thus, next to Christ as the principal cause, Mary is active as the secondary cause in giving to the soul the life of grace. Then she continues to be active in her spiritual children's behalf, not only through the years of their physical childhood, but throughout life. Spiritually we remain children, in need of her motherly care, as long as we live.
Hence the axioms: “There is no salvation without Mary,” and “No one will be lost who has a tender devotion to Mary,” rest on solid foundation. All this also explains why in our days, when the salvation of the faithful is exposed to greater dangers than ever before, Mary shows such a striking solicitude in behalf of the world, and why the Church with ever increasing trust and love turns to her for protection and safety.
This is the meaning of the words of Pius XII in consecrating the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary: “In this tragic hour of human history we confide, entrust, and consecrate to thy Immaculate Heart the holy Church, the mystical body of thy Son Jesus, which bleeds now from so many wounds and is so sorely tried. We consecrate likewise to thy Immaculate Heart the whole world, torn as it is by deadly strife, afire with hatred and paying the penalty of its own wickedness.”
There is no end to the discoveries we shall make in contemplating the wonders of Mary's motherhood. Admiration will then pass over into veneration, veneration into imitation, imitation into love and trustful surrender of ourselves to her motherly care.
12. MOTHER OF GOOD COUNSEL
“Counsel and equity is mine” (Proverbs 8:14).
“Her thoughts are more vast than the sea, and her counsels more deep than the great ocean” (Ecclesiasticus 24:3).
“She is easily seen by those that love her, and is found by them that seek her” (Wisdom 6:15).
Advocate and Counsel
One of the most beautiful titles of Our Lady in the Salve Regina is “Our Advocate.” It is rich in meaning. Advocate means one who is summoned to aid, one who pleads the cause of another as does the lawyer in court, one who espouses any cause by argument, a pleader, an adviser, an intercessor. One readily sees the many implications of the title as applied to our Lady, our advocate, our counsellor, Mother of Good Counsel.
Though the title is comparatively recent in the Litany, the essence of it has been with the Church from the beginning. The Salve Regina comes to us from the eleventh century, but the use of the title “Our Advocate” goes back to the Fathers of the Church, who, in a thousand different passages, delighted in calling attention to her great intercessory power, her might with God. As Dante puts it—Grace then must first be gained: Her grace, whose might can keep thee. Thou in prayer seek her.
Recent Addition to Litany
The title “Mother of Good Counsel” was added to our Litany, April 22, 1903, by the Congregation of Rites under Leo XIII, who had a great devotion to her picture of this title. How things grow in the Church is seen in a striking degree in this case. The story of the miraculous picture of Our Lady of Good Counsel is a beautiful one. It runs thus.
There is a little town, twenty-five miles southeast of Rome, called Genazzano. In pagan times it was a celebrated shrine for the worship of Venus, but in the fourth century a church was built there in honor of Our Lady and called the Church of the Virgin Mother of Good Counsel. In course of time the little church became dilapidated and almost fell into ruins, remaining so until sometime in the fifteenth century when a pious woman gave all she had for its restoration.
Meanwhile there was at Scutari, in Albania, as early as the tenth century, a little church dedicated to the Annunciation, and in this church was a very ancient picture of the Blessed Virgin, said to have been brought there in a miraculous manner. When the increasing victories of the Turks threatened the church and the picture, the picture was seen to be hidden entirely by a white cloud and then removed in the air to Rome as if carried by invisible hands.
The Madonna from Paradise
One day, April 25, 1467, which was a Sunday, a great crowd was gathered at the little unfinished church at Genazzano to take part in the annual festival of the Virgin Mother of Good Counsel. To their amazement they saw a white cloud descending toward the church, while wondrous music sounded in the skies, and the old church bells suddenly rang out, to be answered by every bell in town, with not a hand ringing them. The cloud was suddenly dissipated and then against the wall of the little chapel of St. Blaise, which was being renovated, was seen the miraculous picture hanging in air and supported by no human power. The people saw the picture with awe and welcomed it with joy. In a burst of inspiration they named the picture “The Madonna From Paradise.”
At once the church, which was served by the Augustinians, was completely restored and the Chapel of St. Blaise became a very rich shrine, indeed, to harbor this gift from Heaven. The picture, after the name of the church, became known as Our Lady of Good Counsel and soon was the scene of many miracles and the object of perpetual pilgrimages. Several popes have set their seal of approval on the miraculous picture. Pope Innocent XI, 1682, had the picture crowned with gold. Pope Benedict XIV, July 2nd, 1753, approved the confraternity of the Pious Union of Our Lady of Good Counsel and became its first member. Blessed Pope Pius IX was also a member.
Counselor of Popes
Our Lady of Good Counsel should have a special meaning to the Vicar of Christ, who needs counsel, the wisdom of governing all humanity. Leo XIII added even greater honors. He approved the Scapular of Our Lady of Good Counsel and was the very first to wear it. He had great devotion to the picture and had a copy of it in his desk. On one copy of the picture he had written with his own hand the scripture text--“My Son, hearken to her counsels,” and as we have seen, he added the title of Mother of Good Counsel to the Litany.
We should be grateful to Pope Leo XIII for this gift to us. It is a title that means a lot to us. And the Church has sealed the title to her not only in the Litany, but also in the Mass for the Feast of Our Lady of Good Counsel. Thus are applied to her in the Gradual of the Mass the Words of the Proverbs (chapter 8): “I, wisdom, dwell in counsel, and am present in learned thoughts.” And again in the Tract (Psalm 8): “Counsel and equity are mine.”
Divine Counsel
The prophet Isaias speaks of the Messias as the Angel of the great counsel, that is, the messenger of God, sent to carry out the decree of man's redemption. Mary, the Mother of the Angel of the great counsel, must be expected to have a profounder knowledge than any other created mind of the reasons why the Passion and death of the Savior was chosen as the means to redeem mankind. Pride had to be atoned by humiliation, disobedience by obedience unto death, sinful pleasure by suffering; thus men would come to realize more thoroughly the purpose of their existence, do penance for their sins, and strive after holiness of life.
The life of Mary shows that she fully understood this divine counsel. At the Annunciation she has but one question to ask: How shall this be done? She sees in the poverty of Bethlehem and in the flight to Egypt the divine counsel and she joyfully conforms to it without complaining. She does not waver in her total dedication to the Lord when told by Simeon that a sword of sorrows will pierce her heart, and she perseveres in this attitude of mind and will until all is consummated on Calvary. Thus understanding the divine counsel and having lived according to it, she is qualified to counteract the work of Eve, who listened to the evil spirit and by her counsel to Adam brought ruin and death to the whole human race.
Who Doesn’t Need Counseling?
We always need advice. There are a thousand problems we have to solve, a thousand knots we have to untie, a thousand difficulties we seek to escape from, a thousand cross-roads when we have to choose the road. There are not only spiritual problems. In the daily grind we need someone to tell us what to do, problems of daily sustenance for ourselves and others, of food and shelter and clothing, and, most of all, happiness and peace of mind. No one is better able to advise us than she who had these problems too. Hers was no bed of roses.
We mistakenly visualize Mary at Nazareth and Bethlehem with folded hands having nothing to do but listen to angels. Listen to angels, she always did this, but she had to work for a living. She had her family, Jesus and Joseph, to look after, to draw the water for them, to cook their meals, to wash their clothes. She had, as we all, her struggle for existence. So she understands the needs of her children, and if we but ask her she will tell us how--“I did it this way.” Mother tell me what to do; and she will tell us for the asking.
Our Legal Counsel Before God
Mother of Good Counsel is but a new combination of words to express a very old idea. And even the title itself can be traced back to the Prophet Isaias. We read (9:6) the magnificent passage: “For a child is born to us, and a son is given to us, and the government is upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the World to come, the Prince of Peace.” She, the Mother of the great Counsellor, is His associate counsel. She is the spouse of the Holy Ghost—the Paraclete, the advocate.
Counsel was hers in a supreme degree, for from the beginning of her existence, in her Immaculate Conception, she had the wisdom which qualified her for her degree of advocate. We will not here enter into the discussion of the knowledge possessed by Mary. It is enough to say that it is the general teaching of the Church that she had the use of reason from the beginning, an infused knowledge, that is, a knowledge directly conferred upon her by God, in distinction from acquired knowledge which is acquired by personal effort. So that adding to that infused knowledge — her acquired knowledge, her abundance of grace, her growth in grace, her share in the Redemption, her share in the work of her Son—the Counsellor, her share in the Beatific Vision; add them all together and then multiply them indefinitely, and you get a little idea of her qualifications for being chosen as our counsel. It is an old slogan when one has a case at court to say—”Get a good lawyer.” Certainly we have chosen the best one in Mary.
Our Spiritual Counsel
Holy Mother Church, in the Collect of the Mass of the Feast of Our Lady of Good Counsel, prays --“O God, Who givest us the Mother of Thy beloved Son, to be our Mother, and wast pleased to give honor to her beauteous picture by a wonderful sign; grant, we beseech Thee, that by ever cleaving to her counsels, we may be able to live after Thine own heart and happily win our heavenly country.”
Mary is essentially spiritual, she is our best adviser in spiritual things, as we stand at the cross-roads and seek the way that leads to eternal life. She is not only there to point the right away, but she is ready to go along with us, to take upon herself the work of guiding our feet and even carrying us when we get too tired. So that there is not one idea connoted by Counsel that is not emphasized in her. And the beauty of it is that she is Counsel not for the Prosecution, but Counsel for the Defense.
She is our pleader. She studies our particular case well. She uses all her oratory, all her powers of persuasion, with the One Who has such a sure case against us. We know we have a mighty poor case, we know that if our case stood on its own merits at this very moment, it would be lost. But she knows our regrets, and she is willing to go to court for us. To have a friend at court is a great step to the favor of the King. And with this new Esther at court to plead for us, her little ones, we feel that our case will be settled in our favor as soon as it is tried, just because we are lucky enough to have her appointed by the court as our Counsel. We have nothing with which to pay such Counsel, but she feels we pay her well when we give her our repentance and our love once she has obtained the settlement of our case and its dismissal by our Judge. Newman had the thought when he wrote--“I assuredly have a simple faith in the omnipotence of her intercession.”
There is a beautiful old legend that St. Patrick asked God to be allowed to judge the Irish on the last day and that God promised him that mercy to Patrick's Sons. The truth is more beautiful still. We will have the All-Merciful God to be our Judge, and we will have as our friend at Court our Mother of Good Counsel.
Ourselves and Counsel
People give it right and left, and often on matters they but little understand. The emissaries of Satan are ever on the outlook to lead the unwary into dangerous paths, and our own self-reliance and natural impetuosity make us impatient of seeking the opinions of the wise and experienced, which perhaps a secret prompting tells us would not be altogether in accordance with our wishes.
And so we rush on heedlessly, taking the advice only of those whose views square with our own, and who have not our real interests at heart, and who perhaps are only flattering us, not caring what may result from our course of action, or even urging us on to it with a secret view to their own advantage in some way. How many lives have been wrecked and prospects ruined, homes rendered miserable and souls robbed of their innocence through acting precipitately and not asking counsel!
Nor must we, who are Catholics, professing to place things eternal before those merely temporal, be satisfied always with seeking the advice of the worldly-wise, of the “children of this generation,” as our Lord called them, as if to draw attention to their looking only to what is to their advantage during this mortal life. We must strive to see what will be best for our eternal interests; we must not only be anxious to have clever advice, but that it be good and sound before God. So let us have recourse to our sweet Mother of Good Counsel, whose divine Son, the Infinite Wisdom, has His little arms twined round her neck, and His mouth placed close to her ear, ready to whisper the words that she will pass on to her trustful clients who look to her for guidance in their affairs, whether spiritual or temporal.
Not only is she always ready to receive those who need her, but we learn in the book of Wisdom that “she goeth about seeking such as are worthy of her,” such, that is, who are not too headstrong and self-willed to be counselled and advised, and “she showeth herself to them cheerfully in the ways.” … “He that considereth her ways in his heart, and hath understanding in her secrets, who goeth after as one that traceth and stayeth in her ways .... shall rest in her glory.”
Yes, even those who are well established in the ways of God, those already possessed of spiritual understanding, feel their need of our Lady of Good Counsel. For who so enlightened as to be always sure which of many good things is the best? Who is not at times puzzled as to which of two courses it would be better and safer to pursue? Let such have recourse to our Lady and say: “Good counsel give to me, Mother; tell me what I am to do.” She is our Lady of Light, the spouse of the Holy Ghost, one of whose seven gifts is that which we are seeking.
Those especially who have themselves to guide and advise others have, more than any, need of humble, childlike prayer to our blessed Mother under the title we are considering, and in this the supreme Pontiffs have again and again set a striking example. The gifts and privileges granted by them to the Sanctuary of the Madonna at Genezzano are sufficient testimony of this. And were we to go no further back in history than to our two late illustrious Popes, we should find in their lives touching proofs of the earnestness with which they sought light and guidance in their responsible office at the feet of our Lady of Good Counsel. Blessed Pope Pius IX, following in this the footsteps of his predecessors, used to gather his household daily round her picture for the devotions of the month of May, and one of the last acts of the reign of our late Holy Father was to add the title he so loved to the universally used Litany of Loreto.
Let us imitate this spirit of confidence in Mary, and let us remember what is written in Ecclesiasticus: “He that lodgeth near her house, and fastening a pin in her walls shall set up his tent nigh unto her, where good things shall rest in his lodging for ever. He shall set his children under her shelter and shall lodge under her branches: he shall be protected under her covering from the heat and shall rest in her glory.” Yes, Mother mine, that is where I would like to dwell, close to thee, so that at all times thou canst counsel and advise me, and thus in the passage through life I may act with wisdom, and not miss the “good things” in the home eternal.
Mother of Good Counsel, pray for us.
“Her thoughts are more vast than the sea, and her counsels more deep than the great ocean” (Ecclesiasticus 24:3).
“She is easily seen by those that love her, and is found by them that seek her” (Wisdom 6:15).
Advocate and Counsel
One of the most beautiful titles of Our Lady in the Salve Regina is “Our Advocate.” It is rich in meaning. Advocate means one who is summoned to aid, one who pleads the cause of another as does the lawyer in court, one who espouses any cause by argument, a pleader, an adviser, an intercessor. One readily sees the many implications of the title as applied to our Lady, our advocate, our counsellor, Mother of Good Counsel.
Though the title is comparatively recent in the Litany, the essence of it has been with the Church from the beginning. The Salve Regina comes to us from the eleventh century, but the use of the title “Our Advocate” goes back to the Fathers of the Church, who, in a thousand different passages, delighted in calling attention to her great intercessory power, her might with God. As Dante puts it—Grace then must first be gained: Her grace, whose might can keep thee. Thou in prayer seek her.
Recent Addition to Litany
The title “Mother of Good Counsel” was added to our Litany, April 22, 1903, by the Congregation of Rites under Leo XIII, who had a great devotion to her picture of this title. How things grow in the Church is seen in a striking degree in this case. The story of the miraculous picture of Our Lady of Good Counsel is a beautiful one. It runs thus.
There is a little town, twenty-five miles southeast of Rome, called Genazzano. In pagan times it was a celebrated shrine for the worship of Venus, but in the fourth century a church was built there in honor of Our Lady and called the Church of the Virgin Mother of Good Counsel. In course of time the little church became dilapidated and almost fell into ruins, remaining so until sometime in the fifteenth century when a pious woman gave all she had for its restoration.
Meanwhile there was at Scutari, in Albania, as early as the tenth century, a little church dedicated to the Annunciation, and in this church was a very ancient picture of the Blessed Virgin, said to have been brought there in a miraculous manner. When the increasing victories of the Turks threatened the church and the picture, the picture was seen to be hidden entirely by a white cloud and then removed in the air to Rome as if carried by invisible hands.
The Madonna from Paradise
One day, April 25, 1467, which was a Sunday, a great crowd was gathered at the little unfinished church at Genazzano to take part in the annual festival of the Virgin Mother of Good Counsel. To their amazement they saw a white cloud descending toward the church, while wondrous music sounded in the skies, and the old church bells suddenly rang out, to be answered by every bell in town, with not a hand ringing them. The cloud was suddenly dissipated and then against the wall of the little chapel of St. Blaise, which was being renovated, was seen the miraculous picture hanging in air and supported by no human power. The people saw the picture with awe and welcomed it with joy. In a burst of inspiration they named the picture “The Madonna From Paradise.”
At once the church, which was served by the Augustinians, was completely restored and the Chapel of St. Blaise became a very rich shrine, indeed, to harbor this gift from Heaven. The picture, after the name of the church, became known as Our Lady of Good Counsel and soon was the scene of many miracles and the object of perpetual pilgrimages. Several popes have set their seal of approval on the miraculous picture. Pope Innocent XI, 1682, had the picture crowned with gold. Pope Benedict XIV, July 2nd, 1753, approved the confraternity of the Pious Union of Our Lady of Good Counsel and became its first member. Blessed Pope Pius IX was also a member.
Counselor of Popes
Our Lady of Good Counsel should have a special meaning to the Vicar of Christ, who needs counsel, the wisdom of governing all humanity. Leo XIII added even greater honors. He approved the Scapular of Our Lady of Good Counsel and was the very first to wear it. He had great devotion to the picture and had a copy of it in his desk. On one copy of the picture he had written with his own hand the scripture text--“My Son, hearken to her counsels,” and as we have seen, he added the title of Mother of Good Counsel to the Litany.
We should be grateful to Pope Leo XIII for this gift to us. It is a title that means a lot to us. And the Church has sealed the title to her not only in the Litany, but also in the Mass for the Feast of Our Lady of Good Counsel. Thus are applied to her in the Gradual of the Mass the Words of the Proverbs (chapter 8): “I, wisdom, dwell in counsel, and am present in learned thoughts.” And again in the Tract (Psalm 8): “Counsel and equity are mine.”
Divine Counsel
The prophet Isaias speaks of the Messias as the Angel of the great counsel, that is, the messenger of God, sent to carry out the decree of man's redemption. Mary, the Mother of the Angel of the great counsel, must be expected to have a profounder knowledge than any other created mind of the reasons why the Passion and death of the Savior was chosen as the means to redeem mankind. Pride had to be atoned by humiliation, disobedience by obedience unto death, sinful pleasure by suffering; thus men would come to realize more thoroughly the purpose of their existence, do penance for their sins, and strive after holiness of life.
The life of Mary shows that she fully understood this divine counsel. At the Annunciation she has but one question to ask: How shall this be done? She sees in the poverty of Bethlehem and in the flight to Egypt the divine counsel and she joyfully conforms to it without complaining. She does not waver in her total dedication to the Lord when told by Simeon that a sword of sorrows will pierce her heart, and she perseveres in this attitude of mind and will until all is consummated on Calvary. Thus understanding the divine counsel and having lived according to it, she is qualified to counteract the work of Eve, who listened to the evil spirit and by her counsel to Adam brought ruin and death to the whole human race.
Who Doesn’t Need Counseling?
We always need advice. There are a thousand problems we have to solve, a thousand knots we have to untie, a thousand difficulties we seek to escape from, a thousand cross-roads when we have to choose the road. There are not only spiritual problems. In the daily grind we need someone to tell us what to do, problems of daily sustenance for ourselves and others, of food and shelter and clothing, and, most of all, happiness and peace of mind. No one is better able to advise us than she who had these problems too. Hers was no bed of roses.
We mistakenly visualize Mary at Nazareth and Bethlehem with folded hands having nothing to do but listen to angels. Listen to angels, she always did this, but she had to work for a living. She had her family, Jesus and Joseph, to look after, to draw the water for them, to cook their meals, to wash their clothes. She had, as we all, her struggle for existence. So she understands the needs of her children, and if we but ask her she will tell us how--“I did it this way.” Mother tell me what to do; and she will tell us for the asking.
Our Legal Counsel Before God
Mother of Good Counsel is but a new combination of words to express a very old idea. And even the title itself can be traced back to the Prophet Isaias. We read (9:6) the magnificent passage: “For a child is born to us, and a son is given to us, and the government is upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the World to come, the Prince of Peace.” She, the Mother of the great Counsellor, is His associate counsel. She is the spouse of the Holy Ghost—the Paraclete, the advocate.
Counsel was hers in a supreme degree, for from the beginning of her existence, in her Immaculate Conception, she had the wisdom which qualified her for her degree of advocate. We will not here enter into the discussion of the knowledge possessed by Mary. It is enough to say that it is the general teaching of the Church that she had the use of reason from the beginning, an infused knowledge, that is, a knowledge directly conferred upon her by God, in distinction from acquired knowledge which is acquired by personal effort. So that adding to that infused knowledge — her acquired knowledge, her abundance of grace, her growth in grace, her share in the Redemption, her share in the work of her Son—the Counsellor, her share in the Beatific Vision; add them all together and then multiply them indefinitely, and you get a little idea of her qualifications for being chosen as our counsel. It is an old slogan when one has a case at court to say—”Get a good lawyer.” Certainly we have chosen the best one in Mary.
Our Spiritual Counsel
Holy Mother Church, in the Collect of the Mass of the Feast of Our Lady of Good Counsel, prays --“O God, Who givest us the Mother of Thy beloved Son, to be our Mother, and wast pleased to give honor to her beauteous picture by a wonderful sign; grant, we beseech Thee, that by ever cleaving to her counsels, we may be able to live after Thine own heart and happily win our heavenly country.”
Mary is essentially spiritual, she is our best adviser in spiritual things, as we stand at the cross-roads and seek the way that leads to eternal life. She is not only there to point the right away, but she is ready to go along with us, to take upon herself the work of guiding our feet and even carrying us when we get too tired. So that there is not one idea connoted by Counsel that is not emphasized in her. And the beauty of it is that she is Counsel not for the Prosecution, but Counsel for the Defense.
She is our pleader. She studies our particular case well. She uses all her oratory, all her powers of persuasion, with the One Who has such a sure case against us. We know we have a mighty poor case, we know that if our case stood on its own merits at this very moment, it would be lost. But she knows our regrets, and she is willing to go to court for us. To have a friend at court is a great step to the favor of the King. And with this new Esther at court to plead for us, her little ones, we feel that our case will be settled in our favor as soon as it is tried, just because we are lucky enough to have her appointed by the court as our Counsel. We have nothing with which to pay such Counsel, but she feels we pay her well when we give her our repentance and our love once she has obtained the settlement of our case and its dismissal by our Judge. Newman had the thought when he wrote--“I assuredly have a simple faith in the omnipotence of her intercession.”
There is a beautiful old legend that St. Patrick asked God to be allowed to judge the Irish on the last day and that God promised him that mercy to Patrick's Sons. The truth is more beautiful still. We will have the All-Merciful God to be our Judge, and we will have as our friend at Court our Mother of Good Counsel.
Ourselves and Counsel
People give it right and left, and often on matters they but little understand. The emissaries of Satan are ever on the outlook to lead the unwary into dangerous paths, and our own self-reliance and natural impetuosity make us impatient of seeking the opinions of the wise and experienced, which perhaps a secret prompting tells us would not be altogether in accordance with our wishes.
And so we rush on heedlessly, taking the advice only of those whose views square with our own, and who have not our real interests at heart, and who perhaps are only flattering us, not caring what may result from our course of action, or even urging us on to it with a secret view to their own advantage in some way. How many lives have been wrecked and prospects ruined, homes rendered miserable and souls robbed of their innocence through acting precipitately and not asking counsel!
Nor must we, who are Catholics, professing to place things eternal before those merely temporal, be satisfied always with seeking the advice of the worldly-wise, of the “children of this generation,” as our Lord called them, as if to draw attention to their looking only to what is to their advantage during this mortal life. We must strive to see what will be best for our eternal interests; we must not only be anxious to have clever advice, but that it be good and sound before God. So let us have recourse to our sweet Mother of Good Counsel, whose divine Son, the Infinite Wisdom, has His little arms twined round her neck, and His mouth placed close to her ear, ready to whisper the words that she will pass on to her trustful clients who look to her for guidance in their affairs, whether spiritual or temporal.
Not only is she always ready to receive those who need her, but we learn in the book of Wisdom that “she goeth about seeking such as are worthy of her,” such, that is, who are not too headstrong and self-willed to be counselled and advised, and “she showeth herself to them cheerfully in the ways.” … “He that considereth her ways in his heart, and hath understanding in her secrets, who goeth after as one that traceth and stayeth in her ways .... shall rest in her glory.”
Yes, even those who are well established in the ways of God, those already possessed of spiritual understanding, feel their need of our Lady of Good Counsel. For who so enlightened as to be always sure which of many good things is the best? Who is not at times puzzled as to which of two courses it would be better and safer to pursue? Let such have recourse to our Lady and say: “Good counsel give to me, Mother; tell me what I am to do.” She is our Lady of Light, the spouse of the Holy Ghost, one of whose seven gifts is that which we are seeking.
Those especially who have themselves to guide and advise others have, more than any, need of humble, childlike prayer to our blessed Mother under the title we are considering, and in this the supreme Pontiffs have again and again set a striking example. The gifts and privileges granted by them to the Sanctuary of the Madonna at Genezzano are sufficient testimony of this. And were we to go no further back in history than to our two late illustrious Popes, we should find in their lives touching proofs of the earnestness with which they sought light and guidance in their responsible office at the feet of our Lady of Good Counsel. Blessed Pope Pius IX, following in this the footsteps of his predecessors, used to gather his household daily round her picture for the devotions of the month of May, and one of the last acts of the reign of our late Holy Father was to add the title he so loved to the universally used Litany of Loreto.
Let us imitate this spirit of confidence in Mary, and let us remember what is written in Ecclesiasticus: “He that lodgeth near her house, and fastening a pin in her walls shall set up his tent nigh unto her, where good things shall rest in his lodging for ever. He shall set his children under her shelter and shall lodge under her branches: he shall be protected under her covering from the heat and shall rest in her glory.” Yes, Mother mine, that is where I would like to dwell, close to thee, so that at all times thou canst counsel and advise me, and thus in the passage through life I may act with wisdom, and not miss the “good things” in the home eternal.
Mother of Good Counsel, pray for us.
13. MOTHER OF OUR CREATOR
“Then the Creator of all things commanded, and said to me: and He that made me rested in my tabernacle, and He said to me: ... Take root in My elect. From the beginning, and before the world was I created, and unto the world to come I shall not cease to be, and in the holy dwelling-place I minister before Him ... I made that in the heavens there should rise light that never faileth ... and I shall abide in the inheritance of the Lord” (Ecclesiasticus 24:12-14) ... “I made that in the heavens there should rise light that never faileth” (Ecclesiasticus 24:6).
The Humility of the Creator
Mary was the Mother of Jesus―“there stood by the Cross of Jesus, Mary, His Mother” (John 19:25)―and He was the Light of the world, of whom St. John says: “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not” (John 1:10).
Wondrous thought, that the creature (Mary) should be the mother of the Creator (Jesus), yet so it is. “God saw that all His works were good, but a mother was a thing so good, so beautiful, that He would fain have one of His own.” Dante expresses this truth in his own inimitable way in the lines beginning Vergine Madre, Figlia del tuo Figlio:
Oh, Virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son,
Created beings all in lowliness
Surpassing, as in height above them all;
Term by the eternal Council pre-ordained;
Ennobler of thy nature, so advanced,
In that its great Creator did not scorn
To make himself his own Creation.
(“Paradiso” 33:1).
No, God did not disdain to depend on His creature for the human body He deigned to assume, and it is of this fact that we remind Him daily in the first verse of the “Memento rerum Conditor”. He loves to be reminded of it, for He loves His holy Mother with a love as far exceeding that of other children for theirs as His heart surpasses theirs in magnitude, and in consequent capacity for love.
The Creature and the Creator
And Mary, what of her thoughts and feelings when she realized that He who made her rested in her tabernacle? Her hidden, silent, prayerful life is explained by this mystery. Why should she wish to converse with creatures when she was ever listening for the gentle voice of her Creator, who had taken up His abode with her? Why should she desire to be seen by men who was living in the sight of the whole court of Heaven? Nor did she crave to do work that would show, for she had grasped the truth that “more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.”
She was ever employed in secret communion with Him, her Lord and Creator, praising Him, invoking blessings on others, thanking Him for His choice of her, and realizing that she had been in His mind from all eternity, for there is no past and present with Him, and thus she could truly say the words put in her mouth by holy Church:
“The Lord possessed me in the beginnings of His ways, before He made anything from the beginning. I was set up from eternity and of old, before the Earth was made. The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived; neither had the fountains of water as yet sprung out; the mountains with their huge bulk had not as yet been established: before the hills I was brought forth; He had not yet made the Earth nor the rivers, nor the poles of the Earth. When He prepared the heavens I was there; when with a certain law and compass He enclosed the depths; when He established the sky above, and poised the fountains of waters; when He compassed the sea with its bounds and set a law to the waters that they should not pass their limits; when He balanced the foundations of the Earth, I was with Him, forming all things, and was delighted every day, playing before Him at all times, playing in the world, and my delight is to be with the children of men.”
How lovingly God would make the places which were to be the earthly sojourn of His spotless Mother, whence such perfect praise would rise up to Him. When He prepared the heavens she was present. He had before Him those eyes that would penetrate further into their depths than any others, and whose beauties would be to her a never-ending source of admiration and praise of their Maker.
He pictured her on the hills round Nazareth, where she would play as a child, the mountains of Judea over which she would pass when hastening on her visit of charity to her holy cousin, St. Elizabeth, bearing with her the light of the world, who was later to be the Sun of the heavens. “And the Lamb is the lamp thereof.” So she was in God, and God was in her, and so will they be ever united through the endless ages of eternity. May we not adapt to her St. Francis of Assisi’s verses on divine Love, and say:
Fire nor sword can part in twain,
Nor can dissolve so close a tie;
Sorrow nor death can e’er attain
The soul that has been raised so high;
And from that height she sees how vain
All earthly things beneath her lie.
Fair maid, how hast thou soared
Unto so high an aim?
From Christ the favor came.
Embrace thy sweetest Lord.
The Two Creations
In this title, the work of Christ is implicitly referred to as a creation. We speak of two creations: the first is recorded in the Book of Genesis, the second in the Gospel. The Creator in both is the same; the Son of the Blessed Virgin. Mary’s divine motherhood brings her into closest relation to the second creation.
First Creation
There is a profound, mysterious analogy between the mutual relations of the divine Persons and creation. Though creation is common to all divine Persons, we attribute some phases in it rather to one Person than to Another. Let us recall that the Son proceeds from the Father as His Word, “the brightness of His glory and the image of His substance” (Hebrews 1:3). In this image the Father beholds the infinite perfection of the divine nature; also Its infinite imitability through creation. Out of the infinite number of possible worlds which He could create, He chooses one which at the appointed moment is to become a reality. Thus the “Image of His substance” becomes the pattern; the “Word,” the eternal creative fiat for all things created. “All things were made through Him, and without Him was made nothing that has been made” (John 1:3). To the Holy Spirit we attribute the carrying out of the divine plan, culminating in the creation of man and his elevation to the supernatural order: “And God saw all the things that He had made, and they were very good” (Genesis 1:31).
The order and beauty of the first creation did not last. Sin destroyed it. Man lost the life of grace, was expelled -from Paradise, and God’s curse descended upon this Earth. However, the designs of God cannot be thwarted. If He allows the first creation thus to be disturbed, it is because He has decreed from all eternity that another, better one, should take its place.
Second Creation
Holy Church refers to the glory of the second creation when during holy Mass, at the mixing of wine and water, she prays, “O God, who didst create human nature in wonderful dignity and restore it more wonderful.” The Creator in this new creation is the same as in the first, but now He is incarnate, having assumed the nature of man; the procedure in this second creation is not the same as in the first. In the first creation the Creator was alone; in the second creation He associates with Himself a Mother from whom He assumes human nature, so that the same nature that brought about the destruction of the first creation, might be the instrument to effect the second creation. “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways!” (Romans 11:33.)
The second creation begins with the remaking of human nature in the Mother of the Creator. The almighty fiat of the second creation provides for her a nature that is untouched by sin, and endowed with a fullness of grace immeasurably exceeding that of the first human mother. The same almighty fiat rules out for Mary’s Son a human father. The natural course of generation, by which original sin is transmitted, is not to be the way for the incarnate Word of God to enter this world. The Holy Spirit comes down upon the chosen Mother of the Creator and she conceives through the overshadowing of His love. The miraculous conception is followed by the miraculous, virginal birth of the Creator. Thus the foundation is laid and the pattern established for the new creation of man in justice and true holiness.
Creation Perpetuated
The Word of God born of the Virgin Mary becomes the Head of the human race, so that all men might be renewed in Him. As He began the second creation through and with Mary, so He will continue and bring it to an end through Mary. In the moment in which the Savior’s side was pierced on the cross the Church was born. As the Creator formed the first Eve from a rib taken out of Adam’s body, so the Church is formed from the body of the second Adam, who is also the Creator. But as this body had been given Him by His Mother, it is through her that He now espouses the Church to co-operate with Him in the new creation.
Through the operations of the Church the wonderful works of the second creation now begin to unfold in all their glory. By water and the Holy Spirit man is born again, “a heavenly offspring, conceived in holiness and born again as a new creature comes forth from the font’s immaculate womb” (blessing of baptismal water, Holy Saturday). By means of bread and wine, changed into the body and blood of the Creator, the new life is sustained and brought to its ultimate perfection in life everlasting. All the other sacraments serve the same purpose. So all is new again, matter and spirit, Earth and man, and lifted to heights which probably would never have been reached in the first creation. All this stupendous grandeur of the second creation was, according to the divine decree, to depend upon Mary. We must agree with St. Thomas when he says that the consent of the whole human race was expected in the answer of the Virgin at the Annunciation; through her the whole world received again what had been lost through the destruction of the first creation.
The second creation is everlasting; it cannot be destroyed, as was the first creation, for the whole human race, but it can be destroyed in the individual soul. May the Mother of the Creator and our Mother preserve us from such a fearful calamity.
What Kind of Children of the Creator Are We?
And has our eternal Father treated us far differently from His holy Mother, though we are vile sinners, rebellious children, further removed from our Immaculate Mother than is the Earth from Heaven? He has told us by the mouth of His prophet that He has loved us with an everlasting love; He has placed over us the same sky, and below our feet the same beautiful Earth. He has provided us with pleasant homes, loving parents, kind friends, and above all, does He not Himself deign to enter our very hearts, and unite Himself so closely to us that theologians liken it to the melting together of two pieces of wax?
Oh, would that we received all these marks of Thy love with the same joyous gratitude as did Thy holy Mother! Add to all Thy favors, Lord, that of creating within us a pure and clean heart, a lowly thankful heart that will be somewhat less unfit a dwelling than that which Thou has now to put up with when Thou dost to come to visit us. Mary, sweetest Mother, join thy prayers to ours, and obtain for us this favor from our God.
Mother of our Creator, pray for us!
The Humility of the Creator
Mary was the Mother of Jesus―“there stood by the Cross of Jesus, Mary, His Mother” (John 19:25)―and He was the Light of the world, of whom St. John says: “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not” (John 1:10).
Wondrous thought, that the creature (Mary) should be the mother of the Creator (Jesus), yet so it is. “God saw that all His works were good, but a mother was a thing so good, so beautiful, that He would fain have one of His own.” Dante expresses this truth in his own inimitable way in the lines beginning Vergine Madre, Figlia del tuo Figlio:
Oh, Virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son,
Created beings all in lowliness
Surpassing, as in height above them all;
Term by the eternal Council pre-ordained;
Ennobler of thy nature, so advanced,
In that its great Creator did not scorn
To make himself his own Creation.
(“Paradiso” 33:1).
No, God did not disdain to depend on His creature for the human body He deigned to assume, and it is of this fact that we remind Him daily in the first verse of the “Memento rerum Conditor”. He loves to be reminded of it, for He loves His holy Mother with a love as far exceeding that of other children for theirs as His heart surpasses theirs in magnitude, and in consequent capacity for love.
The Creature and the Creator
And Mary, what of her thoughts and feelings when she realized that He who made her rested in her tabernacle? Her hidden, silent, prayerful life is explained by this mystery. Why should she wish to converse with creatures when she was ever listening for the gentle voice of her Creator, who had taken up His abode with her? Why should she desire to be seen by men who was living in the sight of the whole court of Heaven? Nor did she crave to do work that would show, for she had grasped the truth that “more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.”
She was ever employed in secret communion with Him, her Lord and Creator, praising Him, invoking blessings on others, thanking Him for His choice of her, and realizing that she had been in His mind from all eternity, for there is no past and present with Him, and thus she could truly say the words put in her mouth by holy Church:
“The Lord possessed me in the beginnings of His ways, before He made anything from the beginning. I was set up from eternity and of old, before the Earth was made. The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived; neither had the fountains of water as yet sprung out; the mountains with their huge bulk had not as yet been established: before the hills I was brought forth; He had not yet made the Earth nor the rivers, nor the poles of the Earth. When He prepared the heavens I was there; when with a certain law and compass He enclosed the depths; when He established the sky above, and poised the fountains of waters; when He compassed the sea with its bounds and set a law to the waters that they should not pass their limits; when He balanced the foundations of the Earth, I was with Him, forming all things, and was delighted every day, playing before Him at all times, playing in the world, and my delight is to be with the children of men.”
How lovingly God would make the places which were to be the earthly sojourn of His spotless Mother, whence such perfect praise would rise up to Him. When He prepared the heavens she was present. He had before Him those eyes that would penetrate further into their depths than any others, and whose beauties would be to her a never-ending source of admiration and praise of their Maker.
He pictured her on the hills round Nazareth, where she would play as a child, the mountains of Judea over which she would pass when hastening on her visit of charity to her holy cousin, St. Elizabeth, bearing with her the light of the world, who was later to be the Sun of the heavens. “And the Lamb is the lamp thereof.” So she was in God, and God was in her, and so will they be ever united through the endless ages of eternity. May we not adapt to her St. Francis of Assisi’s verses on divine Love, and say:
Fire nor sword can part in twain,
Nor can dissolve so close a tie;
Sorrow nor death can e’er attain
The soul that has been raised so high;
And from that height she sees how vain
All earthly things beneath her lie.
Fair maid, how hast thou soared
Unto so high an aim?
From Christ the favor came.
Embrace thy sweetest Lord.
The Two Creations
In this title, the work of Christ is implicitly referred to as a creation. We speak of two creations: the first is recorded in the Book of Genesis, the second in the Gospel. The Creator in both is the same; the Son of the Blessed Virgin. Mary’s divine motherhood brings her into closest relation to the second creation.
First Creation
There is a profound, mysterious analogy between the mutual relations of the divine Persons and creation. Though creation is common to all divine Persons, we attribute some phases in it rather to one Person than to Another. Let us recall that the Son proceeds from the Father as His Word, “the brightness of His glory and the image of His substance” (Hebrews 1:3). In this image the Father beholds the infinite perfection of the divine nature; also Its infinite imitability through creation. Out of the infinite number of possible worlds which He could create, He chooses one which at the appointed moment is to become a reality. Thus the “Image of His substance” becomes the pattern; the “Word,” the eternal creative fiat for all things created. “All things were made through Him, and without Him was made nothing that has been made” (John 1:3). To the Holy Spirit we attribute the carrying out of the divine plan, culminating in the creation of man and his elevation to the supernatural order: “And God saw all the things that He had made, and they were very good” (Genesis 1:31).
The order and beauty of the first creation did not last. Sin destroyed it. Man lost the life of grace, was expelled -from Paradise, and God’s curse descended upon this Earth. However, the designs of God cannot be thwarted. If He allows the first creation thus to be disturbed, it is because He has decreed from all eternity that another, better one, should take its place.
Second Creation
Holy Church refers to the glory of the second creation when during holy Mass, at the mixing of wine and water, she prays, “O God, who didst create human nature in wonderful dignity and restore it more wonderful.” The Creator in this new creation is the same as in the first, but now He is incarnate, having assumed the nature of man; the procedure in this second creation is not the same as in the first. In the first creation the Creator was alone; in the second creation He associates with Himself a Mother from whom He assumes human nature, so that the same nature that brought about the destruction of the first creation, might be the instrument to effect the second creation. “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways!” (Romans 11:33.)
The second creation begins with the remaking of human nature in the Mother of the Creator. The almighty fiat of the second creation provides for her a nature that is untouched by sin, and endowed with a fullness of grace immeasurably exceeding that of the first human mother. The same almighty fiat rules out for Mary’s Son a human father. The natural course of generation, by which original sin is transmitted, is not to be the way for the incarnate Word of God to enter this world. The Holy Spirit comes down upon the chosen Mother of the Creator and she conceives through the overshadowing of His love. The miraculous conception is followed by the miraculous, virginal birth of the Creator. Thus the foundation is laid and the pattern established for the new creation of man in justice and true holiness.
Creation Perpetuated
The Word of God born of the Virgin Mary becomes the Head of the human race, so that all men might be renewed in Him. As He began the second creation through and with Mary, so He will continue and bring it to an end through Mary. In the moment in which the Savior’s side was pierced on the cross the Church was born. As the Creator formed the first Eve from a rib taken out of Adam’s body, so the Church is formed from the body of the second Adam, who is also the Creator. But as this body had been given Him by His Mother, it is through her that He now espouses the Church to co-operate with Him in the new creation.
Through the operations of the Church the wonderful works of the second creation now begin to unfold in all their glory. By water and the Holy Spirit man is born again, “a heavenly offspring, conceived in holiness and born again as a new creature comes forth from the font’s immaculate womb” (blessing of baptismal water, Holy Saturday). By means of bread and wine, changed into the body and blood of the Creator, the new life is sustained and brought to its ultimate perfection in life everlasting. All the other sacraments serve the same purpose. So all is new again, matter and spirit, Earth and man, and lifted to heights which probably would never have been reached in the first creation. All this stupendous grandeur of the second creation was, according to the divine decree, to depend upon Mary. We must agree with St. Thomas when he says that the consent of the whole human race was expected in the answer of the Virgin at the Annunciation; through her the whole world received again what had been lost through the destruction of the first creation.
The second creation is everlasting; it cannot be destroyed, as was the first creation, for the whole human race, but it can be destroyed in the individual soul. May the Mother of the Creator and our Mother preserve us from such a fearful calamity.
What Kind of Children of the Creator Are We?
And has our eternal Father treated us far differently from His holy Mother, though we are vile sinners, rebellious children, further removed from our Immaculate Mother than is the Earth from Heaven? He has told us by the mouth of His prophet that He has loved us with an everlasting love; He has placed over us the same sky, and below our feet the same beautiful Earth. He has provided us with pleasant homes, loving parents, kind friends, and above all, does He not Himself deign to enter our very hearts, and unite Himself so closely to us that theologians liken it to the melting together of two pieces of wax?
Oh, would that we received all these marks of Thy love with the same joyous gratitude as did Thy holy Mother! Add to all Thy favors, Lord, that of creating within us a pure and clean heart, a lowly thankful heart that will be somewhat less unfit a dwelling than that which Thou has now to put up with when Thou dost to come to visit us. Mary, sweetest Mother, join thy prayers to ours, and obtain for us this favor from our God.
Mother of our Creator, pray for us!
14. MOTHER OF OUR SAVIOR
Mother of the Savior
The new creation spoken of in the preceding title is at the same time a salvation. The ruin of the first creation was such that man, left to himself, could never have repaired it. Therefore the Son of God “came down from heaven for us and our salvation” (Nicean Creed). St. Joseph is directed by an angel to call His name Jesus, “for He shall save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). And the reason for the great joy announced by the angel at the birth of Jesus is that a Savior has been born. The salvation brought to us by Jesus is deliverance from slavery, reconciliation with God, restoration of what had been lost. Mary, the Mother of the Savior, cannot be separated from this salvation; she has given us the Savior and she has co-operated with Him in a manner that merited for us congruously what Jesus merited condignly (Pope St. Pius X, Denzinger 3034).
Deliverance From Slavery
“Everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin” (John 8:34). But sin being the will of Satan, the sinner becomes by it Satan's slave. What a degrading slavery it was! St. Paul thus describes it: “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are immorality, uncleanness, licentiousness, idolatry, witchcrafts, enmities, contentions, jealousies, anger, quarrels, factions, parties, murders, drunkenness, carousings, and such like” (Galatians 5:19).
It was the realization of this misery and helplessness that called forth the burning desire and the ardent prayers for the coming, of the Savior, that we find in the Old Testament and that are still echoed in the advent liturgy of the Church, especially in the great antiphons, “Come, and with an outstretched arm redeem us — come, and bring forth from the prison house the captive that sitteth in darkness and in the shadow of death come, and deliver man, whom Thou didst form out of the dust of the earth — come to save us, O Lord our God.”
Against such a background how wonderful is the love of God, of which holy Church sings in the Exultet, “O wondrous condescension of Thy kindness toward us, O tenderness of love beyond understanding, that to ransom a slave Thou didst give up the Son.” Must we not apply the same words to the Mother of the Savior?
Reconciliation
What good would it have done us to be free from slavery, if we had remained excluded from the friendship of God? The fullness of redemption's blessing consists in this that we were reconciled with God, again adopted as His children and made heirs of heaven. “Christ, the Innocent, reconciled sinners with the Father” (Easter Sequence). And so, “we have received a spirit of adoption of sons, by virtue of which we cry, 'Abba, Father.' The Spirit himself gives testimony to our spirit that we are the sons of God. But if we are sons, we are heirs also, heirs indeed of God and joint heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:15). Truly, where sin has abounded, grace has abounded more. The blessings of redemption far surpass the gifts enjoyed by our first parents in Paradise.
The Savior's Mother
The tide, Mother of the Savior, is a title of sublime honor, and Mary paid for it as far as human labor and pain, humble, generous, self-effacing love can do so. The trials and heart-rending sorrows of her life came to her precisely because she was the Mother of the Savior. She would not have known the poverty of Bethlehem, the fear and anxiety of her flight into Egypt, she would not have experienced the tortures of spiritual martyrdom at the sight of the cruel sufferings of Jesus and the pain and disgrace of His death, had she not been His Mother.
As it is, her sorrows increase from day to day until they become a veritable avalanche rolling down upon her from the cross of her dying Son. “Holy Mary, Queen of heaven and Mistress of the world, overwhelmed with grief, stood by the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. O all you that pass by the way, attend and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow” (Tract, Feast of Seven Sorrows).
But co-operating with Jesus in our redemption, she also acquired a certain part ownership in its blessings. Therefore all graces and blessings of redemption reach us through her hands; she is the Mediatrix of all graces: “Our salvation is in thy hands; merely turn thy eyes to us and we shall serve the King, our Lord, with gladness” (Feast of Mediatrix of All Graces).
As long as we live here below we must co-operate with the Savior and His Mother, working out our salvation with fear and trembling. But we must likewise co-operate in the salvation of others after the example of our heavenly Mother, who “has not spared her life by reason of the distress and tribulation of her people, but has prevented our ruin in the presence of God” (Feast of the Assumption).
The price paid by the Savior and His Mother for the salvation of souls, as well as the abundance of redemption's blessings which we have received, should arouse us to an ardent missionary zeal. But as we thus work for the salvation of others, we ever more firmly secure our own salvation, for, “My brethren, if any one of you strays from the truth, and someone brings him back, he ought to know that he who causes a sinner to be brought back from his misguided way, will save his own soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:19 ff.).
Mother of the Savior, help us to save our own souls and the souls of others!
The new creation spoken of in the preceding title is at the same time a salvation. The ruin of the first creation was such that man, left to himself, could never have repaired it. Therefore the Son of God “came down from heaven for us and our salvation” (Nicean Creed). St. Joseph is directed by an angel to call His name Jesus, “for He shall save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). And the reason for the great joy announced by the angel at the birth of Jesus is that a Savior has been born. The salvation brought to us by Jesus is deliverance from slavery, reconciliation with God, restoration of what had been lost. Mary, the Mother of the Savior, cannot be separated from this salvation; she has given us the Savior and she has co-operated with Him in a manner that merited for us congruously what Jesus merited condignly (Pope St. Pius X, Denzinger 3034).
Deliverance From Slavery
“Everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin” (John 8:34). But sin being the will of Satan, the sinner becomes by it Satan's slave. What a degrading slavery it was! St. Paul thus describes it: “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are immorality, uncleanness, licentiousness, idolatry, witchcrafts, enmities, contentions, jealousies, anger, quarrels, factions, parties, murders, drunkenness, carousings, and such like” (Galatians 5:19).
It was the realization of this misery and helplessness that called forth the burning desire and the ardent prayers for the coming, of the Savior, that we find in the Old Testament and that are still echoed in the advent liturgy of the Church, especially in the great antiphons, “Come, and with an outstretched arm redeem us — come, and bring forth from the prison house the captive that sitteth in darkness and in the shadow of death come, and deliver man, whom Thou didst form out of the dust of the earth — come to save us, O Lord our God.”
Against such a background how wonderful is the love of God, of which holy Church sings in the Exultet, “O wondrous condescension of Thy kindness toward us, O tenderness of love beyond understanding, that to ransom a slave Thou didst give up the Son.” Must we not apply the same words to the Mother of the Savior?
Reconciliation
What good would it have done us to be free from slavery, if we had remained excluded from the friendship of God? The fullness of redemption's blessing consists in this that we were reconciled with God, again adopted as His children and made heirs of heaven. “Christ, the Innocent, reconciled sinners with the Father” (Easter Sequence). And so, “we have received a spirit of adoption of sons, by virtue of which we cry, 'Abba, Father.' The Spirit himself gives testimony to our spirit that we are the sons of God. But if we are sons, we are heirs also, heirs indeed of God and joint heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:15). Truly, where sin has abounded, grace has abounded more. The blessings of redemption far surpass the gifts enjoyed by our first parents in Paradise.
The Savior's Mother
The tide, Mother of the Savior, is a title of sublime honor, and Mary paid for it as far as human labor and pain, humble, generous, self-effacing love can do so. The trials and heart-rending sorrows of her life came to her precisely because she was the Mother of the Savior. She would not have known the poverty of Bethlehem, the fear and anxiety of her flight into Egypt, she would not have experienced the tortures of spiritual martyrdom at the sight of the cruel sufferings of Jesus and the pain and disgrace of His death, had she not been His Mother.
As it is, her sorrows increase from day to day until they become a veritable avalanche rolling down upon her from the cross of her dying Son. “Holy Mary, Queen of heaven and Mistress of the world, overwhelmed with grief, stood by the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. O all you that pass by the way, attend and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow” (Tract, Feast of Seven Sorrows).
But co-operating with Jesus in our redemption, she also acquired a certain part ownership in its blessings. Therefore all graces and blessings of redemption reach us through her hands; she is the Mediatrix of all graces: “Our salvation is in thy hands; merely turn thy eyes to us and we shall serve the King, our Lord, with gladness” (Feast of Mediatrix of All Graces).
As long as we live here below we must co-operate with the Savior and His Mother, working out our salvation with fear and trembling. But we must likewise co-operate in the salvation of others after the example of our heavenly Mother, who “has not spared her life by reason of the distress and tribulation of her people, but has prevented our ruin in the presence of God” (Feast of the Assumption).
The price paid by the Savior and His Mother for the salvation of souls, as well as the abundance of redemption's blessings which we have received, should arouse us to an ardent missionary zeal. But as we thus work for the salvation of others, we ever more firmly secure our own salvation, for, “My brethren, if any one of you strays from the truth, and someone brings him back, he ought to know that he who causes a sinner to be brought back from his misguided way, will save his own soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:19 ff.).
Mother of the Savior, help us to save our own souls and the souls of others!
15. VIRGIN MOST PRUDENT
“Prudence is mine, strength is mine; by me, kings reign and law-givers decree justice” (Proverbs 8:14-15)
“She teacheth temperance, and prudence, and justice, and fortitude, which are such things that men can have nothing more profitable in life” (Wisdom 8:7).
The prudent are those who take the means best calculated to attain the object they have in view. They reflect before acting; they take counsel if doubtful; they are neither too precipitate nor too slow, and all this that they may not miss their aim. Persons who are desperately in earnest about anything being a success usually foresee all possible objects in order to overcome them.
Those whom St. Ignatius describes in his three classes of men as being determined to give up the ducats that stood in the way of their perfection were the prudent ones. They took the means they saw would bring them nearest to God, the end for which they were made. The wise virgins in the Gospel were prudent. They did not rush precipitately forward to meet the bridegroom, by which they might have spilt their oil and extinguished their lamps, neither did they only begin to trim them when they heard of his approach. They were not behind-hand, but he found them in readiness when he arrived.
So with Mary. She was ever on the alert and prepared for action when the right moment came. She was prudent in her thoughts, words and deeds. When the angel spoke to her she reflected and asked counsel, giving her reason for hesitating clearly and briefly: “How shall this thing be, because I know not man?” Her doubt once settled, she was then in perfect readiness—no dallying or delay. “Be it done unto me according to thy word.” Again see her prudence when this mighty secret was entrusted to her care. It was the “secret of the King,” so she felt it was not for her to disclose it. God Himself would make it known when He thought fit. How wise she was in keeping a guard over her thoughts, over her words, over her graces, suffering none to be lost or uselessly squandered.
How unlike our Mother are we in these respects! We act without reflection, speak without taking thought, thereby often hurting our neighbors and wounding our own souls. We are precipitate, impatient of delay, or slothful and dilatory, and so let slip the favorable moment for action. Let us fly to our beloved Mother and ask her to teach us that supernatural prudence she possessed in so high a degree.
When, before the Annunciation, she was praying and sighing so ardently for the coming of the Messias, had she adjured Him, as Holy Church does before Christmas, with the petition that He would come and teach us the way of prudence? Surely the world needs it. How little do men use the means best calculated to help them to attain the end for which they were made, the eternal salvation of their souls!
“O Sapientia, O Wisdom, which cometh forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from end to end mightily and disposing all things sweetly; come and teach us the way of prudence.” Whether Mary prayed for it or not we cannot say, but God certainly endowed her with the virtue in the highest degree, so that she is able to say: “Counsel and equity is mine, prudence is mine, strength is mine. By me, kings reign, and law-givers decree just things. By me, princes rule, and the mighty decree justice” (Proverbs 8).
“Say to wisdom: ‘Thou art my sister!’ and call prudence thy friend” (Proverbs 7). “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the Holy is prudence” (Proverbs 9). Yes, if we are intensely in earnest about possessing God, and filled with fear lest we lose Him, we shall be prudent; we shall garner graces and use our opportunities for the best. But to care very much about God we must know Him; He is the All Holy, whom it is wise to know and understand. Again let us have recourse to Mary. She is His Mother, so can tell us about Him. She is Our Lady of Good Counsel, and so will teach us what to do and what to avoid in order to please Him and win Him for our own. Say to her then confidently, “Come, Mother mine, come and teach me the way of prudence,” and she will not disappoint you, or be deaf to your call.
Virgin most prudent, pray for us!
“She teacheth temperance, and prudence, and justice, and fortitude, which are such things that men can have nothing more profitable in life” (Wisdom 8:7).
The prudent are those who take the means best calculated to attain the object they have in view. They reflect before acting; they take counsel if doubtful; they are neither too precipitate nor too slow, and all this that they may not miss their aim. Persons who are desperately in earnest about anything being a success usually foresee all possible objects in order to overcome them.
Those whom St. Ignatius describes in his three classes of men as being determined to give up the ducats that stood in the way of their perfection were the prudent ones. They took the means they saw would bring them nearest to God, the end for which they were made. The wise virgins in the Gospel were prudent. They did not rush precipitately forward to meet the bridegroom, by which they might have spilt their oil and extinguished their lamps, neither did they only begin to trim them when they heard of his approach. They were not behind-hand, but he found them in readiness when he arrived.
So with Mary. She was ever on the alert and prepared for action when the right moment came. She was prudent in her thoughts, words and deeds. When the angel spoke to her she reflected and asked counsel, giving her reason for hesitating clearly and briefly: “How shall this thing be, because I know not man?” Her doubt once settled, she was then in perfect readiness—no dallying or delay. “Be it done unto me according to thy word.” Again see her prudence when this mighty secret was entrusted to her care. It was the “secret of the King,” so she felt it was not for her to disclose it. God Himself would make it known when He thought fit. How wise she was in keeping a guard over her thoughts, over her words, over her graces, suffering none to be lost or uselessly squandered.
How unlike our Mother are we in these respects! We act without reflection, speak without taking thought, thereby often hurting our neighbors and wounding our own souls. We are precipitate, impatient of delay, or slothful and dilatory, and so let slip the favorable moment for action. Let us fly to our beloved Mother and ask her to teach us that supernatural prudence she possessed in so high a degree.
When, before the Annunciation, she was praying and sighing so ardently for the coming of the Messias, had she adjured Him, as Holy Church does before Christmas, with the petition that He would come and teach us the way of prudence? Surely the world needs it. How little do men use the means best calculated to help them to attain the end for which they were made, the eternal salvation of their souls!
“O Sapientia, O Wisdom, which cometh forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from end to end mightily and disposing all things sweetly; come and teach us the way of prudence.” Whether Mary prayed for it or not we cannot say, but God certainly endowed her with the virtue in the highest degree, so that she is able to say: “Counsel and equity is mine, prudence is mine, strength is mine. By me, kings reign, and law-givers decree just things. By me, princes rule, and the mighty decree justice” (Proverbs 8).
“Say to wisdom: ‘Thou art my sister!’ and call prudence thy friend” (Proverbs 7). “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the Holy is prudence” (Proverbs 9). Yes, if we are intensely in earnest about possessing God, and filled with fear lest we lose Him, we shall be prudent; we shall garner graces and use our opportunities for the best. But to care very much about God we must know Him; He is the All Holy, whom it is wise to know and understand. Again let us have recourse to Mary. She is His Mother, so can tell us about Him. She is Our Lady of Good Counsel, and so will teach us what to do and what to avoid in order to please Him and win Him for our own. Say to her then confidently, “Come, Mother mine, come and teach me the way of prudence,” and she will not disappoint you, or be deaf to your call.
Virgin most prudent, pray for us!
16. VIRGIN MOST VENERABLE
“Nations from afar shall come to thee, and shall bring gifts, and shall adore the Lord in thee; and shall esteem thy land as holy.”
“For they shall call upon the great Name in thee. They shall be cursed that despise thee: they shall be condemned that shall blaspheme thee; and blessed shall they be that shall build thee up. . . Blessed are all they that love thee, and that rejoice in thy peace” (Tobias 13).
With what reverence would the apostles and the faithful gather round Our Lady; and how their veneration for the Mother of Our Lord would increase as she advanced in years! We all know the feeling of respect with which we are inspired by the sight of anyone who has grown old in the service of God. How we listen to and gather up the words that fall from their lips; how we lovingly watch their faltering footsteps and form, becoming more and more bowed down by years, and wonder each time we see them how much longer they will be spared to us, if this will be the last time we shall be privileged to hold converse with them, etc.
Such thoughts and feelings must have possessed the apostles, as year after year passed, and they could see by the ever-increasing luster of Mary’s sanctity that the frail bodily frame could not much longer contain that soul so consumed with burning love, but that ere long it would burst its earthly bonds, and wing its flight to where He was, from whom to be separated was worse than death.
But it was not only when advanced in years that Mary was an object of veneration. Holy Scripture tells us that “venerable old age is not that of long time, nor counted by the number of years: but the understanding of a man is grey hairs, and a spotless life is old age” (Wisdom 4). Mary’s life had been spotless from the first moment of her existence, and we may well imagine with what loving veneration her parents, St. Joachim and St. Anne, would watch their beloved child, whose ways were such beautiful ways, and in whom the gift of understanding was so marvelously developed: “in her is the spirit of understanding” (Wisdom 7) and they would wonder, as did the relatives of the infant Baptist, and say to each other: “What a one, think ye, shall this child be?” (Luke 1).
And Mary is now held in veneration, not only by her parents, not only by the apostles, not only by countless numbers in every part of the globe, but by all the vast host of the blessed in the heavenly court, so great that St. John tells us no man could number them (Apocalypse 7). Yea, more; it is not too much to say she is venerated by God Himself. We are told in the book of Wisdom, that He deals with His creatures with great reverence, and if this can be said of them in general, how much more of His spotless one, chosen out of thousands! Dante, speaking of Our Lady turning her eyes heavenwards, says, “Gli occhi da Dio diletti e venerati,” which may be translated, “The eyes that God Himself reveres and loves”; and as every good son honors and reveres his mother, so did Jesus when on Earth, and so does He now in the heavenly kingdom. Let us not fear then to follow, when such go before, setting the example of loving veneration of her who is at once our Queen and our Mother.
Virgin most venerable, pray for us!
“For they shall call upon the great Name in thee. They shall be cursed that despise thee: they shall be condemned that shall blaspheme thee; and blessed shall they be that shall build thee up. . . Blessed are all they that love thee, and that rejoice in thy peace” (Tobias 13).
With what reverence would the apostles and the faithful gather round Our Lady; and how their veneration for the Mother of Our Lord would increase as she advanced in years! We all know the feeling of respect with which we are inspired by the sight of anyone who has grown old in the service of God. How we listen to and gather up the words that fall from their lips; how we lovingly watch their faltering footsteps and form, becoming more and more bowed down by years, and wonder each time we see them how much longer they will be spared to us, if this will be the last time we shall be privileged to hold converse with them, etc.
Such thoughts and feelings must have possessed the apostles, as year after year passed, and they could see by the ever-increasing luster of Mary’s sanctity that the frail bodily frame could not much longer contain that soul so consumed with burning love, but that ere long it would burst its earthly bonds, and wing its flight to where He was, from whom to be separated was worse than death.
But it was not only when advanced in years that Mary was an object of veneration. Holy Scripture tells us that “venerable old age is not that of long time, nor counted by the number of years: but the understanding of a man is grey hairs, and a spotless life is old age” (Wisdom 4). Mary’s life had been spotless from the first moment of her existence, and we may well imagine with what loving veneration her parents, St. Joachim and St. Anne, would watch their beloved child, whose ways were such beautiful ways, and in whom the gift of understanding was so marvelously developed: “in her is the spirit of understanding” (Wisdom 7) and they would wonder, as did the relatives of the infant Baptist, and say to each other: “What a one, think ye, shall this child be?” (Luke 1).
And Mary is now held in veneration, not only by her parents, not only by the apostles, not only by countless numbers in every part of the globe, but by all the vast host of the blessed in the heavenly court, so great that St. John tells us no man could number them (Apocalypse 7). Yea, more; it is not too much to say she is venerated by God Himself. We are told in the book of Wisdom, that He deals with His creatures with great reverence, and if this can be said of them in general, how much more of His spotless one, chosen out of thousands! Dante, speaking of Our Lady turning her eyes heavenwards, says, “Gli occhi da Dio diletti e venerati,” which may be translated, “The eyes that God Himself reveres and loves”; and as every good son honors and reveres his mother, so did Jesus when on Earth, and so does He now in the heavenly kingdom. Let us not fear then to follow, when such go before, setting the example of loving veneration of her who is at once our Queen and our Mother.
Virgin most venerable, pray for us!
17. VIRGIN MOST RENOWNED
“Blessed art thou, O daughter, by the Lord the most high God, above all women upon the Earth. Blessed be the Lord, who made Heaven and Earth ... because He hath so magnified thy name this day that thy praise shall not depart out of the mouth of men ... for in every nation that shall hear thy name, the God of Israel shall be magnified on account of thee” (Judith 13:23-25, 31).
“Behold, all generations shall call me blessed!” Was ever a creature so renowned as Mary? From the time of the fall of our first parents, when God promised to mankind the woman who should crush the serpent’s head, she was spoken of and looked for through all ages till the coming of Our Lord, and we have her prophesy, which has been till now, and will continue to be, so amply fulfilled, that all generations shall call her blessed. Is there a civilized country where she is not held in honor? See the shrines, the churches, the altars erected in her name, and everywhere bearing the same fruit of increase in the knowledge and love of her divine Son. “They found the Child with Mary His Mother.” (Matthew 2).
“In every country which shall hear thy name, the God of Israel shall be magnified on occasion of thee” (Judith 13). As we honor a painter by praising
his works, or an author by making known the beauty and wisdom of his writings, so we add to God’s glory by appreciating, loving and exulting in His creation, and, above all, in His spiritual and supernatural creation, of which His Mother is the chef d’oeuvre.
“I was exalted like a cedar in Libanus, and as a plane-tree in the streets,” etc. O Mother mine, is not this literally fulfilled, especially in Catholic countries, where on hill-tops, in sheltered valleys, in the streets and by the waysides Mary’s image is erected and honored by thousands of loving hearts? Does not the church of Notre Dame de Bon Secours tower like a mighty cedar over the town of Rouen, as does that of Fourvieres over Lyons? Are not the pictures of Our Lady of Perpetual Succor (Maria-Hilf), or statues of the Blessed Mother to be found by every wayside in the Tyrol, and who does not know Father Faber’s beautiful lines about Rome?
At the corners of the streets,
Thy Son’s sweet face and thine
Charmed evil out of many hearts,
And darkness out of mine.
What comfort and consolation the far-famed picture in the Gesii, with its title of “Madonna della Strada,” has brought to countless hearts!
“Our Lady of the Wayside” is in itself such a suggestive title of a helper who is ever at hand, even when we are not at prayer or in any church or oratory. How our thoughts, too, of Mary in her lifetime are associated with the wayside! No sooner had the mystery of the Incarnation been accomplished than she started in haste for the hill country, she and her divine Son hallowing the roads and paths they traversed.
Again, before His birth, there was the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, to be followed ere long by the more difficult and dangerous one to Egypt, when probably the Holy Family often stopped to rest by the roadside, or under a tree, as they are frequently depicted by artists; and the same road, or most of it, would have again to be traversed on the return journey to Nazareth.
Our meditations on the three days’ loss also find their composition of place in country roads and the streets of Jerusalem, while these latter again supply the picture-scene for many of the stations of the Cross and Our Lady’s return from Calvary. O Mother mine, Our Lady of the Wayside, we are all pilgrims travelling heavenwards. Take as under thy protecting care; be our help and refuge in the dangers of the way; shield us from harm; watch over our interest; guide our steps aright, till at last we reach the portals of the eternal city towards which we are tending.
Virgin most renowned, pray for us.
“Behold, all generations shall call me blessed!” Was ever a creature so renowned as Mary? From the time of the fall of our first parents, when God promised to mankind the woman who should crush the serpent’s head, she was spoken of and looked for through all ages till the coming of Our Lord, and we have her prophesy, which has been till now, and will continue to be, so amply fulfilled, that all generations shall call her blessed. Is there a civilized country where she is not held in honor? See the shrines, the churches, the altars erected in her name, and everywhere bearing the same fruit of increase in the knowledge and love of her divine Son. “They found the Child with Mary His Mother.” (Matthew 2).
“In every country which shall hear thy name, the God of Israel shall be magnified on occasion of thee” (Judith 13). As we honor a painter by praising
his works, or an author by making known the beauty and wisdom of his writings, so we add to God’s glory by appreciating, loving and exulting in His creation, and, above all, in His spiritual and supernatural creation, of which His Mother is the chef d’oeuvre.
“I was exalted like a cedar in Libanus, and as a plane-tree in the streets,” etc. O Mother mine, is not this literally fulfilled, especially in Catholic countries, where on hill-tops, in sheltered valleys, in the streets and by the waysides Mary’s image is erected and honored by thousands of loving hearts? Does not the church of Notre Dame de Bon Secours tower like a mighty cedar over the town of Rouen, as does that of Fourvieres over Lyons? Are not the pictures of Our Lady of Perpetual Succor (Maria-Hilf), or statues of the Blessed Mother to be found by every wayside in the Tyrol, and who does not know Father Faber’s beautiful lines about Rome?
At the corners of the streets,
Thy Son’s sweet face and thine
Charmed evil out of many hearts,
And darkness out of mine.
What comfort and consolation the far-famed picture in the Gesii, with its title of “Madonna della Strada,” has brought to countless hearts!
“Our Lady of the Wayside” is in itself such a suggestive title of a helper who is ever at hand, even when we are not at prayer or in any church or oratory. How our thoughts, too, of Mary in her lifetime are associated with the wayside! No sooner had the mystery of the Incarnation been accomplished than she started in haste for the hill country, she and her divine Son hallowing the roads and paths they traversed.
Again, before His birth, there was the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, to be followed ere long by the more difficult and dangerous one to Egypt, when probably the Holy Family often stopped to rest by the roadside, or under a tree, as they are frequently depicted by artists; and the same road, or most of it, would have again to be traversed on the return journey to Nazareth.
Our meditations on the three days’ loss also find their composition of place in country roads and the streets of Jerusalem, while these latter again supply the picture-scene for many of the stations of the Cross and Our Lady’s return from Calvary. O Mother mine, Our Lady of the Wayside, we are all pilgrims travelling heavenwards. Take as under thy protecting care; be our help and refuge in the dangers of the way; shield us from harm; watch over our interest; guide our steps aright, till at last we reach the portals of the eternal city towards which we are tending.
Virgin most renowned, pray for us.
18. VIRGIN MOST POWERFUL
“Yea, the first power shall come, the kingdom, to the daughter in Jerusalem” (Micheas 4:8).
“She is a vapor of the power of God” (Wisdom 7:25), “having all power, overseeing all things ... and being but one she can do all things; and remaining in herself the same she reneweth all things, and through nations she conveyeth herself into holy souls” (Wisdom 7:27).
“She hath girded her loins with strength, and hath strengthened her arm ... she hath put out her hand to strong things” (Proverbs 31:17, 19).
Mary is powerful with God, powerful over the demons, powerful on Earth. She showed her power with God by drawing Him, through the ardor of her prayers, the depth of her humility and the burning love of her heart, from Heaven to Earth. “Thou hast wounded My heart, My sister, My spouse” (Canticles 4:9). “Behold I have come, because thou hast called me.”
She proved her power over the demons by crushing the head of their leader. “Her foot shall crush thy head.” And who can deny her power on Earth? Is there, has there been, or will there ever be, a creature of God who has exercised so universal a sway over the hearts of men? Can she not say: “I have stood in all the Earth, and in every people ... and by my power have I trodden under my feet the heart of all the high and low”? (Ecclesiasticus 24). Yes, sweetest Mother; willingly we yield thee our hearts, for we know thou dost but desire them to hand them on to thy divine Son, for whom they were made, and by passing through thy hands they will only become the more pleasing to Him.
And whence drew she this power? The angels give us the answer when they cry:
“Who is this that cometh up from the desert, leaning on her Beloved?” Yes, there lies the secret. She was diffident of self, and leaned on God. Her humility is the source of her power. She had read: “Learn where is wisdom, where is strength” (Baruch 3) and had answered: “The Lord is my strength. Dicam Deo, susceptor meus es— I will say to God: Thou art my strength. In Him we shall do mightily.”
And so this humble, unassuming maiden, unthought-of, uncared-for by the great ones of this world during life, is now looked up to with loving veneration by millions all over the face of the Earth, and is surrounded by every mark of honor in the courts of Heaven. “And so I was established in Sion ... and my power was in Jerusalem” (Ecclesiasticus 24). We read of her that, “being but one, she can do all things ... having all power, overseeing all things ... for she is a vapor of the power of God.” Why then need we fear for the success of any petition we place in the hands of this “Virgo potens”, since we see the Almighty Himself is unable to resist her humble pleadings? What favors has she not obtained for mankind from the day when the slightest indication of her wish caused her divine Son to work a miracle before the appointed time to this present hour!
Do not let us be afraid to ask much. King Assuerus assured Queen Esther, Mary’s prototype, that she had only to ask, and he would give her even the half of his kingdom; and will our heavenly Father be outdone in generosity by one of His own creatures, and that a pagan, too? Even if we have incurred his displeasure, let us look to Mary to plead for us, as the Jewish people turned to Esther when they had all been condemned to death, and she won for them their lives and their restoration to the king’s favor.
Mother of our God and Savior,
First in beauty as in power;
Glory of the Christian nations!
Ready to help in trouble’s hour!
Though the gates of hell against us
With profoundest fury rage;
Though the ancient foe assail us
And his fiercest battle wage;
Safe beneath thy mighty shelter,
Though a thousand hosts combine,
All must fall or flee before us,
Scattered by an arm divine.
Firm as once on Holy Sion
David’s tower reared its height
With a glorious rampart girded
And with glistening armor bright,
So the Almighty Virgin Mother
Stands in strength for evermore,
From Satanic hosts defending
All who her defense implore.
(Breviary Hymn, Caswell’s translation).
Yea, Mother dearest, exercise thy influence on the heart of the Lord of Heaven and Earth in behalf of thy poor weak children, who look to thee for help. Teach us to imitate thee, and to exercise ourselves in humility, acts of conquest over self, and over the demon of pride. Teach us to lean on our Beloved as thou didst, to cast all our cares upon Him, placing Him as a seal on our arm that it may be strengthened in the warfare. For we, too, can and ought to say to God: “Thou art my helper, my refuge and my strength.” “My soul hath thirsted for the strong living God.” “I can do all things in Him that strengtheneth me.” Then we, too, shall pass with safety through this desert, and may hope one day to ascend to our home above, “leaning on our Beloved.”
Virgin most powerful, pray for us!
“She is a vapor of the power of God” (Wisdom 7:25), “having all power, overseeing all things ... and being but one she can do all things; and remaining in herself the same she reneweth all things, and through nations she conveyeth herself into holy souls” (Wisdom 7:27).
“She hath girded her loins with strength, and hath strengthened her arm ... she hath put out her hand to strong things” (Proverbs 31:17, 19).
Mary is powerful with God, powerful over the demons, powerful on Earth. She showed her power with God by drawing Him, through the ardor of her prayers, the depth of her humility and the burning love of her heart, from Heaven to Earth. “Thou hast wounded My heart, My sister, My spouse” (Canticles 4:9). “Behold I have come, because thou hast called me.”
She proved her power over the demons by crushing the head of their leader. “Her foot shall crush thy head.” And who can deny her power on Earth? Is there, has there been, or will there ever be, a creature of God who has exercised so universal a sway over the hearts of men? Can she not say: “I have stood in all the Earth, and in every people ... and by my power have I trodden under my feet the heart of all the high and low”? (Ecclesiasticus 24). Yes, sweetest Mother; willingly we yield thee our hearts, for we know thou dost but desire them to hand them on to thy divine Son, for whom they were made, and by passing through thy hands they will only become the more pleasing to Him.
And whence drew she this power? The angels give us the answer when they cry:
“Who is this that cometh up from the desert, leaning on her Beloved?” Yes, there lies the secret. She was diffident of self, and leaned on God. Her humility is the source of her power. She had read: “Learn where is wisdom, where is strength” (Baruch 3) and had answered: “The Lord is my strength. Dicam Deo, susceptor meus es— I will say to God: Thou art my strength. In Him we shall do mightily.”
And so this humble, unassuming maiden, unthought-of, uncared-for by the great ones of this world during life, is now looked up to with loving veneration by millions all over the face of the Earth, and is surrounded by every mark of honor in the courts of Heaven. “And so I was established in Sion ... and my power was in Jerusalem” (Ecclesiasticus 24). We read of her that, “being but one, she can do all things ... having all power, overseeing all things ... for she is a vapor of the power of God.” Why then need we fear for the success of any petition we place in the hands of this “Virgo potens”, since we see the Almighty Himself is unable to resist her humble pleadings? What favors has she not obtained for mankind from the day when the slightest indication of her wish caused her divine Son to work a miracle before the appointed time to this present hour!
Do not let us be afraid to ask much. King Assuerus assured Queen Esther, Mary’s prototype, that she had only to ask, and he would give her even the half of his kingdom; and will our heavenly Father be outdone in generosity by one of His own creatures, and that a pagan, too? Even if we have incurred his displeasure, let us look to Mary to plead for us, as the Jewish people turned to Esther when they had all been condemned to death, and she won for them their lives and their restoration to the king’s favor.
Mother of our God and Savior,
First in beauty as in power;
Glory of the Christian nations!
Ready to help in trouble’s hour!
Though the gates of hell against us
With profoundest fury rage;
Though the ancient foe assail us
And his fiercest battle wage;
Safe beneath thy mighty shelter,
Though a thousand hosts combine,
All must fall or flee before us,
Scattered by an arm divine.
Firm as once on Holy Sion
David’s tower reared its height
With a glorious rampart girded
And with glistening armor bright,
So the Almighty Virgin Mother
Stands in strength for evermore,
From Satanic hosts defending
All who her defense implore.
(Breviary Hymn, Caswell’s translation).
Yea, Mother dearest, exercise thy influence on the heart of the Lord of Heaven and Earth in behalf of thy poor weak children, who look to thee for help. Teach us to imitate thee, and to exercise ourselves in humility, acts of conquest over self, and over the demon of pride. Teach us to lean on our Beloved as thou didst, to cast all our cares upon Him, placing Him as a seal on our arm that it may be strengthened in the warfare. For we, too, can and ought to say to God: “Thou art my helper, my refuge and my strength.” “My soul hath thirsted for the strong living God.” “I can do all things in Him that strengtheneth me.” Then we, too, shall pass with safety through this desert, and may hope one day to ascend to our home above, “leaning on our Beloved.”
Virgin most powerful, pray for us!
19. VIRGIN MOST MERCIFUL
“The law of clemency is on her tongue” (Proverbs 31).
“Thy lips are as a dropping honey-comb, honey and milk are under thy tongue. . . . Thy lips are as scarlet lace . . . . and thy speech sweet” (Canticles 4).
We read of Mary that her speech was sweet, and the law of clemency was on her tongue. How was this? For surely if we find our fellow-creatures trying, how much more so must she have done! In ideas, ways, thoughts and virtues she was as far above them as Heaven is above Earth. Yet there was no spirit of faultfinding, censoriousness or condemnation on her part. Holy Scripture says, “Her lips are as a dropping honey-comb,” and we know that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh, so she must have been all sweetness within. Yes, that is where the explanation lies. Mary fed on the Word of God, and could say with the Psalmist: “Quam dulcia faucibus meis eloquia tua, Domine.—How sweet, O Lord, are Thy words to my lips.” She had read in the inspired writings that her heavenly Father was a God of mercy and compassion; that His mercy was above all His works; also the injunction, “According to thy ability be merciful”; and in proportion as her virtue, her capacity, exceeded that of others, so did her mercifulness.
Our Lady fed, too, on the life and the words of her divine Son. More than once we are told: “Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart.” The very presence of Jesus on Earth was a proof of His stupendous mercifulness, so that in spite of living amidst men who often grieved the Spirit of God by their injustice, hard-heartedness, uncharitableness, and other sins, no harsh, criticizing words escaped her mouth. “Milk and honey were under her tongue”; nor was there duplicity or want of straightforwardness in this. How often people give pain by unkind remarks, and then flatter themselves they are honest and straightforward!
“Her lips were as scarlet lace.” Lace is an open material, not one under which we should choose to conceal anything we want to hide; but with Mary there was nothing to hide. Her charitableness was genuine. The lace, we notice, was scarlet, taking its color from the fire of divine love ever burning in her heart. Loving God, she loved all His creatures, and, loving them, she compassionated them. “The quality of mercy is not strained; it droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven upon the place beneath.”
Now, cannot we, too, feed on the Word of God? And, in very truth, we do feed, and that frequently, on the Word Incarnate, in the Blessed Eucharist. Ought not then the law of clemency to be on that tongue over which He passes so often, and the sweetness of honey be found in its utterances, instead of perhaps something closely resembling the stinging of wasps?
Let us feed, too, constantly on His written Word, the records left us of His teaching when on Earth. Did He not tell us to learn what was meant by the passage: “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice”? Did He not beatify the merciful, and promise they should themselves receive it? “It blesseth him that giveth and him that takes,” as the poet says. Did He not tell us, moreover, that what we do to one of His least brethren, we do it unto Him? Should we wish to criticize and condemn Jesus? That were the work of the Pharisees, who took it on themselves to judge all men, even Him who, though Lord of Heaven and Creator of the universe, said of Himself when on Earth: “Neither do I judge any man.” He has promised also that he who judges not shall not be judged. (Luke 6)
. . . Consider this,
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation; we do pray for mercy,
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.
But it is not only as our model that we must consider Mary as the Virgin most merciful. In Heaven clemency is among her sweetest prerogatives. As our great poet, whom we have already quoted more than once on the same subject, says:
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute of God Himself.
So when we feel we need an advocate, let us go to Mary, asking her to plead for us. Mother of Mercy, we often call her, and holy Church in her office addresses her as “Dulcis parens clementiae,” the sweet parent of clemency, as indeed she is; for is not Jesus her Son, and is He not the God of mercy? Did He not choose His name Jesus, signifying “Savior,” to prove to us that He came, not to judge the world, but to save it? Let us, then, never despair of finding mercy before the royal throne of such a King and Queen, if we plead for it trustfully, and above all if we ourselves learn to show mercy. For the little we give we shall receive a hundredfold, for we are dealing with Royalty, who will never be outdone in generosity. Dante says of Mary: “In te misericordia, in te magnificenza.—In thee is mercy, in thee is magnificence.” So let us ask, feeling sure she will deal with us with “princely magnificence.”
Virgin most merciful, pray for us!
“Thy lips are as a dropping honey-comb, honey and milk are under thy tongue. . . . Thy lips are as scarlet lace . . . . and thy speech sweet” (Canticles 4).
We read of Mary that her speech was sweet, and the law of clemency was on her tongue. How was this? For surely if we find our fellow-creatures trying, how much more so must she have done! In ideas, ways, thoughts and virtues she was as far above them as Heaven is above Earth. Yet there was no spirit of faultfinding, censoriousness or condemnation on her part. Holy Scripture says, “Her lips are as a dropping honey-comb,” and we know that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh, so she must have been all sweetness within. Yes, that is where the explanation lies. Mary fed on the Word of God, and could say with the Psalmist: “Quam dulcia faucibus meis eloquia tua, Domine.—How sweet, O Lord, are Thy words to my lips.” She had read in the inspired writings that her heavenly Father was a God of mercy and compassion; that His mercy was above all His works; also the injunction, “According to thy ability be merciful”; and in proportion as her virtue, her capacity, exceeded that of others, so did her mercifulness.
Our Lady fed, too, on the life and the words of her divine Son. More than once we are told: “Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart.” The very presence of Jesus on Earth was a proof of His stupendous mercifulness, so that in spite of living amidst men who often grieved the Spirit of God by their injustice, hard-heartedness, uncharitableness, and other sins, no harsh, criticizing words escaped her mouth. “Milk and honey were under her tongue”; nor was there duplicity or want of straightforwardness in this. How often people give pain by unkind remarks, and then flatter themselves they are honest and straightforward!
“Her lips were as scarlet lace.” Lace is an open material, not one under which we should choose to conceal anything we want to hide; but with Mary there was nothing to hide. Her charitableness was genuine. The lace, we notice, was scarlet, taking its color from the fire of divine love ever burning in her heart. Loving God, she loved all His creatures, and, loving them, she compassionated them. “The quality of mercy is not strained; it droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven upon the place beneath.”
Now, cannot we, too, feed on the Word of God? And, in very truth, we do feed, and that frequently, on the Word Incarnate, in the Blessed Eucharist. Ought not then the law of clemency to be on that tongue over which He passes so often, and the sweetness of honey be found in its utterances, instead of perhaps something closely resembling the stinging of wasps?
Let us feed, too, constantly on His written Word, the records left us of His teaching when on Earth. Did He not tell us to learn what was meant by the passage: “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice”? Did He not beatify the merciful, and promise they should themselves receive it? “It blesseth him that giveth and him that takes,” as the poet says. Did He not tell us, moreover, that what we do to one of His least brethren, we do it unto Him? Should we wish to criticize and condemn Jesus? That were the work of the Pharisees, who took it on themselves to judge all men, even Him who, though Lord of Heaven and Creator of the universe, said of Himself when on Earth: “Neither do I judge any man.” He has promised also that he who judges not shall not be judged. (Luke 6)
. . . Consider this,
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation; we do pray for mercy,
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.
But it is not only as our model that we must consider Mary as the Virgin most merciful. In Heaven clemency is among her sweetest prerogatives. As our great poet, whom we have already quoted more than once on the same subject, says:
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute of God Himself.
So when we feel we need an advocate, let us go to Mary, asking her to plead for us. Mother of Mercy, we often call her, and holy Church in her office addresses her as “Dulcis parens clementiae,” the sweet parent of clemency, as indeed she is; for is not Jesus her Son, and is He not the God of mercy? Did He not choose His name Jesus, signifying “Savior,” to prove to us that He came, not to judge the world, but to save it? Let us, then, never despair of finding mercy before the royal throne of such a King and Queen, if we plead for it trustfully, and above all if we ourselves learn to show mercy. For the little we give we shall receive a hundredfold, for we are dealing with Royalty, who will never be outdone in generosity. Dante says of Mary: “In te misericordia, in te magnificenza.—In thee is mercy, in thee is magnificence.” So let us ask, feeling sure she will deal with us with “princely magnificence.”
Virgin most merciful, pray for us!
20. VIRGIN MOST FAITHFUL
“She forsook not the just when He was sold?” (Wisdom 10:13).
“In her is the spirit of understanding . . . . sure, sweet, loving that which is good, quick, which nothing hindereth . . . . steadfast, assured, secure” (Wisdom 7:22-23).
When a woman in the crowd cried outs and proclaimed the Mother of Jesus blessed, because she had given birth to such a Son, Our Lord replied: “Yea, rather are they blessed that hear the word of God and keep it.” By the “yea” He acknowledges His Mother to be blessed, but lays down the principle that however high or holy may be the state in which we are placed by God, it will not avail us much unless we correspond with and are faithful to grace, and for this He praises Mary even more than for being His Mother.
The very Word of God, that Word by whom all things were made, was entrusted to Our Lady’s keeping, and faithfully did she fulfil her trust. The shepherds and kings “found the Child with Mary His Mother.” When He had to fly the country to save His life, she fled with Him, forsaking home, country, friends, rather than be separated from the Word of God made man for us. During His youth and early manhood she was ever with Him. When without blame she lost Him for a short period, she faithfully and tearfully sought till she found Him.
But her fidelity shone most conspicuously on Calvary, when she was found standing beneath the cross sharing all the shame, ignominy and sufferings of the Word made flesh: “She forsook not the Just when He was sold.” But there is another and more ordinary sense in which Mary faithfully kept the Word of God. She practiced strictly all that was prescribed by the law, as we see by her submitting to the rite of purification, even though for her there was no such obligation. She was faithful to grace in the highest degree, and consistently faithful to duty. Then, too, with what fidelity she treasured up in her heart all the words that fell from the lips of her divine Son, or that were spoken of Him by God’s messengers, the angels, and others: “Mary kept all these words in her heart.”
She was faithful also to those whom she loved. And who were these? We read of her that she was “sure”, that is, reliable, faithful, “loving that which is good.” Now, “One is good, God.” Mary, therefore, loved Him supremely, and all His creatures, because they were His creatures. “Omnes in eo, et eum in omnibus amans.— Loving all in Him, and Him in everyone.”
Therefore do we all become objects of her love. What a consoling thought that we have her for a friend! And as she is the Virgin most faithful she is one we can count on. She is “steadfast, assured, secure.” “A faithful friend is the medicine of life.” (Ecclesiasticus 6) How many a trial is lessened and the sting of it removed by having one to whom we can recount it, and who, listening, sympathizes with us as if it were his own! “A friend, if he continue steadfast, shall be to thee as thyself. . . A faithful friend is a strong defense, and he that hath found him hath found a treasure. Nothing can be compared to a faithful friend, and no weight of gold and silver is able to countervail the goodness of his fidelity” (Ecclesiasticus 6)
The truth of these words we shall experience if we take Mary for our friend. She is powerful; she will protect and defend us when we are in need and others fail. “Forsake her not, and she shall keep thee; love her, and she shall preserve thee.” “She shall give to thy head an increase of graces and protect thee with a noble crown.” And the more we have imitated her in life by our fidelity to the Word of God, to Jesus, by our faithfulness to grace and duty, the nearer we shall be to the throne of the faithful Virgin, and the more we shall be honored by her friendship when we have the happiness of being admitted, as we humbly trust we shall, to the kingdom of eternal bliss.
Virgin most faithful, pray for us.
“In her is the spirit of understanding . . . . sure, sweet, loving that which is good, quick, which nothing hindereth . . . . steadfast, assured, secure” (Wisdom 7:22-23).
When a woman in the crowd cried outs and proclaimed the Mother of Jesus blessed, because she had given birth to such a Son, Our Lord replied: “Yea, rather are they blessed that hear the word of God and keep it.” By the “yea” He acknowledges His Mother to be blessed, but lays down the principle that however high or holy may be the state in which we are placed by God, it will not avail us much unless we correspond with and are faithful to grace, and for this He praises Mary even more than for being His Mother.
The very Word of God, that Word by whom all things were made, was entrusted to Our Lady’s keeping, and faithfully did she fulfil her trust. The shepherds and kings “found the Child with Mary His Mother.” When He had to fly the country to save His life, she fled with Him, forsaking home, country, friends, rather than be separated from the Word of God made man for us. During His youth and early manhood she was ever with Him. When without blame she lost Him for a short period, she faithfully and tearfully sought till she found Him.
But her fidelity shone most conspicuously on Calvary, when she was found standing beneath the cross sharing all the shame, ignominy and sufferings of the Word made flesh: “She forsook not the Just when He was sold.” But there is another and more ordinary sense in which Mary faithfully kept the Word of God. She practiced strictly all that was prescribed by the law, as we see by her submitting to the rite of purification, even though for her there was no such obligation. She was faithful to grace in the highest degree, and consistently faithful to duty. Then, too, with what fidelity she treasured up in her heart all the words that fell from the lips of her divine Son, or that were spoken of Him by God’s messengers, the angels, and others: “Mary kept all these words in her heart.”
She was faithful also to those whom she loved. And who were these? We read of her that she was “sure”, that is, reliable, faithful, “loving that which is good.” Now, “One is good, God.” Mary, therefore, loved Him supremely, and all His creatures, because they were His creatures. “Omnes in eo, et eum in omnibus amans.— Loving all in Him, and Him in everyone.”
Therefore do we all become objects of her love. What a consoling thought that we have her for a friend! And as she is the Virgin most faithful she is one we can count on. She is “steadfast, assured, secure.” “A faithful friend is the medicine of life.” (Ecclesiasticus 6) How many a trial is lessened and the sting of it removed by having one to whom we can recount it, and who, listening, sympathizes with us as if it were his own! “A friend, if he continue steadfast, shall be to thee as thyself. . . A faithful friend is a strong defense, and he that hath found him hath found a treasure. Nothing can be compared to a faithful friend, and no weight of gold and silver is able to countervail the goodness of his fidelity” (Ecclesiasticus 6)
The truth of these words we shall experience if we take Mary for our friend. She is powerful; she will protect and defend us when we are in need and others fail. “Forsake her not, and she shall keep thee; love her, and she shall preserve thee.” “She shall give to thy head an increase of graces and protect thee with a noble crown.” And the more we have imitated her in life by our fidelity to the Word of God, to Jesus, by our faithfulness to grace and duty, the nearer we shall be to the throne of the faithful Virgin, and the more we shall be honored by her friendship when we have the happiness of being admitted, as we humbly trust we shall, to the kingdom of eternal bliss.
Virgin most faithful, pray for us.
21. MIRROR OF JUSTICE
“I walk in the way of justice, in the midst of the paths of judgement, that I may enrich them that love me, and fill their treasures” (Proverbs 8:20-21).
“She is the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God’s majesty and the image of His goodness” (Wisdom 7:26).
“If a man love justice, her labors have great virtues” (Wisdom 8:7).
“If thou followest justice thou shalt obtain her” (Ecclesiasticus 27:9).
“God will clothe thee with the double garment of justice, and will set a crown on thy head of everlasting honor” (Baruch 5:2).
“She is the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God’s majesty” (Wisdom 7:26). St. John Eudes, in his writings, says that the Heart of Mary has ever been and always will be as a beautiful crystal mirror, in which the Sun of justice reproduces a perfect reflection of himself, and that this is the sea of glass, like unto crystal, which is before the throne of God, spread out under the eyes and in full sight of the divine Majesty, who having His eyes ever fixed on this great mirror, therein continually depicts and imprints a perfect image of Himself and His divine perfections.
He could say to her: “Thou wast perfect through My beauty which I had put upon thee” (Ezechiel 16). This expansive sea of pure crystal Mary ever kept calm and tranquil, lest, should it be storm-tossed, it might distort the picture of Him it was meant to reflect. She knew it was only just that as He had made it for a special object, she should do nothing to hinder its fulfilling that object.
Let us sometimes view ourselves in that mirror. It is a true one. It is neither convex, concave nor damaged in any way, so it will reflect us exactly as we are, neither adding to nor taking from our perfections. How do we appear when face to face with Our Lady, that Mirror of justice? Do we resemble her?
Mary said her soul magnified the Lord. She did not reflect Him in a small contemptible way, but with grandeur and magnificence; and she longs for us to do the same. “O magnificate Dominum mecum,” she exclaims. “Magnify the Lord with me.” Do justice to His loveliness: let all men know how good, how true, how just He is.
Justice, cold and short as the word may seem, really comprehends all perfection. By it we render to everyone his due. If we do this to God we are saints, for all we have and are belongs to Him, being made for His service. If we use them for our own ends, or to please ourselves at the expense of His will, we are not giving Him His due. But if we give Him all, without withholding one iota, we are in the way of sanctity.
Then are we just to our neighbor in thought, word and deed? Or are our views of them distorted by passion, envy, jealousy, or by our natural antipathies? Do we rob them in any way, either of their reputation or the esteem of others, or of their peace of mind? We forget sometimes that we ourselves owe them honor and esteem as being creatures made to the image and likeness of the All Holy.
Are we just to ourselves? We were made for eternal happiness. Do we ever barter away our right to the heavenly kingdom, if not entirely, at least in great measure? How many who pride themselves on being just, upright and honorable, who would not for worlds take a penny they did not consider their own, are nevertheless constantly sinning against justice, and robbing God and their neighbor right and left of what is their due, to say nothing of wronging themselves, their children, their families in so doing?
Let us then have recourse to Mary, the Mirror of Justice, that we may be undeceived in our self-righteousness, and see how often we are unjust. It will not be difficult to find her, nor will she resent our coming, for she says, “I walk in the midst of justice, in the midst of the paths of judgement, that I may enrich them that love me, and may fill their treasures” (Proverbs 8). “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, and my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He hath clothed me with the garment of salvation, and with the robe of justice He hath covered me” (Isaias 61). “And if a man love justice . . . she teacheth temperance and prudence and justice and fortitude, which are such things men can have nothing more profitable in life.” (Wisdom 8) “If thou followest justice, thou shalt obtain her: and shalt put her on as a long robe of honor: and thou shalt dwell with her: and she shall protect thee for ever, and in the day of acknowledgment thou shalt find a strong foundation” (Ecclesiasticus 27).
Yes, Mother dearest, this is our one ambition, to follow thee, to dwell with thee and thy divine Son, from whom thou art never apart, so that when our day to be judged arrives we shall be found to be standing on a sure foundation, even the mirror of justice, that sea of crystal, before the great white throne, on which, as St. John tells us, stand those who have overcome the evil one, and who, bearing harps in their hands, sing the Canticle of the Lamb, saying: “Great and wonderful are Thy works, O Lord God Almighty: just and true are Thy ways, O King of Ages” (Apocalypse 15).
“She is the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God’s majesty and the image of His goodness” (Wisdom 7:26).
“If a man love justice, her labors have great virtues” (Wisdom 8:7).
“If thou followest justice thou shalt obtain her” (Ecclesiasticus 27:9).
“God will clothe thee with the double garment of justice, and will set a crown on thy head of everlasting honor” (Baruch 5:2).
“She is the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God’s majesty” (Wisdom 7:26). St. John Eudes, in his writings, says that the Heart of Mary has ever been and always will be as a beautiful crystal mirror, in which the Sun of justice reproduces a perfect reflection of himself, and that this is the sea of glass, like unto crystal, which is before the throne of God, spread out under the eyes and in full sight of the divine Majesty, who having His eyes ever fixed on this great mirror, therein continually depicts and imprints a perfect image of Himself and His divine perfections.
He could say to her: “Thou wast perfect through My beauty which I had put upon thee” (Ezechiel 16). This expansive sea of pure crystal Mary ever kept calm and tranquil, lest, should it be storm-tossed, it might distort the picture of Him it was meant to reflect. She knew it was only just that as He had made it for a special object, she should do nothing to hinder its fulfilling that object.
Let us sometimes view ourselves in that mirror. It is a true one. It is neither convex, concave nor damaged in any way, so it will reflect us exactly as we are, neither adding to nor taking from our perfections. How do we appear when face to face with Our Lady, that Mirror of justice? Do we resemble her?
Mary said her soul magnified the Lord. She did not reflect Him in a small contemptible way, but with grandeur and magnificence; and she longs for us to do the same. “O magnificate Dominum mecum,” she exclaims. “Magnify the Lord with me.” Do justice to His loveliness: let all men know how good, how true, how just He is.
Justice, cold and short as the word may seem, really comprehends all perfection. By it we render to everyone his due. If we do this to God we are saints, for all we have and are belongs to Him, being made for His service. If we use them for our own ends, or to please ourselves at the expense of His will, we are not giving Him His due. But if we give Him all, without withholding one iota, we are in the way of sanctity.
Then are we just to our neighbor in thought, word and deed? Or are our views of them distorted by passion, envy, jealousy, or by our natural antipathies? Do we rob them in any way, either of their reputation or the esteem of others, or of their peace of mind? We forget sometimes that we ourselves owe them honor and esteem as being creatures made to the image and likeness of the All Holy.
Are we just to ourselves? We were made for eternal happiness. Do we ever barter away our right to the heavenly kingdom, if not entirely, at least in great measure? How many who pride themselves on being just, upright and honorable, who would not for worlds take a penny they did not consider their own, are nevertheless constantly sinning against justice, and robbing God and their neighbor right and left of what is their due, to say nothing of wronging themselves, their children, their families in so doing?
Let us then have recourse to Mary, the Mirror of Justice, that we may be undeceived in our self-righteousness, and see how often we are unjust. It will not be difficult to find her, nor will she resent our coming, for she says, “I walk in the midst of justice, in the midst of the paths of judgement, that I may enrich them that love me, and may fill their treasures” (Proverbs 8). “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, and my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He hath clothed me with the garment of salvation, and with the robe of justice He hath covered me” (Isaias 61). “And if a man love justice . . . she teacheth temperance and prudence and justice and fortitude, which are such things men can have nothing more profitable in life.” (Wisdom 8) “If thou followest justice, thou shalt obtain her: and shalt put her on as a long robe of honor: and thou shalt dwell with her: and she shall protect thee for ever, and in the day of acknowledgment thou shalt find a strong foundation” (Ecclesiasticus 27).
Yes, Mother dearest, this is our one ambition, to follow thee, to dwell with thee and thy divine Son, from whom thou art never apart, so that when our day to be judged arrives we shall be found to be standing on a sure foundation, even the mirror of justice, that sea of crystal, before the great white throne, on which, as St. John tells us, stand those who have overcome the evil one, and who, bearing harps in their hands, sing the Canticle of the Lamb, saying: “Great and wonderful are Thy works, O Lord God Almighty: just and true are Thy ways, O King of Ages” (Apocalypse 15).
22. SEAT OF WISDOM
“All thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children” (Isaias 54:13).
“It is she that teacheth the knowledge of God” (Wisdom 8:4).
“And to the unwise she said: ‘Come!’” (Proverbs 9:4).
“Now, therefore, ye children, hear me: blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise, and refuse it not. Blessed is the man that heareth me,’ and that watcheth daily at my gates, and waiteth at the posts of my doors” (Proverbs 8:32-34).
“And if a man desire much knowledge, she knoweth things past, and judgeth of things to come, she knoweth the subtleties of speeches and the solution of arguments” (Wisdom 8:8).
“He that hearkeneth to her shall judge nations” (Ecclesiasticus 4:16).
With the bread of life and understanding she shall feed him, and give him the water of wholesome wisdom to drink: and she shall be made strong in him, and he shall not be moved: and she shall hold him fast, and he shall not be confounded: and she shall exalt him among his neighbors.
“And in the midst of the Church she shall open his mouth and shall fill him with the spirit of wisdom and understanding, and shall clothe him with a robe of glory” (Ecclesiasticus 15:3-5).
Hail, Solomon’s throne! So we salute Our Lady in the “Little Office of the Immaculate Conception,” but how often do we make our way to this Seat of Wisdom? When we are in doubt or perplexity, or feel we have acted unwisely and are in need of light, do we naturally bend our steps thither? The throne of Solomon, that wisest of monarchs, was ever surrounded by his humble subjects, who ran to him for the solution of their troubles and difficulties; but if we make our way to this throne we shall find a wiser and a greater than Solomon here, as He Himself tells us, even Wisdom Incarnate, the omniscient God, seated on His Mother’s lap. “O ye sons of men, how long will ye be dull of heart?” (Psalm 4) “Learn where is wisdom, where is understanding, where is strength” (Baruch 3) Rightly is Mary compared to Solomon’s throne, which was made of the whitest of ivory, emblematic of the purity of her soul, and covered with gold, symbolical of the burning charity which filled her heart. “His throne is a flame of fire” (Daniel 7).
And what shall we learn if we draw nigh to this seat of wisdom? Well we know that “in her is the spirit of understanding” (Wisdom 7) and “she hath opened her mouth to wisdom.” We know what constant intercourse with learned persons does for us: it is an education in itself; and in her daily contact with her divine Son what treasures of supernatural knowledge must not Mary have laid up! “If a man desire much knowledge, she knoweth things past, and judgeth of things to come; she knoweth the subtleties of speeches, and the solutions of arguments; she knoweth signs and wonders before they be done, and the events of times and ages. . . She glorifieth her nobility by being versant with God: yea, and the Lord of all things hath loved her. For it is she that teacheth the knowledge of God” (Wisdom 7).
Yes, all is contained in this last sentence. To know God, to prefer Him to His creatures, is true wisdom. It is what we were made for. There is no greater folly than to live for any other end except the one for which alone we were created. It is being truly wise to give up all, that we may obtain a fuller possession of Him. Happy we, if we can cry out with St. Francis of Assisi:
“Creatures are nothing in my sight;
My soul for its Creator yearns;
Heaven and Earth yield no delight,
For love of Christ all else it spurns. Before the splendor of that light,
The very sun to darkness turns. What is the cherub’s hoard
Of wisdom from above?
What is the seraph’s love,
To him who sees the Lord?”
(Amor de Caritate).
O Mother mine! May I ever be attentive to thy invitation to the unwise to whom thou dost say, “Come!” (Proverbs 9). “Now, therefore, ye children, hear me. Blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise, and refuse it not ... He that shall find me shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord” (Proverbs 8).
Yes, sweetest mother, we know that with thee we shall always find Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We know, too, that “all thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children” (Isaias 54). Number us, therefore, with them. Let us take our places among those illustrious sons of thine, St. John the Evangelist, St. Luke, St. Bernard, St. Anselm, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Albert the Great and a host of others, who all drank deeply of the stream of thy knowledge, and were ever to be found gathered round thee, the Seat of Wisdom, reminding us of the lions of which Solomon placed two on each step of his throne to which thou hast been likened. Thou art the rod of Jesse, and on the flower that rose out of that root—the bud of the Lord, the flower of the field, Jesus—there rested the spirit of the Lord; the spirit of wisdom, of understanding, of counsel; where then can we better turn than to thee, when we feel our ignorance and want of knowledge, sure that with thee we shall find life and salvation from the Lord, as well as that love of Him which will make us always truly wise?
Seat of Wisdom, pray for us.
“It is she that teacheth the knowledge of God” (Wisdom 8:4).
“And to the unwise she said: ‘Come!’” (Proverbs 9:4).
“Now, therefore, ye children, hear me: blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise, and refuse it not. Blessed is the man that heareth me,’ and that watcheth daily at my gates, and waiteth at the posts of my doors” (Proverbs 8:32-34).
“And if a man desire much knowledge, she knoweth things past, and judgeth of things to come, she knoweth the subtleties of speeches and the solution of arguments” (Wisdom 8:8).
“He that hearkeneth to her shall judge nations” (Ecclesiasticus 4:16).
With the bread of life and understanding she shall feed him, and give him the water of wholesome wisdom to drink: and she shall be made strong in him, and he shall not be moved: and she shall hold him fast, and he shall not be confounded: and she shall exalt him among his neighbors.
“And in the midst of the Church she shall open his mouth and shall fill him with the spirit of wisdom and understanding, and shall clothe him with a robe of glory” (Ecclesiasticus 15:3-5).
Hail, Solomon’s throne! So we salute Our Lady in the “Little Office of the Immaculate Conception,” but how often do we make our way to this Seat of Wisdom? When we are in doubt or perplexity, or feel we have acted unwisely and are in need of light, do we naturally bend our steps thither? The throne of Solomon, that wisest of monarchs, was ever surrounded by his humble subjects, who ran to him for the solution of their troubles and difficulties; but if we make our way to this throne we shall find a wiser and a greater than Solomon here, as He Himself tells us, even Wisdom Incarnate, the omniscient God, seated on His Mother’s lap. “O ye sons of men, how long will ye be dull of heart?” (Psalm 4) “Learn where is wisdom, where is understanding, where is strength” (Baruch 3) Rightly is Mary compared to Solomon’s throne, which was made of the whitest of ivory, emblematic of the purity of her soul, and covered with gold, symbolical of the burning charity which filled her heart. “His throne is a flame of fire” (Daniel 7).
And what shall we learn if we draw nigh to this seat of wisdom? Well we know that “in her is the spirit of understanding” (Wisdom 7) and “she hath opened her mouth to wisdom.” We know what constant intercourse with learned persons does for us: it is an education in itself; and in her daily contact with her divine Son what treasures of supernatural knowledge must not Mary have laid up! “If a man desire much knowledge, she knoweth things past, and judgeth of things to come; she knoweth the subtleties of speeches, and the solutions of arguments; she knoweth signs and wonders before they be done, and the events of times and ages. . . She glorifieth her nobility by being versant with God: yea, and the Lord of all things hath loved her. For it is she that teacheth the knowledge of God” (Wisdom 7).
Yes, all is contained in this last sentence. To know God, to prefer Him to His creatures, is true wisdom. It is what we were made for. There is no greater folly than to live for any other end except the one for which alone we were created. It is being truly wise to give up all, that we may obtain a fuller possession of Him. Happy we, if we can cry out with St. Francis of Assisi:
“Creatures are nothing in my sight;
My soul for its Creator yearns;
Heaven and Earth yield no delight,
For love of Christ all else it spurns. Before the splendor of that light,
The very sun to darkness turns. What is the cherub’s hoard
Of wisdom from above?
What is the seraph’s love,
To him who sees the Lord?”
(Amor de Caritate).
O Mother mine! May I ever be attentive to thy invitation to the unwise to whom thou dost say, “Come!” (Proverbs 9). “Now, therefore, ye children, hear me. Blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise, and refuse it not ... He that shall find me shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord” (Proverbs 8).
Yes, sweetest mother, we know that with thee we shall always find Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We know, too, that “all thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children” (Isaias 54). Number us, therefore, with them. Let us take our places among those illustrious sons of thine, St. John the Evangelist, St. Luke, St. Bernard, St. Anselm, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Albert the Great and a host of others, who all drank deeply of the stream of thy knowledge, and were ever to be found gathered round thee, the Seat of Wisdom, reminding us of the lions of which Solomon placed two on each step of his throne to which thou hast been likened. Thou art the rod of Jesse, and on the flower that rose out of that root—the bud of the Lord, the flower of the field, Jesus—there rested the spirit of the Lord; the spirit of wisdom, of understanding, of counsel; where then can we better turn than to thee, when we feel our ignorance and want of knowledge, sure that with thee we shall find life and salvation from the Lord, as well as that love of Him which will make us always truly wise?
Seat of Wisdom, pray for us.
23. CAUSE OF OUR JOY
“Thou, art the joy of Israel” (Judith 14:10).
“Joy is come to me from the holy One” (Baruch 4:22).
“I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, and my soul shall be joyful in my God” (Isaias 61:10).
“I will rejoice in the Lord, and I will joy in God my Jesus” (Habacuc 3:18).
“Joy be to thee always.” Such was the salutation of the archangel Raphael to the elder Tobias, who answered: “What manner of joy shall be to me, who sit in darkness, and see not the light of Heaven?” The old man evidently thought, that without light, joyousness was out of the question. And was not the whole world, more or less, sitting in darkness before the coming of Our Lord? He is the light of the world, as He Himself has told us. Zachary praised God because the Orient had come from on high to enlighten them that sit in darkness; and holy Simeon sang his canticle of joy, because, as he said: “My eyes have seen Thy salvation. . . A light to the revelation of the Gentiles.” And this light, this joy, came to him in the arms of Mary. He, like the Magi, found the Child where we too shall ever find Him, “with Mary His Mother.” She is the cause of our joy by giving us Jesus, our God and our all, source of all joy and gladness. Let us rejoice in Him. Gloom and sadness are only lesser evils than sin; let us cast them far from us. They are the results of sin, and often, too, the cause of it.
Let us cultivate joy, which enlarges the heart and makes us run, not lag and loiter, in the way of God’s commandments. We cannot imagine anything like gloom and sadness about Our Lady. She had many sorrows, it is true, but sorrow and sadness are two widely different things. Joy comes next to charity in the gifts of the Holy Ghost, which is a point worth noting. Our Lady in her Magnificat is overflowing with joy and gladness. “My soul cloth magnify the Lord, and my spirit bath rejoiced in God my Savior.” She knows she is only a creature; in comparison with Him, but an atom; yet she rejoices. We are often too inclined to talk as if our joy should spring from a consciousness of our perfection, as if we could not be joyous, because we are so miserably weak and faulty.
But we must remember that holy joy has an infinite source which can never be exhausted. “I will rejoice in the Lord, and I will joy in God my Jesus.” Joy is catching; so if we cling to Mary and try to enter into the secrets of her heart, we shall find there an ever-abiding spring of happiness in the thought of God’s goodness. Holy Scripture tells us that: “The joyfulness of the heart is a never-failing source of holiness.” How Mary would rejoice in all the manifestations of her divine Son’s virtues! In His mercy, patience, humility and long suffering; in the institution of the Blessed Eucharist; in His resurrection and glorious ascension. Also she would find subject for joy in His power as shown forth in His creation—the sun, stars, etc.
“Thou art the glory of Jerusalem; thou art the joy of Israel” (Judith 15). What joy Our Lady brought to Elizabeth! As we said before, gladness is catching. If a mere smile of Mary’s can, according to Dante, fill the whole court of Heaven with rejoicing: “The lovely one of Heaven smiled, and all caroled in their glee” (Paradiso). What must the effect have been when she was in a state of ecstatic joy and exultation, as at the time when she sang her Magnificat? “She shall heap upon him a treasure of joy” (Ecclesiasticus 15). Her very presence caused the infant Baptist to leap with sheer gladness. Let us then copy our blessed Mother in this light-hearted joyousness in God’s service, remembering we honor our good Master when we show a bright face in His service. “To indulge anxiety is to forget that He watches over us.” Has not St. Peter told us to cast all our care upon Him? Why then should we not be as happy as a child in its Father’s arms? Let us beg Our Lady to win for us this grace, and let us say with whole-hearted confidence:
Dear God, I trust my all to Thee,
Since Thou Thy loving watch o’er me
Dost keep for evermore.
Cause of our joy, pray for us.
“Joy is come to me from the holy One” (Baruch 4:22).
“I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, and my soul shall be joyful in my God” (Isaias 61:10).
“I will rejoice in the Lord, and I will joy in God my Jesus” (Habacuc 3:18).
“Joy be to thee always.” Such was the salutation of the archangel Raphael to the elder Tobias, who answered: “What manner of joy shall be to me, who sit in darkness, and see not the light of Heaven?” The old man evidently thought, that without light, joyousness was out of the question. And was not the whole world, more or less, sitting in darkness before the coming of Our Lord? He is the light of the world, as He Himself has told us. Zachary praised God because the Orient had come from on high to enlighten them that sit in darkness; and holy Simeon sang his canticle of joy, because, as he said: “My eyes have seen Thy salvation. . . A light to the revelation of the Gentiles.” And this light, this joy, came to him in the arms of Mary. He, like the Magi, found the Child where we too shall ever find Him, “with Mary His Mother.” She is the cause of our joy by giving us Jesus, our God and our all, source of all joy and gladness. Let us rejoice in Him. Gloom and sadness are only lesser evils than sin; let us cast them far from us. They are the results of sin, and often, too, the cause of it.
Let us cultivate joy, which enlarges the heart and makes us run, not lag and loiter, in the way of God’s commandments. We cannot imagine anything like gloom and sadness about Our Lady. She had many sorrows, it is true, but sorrow and sadness are two widely different things. Joy comes next to charity in the gifts of the Holy Ghost, which is a point worth noting. Our Lady in her Magnificat is overflowing with joy and gladness. “My soul cloth magnify the Lord, and my spirit bath rejoiced in God my Savior.” She knows she is only a creature; in comparison with Him, but an atom; yet she rejoices. We are often too inclined to talk as if our joy should spring from a consciousness of our perfection, as if we could not be joyous, because we are so miserably weak and faulty.
But we must remember that holy joy has an infinite source which can never be exhausted. “I will rejoice in the Lord, and I will joy in God my Jesus.” Joy is catching; so if we cling to Mary and try to enter into the secrets of her heart, we shall find there an ever-abiding spring of happiness in the thought of God’s goodness. Holy Scripture tells us that: “The joyfulness of the heart is a never-failing source of holiness.” How Mary would rejoice in all the manifestations of her divine Son’s virtues! In His mercy, patience, humility and long suffering; in the institution of the Blessed Eucharist; in His resurrection and glorious ascension. Also she would find subject for joy in His power as shown forth in His creation—the sun, stars, etc.
“Thou art the glory of Jerusalem; thou art the joy of Israel” (Judith 15). What joy Our Lady brought to Elizabeth! As we said before, gladness is catching. If a mere smile of Mary’s can, according to Dante, fill the whole court of Heaven with rejoicing: “The lovely one of Heaven smiled, and all caroled in their glee” (Paradiso). What must the effect have been when she was in a state of ecstatic joy and exultation, as at the time when she sang her Magnificat? “She shall heap upon him a treasure of joy” (Ecclesiasticus 15). Her very presence caused the infant Baptist to leap with sheer gladness. Let us then copy our blessed Mother in this light-hearted joyousness in God’s service, remembering we honor our good Master when we show a bright face in His service. “To indulge anxiety is to forget that He watches over us.” Has not St. Peter told us to cast all our care upon Him? Why then should we not be as happy as a child in its Father’s arms? Let us beg Our Lady to win for us this grace, and let us say with whole-hearted confidence:
Dear God, I trust my all to Thee,
Since Thou Thy loving watch o’er me
Dost keep for evermore.
Cause of our joy, pray for us.
24. SPIRITUAL VESSEL
“My spirit is sweet above honey” (Ecclesiasticus 24:27).
“Thy plants are a paradise of pomegranates with the fruits of the orchard. Cyprus with spikenard, spikenard and saffron, sweet cane and cinnamon, with all the trees of Libanus, myrrh and aloes, with all the chief perfumes ... Arise, O north wind, and come, O south wind, blow through my garden, and let the aromatical spices thereof flow” (Canticles 4:13-16).
A vase is always made with the supposition that it is to contain something. It must be hollow. However beauteous in shape or delicate in workmanship, if solid throughout it would not be a vase. Am I not oftentimes so full of self in its multiplied forms and subtle disguises that I seem almost a solid block of self? Within and without all of a piece, so that there is no place for aught else within me? Not so, Mary. Empty of self and self-seeking, her heart had room for great things. With what was it filled? The angel Gabriel tells us it was full of grace. We cannot say a vase is full of any one specified thing if there be others in it as well; but Mary was absolutely full of grace, undiluted, unmixed with other matter. She was a spiritual vessel. Of what nature was the spirit within her? She tells us: “My spirit is sweet above honey and the honeycomb” (Ecclesiasticus 24). And at once the words in the book of Wisdom come to our mind: “How sweet, O Lord, is Thy spirit!” No wonder the Holy Ghost chose her for His spouse when there was so much of His spirit in her already; no wonder we read, “In her is the spirit of understanding,” which is one of His gifts.
Mary was filled with the knowledge of God; she understood Him and His ways in a higher degree than any of His creatures. And if Our Lady was full of grace when the heavenly messenger arrived, how greatly must her heart have been enlarged to contain the stupendous influx that was to come upon her! “Spiritus Sanctus descendet in te,” the angel said. The Holy Ghost was to descend upon her, but Mary’s vessel was ever ready to expand, so responsive was she to the slightest indication of God’s will. Yet the abundant supply she received of grace never made her waste any. We know how easy it is to lose, to squander the divine grace. We receive it, and shortly perceive we are as though we had had it not. We forget that a spirit quickly escapes unless we keep it well enclosed in some secure vessel. Mary did not leave her vase open, but kept all these things locked up in her heart; she did not make a display of her graces. Even St. Joseph, that chosen friend of God, was not made aware by her of the great things wrought in her
She had within a fountain of grace, which she kept sealed. She was the sealed fountain spoken of in the Canticle. Nevertheless, as when one pours a richly perfumed liquid into a bottle, the entire room is filled with its odor, so with Mary’s sanctity. Its aroma pervaded her whole house. “I gave a sweet smell like cinnamon and aromatical balm. I yielded a sweet odor like the best myrrh. And I perfumed the dwelling as storax . . . and as the frankincense not cut” (Ecclesiasticus 24).
O Mother mine, how far different is my spirit from thine! Are not my words too often full of self, or, worse still, tinged if not impregnated with acidity and bitterness? Instead of milk and honey, is it not more like the venom of asps that is under my tongue Obtain for me from the divine Spouse that when I say: “Come, Veni Sancte Spiritus”—that invitation so constantly repeated, but how often, alas, mechanically—that the prayer may be efficacious, and that He will deign to take up His abode in my heart, burning out self in the fire of His love, and filling in the vacuum with the balm of sweetness and charity.
Mary’s spirit was also a joyous one; she had drunk too deeply at her Savior’s fountains—whence we are to draw water with joy—not to be penetrated with the thought of God’s fatherliness, which is pleased when He sees His children happy in the good things He has given and the great things He has done for them. How often she had read in the Psalms: “Magnificavit Dominus facere nobiscum: facti sumus Iaetantes.—The Lord hath done great things for us; we are become very joyful.” And so she breaks out into her canticle of exultation when she meets her holy cousin, St. Elizabeth: “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.”
And in this she was also fulfilling the injunction given her by the angel, for we learn from St. Sophronius that the word used by St. Gabriel in saluting her, which we render as “Hail,” signifies in the original “Rejoice,” and so he writes: “When this blessed angel was sent to the most pure Virgin, what did he say? In what words did he break the happy news of redemption? ‘Hail! thou that art full of grace, the Lord is with thee.’ And of a truth it was fitting that God’s proclamation of joy should open with accents of gladness; and this is the reason why the angel nameth joy first, because he knew the coming fruits of his message, and that his converse with the Virgin was to bring joy to the whole world. Can we find any joy or any brightness like the joy and the brightness of that salutation addressed to the blessed mother of gladness? Rejoice, O mother of joy more than heavenly! Rejoice, O thou that nourishest joy in the highest! Rejoice, O Lady, full of the joy of consolation! Rejoice, O thou that bringest a joy that passeth not away! Rejoice, O mysterious treasury, dispensing unspeakable joy! Rejoice, O most blessed fountain, overflowing with unfailing joy! Rejoice, O storehouse of God, filled with the everlasting joy of eternity! Rejoice, O fair tree, bearing fruit of life-giving joy! Rejoice, O maiden mother of God! ... Rejoice, O wonder, who after all wonders art still the most wonderful!” (Sermon on the Annunciation).
Spiritual Vessel, pray for us.
“Thy plants are a paradise of pomegranates with the fruits of the orchard. Cyprus with spikenard, spikenard and saffron, sweet cane and cinnamon, with all the trees of Libanus, myrrh and aloes, with all the chief perfumes ... Arise, O north wind, and come, O south wind, blow through my garden, and let the aromatical spices thereof flow” (Canticles 4:13-16).
A vase is always made with the supposition that it is to contain something. It must be hollow. However beauteous in shape or delicate in workmanship, if solid throughout it would not be a vase. Am I not oftentimes so full of self in its multiplied forms and subtle disguises that I seem almost a solid block of self? Within and without all of a piece, so that there is no place for aught else within me? Not so, Mary. Empty of self and self-seeking, her heart had room for great things. With what was it filled? The angel Gabriel tells us it was full of grace. We cannot say a vase is full of any one specified thing if there be others in it as well; but Mary was absolutely full of grace, undiluted, unmixed with other matter. She was a spiritual vessel. Of what nature was the spirit within her? She tells us: “My spirit is sweet above honey and the honeycomb” (Ecclesiasticus 24). And at once the words in the book of Wisdom come to our mind: “How sweet, O Lord, is Thy spirit!” No wonder the Holy Ghost chose her for His spouse when there was so much of His spirit in her already; no wonder we read, “In her is the spirit of understanding,” which is one of His gifts.
Mary was filled with the knowledge of God; she understood Him and His ways in a higher degree than any of His creatures. And if Our Lady was full of grace when the heavenly messenger arrived, how greatly must her heart have been enlarged to contain the stupendous influx that was to come upon her! “Spiritus Sanctus descendet in te,” the angel said. The Holy Ghost was to descend upon her, but Mary’s vessel was ever ready to expand, so responsive was she to the slightest indication of God’s will. Yet the abundant supply she received of grace never made her waste any. We know how easy it is to lose, to squander the divine grace. We receive it, and shortly perceive we are as though we had had it not. We forget that a spirit quickly escapes unless we keep it well enclosed in some secure vessel. Mary did not leave her vase open, but kept all these things locked up in her heart; she did not make a display of her graces. Even St. Joseph, that chosen friend of God, was not made aware by her of the great things wrought in her
She had within a fountain of grace, which she kept sealed. She was the sealed fountain spoken of in the Canticle. Nevertheless, as when one pours a richly perfumed liquid into a bottle, the entire room is filled with its odor, so with Mary’s sanctity. Its aroma pervaded her whole house. “I gave a sweet smell like cinnamon and aromatical balm. I yielded a sweet odor like the best myrrh. And I perfumed the dwelling as storax . . . and as the frankincense not cut” (Ecclesiasticus 24).
O Mother mine, how far different is my spirit from thine! Are not my words too often full of self, or, worse still, tinged if not impregnated with acidity and bitterness? Instead of milk and honey, is it not more like the venom of asps that is under my tongue Obtain for me from the divine Spouse that when I say: “Come, Veni Sancte Spiritus”—that invitation so constantly repeated, but how often, alas, mechanically—that the prayer may be efficacious, and that He will deign to take up His abode in my heart, burning out self in the fire of His love, and filling in the vacuum with the balm of sweetness and charity.
Mary’s spirit was also a joyous one; she had drunk too deeply at her Savior’s fountains—whence we are to draw water with joy—not to be penetrated with the thought of God’s fatherliness, which is pleased when He sees His children happy in the good things He has given and the great things He has done for them. How often she had read in the Psalms: “Magnificavit Dominus facere nobiscum: facti sumus Iaetantes.—The Lord hath done great things for us; we are become very joyful.” And so she breaks out into her canticle of exultation when she meets her holy cousin, St. Elizabeth: “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.”
And in this she was also fulfilling the injunction given her by the angel, for we learn from St. Sophronius that the word used by St. Gabriel in saluting her, which we render as “Hail,” signifies in the original “Rejoice,” and so he writes: “When this blessed angel was sent to the most pure Virgin, what did he say? In what words did he break the happy news of redemption? ‘Hail! thou that art full of grace, the Lord is with thee.’ And of a truth it was fitting that God’s proclamation of joy should open with accents of gladness; and this is the reason why the angel nameth joy first, because he knew the coming fruits of his message, and that his converse with the Virgin was to bring joy to the whole world. Can we find any joy or any brightness like the joy and the brightness of that salutation addressed to the blessed mother of gladness? Rejoice, O mother of joy more than heavenly! Rejoice, O thou that nourishest joy in the highest! Rejoice, O Lady, full of the joy of consolation! Rejoice, O thou that bringest a joy that passeth not away! Rejoice, O mysterious treasury, dispensing unspeakable joy! Rejoice, O most blessed fountain, overflowing with unfailing joy! Rejoice, O storehouse of God, filled with the everlasting joy of eternity! Rejoice, O fair tree, bearing fruit of life-giving joy! Rejoice, O maiden mother of God! ... Rejoice, O wonder, who after all wonders art still the most wonderful!” (Sermon on the Annunciation).
Spiritual Vessel, pray for us.
25. VESSEL OF HONOR
Vas honorabile
“Thou art the honor of our people . . . for thou hast done manfully, and thy heart bath been strengthened” (Judith 15:11).
“Put on the beauty and honor of that everlasting glory which thou hast from God. . . God will set a crown on thy head of everlasting honor” (Baruch 5:1-2).
“To me, O Lord, Thy friends have become exceedingly honorable” (Psalm 138).
If we honor God’s friends, as did the Psalmist, and rightly, simply because they are His friends, how much more should we honor His holy Mother! We shall never do so to the extent that Jesus did. The well-known hymn says truly:
But scornful men have coldly said
Thy love was leading me from God;
And yet in this I did but tread
The very path my Savior trod.
With what reverence and respect Our Lord would deal with her! He was, as we know, “true God and true Man.” A perfect man—one who fulfilled, as He tells us, every jot and tittle of the law. Now it is said in Ecclesiasticus: “He that honoureth his mother is as one that layeth up a treasure.” Besides which, was there not the commandment, “Honor thy father and thy mother,” which we may be sure Jesus carried out with as much more perfection than other men as He excelled them in every other virtue? No good son ever treats his mother slightingly and with want of respect; how much less Our Lord? Let us then imitate Him in rendering honor to His Mother and ours in every possible way, not the least of which is often to consider her glorious prerogatives, which beget reverence in our hearts.
Let us reflect a little on the title “Vas Honorabile”. A vessel is usually rich and beautiful in proportion to that which it contains. Rare jewels are not kept in a rough wooden box, but in an elegant casket. A ship that is to bear royalty is fitted up with every care and luxury. A ciborium that contains the King of kings we strive to have made of the most costly material we can procure.
We, however, are but poor mortals and our means are usually sadly limited. Neither do we realize to the full the pricelessness of the treasure our sacred vessels contain; but God, who knows the infinite value of His divine Son, and whose power equaled His knowledge, what treasures of beauty and grace would He not expend on the vessel which was to be the dwelling-place of the eternal Word?
“Glorious things are said of thee, thou city of God,” exclaims the Psalmist. Glorious indeed must Mary’s heart have appeared in the sight of the whole court of Heaven, when it was considered sufficiently endowed with grace and virtue, and ready to receive Him for whom it was made. For these celestial spirits would be as full of eager interest in this priceless vessel, nay, far more so, than are the loyal subjects of an earthly sovereign, in the yacht or ship that is to bear him across the waters.
Then we may be certain that Mary herself did all in her power and that depended on her to keep this vessel ever in good condition. Never did she suffer its brightness and luster to become in the least degree tarnished or dimmed.
She was a vessel of honor in every sense of the word. We cannot imagine the smallest taint of anything mean, dishonorable, underhand or wanting in straightforwardness in Our Lady. She would be the very soul of honor and uprightness. Her words would always square with facts, and with her thoughts and intentions. “My flowers are the fruit of honor and riches ... and my branches are of honor and grace. Come over to me, all ye who desire me, and be filled with my fruits.” (Ecclesiasticus 24).
O, Mother mine! Truly art thou the honor of our people: “for thou hast done manfully, and thy heart hath been strengthened” (Judith 15). Put on then “the beauty and honor of that everlasting glory which thou hast from God. He will set on thy head a crown of everlasting honor” (Baruch 5). “For thy name shall be named to thee by God for ever: the peace of justice and honor of piety.” Willingly will we come to thee to be filled with thy fruits. Teach us to be like thee, upright, straightforward, honorable in our dealings with every one, scorning all meanness and deceit, so that we too may share the peace of justice, and be an honor to piety and credit to a devout life.
Vessel of honor, pray for us.
“Thou art the honor of our people . . . for thou hast done manfully, and thy heart bath been strengthened” (Judith 15:11).
“Put on the beauty and honor of that everlasting glory which thou hast from God. . . God will set a crown on thy head of everlasting honor” (Baruch 5:1-2).
“To me, O Lord, Thy friends have become exceedingly honorable” (Psalm 138).
If we honor God’s friends, as did the Psalmist, and rightly, simply because they are His friends, how much more should we honor His holy Mother! We shall never do so to the extent that Jesus did. The well-known hymn says truly:
But scornful men have coldly said
Thy love was leading me from God;
And yet in this I did but tread
The very path my Savior trod.
With what reverence and respect Our Lord would deal with her! He was, as we know, “true God and true Man.” A perfect man—one who fulfilled, as He tells us, every jot and tittle of the law. Now it is said in Ecclesiasticus: “He that honoureth his mother is as one that layeth up a treasure.” Besides which, was there not the commandment, “Honor thy father and thy mother,” which we may be sure Jesus carried out with as much more perfection than other men as He excelled them in every other virtue? No good son ever treats his mother slightingly and with want of respect; how much less Our Lord? Let us then imitate Him in rendering honor to His Mother and ours in every possible way, not the least of which is often to consider her glorious prerogatives, which beget reverence in our hearts.
Let us reflect a little on the title “Vas Honorabile”. A vessel is usually rich and beautiful in proportion to that which it contains. Rare jewels are not kept in a rough wooden box, but in an elegant casket. A ship that is to bear royalty is fitted up with every care and luxury. A ciborium that contains the King of kings we strive to have made of the most costly material we can procure.
We, however, are but poor mortals and our means are usually sadly limited. Neither do we realize to the full the pricelessness of the treasure our sacred vessels contain; but God, who knows the infinite value of His divine Son, and whose power equaled His knowledge, what treasures of beauty and grace would He not expend on the vessel which was to be the dwelling-place of the eternal Word?
“Glorious things are said of thee, thou city of God,” exclaims the Psalmist. Glorious indeed must Mary’s heart have appeared in the sight of the whole court of Heaven, when it was considered sufficiently endowed with grace and virtue, and ready to receive Him for whom it was made. For these celestial spirits would be as full of eager interest in this priceless vessel, nay, far more so, than are the loyal subjects of an earthly sovereign, in the yacht or ship that is to bear him across the waters.
Then we may be certain that Mary herself did all in her power and that depended on her to keep this vessel ever in good condition. Never did she suffer its brightness and luster to become in the least degree tarnished or dimmed.
She was a vessel of honor in every sense of the word. We cannot imagine the smallest taint of anything mean, dishonorable, underhand or wanting in straightforwardness in Our Lady. She would be the very soul of honor and uprightness. Her words would always square with facts, and with her thoughts and intentions. “My flowers are the fruit of honor and riches ... and my branches are of honor and grace. Come over to me, all ye who desire me, and be filled with my fruits.” (Ecclesiasticus 24).
O, Mother mine! Truly art thou the honor of our people: “for thou hast done manfully, and thy heart hath been strengthened” (Judith 15). Put on then “the beauty and honor of that everlasting glory which thou hast from God. He will set on thy head a crown of everlasting honor” (Baruch 5). “For thy name shall be named to thee by God for ever: the peace of justice and honor of piety.” Willingly will we come to thee to be filled with thy fruits. Teach us to be like thee, upright, straightforward, honorable in our dealings with every one, scorning all meanness and deceit, so that we too may share the peace of justice, and be an honor to piety and credit to a devout life.
Vessel of honor, pray for us.
26. SINGULAR VESSEL OF DEVOTION
“Establish within thyself a heart of good counsel, for there is no other thing of more worth to thee than it ... But above all these things pray to the Most High, that He may direct thy way in truth” (Ecclesiaticus 37:17, 19).
“My sister, My spouse is a garden enclosed, a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed up” (Canticles 4:12).
“He that knoweth all things knoweth her” (Baruch 3:32).
“Yea, and the Lord of all things hath loved her!” (Wisdom 8:3).
Bishop Hedley tells us in his Retreat “that “Devotion denotes that occupation which is the one essential occupation of human life—occupation about the love and service of God” (Bishop Hedley’s Retreat, p. 288).Having considered Mary under her title of “Spiritual Vessel,” we are not surprised to find she was in a singular and paramount degree a “Vessel of Devotion,” for it was on her God and in His service that she poured out unstintingly the treasures of grace and love, the aromatic spices she kept treasured up in her heart.
They were not there for her own gratification or pleasure, but solely for her Lord’s, and as Magdalen broke her alabaster box that its contents might anoint the head of Jesus, so the Heart of Mary, being pierced by a sword of sorrow on Calvary, the hill of frankincense, the treasures it contained flowed over the soul of Jesus, consoling Him by their deep compassion and their loving sympathy, their hatred of sin, their love of God, above all things, their unflinching conformity to His adorable will.
And as the perfumes of St. Mary Magdalen’s ointment filled the whole house, so has the Church of God been filled and will ever be filled with the odor of Our Lady’s virtues, not the least of which was her singular devotion. How this virtue would be fostered during her residence in the temple, where all connected with the worship of God was carried on with such magnificence! What adoration of the heart she would put into all the external ceremonies, without which they are as a body without a soul! What pains she would take to feed her devotion, for without nourishment it will languish and die!
This food she would find in spiritual reading and prayer. The Holy Scriptures would be her chief study and delight. In the prophets she would find what most interested every devout Jew—descriptions of the Messias, the Lamb, the Ruler of the Earth; and in the Psalms, a very well-spring of holy aspirations and outpourings of the soul to God.
But how greatly would Our Lady’s devotion increase after the Incarnation! The Holy Ghost Himself had come upon her, and the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity dwelt within her. He said later He had only come to cast fire upon the Earth. How ready did He find the heart of His Mother (where He was first to alight on reaching this world) to respond to the enkindling torch.
Then as life went on and she watched her divine Son spending whole nights in the “prayer of God,” how she would strive to imitate Him and give herself ever more and more to the worship and praise of her Creator!
Finally, Mary’s spirit of devotion received marvelous increase at the feast of Pentecost, and what a help her example must have been to the Apostles during the novena that preceded it, when (as with the ancients and leaders of the people who looked to Judith, a type of Our Lady, for counsel and advice), “lighting up lights they gathered round about her: and she went up to a higher place and commanded silence to be made” (Judith 13).
How fervently during that time of retreat in the upper chamber she and they must have prayed for that other Paraclete (“He will send you another Paraclete” John 14), whom Jesus was to send them, and who was to be, as the name signifies, “teacher, prompter, encourager, consoler and best friend” (Bishop Hedley’s Retreat, p. 176). How diligently they would search the Scriptures for every mention of that Holy Spirit, remembering with joy the verses in the Psalms promising that He at His coming would renew the face of the Earth, and reading with consolation the words of Solomon: “Oh, how sweet is Thy Spirit, O Lord, in all things” (Wisdom 12).
The first nineteen verses of the 36th chapter of Ecclesiasticus would also remind them forcibly of Our Lord’s injunction, to preach to all nations, and awaken in their hearts great hopes as to the result. Then, after the coming of the Holy Ghost, we read that the Apostles went daily to the temple to pray. Would not Mary do the same until the dispersion? Perhaps like Anna she scarce departed from it by day or by night.
Devotedness, too, was a form of devotion that was most familiar to Mary. There was no self-seeking in her piety, no craving after sensible consolation. When she praised God, it was for His own sake, and not for any satisfaction that might accrue to herself in so doing. And we notice her first recorded act after the Holy Ghost had come upon her in her little house of Nazareth was one of devotedness to her aged cousin, St. Elizabeth, whom she tended and cared for, for the space of three months.
Her spirit of prayer never interfered with the faithful discharge of her daily duties in her humble home. She was ever ready to minister to the wants of others, as St. Ignatius of Antioch assures us. After the descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, as we know, the lives of the Apostles became one uninterrupted series of devotion to the interests of Jesus Christ, to which we may be sure Our Lady devoted herself in a still higher degree, though in a somewhat different manner. Could she not say: “I will yet pour out doctrine as prophecy, and will leave it to them that seek wisdom, and will not cease to instruct their offspring even to the holy age. See ye that I have not labored for myself only, but for all that seek out the truth”? (Ecclesiasticus 24).
Vessel of singular devotion, pray for us.
“My sister, My spouse is a garden enclosed, a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed up” (Canticles 4:12).
“He that knoweth all things knoweth her” (Baruch 3:32).
“Yea, and the Lord of all things hath loved her!” (Wisdom 8:3).
Bishop Hedley tells us in his Retreat “that “Devotion denotes that occupation which is the one essential occupation of human life—occupation about the love and service of God” (Bishop Hedley’s Retreat, p. 288).Having considered Mary under her title of “Spiritual Vessel,” we are not surprised to find she was in a singular and paramount degree a “Vessel of Devotion,” for it was on her God and in His service that she poured out unstintingly the treasures of grace and love, the aromatic spices she kept treasured up in her heart.
They were not there for her own gratification or pleasure, but solely for her Lord’s, and as Magdalen broke her alabaster box that its contents might anoint the head of Jesus, so the Heart of Mary, being pierced by a sword of sorrow on Calvary, the hill of frankincense, the treasures it contained flowed over the soul of Jesus, consoling Him by their deep compassion and their loving sympathy, their hatred of sin, their love of God, above all things, their unflinching conformity to His adorable will.
And as the perfumes of St. Mary Magdalen’s ointment filled the whole house, so has the Church of God been filled and will ever be filled with the odor of Our Lady’s virtues, not the least of which was her singular devotion. How this virtue would be fostered during her residence in the temple, where all connected with the worship of God was carried on with such magnificence! What adoration of the heart she would put into all the external ceremonies, without which they are as a body without a soul! What pains she would take to feed her devotion, for without nourishment it will languish and die!
This food she would find in spiritual reading and prayer. The Holy Scriptures would be her chief study and delight. In the prophets she would find what most interested every devout Jew—descriptions of the Messias, the Lamb, the Ruler of the Earth; and in the Psalms, a very well-spring of holy aspirations and outpourings of the soul to God.
But how greatly would Our Lady’s devotion increase after the Incarnation! The Holy Ghost Himself had come upon her, and the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity dwelt within her. He said later He had only come to cast fire upon the Earth. How ready did He find the heart of His Mother (where He was first to alight on reaching this world) to respond to the enkindling torch.
Then as life went on and she watched her divine Son spending whole nights in the “prayer of God,” how she would strive to imitate Him and give herself ever more and more to the worship and praise of her Creator!
Finally, Mary’s spirit of devotion received marvelous increase at the feast of Pentecost, and what a help her example must have been to the Apostles during the novena that preceded it, when (as with the ancients and leaders of the people who looked to Judith, a type of Our Lady, for counsel and advice), “lighting up lights they gathered round about her: and she went up to a higher place and commanded silence to be made” (Judith 13).
How fervently during that time of retreat in the upper chamber she and they must have prayed for that other Paraclete (“He will send you another Paraclete” John 14), whom Jesus was to send them, and who was to be, as the name signifies, “teacher, prompter, encourager, consoler and best friend” (Bishop Hedley’s Retreat, p. 176). How diligently they would search the Scriptures for every mention of that Holy Spirit, remembering with joy the verses in the Psalms promising that He at His coming would renew the face of the Earth, and reading with consolation the words of Solomon: “Oh, how sweet is Thy Spirit, O Lord, in all things” (Wisdom 12).
The first nineteen verses of the 36th chapter of Ecclesiasticus would also remind them forcibly of Our Lord’s injunction, to preach to all nations, and awaken in their hearts great hopes as to the result. Then, after the coming of the Holy Ghost, we read that the Apostles went daily to the temple to pray. Would not Mary do the same until the dispersion? Perhaps like Anna she scarce departed from it by day or by night.
Devotedness, too, was a form of devotion that was most familiar to Mary. There was no self-seeking in her piety, no craving after sensible consolation. When she praised God, it was for His own sake, and not for any satisfaction that might accrue to herself in so doing. And we notice her first recorded act after the Holy Ghost had come upon her in her little house of Nazareth was one of devotedness to her aged cousin, St. Elizabeth, whom she tended and cared for, for the space of three months.
Her spirit of prayer never interfered with the faithful discharge of her daily duties in her humble home. She was ever ready to minister to the wants of others, as St. Ignatius of Antioch assures us. After the descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, as we know, the lives of the Apostles became one uninterrupted series of devotion to the interests of Jesus Christ, to which we may be sure Our Lady devoted herself in a still higher degree, though in a somewhat different manner. Could she not say: “I will yet pour out doctrine as prophecy, and will leave it to them that seek wisdom, and will not cease to instruct their offspring even to the holy age. See ye that I have not labored for myself only, but for all that seek out the truth”? (Ecclesiasticus 24).
Vessel of singular devotion, pray for us.
27. MYSTICAL ROSE
“I was exalted like a palm-tree in Cades, and as a rose plant in Jericho” (Ecclesiasticus 24:18).
“Bud forth as the rose planted by brooks of waters Give ye a sweet odor as frankincense...
“Send forth flowers as the lily and yield a smell, and bring forth leaves in grace and praise with canticles, and bless the Lord in His works...
“Magnify His name, and give glory to Him with the voice of your lips, and with the canticles of your mouths, and in praising Him you shall say in this manner: All the works of the Lord are exceeding good” (Ecclesiasticus 29:17-21).
Our Lady is called “Mystical Rose,” and in her Litany that is the only flower to which she is likened; nor could a more fitting one have been chosen as a symbol of our Queen and our Mother. The rose is not confined to one country, but is found in many lands and climes; it has an almost countless variety of name, form and hue; nor is it exclusively the flower of cultivated gardens, for though it adorns the houses and grounds of the rich and noble, it is equally at home when clambering up the walls and peeping in at the windows of a poor little thatched cottage, and one meets it in profusion on the hedgerows and in country lanes, where the passersby and the poorest little ragged urchin may take possession of it and claim it as his own.
And is it not so with Our Lady? We find her honored in palaces and royal mansions, beloved as a mother in house and home throughout all Catholic lands; and not only do the children of the poor regard her as their own special property, as one who lived in obscurity and toiled as they do, but there is something about Mary that attracts even the wild and lawless men who set at defiance the laws of God and man, savage brigands, mountain robbers: hardened sinners often have hidden away in some secret recess of their hearts a love of and veneration for the spotless Mother. It is said that even wild Arabs have been known to spare the life and restore the purse of a hapless victim they had meant to rob and slay, if they are pleaded with in the name of “Miriam,” of whom they yet cherish the memory.
Then again the very variety of form and color in the rose tends to make it a universal favorite. Whether a person prefers a white, pale blush, or a deep, rich hue, there is ever a species to suit his taste; those who love a shade of gold will find it in many tints from straw or buff to a rich orange; neither need those complain who object to the perfume of flowers as oppressive; for there are many scentless roses; whereas those who delight in their odor can rejoice in the many varieties to be found, even in this point, from the refreshing smell of the tea-rose to that of the richly perfume-ladened “Souvenir de Malmaison “or “Gloire de Dijon.”
Can we not see in all this a picture of Mary’s large-hearted capacity of adapting herself to every character and of making herself all things to all men? Amongst her various titles we can always find one to suit our present need and humor. Are we in trouble? She is the comforter of the afflicted. Sick? She is the health of the weak, and our thoughts, if not our steps, turn themselves towards Lourdes and other shrines where Our Lady exercises her gift of healing. Are we oppressed with sins and iniquities? She is the refuge of sinners.
This very litany we are considering is made up of titles that will help us in every state of life or of need. We find her there as Virgin, Mother and Queen, our advocate, our helper. Do we suffer from doubts and perplexities, she is Our Lady of Good Counsel. Are we discouraged and despondent, the thought of Our Lady of Good Hope brings fresh life to our hearts. The anxious and fretful turn trustfully to Our Lady of Peace; the sorrowful to Our Lady of Dolors; the joyous are sure of sympathy when they cast themselves in spirit at the feet of the Queen of Heaven, while in every event, trial or need men call confidently on Our Lady of Perpetual Succor.
The varieties in the rose can also, when we consider them, bring the thought of Mary before us in the different phases of her life, both on Earth and in Heaven, as well as her special characteristics. In the spotless white species who would not see her purity? in the pale blush, her virginal modesty? While her burning charity is represented in the deep damask, and her claims on our homage as our Queen in the various shades of gold. The sorrows of our Mother are well depicted by the black rose, “black but beautiful”; while in the moss-covered buds of the “rosa muscosa “species we may see the maiden Mother of Nazareth in her hidden life, screening herself from the eyes of men, veiling her perfections under her humility.
The wild rose may bring before us the thought of her days of exile in Egypt, and the buds of all the various kinds remind us of her babyhood; the tiny tea-roses or the pale blush ones, of her childhood and maidenhood; the prolific “Gloire de Dijon,” with its countless blossoms, of Mary the Mother of mankind; and the stately standard rose, whose petals seem so firmly fixed that one can scarcely believe they will ever scatter and fall, may serve as an image, though a very imperfect one, of Mary the Queen of Heaven, the delight of all the heavenly court.
Dante speaks of the rose as “the flower of sacred love,” and of Mary as “the rose wherein the Word Divine was made incarnate.” The two ideas are intertwined, for it was because her heart was so burning a furnace of divine love that it was chosen by the eternal Father as the dwelling-place of His beloved Son when He suffered Him to take up His abode in this cold, ungrateful world. Mary lavished on Him the treasures of her affections, deeply conscious though she was that even her love could bear no comparison with that of which Holy Scripture speaks as “devouring flames,” the love of the eternal Father for His only-begotten Son.
Mary, too, is likened to the rose of Sharon—a cruciferous plant, which possesses this quality that, even when seemingly dead, it will revive and expand when put in water, though it may have been gathered months and even years previously.
“Rose of the Cross, thou mystic flower.” How familiar are these words in connection with our heavenly Queen! Did she not cling to the cross of her Son, and bring forth her fairest blossoms when planted by the waters of tribulation?
So, Mother mine, may we find in the works of thy divine Son thoughts and reflections that will serve to draw us nearer to thee, His blessed Mother, and make us understand more clearly all that thou art and all that thou wouldst be to us, if we only remembered oftener thy power and thy ever-ready willingness to help us.
Mystical Rose, pray for us.
“Bud forth as the rose planted by brooks of waters Give ye a sweet odor as frankincense...
“Send forth flowers as the lily and yield a smell, and bring forth leaves in grace and praise with canticles, and bless the Lord in His works...
“Magnify His name, and give glory to Him with the voice of your lips, and with the canticles of your mouths, and in praising Him you shall say in this manner: All the works of the Lord are exceeding good” (Ecclesiasticus 29:17-21).
Our Lady is called “Mystical Rose,” and in her Litany that is the only flower to which she is likened; nor could a more fitting one have been chosen as a symbol of our Queen and our Mother. The rose is not confined to one country, but is found in many lands and climes; it has an almost countless variety of name, form and hue; nor is it exclusively the flower of cultivated gardens, for though it adorns the houses and grounds of the rich and noble, it is equally at home when clambering up the walls and peeping in at the windows of a poor little thatched cottage, and one meets it in profusion on the hedgerows and in country lanes, where the passersby and the poorest little ragged urchin may take possession of it and claim it as his own.
And is it not so with Our Lady? We find her honored in palaces and royal mansions, beloved as a mother in house and home throughout all Catholic lands; and not only do the children of the poor regard her as their own special property, as one who lived in obscurity and toiled as they do, but there is something about Mary that attracts even the wild and lawless men who set at defiance the laws of God and man, savage brigands, mountain robbers: hardened sinners often have hidden away in some secret recess of their hearts a love of and veneration for the spotless Mother. It is said that even wild Arabs have been known to spare the life and restore the purse of a hapless victim they had meant to rob and slay, if they are pleaded with in the name of “Miriam,” of whom they yet cherish the memory.
Then again the very variety of form and color in the rose tends to make it a universal favorite. Whether a person prefers a white, pale blush, or a deep, rich hue, there is ever a species to suit his taste; those who love a shade of gold will find it in many tints from straw or buff to a rich orange; neither need those complain who object to the perfume of flowers as oppressive; for there are many scentless roses; whereas those who delight in their odor can rejoice in the many varieties to be found, even in this point, from the refreshing smell of the tea-rose to that of the richly perfume-ladened “Souvenir de Malmaison “or “Gloire de Dijon.”
Can we not see in all this a picture of Mary’s large-hearted capacity of adapting herself to every character and of making herself all things to all men? Amongst her various titles we can always find one to suit our present need and humor. Are we in trouble? She is the comforter of the afflicted. Sick? She is the health of the weak, and our thoughts, if not our steps, turn themselves towards Lourdes and other shrines where Our Lady exercises her gift of healing. Are we oppressed with sins and iniquities? She is the refuge of sinners.
This very litany we are considering is made up of titles that will help us in every state of life or of need. We find her there as Virgin, Mother and Queen, our advocate, our helper. Do we suffer from doubts and perplexities, she is Our Lady of Good Counsel. Are we discouraged and despondent, the thought of Our Lady of Good Hope brings fresh life to our hearts. The anxious and fretful turn trustfully to Our Lady of Peace; the sorrowful to Our Lady of Dolors; the joyous are sure of sympathy when they cast themselves in spirit at the feet of the Queen of Heaven, while in every event, trial or need men call confidently on Our Lady of Perpetual Succor.
The varieties in the rose can also, when we consider them, bring the thought of Mary before us in the different phases of her life, both on Earth and in Heaven, as well as her special characteristics. In the spotless white species who would not see her purity? in the pale blush, her virginal modesty? While her burning charity is represented in the deep damask, and her claims on our homage as our Queen in the various shades of gold. The sorrows of our Mother are well depicted by the black rose, “black but beautiful”; while in the moss-covered buds of the “rosa muscosa “species we may see the maiden Mother of Nazareth in her hidden life, screening herself from the eyes of men, veiling her perfections under her humility.
The wild rose may bring before us the thought of her days of exile in Egypt, and the buds of all the various kinds remind us of her babyhood; the tiny tea-roses or the pale blush ones, of her childhood and maidenhood; the prolific “Gloire de Dijon,” with its countless blossoms, of Mary the Mother of mankind; and the stately standard rose, whose petals seem so firmly fixed that one can scarcely believe they will ever scatter and fall, may serve as an image, though a very imperfect one, of Mary the Queen of Heaven, the delight of all the heavenly court.
Dante speaks of the rose as “the flower of sacred love,” and of Mary as “the rose wherein the Word Divine was made incarnate.” The two ideas are intertwined, for it was because her heart was so burning a furnace of divine love that it was chosen by the eternal Father as the dwelling-place of His beloved Son when He suffered Him to take up His abode in this cold, ungrateful world. Mary lavished on Him the treasures of her affections, deeply conscious though she was that even her love could bear no comparison with that of which Holy Scripture speaks as “devouring flames,” the love of the eternal Father for His only-begotten Son.
Mary, too, is likened to the rose of Sharon—a cruciferous plant, which possesses this quality that, even when seemingly dead, it will revive and expand when put in water, though it may have been gathered months and even years previously.
“Rose of the Cross, thou mystic flower.” How familiar are these words in connection with our heavenly Queen! Did she not cling to the cross of her Son, and bring forth her fairest blossoms when planted by the waters of tribulation?
So, Mother mine, may we find in the works of thy divine Son thoughts and reflections that will serve to draw us nearer to thee, His blessed Mother, and make us understand more clearly all that thou art and all that thou wouldst be to us, if we only remembered oftener thy power and thy ever-ready willingness to help us.
Mystical Rose, pray for us.
28. TOWER OF DAVID
“Thy neck is as the tower of David, which is built with bulwarks: a thousand bucklers hang upon it, all the armor of valiant men” (Canticles 4:4).
In the Little Office of the Immaculate Conception we greet Mary, saying: “Hail, city of refuge; Hail, David’s high tower, With battlements crowned, And girded with power.”
It seems a strange greeting for the Virgin Mother, yet not so when we remember she was the Mother of Him who said: “I came not to bring peace, but the sword.” It is true he often speaks of His peace, but then it is that of the warrior who has conquered his foes. “When a strong man armed keepeth his court, those things are at peace that are within.” No one entered more deeply into the truth that Jesus came to declare war with the world, and with the “prince of this word,” as He called Satan, than His blessed Mother. Hence He always found her ready for the word of command, prepared to lead a soldier’s life, to have here “no abiding city,” to dwell first in one place, then in another, to fly the country if such seemed the most prudent step at the moment, as in the flight into Egypt, to retire into Galilee out of reach of the enemies’ headquarters, or to face danger and stand bravely in the midst of foes, as on Mount Calvary.
Yet though Christ and His blessed Mother had some visible adversaries, their main enemies were, as St. Paul says, not those of “flesh and blood,” but their warfare lay with “principalities and powers, and the spirits of darkness in high places”--in other words, with Satan and his legions of devils. And it is against these that we, too, have to fight. Knowing that at times we shall be hard pressed, even perhaps to the point of being overcome, Our Lord has appointed for us a city of refuge in the person of His holy Mother.
We must remember she is a mighty conqueror, of whom the devil and his satellites stand in awe, as by her their power has been crushed and their pride humbled. To them she is “terrible as an army in battle array.” She is that strong tower to which the Spouse in the Canticles likens His beloved. She stands high, being raised above the Earth and out of their reach. She is crowned with battlements and girded with power for the protection of those who flee to her for refuge.
Let us then have recourse to this strong defender; nor need we be ashamed to do so, for we shall find that many mighty warriors have been there before us, themselves very towers of strength, who glory in proclaiming that they owe their victories to the help of Mary. We shall find in her sanctuary a thousand bucklers, the armor of valiant men, who wish thus to show their gratitude and fealty to their Queen.
Very literally, too, has this passage often been fulfilled, especially in the ages of faith, when the crusaders would fill Mary’s shrines with trophies of their valor, and kings and princes lay at her feet scepter and shield, before quitting the world, as not a few did, to give themselves in the silence of the cloister to another and more spiritual warfare; whose example St. Ignatius followed when he hung up his sword by Our Lady’s image before enlisting in her Son’s army.
Women, too, have contributed their share in attesting to Mary’s power in helping them to overcome the enemies of their souls, and have adorned her shrines with the jewels, necklaces, pendants and bracelets, the very arms they had previously counted on to assist them in their conquests over the hearts of men. May not these be classed with the arms of the strong, for surely it requires strength thus to break with the world and its seductive attractions?
There is yet another and altogether different sense in which we may gain help for ourselves in considering this simile. The Spouse in the Canticles says of His beautiful one that it is her neck that is “as the tower of David.” When we picture it as encircled with the “arms of the strong,” are we not drawn to think of the tiny arms of her sweet Babe, which were so often and so lovingly twined round His Mother’s neck? “His left hand is under my head, His right shall embrace me.” Is He not the God of might and power? Was it not from Him she drew her strength? S
t. Bernard speaks of God’s hands as being symbolical of force and liberality. Did He not support her with the one while he endowed her with the other? So then, when we feel weak, tired or weary of the conflict, let us draw nigh to this Mother with her divine Child, this city of refuge, and let us abide there until we be endued with power from on high, made strong and courageous to resume the fight and conquer our enemies.
Tower of David, pray for us.
In the Little Office of the Immaculate Conception we greet Mary, saying: “Hail, city of refuge; Hail, David’s high tower, With battlements crowned, And girded with power.”
It seems a strange greeting for the Virgin Mother, yet not so when we remember she was the Mother of Him who said: “I came not to bring peace, but the sword.” It is true he often speaks of His peace, but then it is that of the warrior who has conquered his foes. “When a strong man armed keepeth his court, those things are at peace that are within.” No one entered more deeply into the truth that Jesus came to declare war with the world, and with the “prince of this word,” as He called Satan, than His blessed Mother. Hence He always found her ready for the word of command, prepared to lead a soldier’s life, to have here “no abiding city,” to dwell first in one place, then in another, to fly the country if such seemed the most prudent step at the moment, as in the flight into Egypt, to retire into Galilee out of reach of the enemies’ headquarters, or to face danger and stand bravely in the midst of foes, as on Mount Calvary.
Yet though Christ and His blessed Mother had some visible adversaries, their main enemies were, as St. Paul says, not those of “flesh and blood,” but their warfare lay with “principalities and powers, and the spirits of darkness in high places”--in other words, with Satan and his legions of devils. And it is against these that we, too, have to fight. Knowing that at times we shall be hard pressed, even perhaps to the point of being overcome, Our Lord has appointed for us a city of refuge in the person of His holy Mother.
We must remember she is a mighty conqueror, of whom the devil and his satellites stand in awe, as by her their power has been crushed and their pride humbled. To them she is “terrible as an army in battle array.” She is that strong tower to which the Spouse in the Canticles likens His beloved. She stands high, being raised above the Earth and out of their reach. She is crowned with battlements and girded with power for the protection of those who flee to her for refuge.
Let us then have recourse to this strong defender; nor need we be ashamed to do so, for we shall find that many mighty warriors have been there before us, themselves very towers of strength, who glory in proclaiming that they owe their victories to the help of Mary. We shall find in her sanctuary a thousand bucklers, the armor of valiant men, who wish thus to show their gratitude and fealty to their Queen.
Very literally, too, has this passage often been fulfilled, especially in the ages of faith, when the crusaders would fill Mary’s shrines with trophies of their valor, and kings and princes lay at her feet scepter and shield, before quitting the world, as not a few did, to give themselves in the silence of the cloister to another and more spiritual warfare; whose example St. Ignatius followed when he hung up his sword by Our Lady’s image before enlisting in her Son’s army.
Women, too, have contributed their share in attesting to Mary’s power in helping them to overcome the enemies of their souls, and have adorned her shrines with the jewels, necklaces, pendants and bracelets, the very arms they had previously counted on to assist them in their conquests over the hearts of men. May not these be classed with the arms of the strong, for surely it requires strength thus to break with the world and its seductive attractions?
There is yet another and altogether different sense in which we may gain help for ourselves in considering this simile. The Spouse in the Canticles says of His beautiful one that it is her neck that is “as the tower of David.” When we picture it as encircled with the “arms of the strong,” are we not drawn to think of the tiny arms of her sweet Babe, which were so often and so lovingly twined round His Mother’s neck? “His left hand is under my head, His right shall embrace me.” Is He not the God of might and power? Was it not from Him she drew her strength? S
t. Bernard speaks of God’s hands as being symbolical of force and liberality. Did He not support her with the one while he endowed her with the other? So then, when we feel weak, tired or weary of the conflict, let us draw nigh to this Mother with her divine Child, this city of refuge, and let us abide there until we be endued with power from on high, made strong and courageous to resume the fight and conquer our enemies.
Tower of David, pray for us.
29. TOWER OF IVORY
“Thy neck is as a tower of ivory. . . How beautiful art thou, and how comely, My dearest, in delights!” (Canticles 7:1, 6).
Is it not like our heavenly Father to have provided for us, not only a refuge in time of active war, but a place of repose when “things are well” with us? The very title we are now considering is suggestive of such a thought, for could anything be more fitted for times of peace than a tower of ivory? The name at once conjures up a vision of beauty, of pure stainlessness, of exquisite proportions, of delicate carving and workmanship of the most finished kind—a dwelling, in fact, only fitted for royalty. Such is Mary, our Immaculate Mother, in whose heart the King of kings delighted to dwell, and whither also He loves to invite us, for has He not said to His followers: “Where I am, you also shall be”? But let us notice a few points about this snow-white tower, with its finely-wrought pinnacles and richly-carved ornaments. Fairylike as it is in its loveliness, there is nothing soft about it. Ivory is firm and durable. We can rely on its not decaying or crumbling to dust, thus symbolizing Mary’s incorruptibility. Also it is white, fit emblem of her whom it represents.
“Behold, thou art fair, O my love.” Then it is raised high above the Earth, as is she the Queen of Heaven. These qualities should teach us that even in times of consolation and comparative peace we must not become soft, lovers of ease and comfort, that we must watch carefully to preserve our souls from sin, and be ever, as it were, on our watch-tower, on the alert, lest the enemies of our souls should surprise us.
Perhaps some may think that this symbolical representation of Our Lady under the figure of a tower of ivory does not present her in so winning an aspect as some of her other titles, that it seems more stiff and cold. Well, be it so. Was there not a time when our sweetest Mother must have been almost rigid with horror and cold as death, when she stood for three long hours beneath the cross that wild, dark March day on the bleak hill of Calvary? Was it not enough to chill her even to ice to see the immortal, strong, all-sufficing Creator of the universe, who had deigned to become man to help the human race, being tortured and slain in the midst of a mocking crowd? Must not a cold perspiration, even as of death, have broken out over her whole body, and an ashy pallor spread itself over her features as she gazed up at Him, the author of her life and the only object of her love? Yes, as she stood there motionless, fearful of losing by the least movement any sigh He might send forth as the smallest indication of His will, Mary cannot have been altogether without resemblance to a pillar or tower of ivory. And on another occasion, too, though this time not standing erect as when on Calvary, but laid low by the hand of death, must Our Lady have looked like an exquisite work in the whitest and most spotless of ivory, and that was when the weeping apostles gathered round the bier of their beloved and Immaculate Mother. The following lines, penned on the passing away of a fervent religious, might be applied even more fitly to Our Lady:
The Master gave His life-blood for His sheep
In swift profusion: she, more slowly hers.
The pallid cheek and bloodless hands disclosed
The slow out-pouring in its tedious course.
The glorious consummation was revealed
In the white luster of her lifeless form.
Peaceful and unobserved her sacrifice,
Yet not for that less true or less heroic.
Exultant was she in her peacefulness
And radiant as became her bridal-day.
Was it that her pure soul discerned her Spouse
As it passed forth from her inviolate home,
And instant spread it with a gleam of joy?
But, on the whole, most will find a stronger resemblance to Our Lady, as the Tower of Ivory, in such pictures as Müller’s Immaculate Conception, where she is raised above the Earth, her whole attitude and bearing proclaiming the transcendent luster of her purity, the spotless whiteness of her unstained soul.
Tower of ivory, pray for us!
Is it not like our heavenly Father to have provided for us, not only a refuge in time of active war, but a place of repose when “things are well” with us? The very title we are now considering is suggestive of such a thought, for could anything be more fitted for times of peace than a tower of ivory? The name at once conjures up a vision of beauty, of pure stainlessness, of exquisite proportions, of delicate carving and workmanship of the most finished kind—a dwelling, in fact, only fitted for royalty. Such is Mary, our Immaculate Mother, in whose heart the King of kings delighted to dwell, and whither also He loves to invite us, for has He not said to His followers: “Where I am, you also shall be”? But let us notice a few points about this snow-white tower, with its finely-wrought pinnacles and richly-carved ornaments. Fairylike as it is in its loveliness, there is nothing soft about it. Ivory is firm and durable. We can rely on its not decaying or crumbling to dust, thus symbolizing Mary’s incorruptibility. Also it is white, fit emblem of her whom it represents.
“Behold, thou art fair, O my love.” Then it is raised high above the Earth, as is she the Queen of Heaven. These qualities should teach us that even in times of consolation and comparative peace we must not become soft, lovers of ease and comfort, that we must watch carefully to preserve our souls from sin, and be ever, as it were, on our watch-tower, on the alert, lest the enemies of our souls should surprise us.
Perhaps some may think that this symbolical representation of Our Lady under the figure of a tower of ivory does not present her in so winning an aspect as some of her other titles, that it seems more stiff and cold. Well, be it so. Was there not a time when our sweetest Mother must have been almost rigid with horror and cold as death, when she stood for three long hours beneath the cross that wild, dark March day on the bleak hill of Calvary? Was it not enough to chill her even to ice to see the immortal, strong, all-sufficing Creator of the universe, who had deigned to become man to help the human race, being tortured and slain in the midst of a mocking crowd? Must not a cold perspiration, even as of death, have broken out over her whole body, and an ashy pallor spread itself over her features as she gazed up at Him, the author of her life and the only object of her love? Yes, as she stood there motionless, fearful of losing by the least movement any sigh He might send forth as the smallest indication of His will, Mary cannot have been altogether without resemblance to a pillar or tower of ivory. And on another occasion, too, though this time not standing erect as when on Calvary, but laid low by the hand of death, must Our Lady have looked like an exquisite work in the whitest and most spotless of ivory, and that was when the weeping apostles gathered round the bier of their beloved and Immaculate Mother. The following lines, penned on the passing away of a fervent religious, might be applied even more fitly to Our Lady:
The Master gave His life-blood for His sheep
In swift profusion: she, more slowly hers.
The pallid cheek and bloodless hands disclosed
The slow out-pouring in its tedious course.
The glorious consummation was revealed
In the white luster of her lifeless form.
Peaceful and unobserved her sacrifice,
Yet not for that less true or less heroic.
Exultant was she in her peacefulness
And radiant as became her bridal-day.
Was it that her pure soul discerned her Spouse
As it passed forth from her inviolate home,
And instant spread it with a gleam of joy?
But, on the whole, most will find a stronger resemblance to Our Lady, as the Tower of Ivory, in such pictures as Müller’s Immaculate Conception, where she is raised above the Earth, her whole attitude and bearing proclaiming the transcendent luster of her purity, the spotless whiteness of her unstained soul.
Tower of ivory, pray for us!
30. HOUSE OF GOLD
“He brought me by the way of the north gate, in the sight of the house: and I saw, and behold the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord: and I fell on my face” (Ezechiel 44).
“And the spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court: and behold the house was filled with the glory of the Lord” (Ezechiel 43).
“For thus said the Lord of Hosts: Yet one little while . . . and the Desired of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory: saith the Lord of Hosts.
“The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of Hosts. Great shall be the glory of this last house more than of the first ... and in this place I will give peace” (Aggeus 2).
“Indeed the Lord is in this place ... this is no other but the House of God and the Gate of Heaven” (Genesis 29). This is the law of the house on the top of the mountain.
“All the border round about is most holy: this then is the law of the house” (Ezechiel 43),
“Glory and riches are in His house” (Psalm 111).
“My fruit is better than gold and the precious stone” (Wisdom 8).
By baptism we are made temples of the Holy Ghost, dwelling-places of God, who, being a great and mighty King, has many mansions. Each soul has its own special beauties, its own style of architecture, so to speak. No two are quite alike, some are larger, some smaller, some grander than others. It is well to remember this in dealing with souls. Yet all have certain great leading characteristics in common. All are exceedingly beautiful, though not everyone to the same extent, and their kind of beauty differs.
Each is adapted and fitted for the end for which it was made, i.e., to be the residence of a Sovereign. All are spotlessly clean and richly adorned, each in its own style. Of these homes of God, made for His pleasure, we are the keepers. But see what happens after several years have passed. Some fill the dwelling with creatures--“the more the merrier,” they think—and it is turned into a sort of third-class inn. Persons of all kinds go in and out as if it were their own.
The rich ornaments are taken down and replaced by others coarser and more objectionable to suit the tastes of the newcomers. The Master is relegated to a back room, and made to feel that His presence, though tolerated, is rather de trop. Others take a different line. The fair palace is kept clean and its beauties appreciated, but the keeper, by degrees, begins to regard them as her own. She accumulates a variety of things to add to her own comfort and renown, and when friends of the King, or perhaps His messengers, represent they are not what He would like, their remarks are unheeded, and the Master’s interference resented. He is not made to feel at home there: He has not full sway.
By degrees the keeper makes friends with some enemy of the King, who flatters her tastes, and finally she gives him full possession of the place. See then what happens. Being a rebel, he hates the King, and out of sheer spite, and to prevent the fair and beauteous temple being inhabitable for Him, he burns it down in a night, and nothing remains but a pile of blackened ruins, grand even yet, perhaps, in outline, if not utterly destroyed. Nevertheless, a perfect wreck!
Such is the history of many a soul. But not of Mary’s. Her house was of purest gold, and therefore specially coveted by the adversary, but never once did he gain the smallest footing in it. Its keeper was ever loyal to her Master, and it was always at His disposal, and none other. Let us think of some of the beauties of this temple of God, created to be His headquarters on Earth, His own especial home when He became Incarnate.
We know a mansion is always more or less rich and magnificent in proportion to the means of the builder and the rank of the one who is to inhabit it. When David wished to erect a temple to contain the ark of the covenant, he spent years gathering together the richest materials from the furthest parts of the Earth; and when we read the description of that temple, what do we find? Gold, gold, gold—the finest and purest of gold. The doors, the walls, the ceilings, all, all were overlaid with plates of gold. The cherubim also, the candlesticks, bowls and all the vessels; the nails even and tongs, to say nothing of the altar, “all were made of the finest gold” (2 Paralipomenon 3).
Yet David and his son Solomon were but weak mortals, and, in spite of their great power and prestige in the world, their resources, after all, were limited. But when God set Himself to prepare a dwelling, not for the ark of the covenant, but for His only begotten Son, what would He not do for it?—He who is all-powerful, and of whose treasures there is no end? Truly, when His work was done, the angels would exclaim in admiration: “Surely this is the House of God and the Gate of Heaven!” Glory and riches are in thy house, O Mary. “For thus saith the Lord of hosts: yet one little while, and I will move the Heaven and the Earth, and the sea and the dry land. And I will move all nations, and the Desired of all nations shall come, and I will fill His house with glory ... The silver is Mine, the gold is Mine, saith the Lord of Hosts. Great shall be the glory of this last house more than of the first ... and in this place I will give peace” (Aggeus 2).
Yes, Mother mine, thy glory and beauty were greater than Eve’s; neither was thy heart a place of strife, for the powers of darkness had no entrance there, so it was a fit dwelling for the Prince of Peace. “Holiness becometh Thy house, O Lord” (Psalm 92). “The Most High hath sanctified His own tabernacle” (Psalm 14). “Hail, stately palace of kings, most stainless, purest house of the most High God, adorned with His royal splendor and opened to all.” Let us often be found hovering round this house of God, that our ideas of beauty and our tastes be elevated and made conformable to that of the divine Architect of that fair temple. “Blessed is the man that watcheth daily at my gates, and waiteth at the posts of my doors” (Proverbs 8).
Let us model our own hearts on hers, that when Our Lord comes to visit us He may find a pleasant home—the “Jucundam mansionem,” spoken of in the collect of St. Gertrude’s Mass, a house where He will ever be met with a smile of welcome, and made to feel that all it contains is under His undivided sway, that the guests invited there are His friends, and are loved for His sake.
Then, when our exile is over, we may hope to be admitted to His celestial city, whose praises we shall find in the Apocalypse, and where there are many mansions, of which Mary’s Heart, that house of gold, will still be the richest and most magnificent.
House of Gold, pray for us.
“And the spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court: and behold the house was filled with the glory of the Lord” (Ezechiel 43).
“For thus said the Lord of Hosts: Yet one little while . . . and the Desired of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory: saith the Lord of Hosts.
“The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of Hosts. Great shall be the glory of this last house more than of the first ... and in this place I will give peace” (Aggeus 2).
“Indeed the Lord is in this place ... this is no other but the House of God and the Gate of Heaven” (Genesis 29). This is the law of the house on the top of the mountain.
“All the border round about is most holy: this then is the law of the house” (Ezechiel 43),
“Glory and riches are in His house” (Psalm 111).
“My fruit is better than gold and the precious stone” (Wisdom 8).
By baptism we are made temples of the Holy Ghost, dwelling-places of God, who, being a great and mighty King, has many mansions. Each soul has its own special beauties, its own style of architecture, so to speak. No two are quite alike, some are larger, some smaller, some grander than others. It is well to remember this in dealing with souls. Yet all have certain great leading characteristics in common. All are exceedingly beautiful, though not everyone to the same extent, and their kind of beauty differs.
Each is adapted and fitted for the end for which it was made, i.e., to be the residence of a Sovereign. All are spotlessly clean and richly adorned, each in its own style. Of these homes of God, made for His pleasure, we are the keepers. But see what happens after several years have passed. Some fill the dwelling with creatures--“the more the merrier,” they think—and it is turned into a sort of third-class inn. Persons of all kinds go in and out as if it were their own.
The rich ornaments are taken down and replaced by others coarser and more objectionable to suit the tastes of the newcomers. The Master is relegated to a back room, and made to feel that His presence, though tolerated, is rather de trop. Others take a different line. The fair palace is kept clean and its beauties appreciated, but the keeper, by degrees, begins to regard them as her own. She accumulates a variety of things to add to her own comfort and renown, and when friends of the King, or perhaps His messengers, represent they are not what He would like, their remarks are unheeded, and the Master’s interference resented. He is not made to feel at home there: He has not full sway.
By degrees the keeper makes friends with some enemy of the King, who flatters her tastes, and finally she gives him full possession of the place. See then what happens. Being a rebel, he hates the King, and out of sheer spite, and to prevent the fair and beauteous temple being inhabitable for Him, he burns it down in a night, and nothing remains but a pile of blackened ruins, grand even yet, perhaps, in outline, if not utterly destroyed. Nevertheless, a perfect wreck!
Such is the history of many a soul. But not of Mary’s. Her house was of purest gold, and therefore specially coveted by the adversary, but never once did he gain the smallest footing in it. Its keeper was ever loyal to her Master, and it was always at His disposal, and none other. Let us think of some of the beauties of this temple of God, created to be His headquarters on Earth, His own especial home when He became Incarnate.
We know a mansion is always more or less rich and magnificent in proportion to the means of the builder and the rank of the one who is to inhabit it. When David wished to erect a temple to contain the ark of the covenant, he spent years gathering together the richest materials from the furthest parts of the Earth; and when we read the description of that temple, what do we find? Gold, gold, gold—the finest and purest of gold. The doors, the walls, the ceilings, all, all were overlaid with plates of gold. The cherubim also, the candlesticks, bowls and all the vessels; the nails even and tongs, to say nothing of the altar, “all were made of the finest gold” (2 Paralipomenon 3).
Yet David and his son Solomon were but weak mortals, and, in spite of their great power and prestige in the world, their resources, after all, were limited. But when God set Himself to prepare a dwelling, not for the ark of the covenant, but for His only begotten Son, what would He not do for it?—He who is all-powerful, and of whose treasures there is no end? Truly, when His work was done, the angels would exclaim in admiration: “Surely this is the House of God and the Gate of Heaven!” Glory and riches are in thy house, O Mary. “For thus saith the Lord of hosts: yet one little while, and I will move the Heaven and the Earth, and the sea and the dry land. And I will move all nations, and the Desired of all nations shall come, and I will fill His house with glory ... The silver is Mine, the gold is Mine, saith the Lord of Hosts. Great shall be the glory of this last house more than of the first ... and in this place I will give peace” (Aggeus 2).
Yes, Mother mine, thy glory and beauty were greater than Eve’s; neither was thy heart a place of strife, for the powers of darkness had no entrance there, so it was a fit dwelling for the Prince of Peace. “Holiness becometh Thy house, O Lord” (Psalm 92). “The Most High hath sanctified His own tabernacle” (Psalm 14). “Hail, stately palace of kings, most stainless, purest house of the most High God, adorned with His royal splendor and opened to all.” Let us often be found hovering round this house of God, that our ideas of beauty and our tastes be elevated and made conformable to that of the divine Architect of that fair temple. “Blessed is the man that watcheth daily at my gates, and waiteth at the posts of my doors” (Proverbs 8).
Let us model our own hearts on hers, that when Our Lord comes to visit us He may find a pleasant home—the “Jucundam mansionem,” spoken of in the collect of St. Gertrude’s Mass, a house where He will ever be met with a smile of welcome, and made to feel that all it contains is under His undivided sway, that the guests invited there are His friends, and are loved for His sake.
Then, when our exile is over, we may hope to be admitted to His celestial city, whose praises we shall find in the Apocalypse, and where there are many mansions, of which Mary’s Heart, that house of gold, will still be the richest and most magnificent.
House of Gold, pray for us.
31. ARK OF THE COVENANT
“I entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest Mine” (Ezechiel 16:8)
“And for the altar of incense he gave the purest gold . . . the cherubim spreading their wings, and covering the ark of the covenant of the Lord” (1 Paralipomenon 28:18).
David said to Nathan the prophet, “Dost thou see that I dwell in a house of cedar, and the Ark of the Lord is lodged within skins?” (2 Kings 7) and henceforth his one great aim in life was to procure a fitting domicile for the Ark of the Lord, which has ever been regarded in the Church as a type of Our Lady, the incorruptible wood of which it was formed symbolizing her preservation from all sin, Original or Actual, and the pure gold that covered it within and without, the ardent love of God that burned in her heart, and the charity towards her neighbor that shone in all her outward actions. “If to the Ark, which was the type and image of thy sanctity,” writes St. Methodius, a martyr in the time of Diocletian, “such honor was paid by God, that to no one but to the priestly order was access to it allowed to behold it—the veil shutting it off and keeping the vestibule as that of a queen—how great and what sort of a veneration is due to thee from us, who are of all the least, to thee, who art indeed a queen; to thee, who art in truth the living ark of God, the Lawgiver; to thee, who hast verily become the Heaven that contains Him who can be contained of none!”
The Ark of the Covenant contained the tables of the law, the rod of Aaron, and some portions of the heavenly manna with which God fed His people in the desert. On Mary’s heart were engraved the commandments of God and every detail of His holy laws. She was herself typified by the blossoming rod budding forth the Savior, the flower of the field. And did she not bear within herself more than the manna—even that which it represented, the Living Bread which came down from Heaven, the Bread of angels, containing within itself all sweetness, the food of our souls, Jesus, who dwells with us in the Blessed Sacrament? Well might she invite her children to draw near and partake of that divine Food, saying: “Come, eat my bread, and drink my wine, which I have mingled for you” (Proverbs 9).
Did not Our Lord draw from her substance His virginal flesh and His precious blood, that wheat and wine which bring forth virgins? St. Peter Damian says that, as it was Eve who urged man to take the forbidden fruit which brought to him death, so it was suitable that Mary should invite us to eat the Bread of Life. Eve’s fruit deprived us of the heavenly delights of the eternal banquet in the house of God; Mary has given us food which opens to us the gates of Heaven, and makes us worthy to be seated for ever at the table of the King of angels.
St. Ephrem, in a devotional sermon on the Nativity, makes Our Lady exclaim: “I shall not be jealous, my Son, that Thou art with me, and also with all men. Be Thou God to him that professeth Thee, and be Thou Lord to him that serveth Thee, and be Brother to him that loveth Thee, that Thou mayest gain all . . Hast Thou shown me alone Thy beauty in two forms? Let Bread shadow forth Thee, and also the mind; dwell also in Bread, and in the eaters thereof. In secret, and openly, too, may Thy Church see Thee, as well as Thy Mother. He that hateth Thy Bread is like unto him that hateth Thy Body. . . Yet Thy visible Bread is far more precious than Thy Body. For Thy Body even unbelievers have seen, but they have not seen Thy living Bread” (St. Ephrem, Ser. in Nat. Dom.).
Though David was not allowed the satisfaction of himself building the temple that was to contain the Ark of the Covenant, he did his best to honor it in other ways, notably by the grand procession he organized to convey it to the temporary resting-place he had prepared for it, when he went forth with the captains of thousands, the leaders of the people, with seven choirs, and trumpets and cymbals and other musical instruments, to meet and accompany it, himself dancing with all his might to testify the joy that was in his heart. Did not all this prefigure the processions which have ever played so large a part in the Church’s liturgy, and by which the faithful give testimony to their loyal love and devotion to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and to His holy Mother? When Solomon’s temple was completed, the Ark was again carried to its new abode; this time with even greater solemnity was it brought to the place prepared for it under the wings of the cherubim, and after it was placed “the House of God was filled with a cloud ... for the glory of the Lord had filled the House of God” (2 Paralipomenon 5).
So when Mary was established in her humble home of Nazareth, where the angels hovered round and over her, guarding her lovingly from all evil with their golden wings, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity Himself came and took up His abode within her, and the holy house was truly filled with His glory. But the grandest of all processions in honor of the Ark of the Covenant was that which took place at Mary’s Assumption, when the angels came in crowds to carry her bodily to the heavenly Jerusalem.
St. John Damascene describes the scene so graphically in a sermon on the Assumption that we cannot do better than give his own words. “This day,” he says, “the holy and animated Ark of the living God, which had held within it its own Maker, is borne to rest in that temple of the Lord, which is not made with hands. David, whence it sprang, leapeth before it, and in company with him the angels dance, the archangels sing aloud, the virtues ascribe glory, the principalities shout for joy, the powers make merry, the dominations rejoice, the thrones keep holiday, the cherubim utter praise, and the seraphim proclaim its glory.”
Would we wish to know something of its final resting-place, made without hands, the abode prepared by God for the Mother who had given Him home and shelter when on Earth, let us refer to St. John’s vision, as described in the Apocalypse, which makes the glories of the temple of the earthly Jerusalem pale into insignificance. The foundations are all precious stones, the streets and the city itself of pure gold, and the twelve gates, each made of one single pearl, fit entrances for the Mother and friends of the meek Lamb of God, the humble Babe of Bethlehem: for the pearl is emblematic of humility.
Let us practice that virtue if we wish to join the pure “Ark of the Law” in her heavenly abode, and let us keep a place ever prepared in our hearts to receive Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. May He find, when He enters them, that the love of His commandments, especially the greatest of all, the love of God and man, is deeply graven therein.
Ark of the Covenant, pray for us.
“And for the altar of incense he gave the purest gold . . . the cherubim spreading their wings, and covering the ark of the covenant of the Lord” (1 Paralipomenon 28:18).
David said to Nathan the prophet, “Dost thou see that I dwell in a house of cedar, and the Ark of the Lord is lodged within skins?” (2 Kings 7) and henceforth his one great aim in life was to procure a fitting domicile for the Ark of the Lord, which has ever been regarded in the Church as a type of Our Lady, the incorruptible wood of which it was formed symbolizing her preservation from all sin, Original or Actual, and the pure gold that covered it within and without, the ardent love of God that burned in her heart, and the charity towards her neighbor that shone in all her outward actions. “If to the Ark, which was the type and image of thy sanctity,” writes St. Methodius, a martyr in the time of Diocletian, “such honor was paid by God, that to no one but to the priestly order was access to it allowed to behold it—the veil shutting it off and keeping the vestibule as that of a queen—how great and what sort of a veneration is due to thee from us, who are of all the least, to thee, who art indeed a queen; to thee, who art in truth the living ark of God, the Lawgiver; to thee, who hast verily become the Heaven that contains Him who can be contained of none!”
The Ark of the Covenant contained the tables of the law, the rod of Aaron, and some portions of the heavenly manna with which God fed His people in the desert. On Mary’s heart were engraved the commandments of God and every detail of His holy laws. She was herself typified by the blossoming rod budding forth the Savior, the flower of the field. And did she not bear within herself more than the manna—even that which it represented, the Living Bread which came down from Heaven, the Bread of angels, containing within itself all sweetness, the food of our souls, Jesus, who dwells with us in the Blessed Sacrament? Well might she invite her children to draw near and partake of that divine Food, saying: “Come, eat my bread, and drink my wine, which I have mingled for you” (Proverbs 9).
Did not Our Lord draw from her substance His virginal flesh and His precious blood, that wheat and wine which bring forth virgins? St. Peter Damian says that, as it was Eve who urged man to take the forbidden fruit which brought to him death, so it was suitable that Mary should invite us to eat the Bread of Life. Eve’s fruit deprived us of the heavenly delights of the eternal banquet in the house of God; Mary has given us food which opens to us the gates of Heaven, and makes us worthy to be seated for ever at the table of the King of angels.
St. Ephrem, in a devotional sermon on the Nativity, makes Our Lady exclaim: “I shall not be jealous, my Son, that Thou art with me, and also with all men. Be Thou God to him that professeth Thee, and be Thou Lord to him that serveth Thee, and be Brother to him that loveth Thee, that Thou mayest gain all . . Hast Thou shown me alone Thy beauty in two forms? Let Bread shadow forth Thee, and also the mind; dwell also in Bread, and in the eaters thereof. In secret, and openly, too, may Thy Church see Thee, as well as Thy Mother. He that hateth Thy Bread is like unto him that hateth Thy Body. . . Yet Thy visible Bread is far more precious than Thy Body. For Thy Body even unbelievers have seen, but they have not seen Thy living Bread” (St. Ephrem, Ser. in Nat. Dom.).
Though David was not allowed the satisfaction of himself building the temple that was to contain the Ark of the Covenant, he did his best to honor it in other ways, notably by the grand procession he organized to convey it to the temporary resting-place he had prepared for it, when he went forth with the captains of thousands, the leaders of the people, with seven choirs, and trumpets and cymbals and other musical instruments, to meet and accompany it, himself dancing with all his might to testify the joy that was in his heart. Did not all this prefigure the processions which have ever played so large a part in the Church’s liturgy, and by which the faithful give testimony to their loyal love and devotion to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and to His holy Mother? When Solomon’s temple was completed, the Ark was again carried to its new abode; this time with even greater solemnity was it brought to the place prepared for it under the wings of the cherubim, and after it was placed “the House of God was filled with a cloud ... for the glory of the Lord had filled the House of God” (2 Paralipomenon 5).
So when Mary was established in her humble home of Nazareth, where the angels hovered round and over her, guarding her lovingly from all evil with their golden wings, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity Himself came and took up His abode within her, and the holy house was truly filled with His glory. But the grandest of all processions in honor of the Ark of the Covenant was that which took place at Mary’s Assumption, when the angels came in crowds to carry her bodily to the heavenly Jerusalem.
St. John Damascene describes the scene so graphically in a sermon on the Assumption that we cannot do better than give his own words. “This day,” he says, “the holy and animated Ark of the living God, which had held within it its own Maker, is borne to rest in that temple of the Lord, which is not made with hands. David, whence it sprang, leapeth before it, and in company with him the angels dance, the archangels sing aloud, the virtues ascribe glory, the principalities shout for joy, the powers make merry, the dominations rejoice, the thrones keep holiday, the cherubim utter praise, and the seraphim proclaim its glory.”
Would we wish to know something of its final resting-place, made without hands, the abode prepared by God for the Mother who had given Him home and shelter when on Earth, let us refer to St. John’s vision, as described in the Apocalypse, which makes the glories of the temple of the earthly Jerusalem pale into insignificance. The foundations are all precious stones, the streets and the city itself of pure gold, and the twelve gates, each made of one single pearl, fit entrances for the Mother and friends of the meek Lamb of God, the humble Babe of Bethlehem: for the pearl is emblematic of humility.
Let us practice that virtue if we wish to join the pure “Ark of the Law” in her heavenly abode, and let us keep a place ever prepared in our hearts to receive Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. May He find, when He enters them, that the love of His commandments, especially the greatest of all, the love of God and man, is deeply graven therein.
Ark of the Covenant, pray for us.
32. GATE OF HEAVEN
“He brought me to the gate that looked towards the east. And behold the glory of the God of Israel came in by the way of the east, and His voice was like the noise of many waters, and the Earth shone with His majesty” (Ezechiel 43:1-2).
“And He brought me back to the way of the gate of the outward sanctuary, which looked towards the east, and it was shut. And the Lord said to me: This gate shall be shut, and no man shall pass through it: because the Lord the God of Israel hath entered in by it, and it shall be shut. For the Prince, the Prince Himself, shall sit in it, to eat bread before the Lord: He shall enter in by the porch of the gate, and shall go out by the same way” (Ezechiel 44:1-3).
“Now, therefore, ye children, hear me: Blessed are they that keep my ways. Blessed is the man that heareth me, and that watcheth daily at my gates, and waiteth at the posts of my doors. He that shall find me shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord” (Proverbs 8:33-35).
“Gate of Heaven.” This gate, according to the Fathers of the Church, is Mary, which the Prince of Peace claims entirely as His own. She is the Eastern Gate through which He, the Orient, came to us; but she is also the Gate of the Saints, the Golden Gate, the Gate called Beautiful, the Gate of
Heaven, through which we go to Him. “Blessed is the man who waiteth at the posts of her doors.” How Mary must watch for the souls that are dear to her, that she may present them to Jesus! We read of Anna, the mother of young Tobias, that when her son was absent she “sat beside the way daily, at the top of a hill, from whence she could see afar,” always hoping to catch sight of him in the distance; and has our Mother Mary a less loving heart for her children, or is she less solicitous to have them near her? How it must rejoice her when we hasten to the release of the holy souls from Purgatory, paying their debts by our prayers and penances, and above all, by the indulgences we can gain so easily!
Do we always realize what power lies in our hands—the power to unlock the gates of Purgatory, to free its prisoners from their bonds, and procure their speedy admittance to Paradise, having paid their debts with the Precious Blood, of which the Church has put it in our power to avail ourselves on very easy conditions? At every Communion we can gain at least one plenary indulgence by saying the crucifix prayer, and praying for the intentions of the Holy Father. Anyone who has made the Heroic Act can always gain a second, to say nothing of those which come with various feasts, or are attached to the scapulars we wear, or to any confraternities or orders, to which we may have the privilege of belonging.
Then the partial indulgences, of which we can avail ourselves at all times are almost countless. Aspirations, which may be said in a moment, but which bring more than momentary relief to those burning in the expiatory flames; the fifty or a hundred days’ indulgence, so gained and offered for them, may be all that is needed to complete the ransom of some poor soul and set it free to wing its flight towards the Gate of the Saints. Those who wear the blue scapulars of the Immaculate Conception have almost untold opportunities of performing this work of mercy, for if merely visiting the imprisoned is accounted as a work of mercy, how much greater a one must it be to cancel their debts, set them free, and place them in a state perhaps of eternal happiness?
We can scarcely calculate the riches that are thus put in our hands by Holy Church. Let us avail ourselves of them freely if we wish to promote God’s glory and give joy to the heart of His Mother. Hearken to her saying to us: “Let them that dwell about Sion come and remember the captivity of my sons and daughters: which the Eternal bath brought upon them. For I nourished them with joy, but sent them away with weeping and mourning. . . . My delicate ones have walked rough ways, for they were taken away as a flock made a prey by the enemy” (Baruch 4). “Let the sighing of the prisoners come in before thee” (Psalm 78).
How grieved must Our Lady be to see those souls so dear to her, for whom she has done so much in life, condemned, by their own carelessness and misuse of the gifts bestowed on them, to a period of exile more or less long, during which they will have to walk in ways of much rougher penance than would have sufficed to satisfy for their transgressions had they only had more courage in mortifying themselves when on Earth, and more true and abiding sorrow for sin!
Then listen to the angels who accompany the souls we have rescued from Purgatory, joyously crying out to our “Arise! ... Look about thee ... and behold Lady, ever on the watch for her children; the joy that cometh to thee from God. For behold thy children come whom thou sentest away ... They come ... at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing for the honor of God” (Baruch 4). “For they went from thee on foot, led by the enemies, but the Lord will bring them to thee, exalted with honor as children of the kingdom” (Baruch 5)
“The redeemed of the Lord shall return and shall come into Sion with praise, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and mourning shall flee away” (Isaias 35). With what joy will Mary advance to greet these souls so dear to her, opening her arms to fold them in her motherly embrace, and conducting them lovingly to the feet of her divine Son, for the glory of whom she has watched over and cared for so tenderly these chosen children of the kingdom! And will not they in their turn salute her, as they often did on Earth in the words of her anthem: “Salve, Porta, ex qua mundo lux est orta,” but with how much clearer an appreciation of what they say! Then will angels and saints join in one glad chorus in honor of Mary, the gate of Heaven, singing:
“Blest guardian of all virgin souls,
Portal of bliss to man forgiven,
Pure Mother of Almighty God,
Thou hope of Earth and joy of Heaven!
Fair lily, found among the thorns,
Most beauteous dove with wings of gold,
Rod from whose tender root upsprang
That healing flower long since foretold!
O Jesu, born of virgin bright,
Immortal glory be to Thee.
Praise to the Father, infinite,
And Holy Ghost eternally. Amen”
(Breviary hymn, Father Caswell’s translation).
Gate of Heaven, pray for us.
“And He brought me back to the way of the gate of the outward sanctuary, which looked towards the east, and it was shut. And the Lord said to me: This gate shall be shut, and no man shall pass through it: because the Lord the God of Israel hath entered in by it, and it shall be shut. For the Prince, the Prince Himself, shall sit in it, to eat bread before the Lord: He shall enter in by the porch of the gate, and shall go out by the same way” (Ezechiel 44:1-3).
“Now, therefore, ye children, hear me: Blessed are they that keep my ways. Blessed is the man that heareth me, and that watcheth daily at my gates, and waiteth at the posts of my doors. He that shall find me shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord” (Proverbs 8:33-35).
“Gate of Heaven.” This gate, according to the Fathers of the Church, is Mary, which the Prince of Peace claims entirely as His own. She is the Eastern Gate through which He, the Orient, came to us; but she is also the Gate of the Saints, the Golden Gate, the Gate called Beautiful, the Gate of
Heaven, through which we go to Him. “Blessed is the man who waiteth at the posts of her doors.” How Mary must watch for the souls that are dear to her, that she may present them to Jesus! We read of Anna, the mother of young Tobias, that when her son was absent she “sat beside the way daily, at the top of a hill, from whence she could see afar,” always hoping to catch sight of him in the distance; and has our Mother Mary a less loving heart for her children, or is she less solicitous to have them near her? How it must rejoice her when we hasten to the release of the holy souls from Purgatory, paying their debts by our prayers and penances, and above all, by the indulgences we can gain so easily!
Do we always realize what power lies in our hands—the power to unlock the gates of Purgatory, to free its prisoners from their bonds, and procure their speedy admittance to Paradise, having paid their debts with the Precious Blood, of which the Church has put it in our power to avail ourselves on very easy conditions? At every Communion we can gain at least one plenary indulgence by saying the crucifix prayer, and praying for the intentions of the Holy Father. Anyone who has made the Heroic Act can always gain a second, to say nothing of those which come with various feasts, or are attached to the scapulars we wear, or to any confraternities or orders, to which we may have the privilege of belonging.
Then the partial indulgences, of which we can avail ourselves at all times are almost countless. Aspirations, which may be said in a moment, but which bring more than momentary relief to those burning in the expiatory flames; the fifty or a hundred days’ indulgence, so gained and offered for them, may be all that is needed to complete the ransom of some poor soul and set it free to wing its flight towards the Gate of the Saints. Those who wear the blue scapulars of the Immaculate Conception have almost untold opportunities of performing this work of mercy, for if merely visiting the imprisoned is accounted as a work of mercy, how much greater a one must it be to cancel their debts, set them free, and place them in a state perhaps of eternal happiness?
We can scarcely calculate the riches that are thus put in our hands by Holy Church. Let us avail ourselves of them freely if we wish to promote God’s glory and give joy to the heart of His Mother. Hearken to her saying to us: “Let them that dwell about Sion come and remember the captivity of my sons and daughters: which the Eternal bath brought upon them. For I nourished them with joy, but sent them away with weeping and mourning. . . . My delicate ones have walked rough ways, for they were taken away as a flock made a prey by the enemy” (Baruch 4). “Let the sighing of the prisoners come in before thee” (Psalm 78).
How grieved must Our Lady be to see those souls so dear to her, for whom she has done so much in life, condemned, by their own carelessness and misuse of the gifts bestowed on them, to a period of exile more or less long, during which they will have to walk in ways of much rougher penance than would have sufficed to satisfy for their transgressions had they only had more courage in mortifying themselves when on Earth, and more true and abiding sorrow for sin!
Then listen to the angels who accompany the souls we have rescued from Purgatory, joyously crying out to our “Arise! ... Look about thee ... and behold Lady, ever on the watch for her children; the joy that cometh to thee from God. For behold thy children come whom thou sentest away ... They come ... at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing for the honor of God” (Baruch 4). “For they went from thee on foot, led by the enemies, but the Lord will bring them to thee, exalted with honor as children of the kingdom” (Baruch 5)
“The redeemed of the Lord shall return and shall come into Sion with praise, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and mourning shall flee away” (Isaias 35). With what joy will Mary advance to greet these souls so dear to her, opening her arms to fold them in her motherly embrace, and conducting them lovingly to the feet of her divine Son, for the glory of whom she has watched over and cared for so tenderly these chosen children of the kingdom! And will not they in their turn salute her, as they often did on Earth in the words of her anthem: “Salve, Porta, ex qua mundo lux est orta,” but with how much clearer an appreciation of what they say! Then will angels and saints join in one glad chorus in honor of Mary, the gate of Heaven, singing:
“Blest guardian of all virgin souls,
Portal of bliss to man forgiven,
Pure Mother of Almighty God,
Thou hope of Earth and joy of Heaven!
Fair lily, found among the thorns,
Most beauteous dove with wings of gold,
Rod from whose tender root upsprang
That healing flower long since foretold!
O Jesu, born of virgin bright,
Immortal glory be to Thee.
Praise to the Father, infinite,
And Holy Ghost eternally. Amen”
(Breviary hymn, Father Caswell’s translation).
Gate of Heaven, pray for us.
33. MORNING STAR
“I made a great light to rise in the Heaven” (Ecclesiasticus 14).
“I will not hide from you the mysteries of God, but will seek her out from the beginning of her birth, and bring the knowledge of her to light” (Wisdom 6:24).
“She is more beautiful than the sun and above all the order of the stars, being compared with the light she is found before it ... I loved her above health and beauty, and chose to have her instead of light, for her light cannot be put out. For she is the brightness of eternal light” (Wisdom 7:29, 10, 26).
“A great sign appeared in Heaven, a woman clothed with the sun” (Apocalypse 12). St. Bernard writes: “What starry splendor flasheth in the birth of Mary! ... That is a head worthy to be crowned with stars, whose own glory is greater than theirs and rather giveth than receiveth luster from them. Why should she not have stars for her crown who hath the sun for her clothing?” (St. Bernard on Apocalypse 12).
Our Lady, like the morning star which receives its light from the sun, shines with the reflected radiance of the Sun of justice. And as the morning star heralds the approach of the orb of day, not yet visible to the Earth, so Mary at her birth foreshadowed the coming of Him who spoke of Himself as the light of the world!
What joy that nativity caused, not only her aged parents, who were doubtless made aware in some way that their babe was one blessed in a special manner by God, but also to the angels, who, sharing their Creator’s love for the children of men, and knowing He had said His delight was to be with them, would exult that at last the day was dawning when His longing to be amongst them would be gratified! Her own guardian angel bending over her in her little cot would murmur softly to himself, “God will show His brightness in thee to every one under Heaven.” While others hovering round to honor their future queen would sing, “She is more beautiful than the sun, and above all the order of the stars; being compared with the light she is found before it, for after this cometh night . . . but her light cannot be put out” (Wisdom 7).
These celestial intelligences were aware that the material firmament would one day pass away, that the stars would fall from Heaven and the sun be darkened, but they knew that Mary’s brilliancy, having a never-ending source, could not be extinguished, “for she is the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God’s majesty, and the image of His goodness.” Nor were the heavenly spirits and her holy parents the only ones to rejoice in the birth of Mary. In the office of September 8th we sing: “Thy nativity, O virgin Mother of God, was a harbinger of joy to the whole world.”
And as year after year and century after century roll by, Mary’s children and devoted servants are gladdened and their hearts made lightsome by the celebration of the great event when that morning star arose which was to bring hope to the poor fallen race of man. Rightly do we salute this shining herald under the title of Our Lady of Light. St. John Eudes, commenting on the words, “A great sign appeared in Heaven, a woman clothed with the sun,” says: “She appeared in the heavens because she came from Heaven, because she is the masterpiece of Heaven, the empress of Heaven, the glory and joy of Heaven; in her there is naught that is not celestial, and even while dwelling corporeally on Earth, her mind, thoughts, heart and affections were wholly and entirely in Heaven” (Le Coeur Admirable, p. 2).
We read in the prophecy of Baruch, that when God called on the stars, they replied: “Here we are, and they shined forth with cheerfulness to Him that made them.” There is something very invigorating in the picture thus presented to our mind—a vision of hearty loyalty, and ready, willing obedience to the will of the Creator. Mary, who was above all the orders of the stars, was not surpassed by them in these qualities, as we see in the mystery of the Annunciation. God could always count on her ready and cheerful co-operation with His divine will. Can He so count on ours, or do we carry out His injunctions in a slow, dismal, slavish spirit?
As the morning star becomes at times the evening one, and is visible for a period after the setting of the sun, so Mary was left on Earth for some years after the Ascension of her divine Son to illuminate the infant Church by her words and example. “She was to them for a covert by day and for the light of stars by night” (Wisdom 10). How the Apostles and the faithful would love to gather round her and see in her venerable features, lit up with the love of God, a reflection of that divine beauty they had loved to gaze on in the countenance of their Lord and Master, the Lamb that was slain, and who not only was the light of this world, but by whose brilliancy, of which some of them had had a glimpse on Mount Thabor, the world to come is lit up! “And the Lamb is the lamp thereof.” Of all those who will reflect His rays throughout the long ages of eternity none will do so to the degree of His Immaculate Mother, who will shine with a beauty of which we can form no conception.
“Before the splendor of that light
The very sun to darkness turns.”
Did not Jesus, when He appeared to St. John at Patmos, say: “He that shall overcome and keep My works to the end, I will give him power over the nations. . . As I have received of My Father, and I will give Him the morning star”? As before leaving this world He gave His holy Mother to those who loved Him, so on those who
persevere to the end in His love will He again bestow that priceless gift, and when we cross the threshold of the heavenly kingdom we may hope that Mary’s loving arms will be stretched wide open to receive us.
O Mother mine, our fair and beauteous morning star, O wondrous star, which brought forth a sun, to quote the words of the St. John Eudes, teach us so to keep our souls free from stains of sin that we may in our measure and degree reflect some of the brightness and beauty of the Sun of Justice; pray, too, that we may fulfil His injunction, and so let our light shine before men that they may glorify our Father who is in Heaven.
Morning Star, pray for us.
“I will not hide from you the mysteries of God, but will seek her out from the beginning of her birth, and bring the knowledge of her to light” (Wisdom 6:24).
“She is more beautiful than the sun and above all the order of the stars, being compared with the light she is found before it ... I loved her above health and beauty, and chose to have her instead of light, for her light cannot be put out. For she is the brightness of eternal light” (Wisdom 7:29, 10, 26).
“A great sign appeared in Heaven, a woman clothed with the sun” (Apocalypse 12). St. Bernard writes: “What starry splendor flasheth in the birth of Mary! ... That is a head worthy to be crowned with stars, whose own glory is greater than theirs and rather giveth than receiveth luster from them. Why should she not have stars for her crown who hath the sun for her clothing?” (St. Bernard on Apocalypse 12).
Our Lady, like the morning star which receives its light from the sun, shines with the reflected radiance of the Sun of justice. And as the morning star heralds the approach of the orb of day, not yet visible to the Earth, so Mary at her birth foreshadowed the coming of Him who spoke of Himself as the light of the world!
What joy that nativity caused, not only her aged parents, who were doubtless made aware in some way that their babe was one blessed in a special manner by God, but also to the angels, who, sharing their Creator’s love for the children of men, and knowing He had said His delight was to be with them, would exult that at last the day was dawning when His longing to be amongst them would be gratified! Her own guardian angel bending over her in her little cot would murmur softly to himself, “God will show His brightness in thee to every one under Heaven.” While others hovering round to honor their future queen would sing, “She is more beautiful than the sun, and above all the order of the stars; being compared with the light she is found before it, for after this cometh night . . . but her light cannot be put out” (Wisdom 7).
These celestial intelligences were aware that the material firmament would one day pass away, that the stars would fall from Heaven and the sun be darkened, but they knew that Mary’s brilliancy, having a never-ending source, could not be extinguished, “for she is the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God’s majesty, and the image of His goodness.” Nor were the heavenly spirits and her holy parents the only ones to rejoice in the birth of Mary. In the office of September 8th we sing: “Thy nativity, O virgin Mother of God, was a harbinger of joy to the whole world.”
And as year after year and century after century roll by, Mary’s children and devoted servants are gladdened and their hearts made lightsome by the celebration of the great event when that morning star arose which was to bring hope to the poor fallen race of man. Rightly do we salute this shining herald under the title of Our Lady of Light. St. John Eudes, commenting on the words, “A great sign appeared in Heaven, a woman clothed with the sun,” says: “She appeared in the heavens because she came from Heaven, because she is the masterpiece of Heaven, the empress of Heaven, the glory and joy of Heaven; in her there is naught that is not celestial, and even while dwelling corporeally on Earth, her mind, thoughts, heart and affections were wholly and entirely in Heaven” (Le Coeur Admirable, p. 2).
We read in the prophecy of Baruch, that when God called on the stars, they replied: “Here we are, and they shined forth with cheerfulness to Him that made them.” There is something very invigorating in the picture thus presented to our mind—a vision of hearty loyalty, and ready, willing obedience to the will of the Creator. Mary, who was above all the orders of the stars, was not surpassed by them in these qualities, as we see in the mystery of the Annunciation. God could always count on her ready and cheerful co-operation with His divine will. Can He so count on ours, or do we carry out His injunctions in a slow, dismal, slavish spirit?
As the morning star becomes at times the evening one, and is visible for a period after the setting of the sun, so Mary was left on Earth for some years after the Ascension of her divine Son to illuminate the infant Church by her words and example. “She was to them for a covert by day and for the light of stars by night” (Wisdom 10). How the Apostles and the faithful would love to gather round her and see in her venerable features, lit up with the love of God, a reflection of that divine beauty they had loved to gaze on in the countenance of their Lord and Master, the Lamb that was slain, and who not only was the light of this world, but by whose brilliancy, of which some of them had had a glimpse on Mount Thabor, the world to come is lit up! “And the Lamb is the lamp thereof.” Of all those who will reflect His rays throughout the long ages of eternity none will do so to the degree of His Immaculate Mother, who will shine with a beauty of which we can form no conception.
“Before the splendor of that light
The very sun to darkness turns.”
Did not Jesus, when He appeared to St. John at Patmos, say: “He that shall overcome and keep My works to the end, I will give him power over the nations. . . As I have received of My Father, and I will give Him the morning star”? As before leaving this world He gave His holy Mother to those who loved Him, so on those who
persevere to the end in His love will He again bestow that priceless gift, and when we cross the threshold of the heavenly kingdom we may hope that Mary’s loving arms will be stretched wide open to receive us.
O Mother mine, our fair and beauteous morning star, O wondrous star, which brought forth a sun, to quote the words of the St. John Eudes, teach us so to keep our souls free from stains of sin that we may in our measure and degree reflect some of the brightness and beauty of the Sun of Justice; pray, too, that we may fulfil His injunction, and so let our light shine before men that they may glorify our Father who is in Heaven.
Morning Star, pray for us.
34. HEALTH OF THE SICK
“Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and glory ... She is a tree of life to them that lay hold on her; and he that shall retain her is blessed” (Proverbs 3:16-18).
“Forsake her not, and she shall keep thee: love her, and she shall preserve thee” (Proverbs 4:6).
“Behold thy children gathered together from the rising to the setting sun, by the word of the Holy One rejoicing in the remembrance of God” (Baruch 5:5).
Health of the sick! What a consoling title to fall on the ears of us poor mortals, few of whom are free from one or more ailments. Not that Our Lady’s healing powers are applied chiefly to illnesses of the body. Yet before we pass on to more spiritual maladies let us just give a glance at almost innumerable instances in which she has cured purely corporal diseases. The subject is too vast to be entered on in these pages. Whole volumes would be required to record the miracles after miracles that have been wrought by Mary’s power in every age and in every clime. To enumerate even the shrines of Our Lady in different lands would be a gigantic undertaking; and at each of these holy places who could count the numbers who have come crippled, blind, afflicted with loathsome sores
and other diseases, and who have left whole and sound, leaping with joy, like the lame man at the gate called Beautiful, and praising God, who has given such power to His holy Mother. Take only one such place of pilgrimage—Lourdes. Might we not apply to it the words of the prophet, and say to our august Queen: “Behold thy children gathered together from the rising to the setting sun, by the word of the Holy One rejoicing in the remembrance of God”? (Baruch 5).
And seeing them flocking in from all lands, even those blighted by the cold blast of heresy, may we not cry out: “The nations that knew not thee shall run to thee, because of the Lord thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel, for He hath glorified thee”? (Isaias 4). Has He not said to thee: “Since thou becamest honorable in My eyes, thou art glorious. . . . Fear not, for I am with thee: I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west; I will say to the north: Give up; and to the south: Keep not back; bring My sons from afar, and My daughters from the ends of the Earth. . . . Bring forth the blind that have eyes and see not; and the deaf that have ears and hear not!” (Isaias 43). “Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf man be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall be free; for waters are broken out in the desert, and streams in the wilderness”? (Isaias 35).
But if Mary works such wonders for the body which is perishable, what will she not, and what does she not, do for the soul? Who can reckon the multitudes she has raised from the death of sin, or restored to health when wasted by mortal disease? Yet these are not precisely the class to which one’s mind adverts when addressing Our Lady by the title: “Salus Infirmorum.” Is it not more the sickly, the infirm, the weak, those who need more the care of a mother than a physician? Who is not beset by spiritual ailments, languor or depression, which make the soul feel generally out of health and the vigorous practice of virtue an almost impossible effort?
Let us then call our Mother to our aid. Let us whisper in her ear the symptoms we shrink from disclosing to others; let us tell her we feel sick, yet can scarce say what ails us. Her tender heart will be moved to compassion; she will not pass by and leave us helpless; rather will she pour in oil and wine, raise us from our state of spiritual inertness, whisper to us what means to employ to cure our maladies, and, above all, will interest in our behalf the divine Physician of our souls, by the neglect of whose prescriptions we have probably brought on ourselves the sickness we bewail. Thus shall we be restored to health and vigor, by the loving tender care of her whom we love to invoke under the consoling title of “Salus Infirmorum,” and whom none need fear to approach.
“Why should poor weak man tremble to come to Mary?” says St. Bernard; “there is nothing stern, nothing dreadful about her; she is all sweetness. . . . Consider well the whole course of the Gospel history, and if thou find in Mary any such thing as harshness, or hardness, and even the least sign of loss of temper, trust her not again, and fear to come unto her. But if thou find her to be altogether, as indeed she is, full of a mother’s tenderness and grace, full of gentleness and mercy, give thanks unto Him who, in the vast abundance of His goodness, hath given thee such a spokeswoman in whom thou canst not but trust. In fine, through the boundlessness of her charity, she hath made herself ‘all things to all men’ (1 Corinthians 9:22). ‘A debtor both to the wise and to the unwise’ (Romans 1:14). She openeth to all the bosom of her mercy, that of her fullness all may receive; the captive, ransom; the sick, health; the sorrowful, comfort; the sinful, pardon; the righteous, grace; even angels, gladness. She is not one who inquireth what we have deserved; but is to all most easy to be entreated and most merciful. In the wideness of her love she hath pity upon the needs of all” (St. Bernard on the Twelve Stars).
Health of the sick, pray for us.
“Forsake her not, and she shall keep thee: love her, and she shall preserve thee” (Proverbs 4:6).
“Behold thy children gathered together from the rising to the setting sun, by the word of the Holy One rejoicing in the remembrance of God” (Baruch 5:5).
Health of the sick! What a consoling title to fall on the ears of us poor mortals, few of whom are free from one or more ailments. Not that Our Lady’s healing powers are applied chiefly to illnesses of the body. Yet before we pass on to more spiritual maladies let us just give a glance at almost innumerable instances in which she has cured purely corporal diseases. The subject is too vast to be entered on in these pages. Whole volumes would be required to record the miracles after miracles that have been wrought by Mary’s power in every age and in every clime. To enumerate even the shrines of Our Lady in different lands would be a gigantic undertaking; and at each of these holy places who could count the numbers who have come crippled, blind, afflicted with loathsome sores
and other diseases, and who have left whole and sound, leaping with joy, like the lame man at the gate called Beautiful, and praising God, who has given such power to His holy Mother. Take only one such place of pilgrimage—Lourdes. Might we not apply to it the words of the prophet, and say to our august Queen: “Behold thy children gathered together from the rising to the setting sun, by the word of the Holy One rejoicing in the remembrance of God”? (Baruch 5).
And seeing them flocking in from all lands, even those blighted by the cold blast of heresy, may we not cry out: “The nations that knew not thee shall run to thee, because of the Lord thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel, for He hath glorified thee”? (Isaias 4). Has He not said to thee: “Since thou becamest honorable in My eyes, thou art glorious. . . . Fear not, for I am with thee: I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west; I will say to the north: Give up; and to the south: Keep not back; bring My sons from afar, and My daughters from the ends of the Earth. . . . Bring forth the blind that have eyes and see not; and the deaf that have ears and hear not!” (Isaias 43). “Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf man be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall be free; for waters are broken out in the desert, and streams in the wilderness”? (Isaias 35).
But if Mary works such wonders for the body which is perishable, what will she not, and what does she not, do for the soul? Who can reckon the multitudes she has raised from the death of sin, or restored to health when wasted by mortal disease? Yet these are not precisely the class to which one’s mind adverts when addressing Our Lady by the title: “Salus Infirmorum.” Is it not more the sickly, the infirm, the weak, those who need more the care of a mother than a physician? Who is not beset by spiritual ailments, languor or depression, which make the soul feel generally out of health and the vigorous practice of virtue an almost impossible effort?
Let us then call our Mother to our aid. Let us whisper in her ear the symptoms we shrink from disclosing to others; let us tell her we feel sick, yet can scarce say what ails us. Her tender heart will be moved to compassion; she will not pass by and leave us helpless; rather will she pour in oil and wine, raise us from our state of spiritual inertness, whisper to us what means to employ to cure our maladies, and, above all, will interest in our behalf the divine Physician of our souls, by the neglect of whose prescriptions we have probably brought on ourselves the sickness we bewail. Thus shall we be restored to health and vigor, by the loving tender care of her whom we love to invoke under the consoling title of “Salus Infirmorum,” and whom none need fear to approach.
“Why should poor weak man tremble to come to Mary?” says St. Bernard; “there is nothing stern, nothing dreadful about her; she is all sweetness. . . . Consider well the whole course of the Gospel history, and if thou find in Mary any such thing as harshness, or hardness, and even the least sign of loss of temper, trust her not again, and fear to come unto her. But if thou find her to be altogether, as indeed she is, full of a mother’s tenderness and grace, full of gentleness and mercy, give thanks unto Him who, in the vast abundance of His goodness, hath given thee such a spokeswoman in whom thou canst not but trust. In fine, through the boundlessness of her charity, she hath made herself ‘all things to all men’ (1 Corinthians 9:22). ‘A debtor both to the wise and to the unwise’ (Romans 1:14). She openeth to all the bosom of her mercy, that of her fullness all may receive; the captive, ransom; the sick, health; the sorrowful, comfort; the sinful, pardon; the righteous, grace; even angels, gladness. She is not one who inquireth what we have deserved; but is to all most easy to be entreated and most merciful. In the wideness of her love she hath pity upon the needs of all” (St. Bernard on the Twelve Stars).
Health of the sick, pray for us.
35. REFUGE OF SINNERS
“Forgive, I beseech Thee, the sins of this people, according to the greatness of Thy mercy ... And the Lord said: ‘I have forgiven according to thy word!’” (Numbers 14:19-20), “for I must not turn away thy face” (3 Kings 2:20).
“My fugitives shall dwell with thee ... be thou a covert to them from the face of the destroyer; for the dust is at an end, the wretch is consumed, he hath failed that trod the Earth underfoot” (Isaias 16:4).
“Make thy shadow as the night in the midday; hide them that flee, and betray not them that wander about” (Isaias 16:3).
“Be of good comfort, my children ... for my hope is in the Eternal that He will save you: and joy is come upon me from the Holy One, because of the mercy that shall come to you from our everlasting Savior.
“Because you have provoked God to wrath, you are delivered to your adversaries. For you have provoked Him who made you, the eternal God ... You have forgotten God who brought you up ... Be of good comfort, my children, and cry to the Lord; for you shall be remembered by Him ... for as it was your mind to go astray from God: so when you return again, you shall seek Him ten times as much” (Baruch 4).
“Refuge of Sinners.” Ah, here is a title that has probably drawn more to the feet and the arms of Mary than any other. For we are all sinners and therefore all, at times, in our flight from the grasp of the destroyer, feel the need of a city of refuge where we may rest awhile, and recover from the wounds we have received; where also we trust to find one who will plead our cause with God, whose grace we have abused and whose just anger we have incurred.
And He, of whom Holy Church says, in the collect of Ash Wednesday, that “He winketh at the sins of men, for the sake of repentance,” lovingly encourages His blessed Mother in this work of mercy. We can imagine Him saying: “My fugitives shall dwell with thee; be thou a covert to them from the face of the destroyer: for the dust is at an end, the wretch is consumed; he bath failed that trod the Earth under foot” (Isaias 16:4). The means taken by Satan, that proud spirit, the prince of this world, to bind his poor victims, have not altogether succeeded, else they would not now be pleading for help from thee, My Mother. Make thy shadow as the night in the midday; hide them that flee, lest death should overtake them before they make their peace with Me. And betray not them that wander about.”
Ah! Dearest Lord! There is little need for that last injunction. Thy Mother is the work of Thy hands, and Thou hast put too much of Thy own spirit and of Thy magnanimous generosity into her heart to make us ever fear her betraying anyone who casts himself upon her mercy. No, rather may we not say, “She was to them for a covert by day, and for the light of stars by night” … “She kept him safe from his enemies” … “In the deceit of them that overreached him she stood by him and made him honorable” (Wisdom 10). Yes, she obtained for him the grace of contrition, so that he was again enabled to wear the wedding garment, and take his place amongst the guests of the King.
O Mary, how many hast thou thus restored to grace, how many have come to thee weeping, and casting themselves at thy feet have cried out, “I am he that has sinned, I have done wickedly!” (2 Kings 24), “O do not thou utterly forsake me”? (Psalm 118). And thou hast opened thy heart to them, and whispered in their ear kind, comforting words, saying: “My son, give glory to the Lord ... and confess, and tell me what thou hast done; hide it not” (Josue 7). And the poor repentant one has answered with humility: “Indeed I have sinned against the Lord ... and thus and thus have I done” (Josue 7). And then thou hast poured out on him all the tenderness of thy maternal affection, and hast given him good counsel, encouraging him to hope in the mercy of God and turn to better things.
“Fear not,” thou hast said; “you have done all this evil, but yet depart not from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart!” (1 Kings 12). If thou wilt return to the Almighty, thou shalt be built up, and shalt put away iniquity ... And the Almighty shall be against thy enemies, and silver shall be heaped together for thee. Then shalt thou abound in delights in the Almighty, and shalt lift up thy face to God. Thou shalt pray to
Him, and He shall hear thee ... and light shall shine in thy ways. For he that bath been humbled shall be in glory (Job 22). But yet acknowledge thy iniquity, that thou hast sinned against the Lord” (Jeremias 3).
Thus does Mary console the sinner, and while insisting on the necessity of confession, hold out the hope of being restored to God’s favor, of yet heaping up spiritual riches and of enjoying eternal glory. But how many are there who will not fly to her, and to seek whom she has to go out of her way. Nor even then will they always acknowledge they are sinners, so she has to win them by milder terms. Therefore she calls them “unwise,” and to these she says: “Come.” By degrees, if only she can by any means keep them near her, she shows them that sin is the greatest folly, the most egregious breach of wisdom of which we can be capable.
Surrounded as we are by many dangers in this world of ours, let us have frequent recourse to Mary. Nor need we fear to approach her. St. Bernard sets forth in beautiful words her sweetness and gentleness to us sinning mortals, and tells us the frailest need have no fear in approaching her, as there is nothing about her to frighten us. She is all sweetness; and in the following extract from his sermons he calls her the “sinners’ ladder to Heaven.”
My little children, this is the sinners’ ladder to Heaven, this is my chiefest trust, this is the whole reason of the hope that is in me. For why? Can her Son thrust her away, or endure that she should be thrust away? Can He either not hear or not Himself be heard? Plainly He cannot. The angel giveth her this joyful assurance: “Thou hast found grace with God.” She will always fine grace with Him, and grace is all that we need since by grace we are saved. What else do we want, my brethren? Let us seek grace, and let us seek it through Mary, for he that seeketh findeth, and cannot be disappointed of his hope. Let us seek grace, but let it be grace with God, for among men “favor is deceitful” (Proverbs 31). Let others seek for merits, but let us seek to find grace. For why? Is it not the work of grace that we are here? Of a truth, “it is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed” (Lamentations 3).
Refuge of sinners, pray for us.
“My fugitives shall dwell with thee ... be thou a covert to them from the face of the destroyer; for the dust is at an end, the wretch is consumed, he hath failed that trod the Earth underfoot” (Isaias 16:4).
“Make thy shadow as the night in the midday; hide them that flee, and betray not them that wander about” (Isaias 16:3).
“Be of good comfort, my children ... for my hope is in the Eternal that He will save you: and joy is come upon me from the Holy One, because of the mercy that shall come to you from our everlasting Savior.
“Because you have provoked God to wrath, you are delivered to your adversaries. For you have provoked Him who made you, the eternal God ... You have forgotten God who brought you up ... Be of good comfort, my children, and cry to the Lord; for you shall be remembered by Him ... for as it was your mind to go astray from God: so when you return again, you shall seek Him ten times as much” (Baruch 4).
“Refuge of Sinners.” Ah, here is a title that has probably drawn more to the feet and the arms of Mary than any other. For we are all sinners and therefore all, at times, in our flight from the grasp of the destroyer, feel the need of a city of refuge where we may rest awhile, and recover from the wounds we have received; where also we trust to find one who will plead our cause with God, whose grace we have abused and whose just anger we have incurred.
And He, of whom Holy Church says, in the collect of Ash Wednesday, that “He winketh at the sins of men, for the sake of repentance,” lovingly encourages His blessed Mother in this work of mercy. We can imagine Him saying: “My fugitives shall dwell with thee; be thou a covert to them from the face of the destroyer: for the dust is at an end, the wretch is consumed; he bath failed that trod the Earth under foot” (Isaias 16:4). The means taken by Satan, that proud spirit, the prince of this world, to bind his poor victims, have not altogether succeeded, else they would not now be pleading for help from thee, My Mother. Make thy shadow as the night in the midday; hide them that flee, lest death should overtake them before they make their peace with Me. And betray not them that wander about.”
Ah! Dearest Lord! There is little need for that last injunction. Thy Mother is the work of Thy hands, and Thou hast put too much of Thy own spirit and of Thy magnanimous generosity into her heart to make us ever fear her betraying anyone who casts himself upon her mercy. No, rather may we not say, “She was to them for a covert by day, and for the light of stars by night” … “She kept him safe from his enemies” … “In the deceit of them that overreached him she stood by him and made him honorable” (Wisdom 10). Yes, she obtained for him the grace of contrition, so that he was again enabled to wear the wedding garment, and take his place amongst the guests of the King.
O Mary, how many hast thou thus restored to grace, how many have come to thee weeping, and casting themselves at thy feet have cried out, “I am he that has sinned, I have done wickedly!” (2 Kings 24), “O do not thou utterly forsake me”? (Psalm 118). And thou hast opened thy heart to them, and whispered in their ear kind, comforting words, saying: “My son, give glory to the Lord ... and confess, and tell me what thou hast done; hide it not” (Josue 7). And the poor repentant one has answered with humility: “Indeed I have sinned against the Lord ... and thus and thus have I done” (Josue 7). And then thou hast poured out on him all the tenderness of thy maternal affection, and hast given him good counsel, encouraging him to hope in the mercy of God and turn to better things.
“Fear not,” thou hast said; “you have done all this evil, but yet depart not from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart!” (1 Kings 12). If thou wilt return to the Almighty, thou shalt be built up, and shalt put away iniquity ... And the Almighty shall be against thy enemies, and silver shall be heaped together for thee. Then shalt thou abound in delights in the Almighty, and shalt lift up thy face to God. Thou shalt pray to
Him, and He shall hear thee ... and light shall shine in thy ways. For he that bath been humbled shall be in glory (Job 22). But yet acknowledge thy iniquity, that thou hast sinned against the Lord” (Jeremias 3).
Thus does Mary console the sinner, and while insisting on the necessity of confession, hold out the hope of being restored to God’s favor, of yet heaping up spiritual riches and of enjoying eternal glory. But how many are there who will not fly to her, and to seek whom she has to go out of her way. Nor even then will they always acknowledge they are sinners, so she has to win them by milder terms. Therefore she calls them “unwise,” and to these she says: “Come.” By degrees, if only she can by any means keep them near her, she shows them that sin is the greatest folly, the most egregious breach of wisdom of which we can be capable.
Surrounded as we are by many dangers in this world of ours, let us have frequent recourse to Mary. Nor need we fear to approach her. St. Bernard sets forth in beautiful words her sweetness and gentleness to us sinning mortals, and tells us the frailest need have no fear in approaching her, as there is nothing about her to frighten us. She is all sweetness; and in the following extract from his sermons he calls her the “sinners’ ladder to Heaven.”
My little children, this is the sinners’ ladder to Heaven, this is my chiefest trust, this is the whole reason of the hope that is in me. For why? Can her Son thrust her away, or endure that she should be thrust away? Can He either not hear or not Himself be heard? Plainly He cannot. The angel giveth her this joyful assurance: “Thou hast found grace with God.” She will always fine grace with Him, and grace is all that we need since by grace we are saved. What else do we want, my brethren? Let us seek grace, and let us seek it through Mary, for he that seeketh findeth, and cannot be disappointed of his hope. Let us seek grace, but let it be grace with God, for among men “favor is deceitful” (Proverbs 31). Let others seek for merits, but let us seek to find grace. For why? Is it not the work of grace that we are here? Of a truth, “it is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed” (Lamentations 3).
Refuge of sinners, pray for us.
36. COMFORTER OF THE AFFLICTED
“My delicate ones have walked rough ways. Be of good comfort, my children ... for as the neighbors of Sion have now seen your captivity from God, so shall they also shortly see your salvation from God, which shall come upon you with great honor and everlasting glory” (Baruch 4:26 ff).
“My children, suffer patiently the wrath that is come upon you . . . for He that hath brought evils upon you shall bring you everlasting joy again with your salvation” (Baruch 4:21, 24, 25, 29).
We all have afflictions, and for that reason this land of exile is termed a valley of tears. The happiest and most light-hearted will sooner or later have trouble and care. Oftentimes those who seem to have the least to bear have the most, for it is not always external trials that weigh the heaviest on the heart. And we often have to endure our sufferings in silence for want of any one who can enter into and understand them; for to speak of them to unsympathetic ears only adds to the poignancy of our grief. In such straits where shall we turn if not to her who is the consoler of the afflicted? Whatever may be the cause of our sorrows, it will not be beneath her notice, for our Mother’s heart is, above all, a compassionate one. She has suffered too much herself not to sympathize with the sufferings of others. Her own heart was pierced with a sword that out of many hearts thoughts might be revealed.
We are too inclined perhaps to lock up our afflictions within ourselves in a hopeless, perchance ever bitter, or stoical way. Let us go to Mary and reveal to her all that is in our hearts, telling her our troubles in a simple, childlike way, and through the rent made by the cruel sword place them in hers. It is large enough for them all, for great as the sea was her affliction. Our trials may come from others—we may be ill-treated, wronged, misunderstood; or from fortune—poverty and want may be our share; or from ourselves—oftentimes our own character, tempers, humors, are our greatest affliction; or again they may come to us through the sorrows of those we love. Be they what they may, tell them to Mary; but surely, if there be one more than another that she can sympathize with, it will be this last.
Was it not compassion for the sorrows of her Son that pierced her heart? Let her be our refuge in grief. Let us say with the wise man: “I took her to live with me, knowing she would be a comfort in my cares and griefs.” Our Lady will not only listen to us, but will help us if we let her. She will often show us, though with the utmost gentleness, that what seems a misfortune is in reality a blessing. If we have lost riches, she will let us see they might have proved a snare to our souls. If a friend is taken from us by death, she will whisper that Jesus covets the place in our hearts which that friend once occupied. If ill-health be our lot, she will lead us to recognize that it cuts us off from many dangerous pleasures and amusements; and in this way we shall become so consoled by her that we may end by positively rejoicing over those things which caused our tears.
But there is one grief; Mother mine, which even thou must find difficult to assuage. How to comfort those who mourn and weep that Jesus, their beloved, is hated without cause? Useless to bid them cease, for who could do so when the dearest of all who are dear to them is being mocked, ridiculed, driven from the hearts of men, nay, even crucified afresh, and that not once, but as many times as there are mortal sins committed in a day?
Yet even in this, the grief of griefs, she can whisper words of consolation, even amidst her own tears—for did not her seven swords of sorrow spring from the same source, and did she not realize this more than all the lovers of Jesus put together?—and remind such souls that He had said: “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” For one day they will see that all these things will in the end redound to His greater glory, as showing forth the unspeakable love of that Sacred Heart which, knowing what was before Him and all that would come upon Him, with full deliberation, left His heavenly home and braved it all, for the sake of rescuing, from eternal misery, those who were willing to listen to His voice and yield Him their hearts. Our heavenly Mother will teach such souls that, while mourning that He is hated without cause, they can also, at the same time, rejoice in the thought that He is infinitely good.
But there is yet another realm than Earth where Mary exercises her power as comforter of the afflicted, and that is in Purgatory. Oh, how those poor prisoners must welcome the sight of their august Queen, when from time to time she visits them, bringing consolation and renewed hope in her train! And what can she say to ease these sufferings, the greatest of which must be that of seeing how we have wasted our substance —the many graces bestowed on us—and disappointed the Sacred Heart by not attaining to that perfection and to that degree of glory which He had planned for us, and for which He gave us the means?
Well, she can comfort them by putting before them that at any rate their present sufferings will make at least some atonement for the past, and thus they will learn even to love those grievous torments; while those whose chief pain consists in the sense of loss will be reminded that compared with eternity their sojourn is not for long, and that soon they will be joined to the happy throngs awaiting them in the heavenly kingdom. “Be of good comfort, my children ... for as the neighbors of Sion [your eternal home] have now seen your captivity from God, so shall they also see your salvation from God which shall come upon you with great honor and everlasting glory.” (Baruch 4).
But Mary will have more than words to offer these suffering exiles. Can we think she will ever visit them without bringing a royal pardon for many of their number who will follow joyously in her train, speeding aloft towards Him whom they love and to whom their whole being craves to be united?
And cannot we share in great measure our Mother’s office of “Consolatrix Afflictorum”? Surely yes. Let us put self aside and enter lovingly into the sorrows of those around us, consoling, comforting and sympathizing with every form of suffering, no matter whence its source. Be it they have brought it on their own heads, that is no reason for hardening our hearts. Self-condemnation is one of the bitterest forms of trial; let us not add to it by our censoriousness. Who has appointed us to judge over them?
Then again for the souls in Purgatory we can do most real work. Has not holy Church placed in our hands the means of paying their debts, giving us the key of the treasury of the Precious Blood, which on easy conditions we can sprinkle broadcast into the fierce flames, assuaging their heat and releasing their prisoners?
Here indeed we can be co-operators with our Mother Mary. Not a day passes but we can put a treasure into her hands with which to ransom those beloved ones of God, many of whom we may have known in life, and who must often wonder at our not exerting ourselves more to obtain their release. Could time be better spent than freeing these holy prisoners, who will bring immediate glory to God, by their praise of Him, and who will surely in their turn not forget us, but will plead our cause before “the great white throne,” when our time comes to pay the penalty of our neglect of grace?
Finally, before leaving our Mother Mary, whom we have been considering under so sweet and consoling an aspect as that of a universal consoler, let us call to mind that she was privileged to be the comforter of God Himself. Did she not share the griefs of her divine Son, the Man of Sorrows, and by her deep sympathy bring consolation to His Sacred Heart, from Its first pangs of disappointed love in the cave at Bethlehem, when It realized that the creatures for whom He was prepared to do so much cared naught for Him, to Its last sigh on the cross they had prepared for Him?
And how she longs for us to imitate her in this loving compassion for the sorrows of the Sacred Heart! “Comfort Him, all you who are round about Him,” she whispers; and Jesus, when He sees us approach Him, more full of His griefs and wrongs than our own, will recognize us as true children of Mary, and virtue will go out from Him into our souls, and we shall become more truly His friends than we have hitherto been, for in times of common sorrow hearts become knit together by strong and lasting lies.
Comforter of the afflicted, pray for us.
“My children, suffer patiently the wrath that is come upon you . . . for He that hath brought evils upon you shall bring you everlasting joy again with your salvation” (Baruch 4:21, 24, 25, 29).
We all have afflictions, and for that reason this land of exile is termed a valley of tears. The happiest and most light-hearted will sooner or later have trouble and care. Oftentimes those who seem to have the least to bear have the most, for it is not always external trials that weigh the heaviest on the heart. And we often have to endure our sufferings in silence for want of any one who can enter into and understand them; for to speak of them to unsympathetic ears only adds to the poignancy of our grief. In such straits where shall we turn if not to her who is the consoler of the afflicted? Whatever may be the cause of our sorrows, it will not be beneath her notice, for our Mother’s heart is, above all, a compassionate one. She has suffered too much herself not to sympathize with the sufferings of others. Her own heart was pierced with a sword that out of many hearts thoughts might be revealed.
We are too inclined perhaps to lock up our afflictions within ourselves in a hopeless, perchance ever bitter, or stoical way. Let us go to Mary and reveal to her all that is in our hearts, telling her our troubles in a simple, childlike way, and through the rent made by the cruel sword place them in hers. It is large enough for them all, for great as the sea was her affliction. Our trials may come from others—we may be ill-treated, wronged, misunderstood; or from fortune—poverty and want may be our share; or from ourselves—oftentimes our own character, tempers, humors, are our greatest affliction; or again they may come to us through the sorrows of those we love. Be they what they may, tell them to Mary; but surely, if there be one more than another that she can sympathize with, it will be this last.
Was it not compassion for the sorrows of her Son that pierced her heart? Let her be our refuge in grief. Let us say with the wise man: “I took her to live with me, knowing she would be a comfort in my cares and griefs.” Our Lady will not only listen to us, but will help us if we let her. She will often show us, though with the utmost gentleness, that what seems a misfortune is in reality a blessing. If we have lost riches, she will let us see they might have proved a snare to our souls. If a friend is taken from us by death, she will whisper that Jesus covets the place in our hearts which that friend once occupied. If ill-health be our lot, she will lead us to recognize that it cuts us off from many dangerous pleasures and amusements; and in this way we shall become so consoled by her that we may end by positively rejoicing over those things which caused our tears.
But there is one grief; Mother mine, which even thou must find difficult to assuage. How to comfort those who mourn and weep that Jesus, their beloved, is hated without cause? Useless to bid them cease, for who could do so when the dearest of all who are dear to them is being mocked, ridiculed, driven from the hearts of men, nay, even crucified afresh, and that not once, but as many times as there are mortal sins committed in a day?
Yet even in this, the grief of griefs, she can whisper words of consolation, even amidst her own tears—for did not her seven swords of sorrow spring from the same source, and did she not realize this more than all the lovers of Jesus put together?—and remind such souls that He had said: “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” For one day they will see that all these things will in the end redound to His greater glory, as showing forth the unspeakable love of that Sacred Heart which, knowing what was before Him and all that would come upon Him, with full deliberation, left His heavenly home and braved it all, for the sake of rescuing, from eternal misery, those who were willing to listen to His voice and yield Him their hearts. Our heavenly Mother will teach such souls that, while mourning that He is hated without cause, they can also, at the same time, rejoice in the thought that He is infinitely good.
But there is yet another realm than Earth where Mary exercises her power as comforter of the afflicted, and that is in Purgatory. Oh, how those poor prisoners must welcome the sight of their august Queen, when from time to time she visits them, bringing consolation and renewed hope in her train! And what can she say to ease these sufferings, the greatest of which must be that of seeing how we have wasted our substance —the many graces bestowed on us—and disappointed the Sacred Heart by not attaining to that perfection and to that degree of glory which He had planned for us, and for which He gave us the means?
Well, she can comfort them by putting before them that at any rate their present sufferings will make at least some atonement for the past, and thus they will learn even to love those grievous torments; while those whose chief pain consists in the sense of loss will be reminded that compared with eternity their sojourn is not for long, and that soon they will be joined to the happy throngs awaiting them in the heavenly kingdom. “Be of good comfort, my children ... for as the neighbors of Sion [your eternal home] have now seen your captivity from God, so shall they also see your salvation from God which shall come upon you with great honor and everlasting glory.” (Baruch 4).
But Mary will have more than words to offer these suffering exiles. Can we think she will ever visit them without bringing a royal pardon for many of their number who will follow joyously in her train, speeding aloft towards Him whom they love and to whom their whole being craves to be united?
And cannot we share in great measure our Mother’s office of “Consolatrix Afflictorum”? Surely yes. Let us put self aside and enter lovingly into the sorrows of those around us, consoling, comforting and sympathizing with every form of suffering, no matter whence its source. Be it they have brought it on their own heads, that is no reason for hardening our hearts. Self-condemnation is one of the bitterest forms of trial; let us not add to it by our censoriousness. Who has appointed us to judge over them?
Then again for the souls in Purgatory we can do most real work. Has not holy Church placed in our hands the means of paying their debts, giving us the key of the treasury of the Precious Blood, which on easy conditions we can sprinkle broadcast into the fierce flames, assuaging their heat and releasing their prisoners?
Here indeed we can be co-operators with our Mother Mary. Not a day passes but we can put a treasure into her hands with which to ransom those beloved ones of God, many of whom we may have known in life, and who must often wonder at our not exerting ourselves more to obtain their release. Could time be better spent than freeing these holy prisoners, who will bring immediate glory to God, by their praise of Him, and who will surely in their turn not forget us, but will plead our cause before “the great white throne,” when our time comes to pay the penalty of our neglect of grace?
Finally, before leaving our Mother Mary, whom we have been considering under so sweet and consoling an aspect as that of a universal consoler, let us call to mind that she was privileged to be the comforter of God Himself. Did she not share the griefs of her divine Son, the Man of Sorrows, and by her deep sympathy bring consolation to His Sacred Heart, from Its first pangs of disappointed love in the cave at Bethlehem, when It realized that the creatures for whom He was prepared to do so much cared naught for Him, to Its last sigh on the cross they had prepared for Him?
And how she longs for us to imitate her in this loving compassion for the sorrows of the Sacred Heart! “Comfort Him, all you who are round about Him,” she whispers; and Jesus, when He sees us approach Him, more full of His griefs and wrongs than our own, will recognize us as true children of Mary, and virtue will go out from Him into our souls, and we shall become more truly His friends than we have hitherto been, for in times of common sorrow hearts become knit together by strong and lasting lies.
Comforter of the afflicted, pray for us.
37. HELP OF CHRISTIANS
“I love them that love me, and they that in the morning early watch for me shall find me. With me are riches and glory, glorious riches and justice” (Proverbs 8:17-18).
“She hath opened her hand to the needy, and stretched out her hands to the poor” (Proverbs 31:20).
“Forsake her not, and she shall keep thee: love her and she shall preserve thee. . . Take hold on her, and she shall exalt thee: thou shalt be glorified by her when thou shalt embrace her: she shall give to thy head increase of graces, and protect thee with a noble crown” (Proverbs 4:8-9).
“O Blessed Mary,” cried St. Augustine, “who is able enough to praise and to thank thee—thee who by once saying, ‘Be it done unto me,’ hast arisen to help a lost world?” I suppose we may take it that Mary was the first Christian. True, the word was not in use during Our Lord’s lifetime, but she was undoubtedly the first to welcome Him to Earth and to attach herself for ever to His service. And what was her first impulse after this act of loving adoration and devotedness? She set out at once, “in haste,” the Gospel tells us, to help an aged relative, the very sound of her voice enabling the infant Baptist and his holy mother to recognize that the Lord’s Anointed, the Christ, had at last visited this sinful world; and they joined their praise and adoration to hers.
Later, when Our Lord first gathered to Him a little band of disciples, and they were brought into His Mother’s presence, what did she? Again she began by desiring to help others. “They have no wine,” she said, in her kind thoughtfulness. And what was the result? Another miracle, which, we read, caused Jesus’ disciples to believe in Him. And so it has ever been, and ever will be. If we find Mary, she will lead us to her divine Son, and say to us: “Whatsoever He shall say to you, do ye”; “If you love Him, keep His commandments.” Truly, “she is an infinite treasure to men, which they that use become the friends of God” (Wisdom 7).
What a help Our Lady was to the Apostles and early Christians, after the Ascension of Our Lord, by her wise counsels, her holy example, and, above all, by her fervent intercession! For if the “continual prayer of a just man availeth much,” as we read in Holy Scripture it does, how much more efficacious is the prayer of the Mother of God! We know that King Solomon gave to the Queen of Saba all she asked, besides much from His royal bounty.
What, therefore, will not He who, as He Himself said, is greater than Solomon, do for the Queen of Heaven, who is also His Mother? For if Mary’s prayer was all-powerful when on Earth, no less so is it now when she pleads for her children scattered all over the face of the Earth, whom she loves with a love all her own. After Jesus no one loves us as Mary does, for she, more than any other, realizes the worth of a soul, and moreover, her heart, being greater than that of any other mere mortal, has a greater capacity for loving.
Let us then cry to her in all our needs. She is Our Lady of Perpetual Succor, ever ready, ever at hand to hear and help us. As children turn to their Mother instinctively in every trouble, so let us turn to Mary. No matter what befalls us, if we run to her confidingly and shelter ourselves under her mantle, all will be well. Let us apply to our attitude towards her the words of Dante, who writes: “Astounded, to the guardian of my steps I turned me, like the child who always runs for succor where he trusteth most.”
Nor can we doubt Mary’s power to help us any more than her good will. If King Solomon rose to show his mother reverence when she entered, causing a throne to be set for her beside his own, and saying with the utmost deference when she proffered a request, “My mother, ask, for I must not turn away thy face,” what will not Our Lord and Master do, He who implanted in the heart of the wise king these beautiful virtues of filial love and reverence?
We have seen that at the marriage feast He could not resist even the slightest indication of His Mother’s wishes, though, as He said, His appointed hour for working miracles had not yet come, and the matter was only the supply of a temporal, passing need. How much more readily will He grant her requests when she pleads for a fresh supply of grace for her clients, or begs for them a new wedding garment, when, like careless children, they have spoilt their first one!
Still more eagerly will He respond to her desires when she lays before Him the necessities of souls who are laboring for His glory, who are in trouble and distress because they do not yet see the perfect fulfilment of that prophecy of David: “All the Earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the covering waters of the sea.” What vast tracts of inhabited land there are still which have not had more than a mere sprinkling of that knowledge; and how we should beg Our Lady, Help of Christians, to obtain that, when these few drops do spread, the knowledge they convey may be accompanied by love! For of what avail would it be for the nations to know Jesus if that knowledge only brought hatred, as it did to the Pharisees, and as we see is the case in many civilized countries at the present day? Let us pray often and much that the Earth may be filled with a loving knowledge of the Lord, as the covering waters of the sea.
But it is well to go to Mary with every affair, great or small, that concerns us. However trivial, it will not be too much so for her motherly heart to take an interest in, and however vast, it will not exceed the scope of her queenly magnificence and power. Let us say to her: “Look upon thy servants and upon their works, and direct their children. And let the brightness of the Lord our God be upon us; and direct thou the work of our hands. . . . Yea, the work of our hands do thou direct.”
But well it is for us that Our Lady does not always wait to be asked, else some of us would get but little help, it is to be feared. We notice her request at the marriage feast was spontaneous, and Father Faber says: “Not a day passes in which our dearest Mother Mary does not interest herself for us. A thousand times and more has she mentioned our names to her divine Son in such a sweet persuasive way that His Sacred Heart sought not to resist it. . .” Nor is it only Catholics she assists, though they, of course, being of the “household of the faith,” have her first care and attention. But how many out of the fold of the Church have learned to love and revere Christ’s spotless Mother, and who can say how many graces she has won for them?
Great, too, is her solicitude for infidel and heathen lands, which are not but which we trust will one day be Christian. The holy souls in Purgatory also come in for a full share of Mary’s beneficence. Indeed, if there is one class of Christians more than another that she loves, will it not be those poor helpless prisoners who can do nothing for themselves? If we wish to imitate our Mother, let us not only help our fellow Christians on Earth by every means in our power, but let us also give her our indulgences to distribute for the release of those whose one longing is to be united to their God, and when our turn comes, we may be sure we shall not suffer longer on account of our generosity. Let us rejoice then in having so good, so large-hearted and powerful an advocate, and let us trust our all to her, saying:
Mother Mary, to thy keeping
Soul and body we confide;
Toiling, resting, waking, sleeping,
Be thou ever at our side.
Cares that vex us, joys that please us,
Life and death we trust to thee;
Thou must make them all for Jesus,
And for all eternity.
Help of Christians, pray for us.
“She hath opened her hand to the needy, and stretched out her hands to the poor” (Proverbs 31:20).
“Forsake her not, and she shall keep thee: love her and she shall preserve thee. . . Take hold on her, and she shall exalt thee: thou shalt be glorified by her when thou shalt embrace her: she shall give to thy head increase of graces, and protect thee with a noble crown” (Proverbs 4:8-9).
“O Blessed Mary,” cried St. Augustine, “who is able enough to praise and to thank thee—thee who by once saying, ‘Be it done unto me,’ hast arisen to help a lost world?” I suppose we may take it that Mary was the first Christian. True, the word was not in use during Our Lord’s lifetime, but she was undoubtedly the first to welcome Him to Earth and to attach herself for ever to His service. And what was her first impulse after this act of loving adoration and devotedness? She set out at once, “in haste,” the Gospel tells us, to help an aged relative, the very sound of her voice enabling the infant Baptist and his holy mother to recognize that the Lord’s Anointed, the Christ, had at last visited this sinful world; and they joined their praise and adoration to hers.
Later, when Our Lord first gathered to Him a little band of disciples, and they were brought into His Mother’s presence, what did she? Again she began by desiring to help others. “They have no wine,” she said, in her kind thoughtfulness. And what was the result? Another miracle, which, we read, caused Jesus’ disciples to believe in Him. And so it has ever been, and ever will be. If we find Mary, she will lead us to her divine Son, and say to us: “Whatsoever He shall say to you, do ye”; “If you love Him, keep His commandments.” Truly, “she is an infinite treasure to men, which they that use become the friends of God” (Wisdom 7).
What a help Our Lady was to the Apostles and early Christians, after the Ascension of Our Lord, by her wise counsels, her holy example, and, above all, by her fervent intercession! For if the “continual prayer of a just man availeth much,” as we read in Holy Scripture it does, how much more efficacious is the prayer of the Mother of God! We know that King Solomon gave to the Queen of Saba all she asked, besides much from His royal bounty.
What, therefore, will not He who, as He Himself said, is greater than Solomon, do for the Queen of Heaven, who is also His Mother? For if Mary’s prayer was all-powerful when on Earth, no less so is it now when she pleads for her children scattered all over the face of the Earth, whom she loves with a love all her own. After Jesus no one loves us as Mary does, for she, more than any other, realizes the worth of a soul, and moreover, her heart, being greater than that of any other mere mortal, has a greater capacity for loving.
Let us then cry to her in all our needs. She is Our Lady of Perpetual Succor, ever ready, ever at hand to hear and help us. As children turn to their Mother instinctively in every trouble, so let us turn to Mary. No matter what befalls us, if we run to her confidingly and shelter ourselves under her mantle, all will be well. Let us apply to our attitude towards her the words of Dante, who writes: “Astounded, to the guardian of my steps I turned me, like the child who always runs for succor where he trusteth most.”
Nor can we doubt Mary’s power to help us any more than her good will. If King Solomon rose to show his mother reverence when she entered, causing a throne to be set for her beside his own, and saying with the utmost deference when she proffered a request, “My mother, ask, for I must not turn away thy face,” what will not Our Lord and Master do, He who implanted in the heart of the wise king these beautiful virtues of filial love and reverence?
We have seen that at the marriage feast He could not resist even the slightest indication of His Mother’s wishes, though, as He said, His appointed hour for working miracles had not yet come, and the matter was only the supply of a temporal, passing need. How much more readily will He grant her requests when she pleads for a fresh supply of grace for her clients, or begs for them a new wedding garment, when, like careless children, they have spoilt their first one!
Still more eagerly will He respond to her desires when she lays before Him the necessities of souls who are laboring for His glory, who are in trouble and distress because they do not yet see the perfect fulfilment of that prophecy of David: “All the Earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the covering waters of the sea.” What vast tracts of inhabited land there are still which have not had more than a mere sprinkling of that knowledge; and how we should beg Our Lady, Help of Christians, to obtain that, when these few drops do spread, the knowledge they convey may be accompanied by love! For of what avail would it be for the nations to know Jesus if that knowledge only brought hatred, as it did to the Pharisees, and as we see is the case in many civilized countries at the present day? Let us pray often and much that the Earth may be filled with a loving knowledge of the Lord, as the covering waters of the sea.
But it is well to go to Mary with every affair, great or small, that concerns us. However trivial, it will not be too much so for her motherly heart to take an interest in, and however vast, it will not exceed the scope of her queenly magnificence and power. Let us say to her: “Look upon thy servants and upon their works, and direct their children. And let the brightness of the Lord our God be upon us; and direct thou the work of our hands. . . . Yea, the work of our hands do thou direct.”
But well it is for us that Our Lady does not always wait to be asked, else some of us would get but little help, it is to be feared. We notice her request at the marriage feast was spontaneous, and Father Faber says: “Not a day passes in which our dearest Mother Mary does not interest herself for us. A thousand times and more has she mentioned our names to her divine Son in such a sweet persuasive way that His Sacred Heart sought not to resist it. . .” Nor is it only Catholics she assists, though they, of course, being of the “household of the faith,” have her first care and attention. But how many out of the fold of the Church have learned to love and revere Christ’s spotless Mother, and who can say how many graces she has won for them?
Great, too, is her solicitude for infidel and heathen lands, which are not but which we trust will one day be Christian. The holy souls in Purgatory also come in for a full share of Mary’s beneficence. Indeed, if there is one class of Christians more than another that she loves, will it not be those poor helpless prisoners who can do nothing for themselves? If we wish to imitate our Mother, let us not only help our fellow Christians on Earth by every means in our power, but let us also give her our indulgences to distribute for the release of those whose one longing is to be united to their God, and when our turn comes, we may be sure we shall not suffer longer on account of our generosity. Let us rejoice then in having so good, so large-hearted and powerful an advocate, and let us trust our all to her, saying:
Mother Mary, to thy keeping
Soul and body we confide;
Toiling, resting, waking, sleeping,
Be thou ever at our side.
Cares that vex us, joys that please us,
Life and death we trust to thee;
Thou must make them all for Jesus,
And for all eternity.
Help of Christians, pray for us.
38. QUEEN OF ANGELS
“Thou wast made exceeding beautiful, and wast advanced to be a queen” (Ezechiel 16:13).
“Arise, My love, My beautiful one, and come” (Canticles 2:10).
“Come from Libanus, My spouse, come from Libanus, come and thou shalt be crowned” (Canticles 4:8).
“Put off ... the garment of thy mourning and affliction, and put on the beauty and honor of that everlasting glory which thou hast from God.
God will clothe thee with the double garment of justice, and will set a crown on thy head of everlasting honor. For God will show His brightness in thee to every one under Heaven” (Baruch 5:2-3).
“For winter is now past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers have appeared in our land” (Canticles 2).
The Apostles whom Our Lady had cherished and tended so carefully were now come to maturity, and would soon be sowing their seeds in all parts of the Earth. The vines were in flower, too. Our Lord had said He was the vine and they were the branches. At the time of His Ascension they were only dry twigs, but now they were in full flower, and the fruit He had promised they should bear would soon be forming: so He says to His Mother: “Arise, My love, My dove, My beautiful one and come.” With what a bound Our Lady’s soul would leave her body on receiving this invitation, so longed for and so patiently awaited. How it would speed heavenwards towards Him whom her soul loved, now that there was no longer the counter attraction of His holy will to keep her on Earth. Cardinal Newman describes the velocity with which the soul of Gerontius flew to God, where he makes its guardian angel exclaim:
“Praise to His Name!”
The eager spirit has darted from my hold,
And, with the intemperate energy of love
Flies to the dear feet of Emmanuel;
But, ere it reached them, the keen sanctity,
Which with its effluence, like a glory clothes
And circles round the Crucified, has seized,
And scorched, and shriveled it; and now it lies
Passive and still before the awful Throne.
O happy, suffering soul! for it is safe,
Consumed, yet quickened by the glance of God.”
It, however, was not yet ready to dwell with devouring flames in close contact with the burning fire of the Sacred Heart, but Mary’s soul was so ablaze with divine love that it found itself in its right element when united to God. No need for angels to bear her spirit to Heaven. They might later be privileged to carry her body thither, but Mary’s soul would soar upwards with such rapidity that the heavenly choirs might well fall back amazed, and ask each other in awe-struck tones: “Who is this that cometh up from the desert, flowing with delights?” Rightly did they call this Earth a desert, considering the thorns and briars it had produced in the past. Then Michael would joyously explain that the Most High Creator had created her in the Holy Ghost, and having richly endowed her with every grace, had given her to them that love Him.
Again, another choir of angels would come forward, asking: “Who is this that cometh up, fair as the moon, bright as the sun?” Well might they inquire! They had never seen any of the fallen children of Eve radiant with such splendor. How many had been so rotten with sin as to be incapable of rising at all, but, rather, heavily weighted by their evil deeds, had fallen down, down, further and further away from God; while of the rest, all were more or less clogged and dimmed by the effects of sin; with difficulty could these raise themselves from the Earth, and their progress heavenwards was retarded, till they had freed their wings from the dust and dirt that they had contracted through their want of care to keep themselves unspotted from the world. How the angels would rejoice to see their glorious Queen speeding onwards! Their chief thought would be one of unspeakable delight that, at last, their God would have a creature in Heaven whose love, if not worthy of Him—for that could never be—would at least be more worthy of His acceptance than any that had ever yet been offered Him, even by the glorious St. Michael and his hosts.
And how they would plead for the privilege of being allowed to bring the body of their beautiful Queen from the tomb, that she, like her Divine Son, might not see corruption! And when they arrived there, they, like Egeus, the eunuch of King Assuerus, who had charge of Esther’s attire, would wish that she should be arrayed and adorned in a manner befitting her rank, and they would say: “Put off the garments of mourning and affliction; and put on the beauty and honor of that everlasting glory which thou hast from God. God will clothe thee with the double garment of justice, and will set a crown on thy head of everlasting honor” (Baruch 5).
“Thou shalt no more have the sun for thy light by day, neither shall the brightness of the moon enlighten thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee for an everlasting light, and thy God for thy glory.”
“Thy sun shall go down no more, and thy moon shall not decrease; for the Lord shall be unto thee for an everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended” (Isaias 60).
O Mary, Queen of Angels, may we not exclaim with St. Sophronius: “Who shall worthily set forth thy glory? Who shall make bold to say what thou art? Who will hold himself able to tell of all thy splendor? Thou art the exaltation of humanity; thou art made much higher than the angels; thy brightness hath thrown the brightness of the Archangels into shadow; thou lookest down upon the lofty seats of the thrones; thou makest the heights of the dominations to seem low; thy rank taketh precedence before that of the principalities; compared with thee the powers are weakness; thou art a mighty one, mightier than all the mighty; thine earthly eyes see further than the contemplation of the Cherubim can reach; the Seraphim have six wings, but thy flight is nobler than theirs; in a word thou hast far excelled every other work of God; thou wast far purer than any other creature ... and thou hast been chosen out of all He has made to be His mother” (De Annunt. Deip.).
Queen of Angels, pray for us!
“Arise, My love, My beautiful one, and come” (Canticles 2:10).
“Come from Libanus, My spouse, come from Libanus, come and thou shalt be crowned” (Canticles 4:8).
“Put off ... the garment of thy mourning and affliction, and put on the beauty and honor of that everlasting glory which thou hast from God.
God will clothe thee with the double garment of justice, and will set a crown on thy head of everlasting honor. For God will show His brightness in thee to every one under Heaven” (Baruch 5:2-3).
“For winter is now past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers have appeared in our land” (Canticles 2).
The Apostles whom Our Lady had cherished and tended so carefully were now come to maturity, and would soon be sowing their seeds in all parts of the Earth. The vines were in flower, too. Our Lord had said He was the vine and they were the branches. At the time of His Ascension they were only dry twigs, but now they were in full flower, and the fruit He had promised they should bear would soon be forming: so He says to His Mother: “Arise, My love, My dove, My beautiful one and come.” With what a bound Our Lady’s soul would leave her body on receiving this invitation, so longed for and so patiently awaited. How it would speed heavenwards towards Him whom her soul loved, now that there was no longer the counter attraction of His holy will to keep her on Earth. Cardinal Newman describes the velocity with which the soul of Gerontius flew to God, where he makes its guardian angel exclaim:
“Praise to His Name!”
The eager spirit has darted from my hold,
And, with the intemperate energy of love
Flies to the dear feet of Emmanuel;
But, ere it reached them, the keen sanctity,
Which with its effluence, like a glory clothes
And circles round the Crucified, has seized,
And scorched, and shriveled it; and now it lies
Passive and still before the awful Throne.
O happy, suffering soul! for it is safe,
Consumed, yet quickened by the glance of God.”
It, however, was not yet ready to dwell with devouring flames in close contact with the burning fire of the Sacred Heart, but Mary’s soul was so ablaze with divine love that it found itself in its right element when united to God. No need for angels to bear her spirit to Heaven. They might later be privileged to carry her body thither, but Mary’s soul would soar upwards with such rapidity that the heavenly choirs might well fall back amazed, and ask each other in awe-struck tones: “Who is this that cometh up from the desert, flowing with delights?” Rightly did they call this Earth a desert, considering the thorns and briars it had produced in the past. Then Michael would joyously explain that the Most High Creator had created her in the Holy Ghost, and having richly endowed her with every grace, had given her to them that love Him.
Again, another choir of angels would come forward, asking: “Who is this that cometh up, fair as the moon, bright as the sun?” Well might they inquire! They had never seen any of the fallen children of Eve radiant with such splendor. How many had been so rotten with sin as to be incapable of rising at all, but, rather, heavily weighted by their evil deeds, had fallen down, down, further and further away from God; while of the rest, all were more or less clogged and dimmed by the effects of sin; with difficulty could these raise themselves from the Earth, and their progress heavenwards was retarded, till they had freed their wings from the dust and dirt that they had contracted through their want of care to keep themselves unspotted from the world. How the angels would rejoice to see their glorious Queen speeding onwards! Their chief thought would be one of unspeakable delight that, at last, their God would have a creature in Heaven whose love, if not worthy of Him—for that could never be—would at least be more worthy of His acceptance than any that had ever yet been offered Him, even by the glorious St. Michael and his hosts.
And how they would plead for the privilege of being allowed to bring the body of their beautiful Queen from the tomb, that she, like her Divine Son, might not see corruption! And when they arrived there, they, like Egeus, the eunuch of King Assuerus, who had charge of Esther’s attire, would wish that she should be arrayed and adorned in a manner befitting her rank, and they would say: “Put off the garments of mourning and affliction; and put on the beauty and honor of that everlasting glory which thou hast from God. God will clothe thee with the double garment of justice, and will set a crown on thy head of everlasting honor” (Baruch 5).
“Thou shalt no more have the sun for thy light by day, neither shall the brightness of the moon enlighten thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee for an everlasting light, and thy God for thy glory.”
“Thy sun shall go down no more, and thy moon shall not decrease; for the Lord shall be unto thee for an everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended” (Isaias 60).
O Mary, Queen of Angels, may we not exclaim with St. Sophronius: “Who shall worthily set forth thy glory? Who shall make bold to say what thou art? Who will hold himself able to tell of all thy splendor? Thou art the exaltation of humanity; thou art made much higher than the angels; thy brightness hath thrown the brightness of the Archangels into shadow; thou lookest down upon the lofty seats of the thrones; thou makest the heights of the dominations to seem low; thy rank taketh precedence before that of the principalities; compared with thee the powers are weakness; thou art a mighty one, mightier than all the mighty; thine earthly eyes see further than the contemplation of the Cherubim can reach; the Seraphim have six wings, but thy flight is nobler than theirs; in a word thou hast far excelled every other work of God; thou wast far purer than any other creature ... and thou hast been chosen out of all He has made to be His mother” (De Annunt. Deip.).
Queen of Angels, pray for us!
39. QUEEN OF PATRIARCHS
“She reacheth from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly” (Wisdom 8:1).
“Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and glory. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold on her; and he that shall retain her is blessed” (Proverbs 3:16, 18).
When Adam, the father of the human race, fell through his weak compliance with the will of Eve, God, to comfort him in his banishment from the earthly Paradise, told him of the woman who was to come, whose power and strength should be such that she would crush the head of the serpent who had brought about the ruin of himself and Eve.
The knowledge of Mary, of her whose seed was to repair the evil they had done, was given as a solace to our first parents, and often must they have talked together of this strong faithful one to come, whose obedience to God would stand out in bold relief against their disobedience. They transmitted this promise to their posterity, and the remembrance of it was carefully preserved through succeeding ages.
When God told Abraham that his seed should be more numerous than the stars in the heavens, did He whisper to him that one of that seed would be more beautiful and magnificent than all the rest, that it should be called the Star of the Sea, and that from it would come forth one mightier than itself, the very Sun of Justice? Be this as it may, Mary is the Queen of Patriarchs, not only because she is the Mother of their King, but because she was their hope, and moreover excelled them in their distinguishing virtue—Faith. “Blessed art thou because thou hast believed,” was Elizabeth’s salutation to her holy cousin.
Mary had prayed with such confiding earnestness for the coming of the Desired of all nations, that God could no longer resist her trustful Faith in His readiness to hear us, and hastened down from His royal home to her humble dwelling when she was little more than a child in years. As the ark bore Noah and those who were to renew the race of men, so Mary bore within her the mighty One who was to regenerate the face of the Earth and save men from their sins.
Our Lady, too, has another claim to the title of Queen of Patriarchs, in that she was espoused to the last of the race, the glorious St. Joseph, now the patron of the Universal Church, and Father of the faithful, he of whom St. Ephrem wrote:
“No one can worthily praise Joseph, whom Thou, O true and natural Son of the eternal Father, didst not refuse to have for Thy adopted Father: Joseph, that just and prudent spouse, whom when in doubt, perplexed and harassed, the angel appearing to him in sleep confirmed; he it was who brought Thee back from Egypt. Worthy is he that Thou shouldst increase his dignity, and that the more because his own extreme integrity bore a glorious testimony to Thine own innocence and sanctity.”
As Mary exceeded Adam in fidelity, so did she Abraham in generosity, for her Son was so much dearer to her than was Isaac to his father, as the Creator is greater than the creature; for Jesus, whom she sacrificed in submission to the will of the eternal Father, and for the salvation of man, was her very God. She surpassed Jacob, too, in his power of prayer, by which he wrestled with an angel and overcame him, for she drew down to her the mighty Son of God Himself, who, conquered by her humble Faith and love, became subject to her and obeyed her as a child.
“O Mary,” exclaimed St. Tarasius, Patriarch of Constantinople, “where shall I find words to praise thee? ... Holy maiden Mother, blessed art thou among women; thy glory is in thy guilelessness, and thy name is a name of purity. In thee is the curse of Adam done away and the debt of Eve paid ... Thou art the Ark of Noe and the bond of reconciliation with God in a new regeneration ... Thou art the exceeding glory of the kingdom and priesthood of Melchisedech; thou art the unshaken trust of Abraham, the burnt-offering of Isaac. Thou art the ladder that Jacob saw going up to Heaven, and the most noble of all his children. O purest! thou art the book of Moses, the law-giver, whereon the New Covenant is written with the finger of God ... Thou art Aaron’s rod that budded. Thou art as David’s daughter, all glorious within, wrought about with divers colors ... Hail, just hope of the patriarchs! Hail, special honor of all the saints! Hail, source of health to all dying creatures! Hail, O queen, ambassadress of peace! Hail, advocate of all under Heaven! ... Hail, thou that art full of grace, the Lord is with thee, even the Lord that was before thee and from thee and that is with us. To Him, with the Father, and the most holy and life-giving Spirit, be ascribed all praise, now and ever, world without end. Amen.”
Queen of Patriarchs, pray for us.
“Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and glory. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold on her; and he that shall retain her is blessed” (Proverbs 3:16, 18).
When Adam, the father of the human race, fell through his weak compliance with the will of Eve, God, to comfort him in his banishment from the earthly Paradise, told him of the woman who was to come, whose power and strength should be such that she would crush the head of the serpent who had brought about the ruin of himself and Eve.
The knowledge of Mary, of her whose seed was to repair the evil they had done, was given as a solace to our first parents, and often must they have talked together of this strong faithful one to come, whose obedience to God would stand out in bold relief against their disobedience. They transmitted this promise to their posterity, and the remembrance of it was carefully preserved through succeeding ages.
When God told Abraham that his seed should be more numerous than the stars in the heavens, did He whisper to him that one of that seed would be more beautiful and magnificent than all the rest, that it should be called the Star of the Sea, and that from it would come forth one mightier than itself, the very Sun of Justice? Be this as it may, Mary is the Queen of Patriarchs, not only because she is the Mother of their King, but because she was their hope, and moreover excelled them in their distinguishing virtue—Faith. “Blessed art thou because thou hast believed,” was Elizabeth’s salutation to her holy cousin.
Mary had prayed with such confiding earnestness for the coming of the Desired of all nations, that God could no longer resist her trustful Faith in His readiness to hear us, and hastened down from His royal home to her humble dwelling when she was little more than a child in years. As the ark bore Noah and those who were to renew the race of men, so Mary bore within her the mighty One who was to regenerate the face of the Earth and save men from their sins.
Our Lady, too, has another claim to the title of Queen of Patriarchs, in that she was espoused to the last of the race, the glorious St. Joseph, now the patron of the Universal Church, and Father of the faithful, he of whom St. Ephrem wrote:
“No one can worthily praise Joseph, whom Thou, O true and natural Son of the eternal Father, didst not refuse to have for Thy adopted Father: Joseph, that just and prudent spouse, whom when in doubt, perplexed and harassed, the angel appearing to him in sleep confirmed; he it was who brought Thee back from Egypt. Worthy is he that Thou shouldst increase his dignity, and that the more because his own extreme integrity bore a glorious testimony to Thine own innocence and sanctity.”
As Mary exceeded Adam in fidelity, so did she Abraham in generosity, for her Son was so much dearer to her than was Isaac to his father, as the Creator is greater than the creature; for Jesus, whom she sacrificed in submission to the will of the eternal Father, and for the salvation of man, was her very God. She surpassed Jacob, too, in his power of prayer, by which he wrestled with an angel and overcame him, for she drew down to her the mighty Son of God Himself, who, conquered by her humble Faith and love, became subject to her and obeyed her as a child.
“O Mary,” exclaimed St. Tarasius, Patriarch of Constantinople, “where shall I find words to praise thee? ... Holy maiden Mother, blessed art thou among women; thy glory is in thy guilelessness, and thy name is a name of purity. In thee is the curse of Adam done away and the debt of Eve paid ... Thou art the Ark of Noe and the bond of reconciliation with God in a new regeneration ... Thou art the exceeding glory of the kingdom and priesthood of Melchisedech; thou art the unshaken trust of Abraham, the burnt-offering of Isaac. Thou art the ladder that Jacob saw going up to Heaven, and the most noble of all his children. O purest! thou art the book of Moses, the law-giver, whereon the New Covenant is written with the finger of God ... Thou art Aaron’s rod that budded. Thou art as David’s daughter, all glorious within, wrought about with divers colors ... Hail, just hope of the patriarchs! Hail, special honor of all the saints! Hail, source of health to all dying creatures! Hail, O queen, ambassadress of peace! Hail, advocate of all under Heaven! ... Hail, thou that art full of grace, the Lord is with thee, even the Lord that was before thee and from thee and that is with us. To Him, with the Father, and the most holy and life-giving Spirit, be ascribed all praise, now and ever, world without end. Amen.”
Queen of Patriarchs, pray for us.
40. QUEEN OF PROPHETS
“She knoweth things past, and judgeth of things to come ... She knoweth signs and wonders before they be done, and the events of time and ages” (Wisdom 8:8).
Foretold by God Himself at the time of Adam’s fall, waited for by all tribes and nations from the beginning, spoken of by all the great prophets in succeeding ages, allied by blood to one whom Our Lord called a prophet and more than a prophet, herself endowed with the gift of prophecy, Mary stands forth as having every conceivable right to the title of Queen of Prophets, in which quality she may indeed be said to “reach from end to end mightily.”
The thought of the woman who was to crush the head of the serpent consoled our first parents during their long years of penance. Their sons and daughters heard of her from their childhood, and propagated the knowledge of her and the Redeemer who was to be born of her in every land to which they wandered; so that there is scarce a tribe or people to be found on the face of the Earth that has not a conception, however distorted it may have become in time, of the spotless one who was to bring forth a Son who should be more than human. The prophets of God’s chosen race spoke of her with revealed knowledge, and Mary, during her sojourn in the temple, pondering their words, longed and prayed to be worthy to be the little handmaid of the Virgin who was to be the Mother of the long-looked-for Messias.
At that period Israel had for many years been without a prophet, a fact which doubtless caused sorrow in the heart of Mary—a sorrow that would give place to joy when her cousin Zachary was visited by an angel and gave vent to the spirit of prophecy bestowed on him from on high, in the canticle which has been sung in each succeeding age, and will be sung daily by the chosen portion of the Church till the end of time, equally with Mary’s own prophecy contained in her incomparable Magnificat, that “henceforth all generations” should call her blessed. How the liturgy of the Church is enriched with the words of Mary and her three relations, Zachary, Elizabeth and John the Baptist, whose exclamation, “Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who taketh away the sins of the world,” brings comfort daily at holy Mass to countless souls who might otherwise be wholly cast down at the sight of their transgressions. Another prophet rose up in connection with Mary: holy Simeon, who foretold the greatness of her Son and the sorrows of her heart.
During the long years that followed, one can imagine that, next to the angels, the prophets would be the most intimate friends of Our Lady in her interior life. She knew they had foreseen the sufferings of her Son, and from their writings she would gather how this knowledge had rent their hearts and how deep was their sympathy with His griefs. Proportionate then would be her joy when she met them in the home of her Beloved, and how they would crowd round her in triumph and greet her as their Queen.
David had danced when on Earth in the presence of the ark of the covenant; what would he not do when before her whom it typified? We can imagine him exclaiming in transports of joy and admiration: “Glorious things are said of thee, thou city of God”; while Baruch would sing as of old: “God will clothe thee with the double garment of justice, and will set a crown on thy head of everlasting honor” (Baruch 5); and Micheas: “Yea, the first power shall come, the kingdom to the daughter of Jerusalem.”
Then another prophet would congratulate her that the time of trial and sorrow was over, and remind her of that day of woe and darkness when “thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people: for salvation with thy Christ”; and Mary, in her humility, and to show that she attributed all the good in her to her Creator, would reply in the words of the same prophecy: “But I will rejoice in the Lord; and I will joy in God my Jesus. The Lord God is my strength; and He will make my feet like the feet of harts; and He the conqueror will lead me upon my high places, singing psalms” (Habacuc 13).
Zacharias would greet her with: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion, shout for joy, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold thy King will come to thee, the just and Savior.” And thus they would continue to find new meanings, and make fresh applications, and discover more and more hidden beauty in the divinely inspired words of Holy Writ.
Isaias would rejoice that he had been privileged to foretell in clear terms the Virgin whose Son was to be the Lamb, the Ruler of the world; and Jeremias would find cause for gladness in the thought that his words were chosen by the Church to depict the sorrows of Mary, and that all her loving children to the end of time would use them to express their sympathy with her in her grief and desolation, saying: “To what shall I compare thee, and to what shall I liken thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? to what shall I equal thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Sion, for great as the sea is thy sorrow?” (Jeremias, as in Mass of Our Lady of Dolors).
And may not we, too, grow in love of Our Lady and find food for thought and solid nourishment for our hearts by pondering the words of God in Holy Scripture—words which formed the spiritual reading of the Queen of Prophets when on Earth, and have sanctified countless souls in every succeeding age? Let us sometimes ask Our Lord to do for us what He did for the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, when He opened their minds that they might understand the Scriptures. It is a fitting prayer, also, to address to the Holy Ghost, the inspirer of the prophets. The comprehension and appreciation of Holy Writ are effects of the gift of wisdom.
If the Word of God were as honey to our mouth and more precious to us than gold or silver, our spiritual life would be more sunny, our meditations more a time of real communing with Our Lord, and His yoke would sit more lightly on our shoulders, thus making our upward progress more swift and secure.
Queen of Prophets, pray for us.
Foretold by God Himself at the time of Adam’s fall, waited for by all tribes and nations from the beginning, spoken of by all the great prophets in succeeding ages, allied by blood to one whom Our Lord called a prophet and more than a prophet, herself endowed with the gift of prophecy, Mary stands forth as having every conceivable right to the title of Queen of Prophets, in which quality she may indeed be said to “reach from end to end mightily.”
The thought of the woman who was to crush the head of the serpent consoled our first parents during their long years of penance. Their sons and daughters heard of her from their childhood, and propagated the knowledge of her and the Redeemer who was to be born of her in every land to which they wandered; so that there is scarce a tribe or people to be found on the face of the Earth that has not a conception, however distorted it may have become in time, of the spotless one who was to bring forth a Son who should be more than human. The prophets of God’s chosen race spoke of her with revealed knowledge, and Mary, during her sojourn in the temple, pondering their words, longed and prayed to be worthy to be the little handmaid of the Virgin who was to be the Mother of the long-looked-for Messias.
At that period Israel had for many years been without a prophet, a fact which doubtless caused sorrow in the heart of Mary—a sorrow that would give place to joy when her cousin Zachary was visited by an angel and gave vent to the spirit of prophecy bestowed on him from on high, in the canticle which has been sung in each succeeding age, and will be sung daily by the chosen portion of the Church till the end of time, equally with Mary’s own prophecy contained in her incomparable Magnificat, that “henceforth all generations” should call her blessed. How the liturgy of the Church is enriched with the words of Mary and her three relations, Zachary, Elizabeth and John the Baptist, whose exclamation, “Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who taketh away the sins of the world,” brings comfort daily at holy Mass to countless souls who might otherwise be wholly cast down at the sight of their transgressions. Another prophet rose up in connection with Mary: holy Simeon, who foretold the greatness of her Son and the sorrows of her heart.
During the long years that followed, one can imagine that, next to the angels, the prophets would be the most intimate friends of Our Lady in her interior life. She knew they had foreseen the sufferings of her Son, and from their writings she would gather how this knowledge had rent their hearts and how deep was their sympathy with His griefs. Proportionate then would be her joy when she met them in the home of her Beloved, and how they would crowd round her in triumph and greet her as their Queen.
David had danced when on Earth in the presence of the ark of the covenant; what would he not do when before her whom it typified? We can imagine him exclaiming in transports of joy and admiration: “Glorious things are said of thee, thou city of God”; while Baruch would sing as of old: “God will clothe thee with the double garment of justice, and will set a crown on thy head of everlasting honor” (Baruch 5); and Micheas: “Yea, the first power shall come, the kingdom to the daughter of Jerusalem.”
Then another prophet would congratulate her that the time of trial and sorrow was over, and remind her of that day of woe and darkness when “thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people: for salvation with thy Christ”; and Mary, in her humility, and to show that she attributed all the good in her to her Creator, would reply in the words of the same prophecy: “But I will rejoice in the Lord; and I will joy in God my Jesus. The Lord God is my strength; and He will make my feet like the feet of harts; and He the conqueror will lead me upon my high places, singing psalms” (Habacuc 13).
Zacharias would greet her with: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion, shout for joy, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold thy King will come to thee, the just and Savior.” And thus they would continue to find new meanings, and make fresh applications, and discover more and more hidden beauty in the divinely inspired words of Holy Writ.
Isaias would rejoice that he had been privileged to foretell in clear terms the Virgin whose Son was to be the Lamb, the Ruler of the world; and Jeremias would find cause for gladness in the thought that his words were chosen by the Church to depict the sorrows of Mary, and that all her loving children to the end of time would use them to express their sympathy with her in her grief and desolation, saying: “To what shall I compare thee, and to what shall I liken thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? to what shall I equal thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Sion, for great as the sea is thy sorrow?” (Jeremias, as in Mass of Our Lady of Dolors).
And may not we, too, grow in love of Our Lady and find food for thought and solid nourishment for our hearts by pondering the words of God in Holy Scripture—words which formed the spiritual reading of the Queen of Prophets when on Earth, and have sanctified countless souls in every succeeding age? Let us sometimes ask Our Lord to do for us what He did for the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, when He opened their minds that they might understand the Scriptures. It is a fitting prayer, also, to address to the Holy Ghost, the inspirer of the prophets. The comprehension and appreciation of Holy Writ are effects of the gift of wisdom.
If the Word of God were as honey to our mouth and more precious to us than gold or silver, our spiritual life would be more sunny, our meditations more a time of real communing with Our Lord, and His yoke would sit more lightly on our shoulders, thus making our upward progress more swift and secure.
Queen of Prophets, pray for us.
41. QUEEN OF APOSTLES
“She is an infinite treasure to men, which they that use become the friends of God” (Wisdom 7:14),
“I purposed therefore to take her to live with me; knowing that she will communicate to me of her good things, and will be a comfort in my cares and grief” (Wisdom 8:9).
“He that loveth her loveth life: and they that watch for her shall embrace her sweetness. They that hold her fast shall inherit life, and whithersoever she entereth, God will give a blessing. They that serve her shall be servants to the Holy One, and God loveth them that love her” (Ecclesiasticus 4:13-15).
St. John the Baptist was the first after, of course, our Blessed Lady, to detect the presence of Jesus Christ in the world, and to make it known. But who made it known to him? Mary! And henceforth would he not regard the Mother of the King as his sovereign Lady and Queen?
Again, when the shepherds left the hill where the angels had announced to them the glad tidings of the birth of the Messias, they do not seem to have grasped the full import of what was said to them. But it is recounted that when they had visited Bethlehem and found the Child with Mary and Joseph, then “they understood of the words that had been spoken to them concerning the Child.”
The sweet Babe Himself would not speak any more than in the house of Elizabeth, so again He would make use of Mary’s words to enlighten them. And would it not be the same with the Magi?
St. Ephrem in a sermon on the Nativity speaks on this point and makes the Virgin Mother exclaim: “So Thy worshipers have surrounded me ... Blessed be the Babe who made His Mother’s voice a harp for His words: and as the harp waileth for its master, my mouth waileth for Thee. May the tongue of the Mother bring what pleaseth Thee: and since I have learned a new conception by Thee, so may my mouth learn in Thee, O new Son, a new song of praise. And if hindrances are no hindrances to Thee, since difficulties are easy to Thee ... it is easy for a little mouth to multiply Thy great glory” (St. Ephrem, Serm. 10, in Nat. Dom.).
But the musical sounds of Mary’s harp were to be silenced for many years. She had the
heart-breaking sorrow of realizing that all were not so pleased to hear the praises of her divine Son as were the devout shepherds and Magi; and so, lest she might bring death on the Child she loved and adored, she was forced to maintain silence in His regard. What a suffering for an apostolic heart like hers!
However, when the time seemed to have come for Him to be recognized as the Lamb of God, and He had gathered round Himself a little band of followers, Mary, to whom He brought them, lost no time in showing forth, or rather in inducing Him to show forth His power, and in recommending the servers to do whatever He told them. The result was what she was longing for--“His disciples believed in Him.”
But it was more than ever after the death and resurrection of Jesus that Mary became the Queen of Apostles. “She was their stay, their prop, like the turpentine tree and the oak, spreading their branches and producing a holy seed” (Epist. contr. Paul. Samosatan. Cf. Isa. vi.).
“They were persevering in prayer with Mary the Mother of Jesus.” St. Dionysius of Alexandria says of the apostles at this time: “With them too was the great house of God, the great mansion of God, Mary the Mother of God.” And St. Jerome writes: “Mary remained for a time on Earth after the Ascension of her Son, with the apostles, that she might instruct them more fully, since she had seen and handled things more familiarly, and was therefore better able to express them. For things that we better know we better utter” (De Assump. B.V.M.)
Yes, truly could Mary recount the facts of Jesus’ life from the first as an eyewitness and say: “I have seen Gabriel that called Him Lord, and the high priest, the aged servant, that carried Him and bore Him. I have seen the Magi when they bowed down, and Herod when He was troubled that the King had come. Satan, also, who strangled the little ones that Moses might perish, murdered the little ones that the Living One might die” (St. Ephrem, De Nativ. Dom., Serm. xii.).
“Mary being most wise,” says St. Eusebius of Emisa, “preserved in her heart all the words of Jesus Christ, and kept them for us, and caused them to be registered in order that according to her instruction, their recital and dictation should be published and preached throughout the world and given us to read.”
We can thus picture Our Lady in the house of St. John, the beloved disciple, to whom Jesus had given her as a Mother, being the comforter, counsellor and adviser of the apostles, sharing all their joys and sorrows, helping them in their undertakings, and doing her utmost in every way to spread the knowledge and love of Christ. She would be ever ready to receive all who came to her. “Come over to me and be filled with my fruits,” she would say, “the fruits of my long years of daily intercourse with the Lord. Be not overmuch grieved if the service of my Son has involved the loss of earthly goods. He, the fruit of my womb, is more precious than gold or silver or precious stones.”
Nor was Mary’s help confined to words. St. Ignatius of Antioch describes her as leading a life of very active charity, and St. Ambrose says: “In the one virgin how many glorious examples do shine forth! Hers was the hidden treasure of modesty, hers the high standard of Faith, hers the self-sacrifice of earnestness ... Why should I go on to speak of the scantiness of her eating or of the multiplicity of her work? How her labor seemed above human capacity, her refreshment insufficient for human strength, her toil unceasing?”
Thus did Mary, night and day, share the labors of the apostolate; and when a new field of labor was opened up, how her heart would rejoice! Perhaps she had read and talked over with her divine Son such passages as that in Isaias: “I will send of them into Italy and Greece, to the islands afar off, to them that have not heard of Me, and have not seen My glory. And they shall declare My glory to the Gentiles” (Isaias 66).
And He may have told her who they were whom He designed to preach the Gospel in those places, and her words would fill the hearts of the apostles with courage and confidence, for though they knew Jesus had foreseen all, it would be a special joy to know He had spoken to His blessed Mother of their connection with this or that work.
We can imagine them before starting on their distant missions, coming for her blessing and asking her prayers for their undertaking in some such words as those we address to Our Lady of Good Success: “Our Lady, our Queen, our Mother, in the name of Jesus, and for the love of Jesus, take our cause in hand and grant it good success.”
But when the time came for St. John to go to Ephesus he would say to her as Barac did to Debbora: “If thou wilt go with me, I will go.” And she would say as did the other valiant Mother in Israel: “I will indeed go with thee” (Judges 4). And so a second time for the sake of Jesus Mary left her people and her country, and went into a strange land, sharing in all the labors, difficulties and trials of the apostolate.
At last came the day when this most glorious Queen and Mother was to be taken from the affectionate veneration of the apostles. St. Gregory of Tours tells us that “when the blessed Mary had fulfilled the course of this present life, and was now to be called out of the world, all the apostles were gathered together from the several regions to her house. And as they learnt she was to be taken from the world, together they watched with her when, behold, the Lord Jesus arrived with His angels, and receiving her soul committed it to the archangel Michael, and then withdrew” (De Mirac.).
St. John Damascene supplements the account, and tells us of the apostles bearing the revered body to the grave, their voices mingling with those of the angelic spirits as they chanted round the sacred remains. Also how Thomas, arriving late, and desiring once again to gaze on the features of his Queen and his Mother, the twelve all repaired in a body to the tomb, the others evidently nothing loth to share the privilege. As Thomas’s tardiness in belief had but served to confirm the truth of the Resurrection of Our Lord, so now that of his arrival led to the discovery of the Assumption of Our Lady, and her devoted sons had the consolation that Christ’s holy Mother, like Himself, had not been suffered to see corruption. Would not they who after the Ascension of their Master, returned to Jerusalem rejoicing, do likewise on this occasion, and disperse to their various missions feeling Mary was no longer only their Mother, but their heavenly Queen, watching over, pleading for and waiting for the day to come when she would welcome them with joy and magnificence to “the kingdom”?
Queen of Apostles, pray for us.
“I purposed therefore to take her to live with me; knowing that she will communicate to me of her good things, and will be a comfort in my cares and grief” (Wisdom 8:9).
“He that loveth her loveth life: and they that watch for her shall embrace her sweetness. They that hold her fast shall inherit life, and whithersoever she entereth, God will give a blessing. They that serve her shall be servants to the Holy One, and God loveth them that love her” (Ecclesiasticus 4:13-15).
St. John the Baptist was the first after, of course, our Blessed Lady, to detect the presence of Jesus Christ in the world, and to make it known. But who made it known to him? Mary! And henceforth would he not regard the Mother of the King as his sovereign Lady and Queen?
Again, when the shepherds left the hill where the angels had announced to them the glad tidings of the birth of the Messias, they do not seem to have grasped the full import of what was said to them. But it is recounted that when they had visited Bethlehem and found the Child with Mary and Joseph, then “they understood of the words that had been spoken to them concerning the Child.”
The sweet Babe Himself would not speak any more than in the house of Elizabeth, so again He would make use of Mary’s words to enlighten them. And would it not be the same with the Magi?
St. Ephrem in a sermon on the Nativity speaks on this point and makes the Virgin Mother exclaim: “So Thy worshipers have surrounded me ... Blessed be the Babe who made His Mother’s voice a harp for His words: and as the harp waileth for its master, my mouth waileth for Thee. May the tongue of the Mother bring what pleaseth Thee: and since I have learned a new conception by Thee, so may my mouth learn in Thee, O new Son, a new song of praise. And if hindrances are no hindrances to Thee, since difficulties are easy to Thee ... it is easy for a little mouth to multiply Thy great glory” (St. Ephrem, Serm. 10, in Nat. Dom.).
But the musical sounds of Mary’s harp were to be silenced for many years. She had the
heart-breaking sorrow of realizing that all were not so pleased to hear the praises of her divine Son as were the devout shepherds and Magi; and so, lest she might bring death on the Child she loved and adored, she was forced to maintain silence in His regard. What a suffering for an apostolic heart like hers!
However, when the time seemed to have come for Him to be recognized as the Lamb of God, and He had gathered round Himself a little band of followers, Mary, to whom He brought them, lost no time in showing forth, or rather in inducing Him to show forth His power, and in recommending the servers to do whatever He told them. The result was what she was longing for--“His disciples believed in Him.”
But it was more than ever after the death and resurrection of Jesus that Mary became the Queen of Apostles. “She was their stay, their prop, like the turpentine tree and the oak, spreading their branches and producing a holy seed” (Epist. contr. Paul. Samosatan. Cf. Isa. vi.).
“They were persevering in prayer with Mary the Mother of Jesus.” St. Dionysius of Alexandria says of the apostles at this time: “With them too was the great house of God, the great mansion of God, Mary the Mother of God.” And St. Jerome writes: “Mary remained for a time on Earth after the Ascension of her Son, with the apostles, that she might instruct them more fully, since she had seen and handled things more familiarly, and was therefore better able to express them. For things that we better know we better utter” (De Assump. B.V.M.)
Yes, truly could Mary recount the facts of Jesus’ life from the first as an eyewitness and say: “I have seen Gabriel that called Him Lord, and the high priest, the aged servant, that carried Him and bore Him. I have seen the Magi when they bowed down, and Herod when He was troubled that the King had come. Satan, also, who strangled the little ones that Moses might perish, murdered the little ones that the Living One might die” (St. Ephrem, De Nativ. Dom., Serm. xii.).
“Mary being most wise,” says St. Eusebius of Emisa, “preserved in her heart all the words of Jesus Christ, and kept them for us, and caused them to be registered in order that according to her instruction, their recital and dictation should be published and preached throughout the world and given us to read.”
We can thus picture Our Lady in the house of St. John, the beloved disciple, to whom Jesus had given her as a Mother, being the comforter, counsellor and adviser of the apostles, sharing all their joys and sorrows, helping them in their undertakings, and doing her utmost in every way to spread the knowledge and love of Christ. She would be ever ready to receive all who came to her. “Come over to me and be filled with my fruits,” she would say, “the fruits of my long years of daily intercourse with the Lord. Be not overmuch grieved if the service of my Son has involved the loss of earthly goods. He, the fruit of my womb, is more precious than gold or silver or precious stones.”
Nor was Mary’s help confined to words. St. Ignatius of Antioch describes her as leading a life of very active charity, and St. Ambrose says: “In the one virgin how many glorious examples do shine forth! Hers was the hidden treasure of modesty, hers the high standard of Faith, hers the self-sacrifice of earnestness ... Why should I go on to speak of the scantiness of her eating or of the multiplicity of her work? How her labor seemed above human capacity, her refreshment insufficient for human strength, her toil unceasing?”
Thus did Mary, night and day, share the labors of the apostolate; and when a new field of labor was opened up, how her heart would rejoice! Perhaps she had read and talked over with her divine Son such passages as that in Isaias: “I will send of them into Italy and Greece, to the islands afar off, to them that have not heard of Me, and have not seen My glory. And they shall declare My glory to the Gentiles” (Isaias 66).
And He may have told her who they were whom He designed to preach the Gospel in those places, and her words would fill the hearts of the apostles with courage and confidence, for though they knew Jesus had foreseen all, it would be a special joy to know He had spoken to His blessed Mother of their connection with this or that work.
We can imagine them before starting on their distant missions, coming for her blessing and asking her prayers for their undertaking in some such words as those we address to Our Lady of Good Success: “Our Lady, our Queen, our Mother, in the name of Jesus, and for the love of Jesus, take our cause in hand and grant it good success.”
But when the time came for St. John to go to Ephesus he would say to her as Barac did to Debbora: “If thou wilt go with me, I will go.” And she would say as did the other valiant Mother in Israel: “I will indeed go with thee” (Judges 4). And so a second time for the sake of Jesus Mary left her people and her country, and went into a strange land, sharing in all the labors, difficulties and trials of the apostolate.
At last came the day when this most glorious Queen and Mother was to be taken from the affectionate veneration of the apostles. St. Gregory of Tours tells us that “when the blessed Mary had fulfilled the course of this present life, and was now to be called out of the world, all the apostles were gathered together from the several regions to her house. And as they learnt she was to be taken from the world, together they watched with her when, behold, the Lord Jesus arrived with His angels, and receiving her soul committed it to the archangel Michael, and then withdrew” (De Mirac.).
St. John Damascene supplements the account, and tells us of the apostles bearing the revered body to the grave, their voices mingling with those of the angelic spirits as they chanted round the sacred remains. Also how Thomas, arriving late, and desiring once again to gaze on the features of his Queen and his Mother, the twelve all repaired in a body to the tomb, the others evidently nothing loth to share the privilege. As Thomas’s tardiness in belief had but served to confirm the truth of the Resurrection of Our Lord, so now that of his arrival led to the discovery of the Assumption of Our Lady, and her devoted sons had the consolation that Christ’s holy Mother, like Himself, had not been suffered to see corruption. Would not they who after the Ascension of their Master, returned to Jerusalem rejoicing, do likewise on this occasion, and disperse to their various missions feeling Mary was no longer only their Mother, but their heavenly Queen, watching over, pleading for and waiting for the day to come when she would welcome them with joy and magnificence to “the kingdom”?
Queen of Apostles, pray for us.
42. QUEEN OF MARTYRS
“Gird thee with sackcloth, O daughter of my people, and sprinkle thee with ashes: make the mourning as for an only son—a bitter lamentation” (Jeremias 6:26).
“O all ye that pass by the way, attend and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow” (Lamentations 1:12).
“My sorrow is above all sorrow, and my heart mourneth within me” (Jeremias 8:18).
Mary is styled Queen of Martyrs, though she was not, as they were, deprived of her life by violence; yet who could dispute her right to the title? Love is strong as death, and we know that to those who love no anguish is greater than that of seeing one dearer to them than life itself in grief and suffering. How often have we heard the cry wrung from a devoted, unselfish heart under such circumstances: “If it were myself, I should not mind: it would be far easier to bear it myself,” and we know that in very truth it would be so.
And who has ever loved as Mary loved Jesus? Not only was He her Child, her precious, peerless Son, but He was her very God. Judge then what His sufferings must have been to her great heart. To see His love despised, His teaching set at naught, to hear His name reviled, and witness the violence done to His sacred Person, what must have all this been to Mary? Truly the sword reached to her very soul, and well might she exclaim: “Is there any sorrow like unto mine?”… “My sorrow is above all sorrow, my heart mourneth within me.”
“Deliver, O Lord, my soul from the sword; my only one from the hand of the dog” (Psalm 21). “O my Son, my Son, who would grant me that I might die for Thee?” (2 Kings 18).
How was it that her heart broke not beneath the strain? It was because she had more work to do on Earth. She had to live on and suffer more, for the sake of the infant Church, for the sake of the countless children of whom she had become the mother during those three dark hours on Calvary, many of whom by their ingratitude and reckless waste of the graces won for them by the Precious Blood of her Son, would pierce her heart with a thousand darts, thus giving her more and more right to the title of Queen of Martyrs. May we not address to her, and with more reason, words penned, not for our heavenly Queen, but to an earthly Sovereign in her bereavement?
Break not, O woman’s heart, but still endure;
Break not, for thou art royal, but endure
Remembering all the beauty of that star
Which shone so close beside ye that ye made
One light together, but has past ...
... May all love, His love, unseen but felt, o’ershadow thee,
The love of all thy sons encompass thee,
The love of all thy daughters cherish thee,
The love of all thy people comfort thee,
Till God’s love set thee at His side again.
Yes, Queen and Mother, thy grief would have broken any ordinary heart, but thou art royal, and for the sake of thy people, of thy children and the Church, the bride of thy divine Son, dost thou brace thyself to live on and endure. Nor was He from whom death hath thus ruthlessly severed thee, a star, but a mighty sun, the very Sun of justice, of whom thou wast a mirror, and on whom His rays reflected with such splendor that thou didst seem to share and spread abroad His light.
Accept, O sorrowful Mother, the loving sympathy of all thy loyal sons and daughters, the children of holy Church. Let them mingle their tears with thine, while they ponder over thy griefs and thy right to the title of Queen of Martyrs, saying in the words of the Stabat Mater:
Is there one who would not weep,
‘Whelmed in miseries so deep
Christ’s dear Mother to behold?
Queen of Martyrs, pray for us.
“O all ye that pass by the way, attend and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow” (Lamentations 1:12).
“My sorrow is above all sorrow, and my heart mourneth within me” (Jeremias 8:18).
Mary is styled Queen of Martyrs, though she was not, as they were, deprived of her life by violence; yet who could dispute her right to the title? Love is strong as death, and we know that to those who love no anguish is greater than that of seeing one dearer to them than life itself in grief and suffering. How often have we heard the cry wrung from a devoted, unselfish heart under such circumstances: “If it were myself, I should not mind: it would be far easier to bear it myself,” and we know that in very truth it would be so.
And who has ever loved as Mary loved Jesus? Not only was He her Child, her precious, peerless Son, but He was her very God. Judge then what His sufferings must have been to her great heart. To see His love despised, His teaching set at naught, to hear His name reviled, and witness the violence done to His sacred Person, what must have all this been to Mary? Truly the sword reached to her very soul, and well might she exclaim: “Is there any sorrow like unto mine?”… “My sorrow is above all sorrow, my heart mourneth within me.”
“Deliver, O Lord, my soul from the sword; my only one from the hand of the dog” (Psalm 21). “O my Son, my Son, who would grant me that I might die for Thee?” (2 Kings 18).
How was it that her heart broke not beneath the strain? It was because she had more work to do on Earth. She had to live on and suffer more, for the sake of the infant Church, for the sake of the countless children of whom she had become the mother during those three dark hours on Calvary, many of whom by their ingratitude and reckless waste of the graces won for them by the Precious Blood of her Son, would pierce her heart with a thousand darts, thus giving her more and more right to the title of Queen of Martyrs. May we not address to her, and with more reason, words penned, not for our heavenly Queen, but to an earthly Sovereign in her bereavement?
Break not, O woman’s heart, but still endure;
Break not, for thou art royal, but endure
Remembering all the beauty of that star
Which shone so close beside ye that ye made
One light together, but has past ...
... May all love, His love, unseen but felt, o’ershadow thee,
The love of all thy sons encompass thee,
The love of all thy daughters cherish thee,
The love of all thy people comfort thee,
Till God’s love set thee at His side again.
Yes, Queen and Mother, thy grief would have broken any ordinary heart, but thou art royal, and for the sake of thy people, of thy children and the Church, the bride of thy divine Son, dost thou brace thyself to live on and endure. Nor was He from whom death hath thus ruthlessly severed thee, a star, but a mighty sun, the very Sun of justice, of whom thou wast a mirror, and on whom His rays reflected with such splendor that thou didst seem to share and spread abroad His light.
Accept, O sorrowful Mother, the loving sympathy of all thy loyal sons and daughters, the children of holy Church. Let them mingle their tears with thine, while they ponder over thy griefs and thy right to the title of Queen of Martyrs, saying in the words of the Stabat Mater:
Is there one who would not weep,
‘Whelmed in miseries so deep
Christ’s dear Mother to behold?
Queen of Martyrs, pray for us.
43. QUEEN OF CONFESSORS
“She maketh the friends of God” (Wisdom 7:27).
“He that looketh upon her shall remain secure. If he trust to her, he shall inherit her, and his generation shall be in assurance. For she walketh with him in temptation, and at the first she chooseth him. She will bring upon him fear, and dread and trial, and she will scourge him with the affliction of her discipline, till she try him by her laws, and trust his soul. Then she will strengthen him, and make a straight way to him and give him joy. And will disclose her secrets to him, and will heap upon him treasures of knowledge and understanding” (Ecclesiasticus 4:16-21), “and shall cause him to inherit an everlasting name” (Ecclesiasticus 15:6).
“She is an infinite treasure to men, which they that use become the friends of God.” “They that use.” How can we use Mary? Firstly, as our mother, our confidant, our truest friend, turning to her with the loving trust of a child in all our needs. Doing this, we shall become dear to her Son, for “God loveth them that love her.”
Secondly, we can use her as our model. By first studying and then copying her, we shall attain to some faint degree of imitation, and so become less unfit to be called the friends of God. “I have not called you servants, I have called you friends,” Our Lord said to His disciples, and we know His first act after they attached themselves to Him at the beginning of His public life was to introduce them to His blessed Mother at the marriage feast of Cana; and, that they might know her better, they all went together with her to Capharnaum for some days, where those rough unlettered fishermen had an opportunity of studying more at leisure the gentle, unselfish, refined ways of her whose “ways were beautiful ways,” of her who from that time forth was to be to them as a mother, adviser and helper.
Thirdly, we can use Mary as a refuge. There are times when we all have need of such—times when we have grieved the Heart of God, and, unable to face the pained look of His sacred countenance, we bury ours in His Mother’s lap, begging her to plead for us, and by her love to make up to Him for what we have caused Him to suffer.
The saints of God, His holy confessors, have all made use of Our Lady in these three ways. St. Bernard’s love of his heavenly Queen is too well known to need comment, as is also that of St. Dominic, whose name will ever be associated with her rosary. St. Ignatius, even in the early days of his conversion, was full of enthusiastic, chivalrous devotion to Mary Immaculate, a devotion shared in a high degree by many of his spiritual sons, such as St. Aloysius, St. Stanislaus, St. John Berchmans. St. Philip Neri had her name constantly on his lips, while his little exhortation, “Love Mary, be devout to Mary,” bore untold fruit in the hearts of his hearers.
Let us therefore use Mary as the saints have done, and beg her unceasingly to make us, as she made them, the friends of God.
Queen of Confessors, pray for us.
“He that looketh upon her shall remain secure. If he trust to her, he shall inherit her, and his generation shall be in assurance. For she walketh with him in temptation, and at the first she chooseth him. She will bring upon him fear, and dread and trial, and she will scourge him with the affliction of her discipline, till she try him by her laws, and trust his soul. Then she will strengthen him, and make a straight way to him and give him joy. And will disclose her secrets to him, and will heap upon him treasures of knowledge and understanding” (Ecclesiasticus 4:16-21), “and shall cause him to inherit an everlasting name” (Ecclesiasticus 15:6).
“She is an infinite treasure to men, which they that use become the friends of God.” “They that use.” How can we use Mary? Firstly, as our mother, our confidant, our truest friend, turning to her with the loving trust of a child in all our needs. Doing this, we shall become dear to her Son, for “God loveth them that love her.”
Secondly, we can use her as our model. By first studying and then copying her, we shall attain to some faint degree of imitation, and so become less unfit to be called the friends of God. “I have not called you servants, I have called you friends,” Our Lord said to His disciples, and we know His first act after they attached themselves to Him at the beginning of His public life was to introduce them to His blessed Mother at the marriage feast of Cana; and, that they might know her better, they all went together with her to Capharnaum for some days, where those rough unlettered fishermen had an opportunity of studying more at leisure the gentle, unselfish, refined ways of her whose “ways were beautiful ways,” of her who from that time forth was to be to them as a mother, adviser and helper.
Thirdly, we can use Mary as a refuge. There are times when we all have need of such—times when we have grieved the Heart of God, and, unable to face the pained look of His sacred countenance, we bury ours in His Mother’s lap, begging her to plead for us, and by her love to make up to Him for what we have caused Him to suffer.
The saints of God, His holy confessors, have all made use of Our Lady in these three ways. St. Bernard’s love of his heavenly Queen is too well known to need comment, as is also that of St. Dominic, whose name will ever be associated with her rosary. St. Ignatius, even in the early days of his conversion, was full of enthusiastic, chivalrous devotion to Mary Immaculate, a devotion shared in a high degree by many of his spiritual sons, such as St. Aloysius, St. Stanislaus, St. John Berchmans. St. Philip Neri had her name constantly on his lips, while his little exhortation, “Love Mary, be devout to Mary,” bore untold fruit in the hearts of his hearers.
Let us therefore use Mary as the saints have done, and beg her unceasingly to make us, as she made them, the friends of God.
Queen of Confessors, pray for us.
44. QUEEN OF VIRGINS
“Hearken, O daughter, and see, and incline thy ear; and forget thy people and thy father’s house. And the King shall greatly desire thy beauty: for He is the Lord thy God, and Him thou shalt adore. Offer to God the sacrifice of praise, and pay thy vows to the Most High” (Psalm 44:11-12).
“All the glory of the King’s daughter is within ... After her, virgins shall be brought to the King ... they shall be brought with gladness and rejoicing: they shall be brought to the temple of the King ... They shall remember thy name throughout all generations. Therefore shall people praise thee for ever, yea, for ever and ever” (Psalm 44:14-18).
“After her, virgins shall be brought to the King.” Truly, O Mary, “thy name is as oil poured out, therefore have young maidens loved thee,” and, loving thee, have followed thee to the temple of the King. Oil is a spreading substance, and thy name and example have spread into all countries where the Church thy divine Son came to plant on Earth is to be found.
Following thy example and walking in thy footsteps, how many innocent souls, in all the freshness of youth, have in each succeeding age come to offer their hearts and all their affections to the King of kings, choosing Him for their Beloved, and setting aside all earthly loves, however lawful, that they might cling the more wholly to their heavenly Bridegroom!
And they came, not in a gloomy, morose spirit, not as martyrs, unwilling victims, but with joy, “with gladness and rejoicing,” as to a marriage feast. Anyone who has seen anything of the days of clothing or profession in a religious house can testify to the radiantly happy spirit that pervades the whole atmosphere on these occasions. But these virgin souls must recollect it is not the habit that makes a religious. They must remember the King greatly desires they should advance in spiritual beauty, and that all the beauty of the King’s daughter is within. Mary again must be their model, of whom St. Ambrose writes:
“Set before yourselves, as the ideal of virginity, the life of blessed Mary, which reflects as in a mirror the beauty of chastity and the loveliness of self-government. Hence you may take the pattern of your life, for here are to be seen, set forth as in a model, all those things which you should learn—what to correct, what to flee, what to hold.
“The first incentive of the learner is the position of the teacher. Whose position is higher than that of the Mother of God? who brighter than she, whom the Light chose?
“What shall I say about the rest of her great qualities? She was lowly in heart, serious in words, wise in her head; she spoke little, and took great delight in reading; she placed her hopes, not in uncertain riches, but in the prayers of the poor; she was earnest in her pursuits, and modest in conversation; she was used to consider, not what men might think of her, but what God might think; she hurt none, and wished well to all; she shrank from boasting; she followed reason; she loved whatsoever was best” (St. Ambrose, Book upon Virgins).
It may be asked, what do those gain who sacrifice all for Christ? He Himself has told us: a hundredfold in this life, and life everlasting. Not that all is to be sunshine here, for He said to His disciples that they should mourn and weep while the world should rejoice. They must share His cross here if they would share His crown hereafter; but nevertheless they do undoubtedly receive the hundredfold in this world, as every true religious will affirm. The peace of Christ does indeed surpass all understanding. Truly it has been said:
“O Christ, if there were no hereafter,
It still were best to follow Thee.”
Might we not supplement these lines by two others:
“To have but known Thee, Lord and Master,
Were recompense enough for me.”
But far otherwise thinks our generous-hearted Savior. Those who have lived in virginity here for His sake are to be privileged to follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth in the next world. And heading the joyful band will be Mary, that fairest lily, the spotless one, leading the choir who sing their own special canticle of praise. “None can doubt,” St. Bernard says, “that she who is the Queen of Virgins will be the foremost of all to sing that song which it will be given to virgins alone to sing in the kingdom of God. And I think that in singing that song, which they alone will sing, but which they will sing all, hers will be the sweetest and the clearest voice, whose notes will make glad the city of our God. To utter such notes as hers, to sing such a song as hers, will none other be found worthy even among the virgins, and that music will be kept for her alone, who alone hath the boast of being Mother, and Mother of the Son of God... .Of a surety, God—and it is God whom she bore—who was to give to His Mother a glory which, in the heavenly places, is all her own, was careful to prevent her on Earth, with a grace that was all her own” (St. Bernard).
“Let us then fly,” says St. John Chrysostom, “to the most holy maiden, who is Mother of God, that we may gain the help of her patronage. Yea, all you who are virgins, whosoever you may be, run to the Mother of the Lord. She will keep for you, by her protection, your most beautiful, your most precious, your most enduring possession.”
Queen of Virgins, pray for us.
“All the glory of the King’s daughter is within ... After her, virgins shall be brought to the King ... they shall be brought with gladness and rejoicing: they shall be brought to the temple of the King ... They shall remember thy name throughout all generations. Therefore shall people praise thee for ever, yea, for ever and ever” (Psalm 44:14-18).
“After her, virgins shall be brought to the King.” Truly, O Mary, “thy name is as oil poured out, therefore have young maidens loved thee,” and, loving thee, have followed thee to the temple of the King. Oil is a spreading substance, and thy name and example have spread into all countries where the Church thy divine Son came to plant on Earth is to be found.
Following thy example and walking in thy footsteps, how many innocent souls, in all the freshness of youth, have in each succeeding age come to offer their hearts and all their affections to the King of kings, choosing Him for their Beloved, and setting aside all earthly loves, however lawful, that they might cling the more wholly to their heavenly Bridegroom!
And they came, not in a gloomy, morose spirit, not as martyrs, unwilling victims, but with joy, “with gladness and rejoicing,” as to a marriage feast. Anyone who has seen anything of the days of clothing or profession in a religious house can testify to the radiantly happy spirit that pervades the whole atmosphere on these occasions. But these virgin souls must recollect it is not the habit that makes a religious. They must remember the King greatly desires they should advance in spiritual beauty, and that all the beauty of the King’s daughter is within. Mary again must be their model, of whom St. Ambrose writes:
“Set before yourselves, as the ideal of virginity, the life of blessed Mary, which reflects as in a mirror the beauty of chastity and the loveliness of self-government. Hence you may take the pattern of your life, for here are to be seen, set forth as in a model, all those things which you should learn—what to correct, what to flee, what to hold.
“The first incentive of the learner is the position of the teacher. Whose position is higher than that of the Mother of God? who brighter than she, whom the Light chose?
“What shall I say about the rest of her great qualities? She was lowly in heart, serious in words, wise in her head; she spoke little, and took great delight in reading; she placed her hopes, not in uncertain riches, but in the prayers of the poor; she was earnest in her pursuits, and modest in conversation; she was used to consider, not what men might think of her, but what God might think; she hurt none, and wished well to all; she shrank from boasting; she followed reason; she loved whatsoever was best” (St. Ambrose, Book upon Virgins).
It may be asked, what do those gain who sacrifice all for Christ? He Himself has told us: a hundredfold in this life, and life everlasting. Not that all is to be sunshine here, for He said to His disciples that they should mourn and weep while the world should rejoice. They must share His cross here if they would share His crown hereafter; but nevertheless they do undoubtedly receive the hundredfold in this world, as every true religious will affirm. The peace of Christ does indeed surpass all understanding. Truly it has been said:
“O Christ, if there were no hereafter,
It still were best to follow Thee.”
Might we not supplement these lines by two others:
“To have but known Thee, Lord and Master,
Were recompense enough for me.”
But far otherwise thinks our generous-hearted Savior. Those who have lived in virginity here for His sake are to be privileged to follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth in the next world. And heading the joyful band will be Mary, that fairest lily, the spotless one, leading the choir who sing their own special canticle of praise. “None can doubt,” St. Bernard says, “that she who is the Queen of Virgins will be the foremost of all to sing that song which it will be given to virgins alone to sing in the kingdom of God. And I think that in singing that song, which they alone will sing, but which they will sing all, hers will be the sweetest and the clearest voice, whose notes will make glad the city of our God. To utter such notes as hers, to sing such a song as hers, will none other be found worthy even among the virgins, and that music will be kept for her alone, who alone hath the boast of being Mother, and Mother of the Son of God... .Of a surety, God—and it is God whom she bore—who was to give to His Mother a glory which, in the heavenly places, is all her own, was careful to prevent her on Earth, with a grace that was all her own” (St. Bernard).
“Let us then fly,” says St. John Chrysostom, “to the most holy maiden, who is Mother of God, that we may gain the help of her patronage. Yea, all you who are virgins, whosoever you may be, run to the Mother of the Lord. She will keep for you, by her protection, your most beautiful, your most precious, your most enduring possession.”
Queen of Virgins, pray for us.
45. QUEEN OF ALL SAINTS
“In the midst of her own people she shall be exalted, and shall be admired in the holy assembly. And in the multitude of the elect she shall have praise, and among the blessed she shall be blessed, saying:
“I took root in an honorable people, and in the portion of my God. His inheritance and my abode is in the full assembly of saints … I was exalted like a cedar in Libanus, and like a cypress tree on Mount Sion. I was exalted like a palm tree in Cades, and as a rose plant in Jericho: as a fair olive tree in the plains, and as a plane tree by the waters was I exalted ... as the vine I have brought a pleasant odor: and my flowers are the fruit of honor and riches” (Ecclesiaticus 14:3-4, 16-19, 23).
With reason is Mary styled Queen of All Saints. We have seen that she excelled the angels in purity, the patriarchs in Faith, the prophets in knowledge, the apostles in zeal, the martyrs in courage, the confessors in longanimity (long-suffering), the virgins in whole-hearted devotedness to Our Lord. Thus surpassing them all in their distinguishing characteristics she was able to sing: “So was I established in Sion, and in the holy city likewise I rested, and my power was in Jerusalem. And I took root in an honorable people, and in the portion of my inheritance, and my abode is in the full assembly of saints. I was exalted like a cedar in Libanus, and as a cypress tree in Mount Sion” (Ecclesiasticus 24).
“The full assembly of saints.” How at home Our Lady must have felt from the first moment she entered Heaven, where she found every one enamored of God, as she had ever been, but hitherto with few to sympathize with the inner fire which consumed her! There all is love—love pure and without alloy. See her amazement at being exalted above even Cherubim and Seraphim, as the cedars of Libanus overtop all the other trees of the mountain, and how her imagery is drawn from the mount which St. Jerome says derives its name from its stainless, glistening whiteness. “I was exalted like a cedar in Libanus.”
“I took root in an honorable people.” How delightful must be the society in Heaven! All that is beautiful, true, noble and intellectual in human nature is to be found there perfected in the highest degree, and without any admixture of littleness, meanness, weakness or other imperfections that mar in some measure even the grandest characters in this world.
‘Tis an important point to know
There’s no perfection here below,
but there, in our heavenly home, it exists in all its plenitude, and as Our Lady had surpassed all the saints on Earth by her humility—for it has been said that it was her humility even more than her purity that drew down to her heart the Son of God—so now she would exceed them all in her spirit of praise. We can imagine her singing joyfully the words: “Turn, O my soul, unto thy rest, for the Lord hath been bountiful to thee. For He hath delivered my soul from death: my eyes from tears, my feet from falling” (Psalm 114). “I will praise Thee, O Lord, with my whole heart ... I will give praise to Thee in the sight of Thy angels.”
How lovingly and unassumingly Our Lady would take her place amongst all the saints and angels that throng the heavenly court, and how they would welcome her as their Queen, as the Mother of their Most High Creator! How they would praise her, and yet feel, as Dante says, that only the Creator can rightly estimate the beauty of His creature! May we not end fittingly with a quotation from the great St. John Chrysostom:
“Truly, dearly beloved brethren, the blessed Virgin Mary was a great wonder. What thing greater or more famous than she hath ever at any time been found, or can be found? She alone is greater than Heaven and Earth. What thing holier than she hath been, or can be found? Neither prophets, nor apostles, nor martyrs, nor patriarchs, nor angels, nor thrones, nor dominations, nor Seraphim, nor Cherubim, nor any other creature, visible or invisible, can be found that is greater or more excellent than she. She is at once the handmaid and the parent of God, at once Virgin and Mother.”
O Mary, truly art thou a marvel of holiness. Well might Dante exclaim: “In te magnificenza, in te s’aduna quantunque in creatura e di bontate” (Paradiso, 33:20-21). In thee is magnificence, in thee is united whatever of good is to be found in creatures.
Queen of all Saints, pray for us.
“I took root in an honorable people, and in the portion of my God. His inheritance and my abode is in the full assembly of saints … I was exalted like a cedar in Libanus, and like a cypress tree on Mount Sion. I was exalted like a palm tree in Cades, and as a rose plant in Jericho: as a fair olive tree in the plains, and as a plane tree by the waters was I exalted ... as the vine I have brought a pleasant odor: and my flowers are the fruit of honor and riches” (Ecclesiaticus 14:3-4, 16-19, 23).
With reason is Mary styled Queen of All Saints. We have seen that she excelled the angels in purity, the patriarchs in Faith, the prophets in knowledge, the apostles in zeal, the martyrs in courage, the confessors in longanimity (long-suffering), the virgins in whole-hearted devotedness to Our Lord. Thus surpassing them all in their distinguishing characteristics she was able to sing: “So was I established in Sion, and in the holy city likewise I rested, and my power was in Jerusalem. And I took root in an honorable people, and in the portion of my inheritance, and my abode is in the full assembly of saints. I was exalted like a cedar in Libanus, and as a cypress tree in Mount Sion” (Ecclesiasticus 24).
“The full assembly of saints.” How at home Our Lady must have felt from the first moment she entered Heaven, where she found every one enamored of God, as she had ever been, but hitherto with few to sympathize with the inner fire which consumed her! There all is love—love pure and without alloy. See her amazement at being exalted above even Cherubim and Seraphim, as the cedars of Libanus overtop all the other trees of the mountain, and how her imagery is drawn from the mount which St. Jerome says derives its name from its stainless, glistening whiteness. “I was exalted like a cedar in Libanus.”
“I took root in an honorable people.” How delightful must be the society in Heaven! All that is beautiful, true, noble and intellectual in human nature is to be found there perfected in the highest degree, and without any admixture of littleness, meanness, weakness or other imperfections that mar in some measure even the grandest characters in this world.
‘Tis an important point to know
There’s no perfection here below,
but there, in our heavenly home, it exists in all its plenitude, and as Our Lady had surpassed all the saints on Earth by her humility—for it has been said that it was her humility even more than her purity that drew down to her heart the Son of God—so now she would exceed them all in her spirit of praise. We can imagine her singing joyfully the words: “Turn, O my soul, unto thy rest, for the Lord hath been bountiful to thee. For He hath delivered my soul from death: my eyes from tears, my feet from falling” (Psalm 114). “I will praise Thee, O Lord, with my whole heart ... I will give praise to Thee in the sight of Thy angels.”
How lovingly and unassumingly Our Lady would take her place amongst all the saints and angels that throng the heavenly court, and how they would welcome her as their Queen, as the Mother of their Most High Creator! How they would praise her, and yet feel, as Dante says, that only the Creator can rightly estimate the beauty of His creature! May we not end fittingly with a quotation from the great St. John Chrysostom:
“Truly, dearly beloved brethren, the blessed Virgin Mary was a great wonder. What thing greater or more famous than she hath ever at any time been found, or can be found? She alone is greater than Heaven and Earth. What thing holier than she hath been, or can be found? Neither prophets, nor apostles, nor martyrs, nor patriarchs, nor angels, nor thrones, nor dominations, nor Seraphim, nor Cherubim, nor any other creature, visible or invisible, can be found that is greater or more excellent than she. She is at once the handmaid and the parent of God, at once Virgin and Mother.”
O Mary, truly art thou a marvel of holiness. Well might Dante exclaim: “In te magnificenza, in te s’aduna quantunque in creatura e di bontate” (Paradiso, 33:20-21). In thee is magnificence, in thee is united whatever of good is to be found in creatures.
Queen of all Saints, pray for us.
46. QUEEN CONCEIVED WITHOUT ORIGINAL SIN
“And a great sign appeared in Heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (Apocalypse 12:1).
“Behold, thou art fair, O my love; behold, thou art fair” (Canticles 1:14).
“Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day of thy creation” (Ezechiel 38:15).
“Thou wast in the pleasures of the paradise of God, and every precious stone was thy covering: the sardius, the topaz and the jasper, the chrysolite, and the onyx, and the beryl, the sapphire, and the carbuncle, and the emerald; gold the work of thy beauty.. . Thou wast a cherub stretched out, and protecting, and I set thee in the holy mountain of God” (Ezechiel 13:14).
“Thou art all fair, O My love, and there is not a spot in thee” (Canticles 4:7).
What a joy it must have been to the angels and the whole heavenly court to see Mary’s soul, which had gone forth radiantly fair from the hand of its Creator, return to Him, after a sojourn of sixty or seventy years in this wicked world, not only unspotted by a single stain, but with its beauty and brilliancy increased to an almost incredible degree! And might not Mary have said, what Judith said to the ancients of Israel: “As the same Lord liveth, His angel hath been my keeper both going hence and abiding there, and returning from thence hither; and the Lord hath not suffered me, His handmaid, to be defiled, but hath brought me back to you without pollution of sin, rejoicing by His victory for my escape and for your deliverance”?
Yes, dearest Mother, thy joy is threefold. Thy sinlessness is a triumph for God’s power and goodness, an honor for thyself, and a glory for the whole human race. Thou art indeed the glory of thy people. And we, what can we say of ourselves? Though we were not, it is true, conceived without sin, did we not receive a spotless robe of grace at our baptism? Have we not had one of God’s angels ever at our side throughout life? Shall we be able to give back our souls unstained to their Creator, and adorned with many graces?
O sinless Mother, obtain for us that, at any rate, they may be washed in the Blood of the Lamb, and purified by tears of contrition. God has said that, though our sins be as scarlet, they shall be made white as snow, if we cease to do evil and learn to do well.
So, Queen conceived without sin, pray for us that we, as children of the Church, Christ’s spotless Bride, may have a holy emulation to keep our souls unsullied by actual sin, willful sin. Help us to conquer our evil inclinations, to do penance for the past, that when invited to the marriage feast of the Lamb in the heavenly kingdom, we may be found clothed with the nuptial garment and adorned with the virtues befitting our state.
O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us.
“Behold, thou art fair, O my love; behold, thou art fair” (Canticles 1:14).
“Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day of thy creation” (Ezechiel 38:15).
“Thou wast in the pleasures of the paradise of God, and every precious stone was thy covering: the sardius, the topaz and the jasper, the chrysolite, and the onyx, and the beryl, the sapphire, and the carbuncle, and the emerald; gold the work of thy beauty.. . Thou wast a cherub stretched out, and protecting, and I set thee in the holy mountain of God” (Ezechiel 13:14).
“Thou art all fair, O My love, and there is not a spot in thee” (Canticles 4:7).
What a joy it must have been to the angels and the whole heavenly court to see Mary’s soul, which had gone forth radiantly fair from the hand of its Creator, return to Him, after a sojourn of sixty or seventy years in this wicked world, not only unspotted by a single stain, but with its beauty and brilliancy increased to an almost incredible degree! And might not Mary have said, what Judith said to the ancients of Israel: “As the same Lord liveth, His angel hath been my keeper both going hence and abiding there, and returning from thence hither; and the Lord hath not suffered me, His handmaid, to be defiled, but hath brought me back to you without pollution of sin, rejoicing by His victory for my escape and for your deliverance”?
Yes, dearest Mother, thy joy is threefold. Thy sinlessness is a triumph for God’s power and goodness, an honor for thyself, and a glory for the whole human race. Thou art indeed the glory of thy people. And we, what can we say of ourselves? Though we were not, it is true, conceived without sin, did we not receive a spotless robe of grace at our baptism? Have we not had one of God’s angels ever at our side throughout life? Shall we be able to give back our souls unstained to their Creator, and adorned with many graces?
O sinless Mother, obtain for us that, at any rate, they may be washed in the Blood of the Lamb, and purified by tears of contrition. God has said that, though our sins be as scarlet, they shall be made white as snow, if we cease to do evil and learn to do well.
So, Queen conceived without sin, pray for us that we, as children of the Church, Christ’s spotless Bride, may have a holy emulation to keep our souls unsullied by actual sin, willful sin. Help us to conquer our evil inclinations, to do penance for the past, that when invited to the marriage feast of the Lamb in the heavenly kingdom, we may be found clothed with the nuptial garment and adorned with the virtues befitting our state.
O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us.
47. QUEEN ASSUMED INTO HEAVEN
“Lift up your eyes to Heaven” (Isaias 51:6).
“Look up to Heaven and see, and behold the sky, that it is higher than thee” (Job 35:5).
“Who mounteth above the Heaven of Heaven” (Psalm 67:34).
“And He had commanded the clouds from above, and had opened the doors of Heaven” (Psalm 77:23).
“God give thee the dew of Heaven” (Genesis 27:28).
“Then hear thou from Heaven, and do justice to thy servants” (2 Paralipomenon 6:23).
Most fittingly this title follows the preceding one, which proclaimed Mary’s Immaculate Conception. These two titles mark the beginning and the end of her earthly life; they are the golden frame that encloses the mysteries of joy and sorrow, humiliation and exaltation which came to the Blessed Virgin as Mother of the Savior and His companion in accomplishing the redemption of the human race. This title was inserted into the litany by decree of the Holy See of February 4th, 1951
THE DOCTRINE
On November 1st, 1950, Pius XII, in virtue of his authority as supreme and infallible teacher of the Church, solemnly proclaimed: “Having again and again prayed to God in supplication and invoked the light of the Spirit of truth ― to the honor of the almighty God who has shown a unique benevolence toward the Virgin Mary ― to the honor of His Son, the immortal King of ages and Victor over sin and death ― for the greater
glory of the august Mother of the same Son and for the joy and exultation of the whole Church ― by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, and Our Own ― We declare and define as a divinely revealed dogma that: the Immaculate Mother of God and ever Virgin Mary, having completed her earthly life, was taken up into heavenly glory, body and soul.”
The doctrine defined refers to the substance of the mystery of Mary’s bodily assumption into Heaven; it says nothing about the manner in which this was done, nor how soon after her death. Pious legends and private revelations provide some pertinent details which may be believed.
It is told that by a divine inspiration all the Apostles, with the exception of Thomas, came to Jerusalem to be present at the death of the Blessed Mother of Jesus. Thomas arrived after her burial. In compliance with his ardent desire to see the earthly remains of Mary the tomb was opened. However, the tomb was empty; lilies and roses were in the place where the body had lain, a heavenly fragrance filled the tomb, and enrapturing melodies were heard coming from distant heights. It would seem highly probable that Mary was raised from the dead on the third day that she might be conformed to her divine Son.
BASIS OF THE DOCTRINE
The reasons that call for Mary’s bodily assumption into Heaven are so strong that at no period of the Church could they have been overlooked entirely.
One of the endowments of our first parents was bodily immortality; it was lost through sin. Death entered this world as a punishment of sin; because of his proud disobedience the body of man was to return into the dust out of which it had been taken. But there was no sin in Mary. She was conceived without Original Sin and never did the shadow of personal sin darken her life. Yet, where there is no guilt, there can be no punishment. Mary died as her divine Son did, but her body did not suffer the corruption of death. As the death of Christ, so in a secondary way, the death of Mary was to be the means to restore life to the world. Christ rose from the dead, and thus as the first enjoyed the fruit of His death; must not His Blessed Mother be the first one to do so after Him?
“The Virgin Mary is presented by the Fathers as the new Eve, most intimately joined to the new Adam, although subordinated to Him in that struggle against the infernal enemy. As indicated in the protoevangelium this struggle was to terminate in complete victory over sin and death.... Hence as the resurrection of Christ was an essential part and crowning trophy of this victory, so the conflict of the Blessed Virgin, which she had in common with her Son, was also to terminate with the glorification of her virginal body” (Fourth Day within the octave of the Assumption).
Jesus loved His Mother and longed to have her with Him in heaven, not only in soul but also in body. It is inconceivable that He should have allowed her to become a prey of corruption. “It seems well-nigh impossible to see her, who conceived and bore Jesus, nourished Him with her milk, held Him in her arms, and pressed Him to her bosom, after His earthly life separated from Him in body, even though united with Him in soul” (Fourth Day within the octave of the Assumption).
Lastly, we must add, the Holy Spirit owed it to Himself to preserve His immaculate Spouse from the corruption of the grave. He had made her all fair, the grandest temple of the Most Blessed Trinity―could He ever allow this temple to fall into ruin?
MESSAGE OF THE MYSTERY
We live in times of unprecedented materialism. On the one hand, the ambitions and efforts of the vast majority of f men are centered in the gratification of material desires; on the other hand, there is found disregard for the rights of the human person, degradation and enslavement of man, contempt of human life, that does not have its equal in the past. Against this background the definition of the dogma appears in its full force of truth, encouragement, consolation, and warning. In Mary assumed into heaven we behold the dignity of man, body and soul. We too shall rise: “What is sown in corruption rises in incorruption; what is sown in dishonor rises in glory; what is sown in weakness rises in power; what is sown a natural body rises a spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15:43 ff.). Though now enslaved, tortured, starved, the faithful servant of Christ shall rise clothed in the full dignity and glory of the child of God, no longer subject to pain and death, to imprisonment and limitation of movement, to the slowness and sluggishness of matter.
Like our Mother and Queen we too shall pass through night to light, through lowliness to glory, through cross to victory, through suffering and death to immortal life. Let us not lose sight of it. “Almighty and eternal God, who didst take up into heavenly glory with body and soul the immaculate Virgin Mary, grant, we pray, that we may ever keep our minds set on the things that are above and make ourselves worthy of a share in her glory” (Collect, Feast of the Assumption).
Queen assumed into Heaven, pray for us!
“Look up to Heaven and see, and behold the sky, that it is higher than thee” (Job 35:5).
“Who mounteth above the Heaven of Heaven” (Psalm 67:34).
“And He had commanded the clouds from above, and had opened the doors of Heaven” (Psalm 77:23).
“God give thee the dew of Heaven” (Genesis 27:28).
“Then hear thou from Heaven, and do justice to thy servants” (2 Paralipomenon 6:23).
Most fittingly this title follows the preceding one, which proclaimed Mary’s Immaculate Conception. These two titles mark the beginning and the end of her earthly life; they are the golden frame that encloses the mysteries of joy and sorrow, humiliation and exaltation which came to the Blessed Virgin as Mother of the Savior and His companion in accomplishing the redemption of the human race. This title was inserted into the litany by decree of the Holy See of February 4th, 1951
THE DOCTRINE
On November 1st, 1950, Pius XII, in virtue of his authority as supreme and infallible teacher of the Church, solemnly proclaimed: “Having again and again prayed to God in supplication and invoked the light of the Spirit of truth ― to the honor of the almighty God who has shown a unique benevolence toward the Virgin Mary ― to the honor of His Son, the immortal King of ages and Victor over sin and death ― for the greater
glory of the august Mother of the same Son and for the joy and exultation of the whole Church ― by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, and Our Own ― We declare and define as a divinely revealed dogma that: the Immaculate Mother of God and ever Virgin Mary, having completed her earthly life, was taken up into heavenly glory, body and soul.”
The doctrine defined refers to the substance of the mystery of Mary’s bodily assumption into Heaven; it says nothing about the manner in which this was done, nor how soon after her death. Pious legends and private revelations provide some pertinent details which may be believed.
It is told that by a divine inspiration all the Apostles, with the exception of Thomas, came to Jerusalem to be present at the death of the Blessed Mother of Jesus. Thomas arrived after her burial. In compliance with his ardent desire to see the earthly remains of Mary the tomb was opened. However, the tomb was empty; lilies and roses were in the place where the body had lain, a heavenly fragrance filled the tomb, and enrapturing melodies were heard coming from distant heights. It would seem highly probable that Mary was raised from the dead on the third day that she might be conformed to her divine Son.
BASIS OF THE DOCTRINE
The reasons that call for Mary’s bodily assumption into Heaven are so strong that at no period of the Church could they have been overlooked entirely.
One of the endowments of our first parents was bodily immortality; it was lost through sin. Death entered this world as a punishment of sin; because of his proud disobedience the body of man was to return into the dust out of which it had been taken. But there was no sin in Mary. She was conceived without Original Sin and never did the shadow of personal sin darken her life. Yet, where there is no guilt, there can be no punishment. Mary died as her divine Son did, but her body did not suffer the corruption of death. As the death of Christ, so in a secondary way, the death of Mary was to be the means to restore life to the world. Christ rose from the dead, and thus as the first enjoyed the fruit of His death; must not His Blessed Mother be the first one to do so after Him?
“The Virgin Mary is presented by the Fathers as the new Eve, most intimately joined to the new Adam, although subordinated to Him in that struggle against the infernal enemy. As indicated in the protoevangelium this struggle was to terminate in complete victory over sin and death.... Hence as the resurrection of Christ was an essential part and crowning trophy of this victory, so the conflict of the Blessed Virgin, which she had in common with her Son, was also to terminate with the glorification of her virginal body” (Fourth Day within the octave of the Assumption).
Jesus loved His Mother and longed to have her with Him in heaven, not only in soul but also in body. It is inconceivable that He should have allowed her to become a prey of corruption. “It seems well-nigh impossible to see her, who conceived and bore Jesus, nourished Him with her milk, held Him in her arms, and pressed Him to her bosom, after His earthly life separated from Him in body, even though united with Him in soul” (Fourth Day within the octave of the Assumption).
Lastly, we must add, the Holy Spirit owed it to Himself to preserve His immaculate Spouse from the corruption of the grave. He had made her all fair, the grandest temple of the Most Blessed Trinity―could He ever allow this temple to fall into ruin?
MESSAGE OF THE MYSTERY
We live in times of unprecedented materialism. On the one hand, the ambitions and efforts of the vast majority of f men are centered in the gratification of material desires; on the other hand, there is found disregard for the rights of the human person, degradation and enslavement of man, contempt of human life, that does not have its equal in the past. Against this background the definition of the dogma appears in its full force of truth, encouragement, consolation, and warning. In Mary assumed into heaven we behold the dignity of man, body and soul. We too shall rise: “What is sown in corruption rises in incorruption; what is sown in dishonor rises in glory; what is sown in weakness rises in power; what is sown a natural body rises a spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15:43 ff.). Though now enslaved, tortured, starved, the faithful servant of Christ shall rise clothed in the full dignity and glory of the child of God, no longer subject to pain and death, to imprisonment and limitation of movement, to the slowness and sluggishness of matter.
Like our Mother and Queen we too shall pass through night to light, through lowliness to glory, through cross to victory, through suffering and death to immortal life. Let us not lose sight of it. “Almighty and eternal God, who didst take up into heavenly glory with body and soul the immaculate Virgin Mary, grant, we pray, that we may ever keep our minds set on the things that are above and make ourselves worthy of a share in her glory” (Collect, Feast of the Assumption).
Queen assumed into Heaven, pray for us!
48. QUEEN OF THE MOST HOLY ROSARY
“Thus saith the Lord to me: ‘Make thee bands and chains: and thou shalt put them on thy neck!’” (Jeremias 27:2).
“Put thy feet into her fetters, and thy neck into her chains. Bow down thy shoulder and bear her, and be not grieved with her bands. Come to her with all thy mind, and keep her ways with all thy power ...
“Search for her and she shall be made known to thee, and when thou hast gotten her let her not go; for in the latter end thou shalt find rest in her, and she shall be turned to thy joy. Then shall her fetters be a strong defense for thee and a firm foundation, and her chains a robe of glory, for in her is the beauty of life, and her bands are a healthful binding” (Ecclesiasticus 6:25-31).
Why does Our Lady so love the Rosary? Because in it we call to mind the great things her divine Son has done for her and for mankind. How disappointing when we receive a signal kindness from any one to find that others do not seem to appreciate or value it at its true worth! How our hearts, overflowing with gratitude, are burning that all should recognize the generosity of the act, the thoughtfulness that prompted it, the delicacy with which it has been carried out, etc.; and when we find some sympathizing friend who seems to grasp the matter in all its bearings, and proportionately to praise our benefactors, do we not rejoice as if we had found a treasure? So does Mary watch with loving gratitude her children who ponder over the mysteries of the Rosary, seeking to understand them and finding, ever more and more, cause for wonder, praise and thankfulness. In the Annunciation we turn over in our minds that most astonishing proof of God’s love for man, the Incarnation, and His wonderful condescension in choosing to have a Mother.
In the Visitation we see Him selecting that Mother’s salutation as an instrument for working miracles of grace in the soul of the Baptist, and we re-echo Mary’s cry that He hath done great things for her, thereby giving unspeakable joy to her heart. In the third mystery we bend lovingly over her infant Son, praising, loving, consoling Him by our presence and sympathy.
The sorrowful decades bring before us the excess to which her divine Offspring carried His generosity and burning love for man, and the glorious ones record His victory over death and the honors He bestowed on the Mother who had been so true to Him in life. What wonder that Mary loves the Rosary, and obtains such striking graces for those who say it with devotion! What marvel that our Holy Father the Pope holds it in such esteem! It is a summary of God’s goodness to us, and makes us bear in mind the great things He has done in order to win our love and save us from eternal ruin. “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all He hath done for thee,” might be our cry after telling our beads: “For He that is mighty hath done great things for me, and holy is His name.”
Then, apart from the considerations that occupy our chief thoughts during its recitation and supply the coloring to the words we say, there are the words themselves, than which we can scarce conceive any more pleasing to God, which each decade ends, is a reminder that the chief duty of a creature towards its Creator is praise; and if we have pondered well the mystery we have been contemplating, we shall not be at a loss for motives to excite ourselves to the spirit of praise in the highest degree.
The “Our Father,” given by Our Lord Himself to His disciples when they asked Him to teach them to pray. The “Hail Mary,” said in the first place by an archangel, that archangel having been sent on a special mission by God, and therefore delivering the message with which he had been charged by the Almighty, and to whose words we add those of St. Elizabeth, uttered when the Lord had just worked a miracle of grace within her.
If, in the Rosary, we did nothing else but say fifty times, as we do: “Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus,” we could understand it filling the heart of Mary with exultation and gratitude. For if there are few sorrows greater than hearing those we love reviled and maligned—and in her case there could have been none greater, for Him whom she loved with her whole being was her God—so she can have no higher joy than listening to His praises.
Willingly, then, does she hearken to the last part of the “Hail Mary,” when the first has been said with reverence, and many are the graces she will obtain for us, now and at the hour of our death, if we are constant and faithful in the use of this devotion. The “Gloria,” with
Queen of the most holy Rosary, pray for us.
“Put thy feet into her fetters, and thy neck into her chains. Bow down thy shoulder and bear her, and be not grieved with her bands. Come to her with all thy mind, and keep her ways with all thy power ...
“Search for her and she shall be made known to thee, and when thou hast gotten her let her not go; for in the latter end thou shalt find rest in her, and she shall be turned to thy joy. Then shall her fetters be a strong defense for thee and a firm foundation, and her chains a robe of glory, for in her is the beauty of life, and her bands are a healthful binding” (Ecclesiasticus 6:25-31).
Why does Our Lady so love the Rosary? Because in it we call to mind the great things her divine Son has done for her and for mankind. How disappointing when we receive a signal kindness from any one to find that others do not seem to appreciate or value it at its true worth! How our hearts, overflowing with gratitude, are burning that all should recognize the generosity of the act, the thoughtfulness that prompted it, the delicacy with which it has been carried out, etc.; and when we find some sympathizing friend who seems to grasp the matter in all its bearings, and proportionately to praise our benefactors, do we not rejoice as if we had found a treasure? So does Mary watch with loving gratitude her children who ponder over the mysteries of the Rosary, seeking to understand them and finding, ever more and more, cause for wonder, praise and thankfulness. In the Annunciation we turn over in our minds that most astonishing proof of God’s love for man, the Incarnation, and His wonderful condescension in choosing to have a Mother.
In the Visitation we see Him selecting that Mother’s salutation as an instrument for working miracles of grace in the soul of the Baptist, and we re-echo Mary’s cry that He hath done great things for her, thereby giving unspeakable joy to her heart. In the third mystery we bend lovingly over her infant Son, praising, loving, consoling Him by our presence and sympathy.
The sorrowful decades bring before us the excess to which her divine Offspring carried His generosity and burning love for man, and the glorious ones record His victory over death and the honors He bestowed on the Mother who had been so true to Him in life. What wonder that Mary loves the Rosary, and obtains such striking graces for those who say it with devotion! What marvel that our Holy Father the Pope holds it in such esteem! It is a summary of God’s goodness to us, and makes us bear in mind the great things He has done in order to win our love and save us from eternal ruin. “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all He hath done for thee,” might be our cry after telling our beads: “For He that is mighty hath done great things for me, and holy is His name.”
Then, apart from the considerations that occupy our chief thoughts during its recitation and supply the coloring to the words we say, there are the words themselves, than which we can scarce conceive any more pleasing to God, which each decade ends, is a reminder that the chief duty of a creature towards its Creator is praise; and if we have pondered well the mystery we have been contemplating, we shall not be at a loss for motives to excite ourselves to the spirit of praise in the highest degree.
The “Our Father,” given by Our Lord Himself to His disciples when they asked Him to teach them to pray. The “Hail Mary,” said in the first place by an archangel, that archangel having been sent on a special mission by God, and therefore delivering the message with which he had been charged by the Almighty, and to whose words we add those of St. Elizabeth, uttered when the Lord had just worked a miracle of grace within her.
If, in the Rosary, we did nothing else but say fifty times, as we do: “Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus,” we could understand it filling the heart of Mary with exultation and gratitude. For if there are few sorrows greater than hearing those we love reviled and maligned—and in her case there could have been none greater, for Him whom she loved with her whole being was her God—so she can have no higher joy than listening to His praises.
Willingly, then, does she hearken to the last part of the “Hail Mary,” when the first has been said with reverence, and many are the graces she will obtain for us, now and at the hour of our death, if we are constant and faithful in the use of this devotion. The “Gloria,” with
Queen of the most holy Rosary, pray for us.
49. QUEEN OF PEACE
This title was added to the litany by Pope Benedict XV, during the First World War (1914-1918). Men talked of peace and promised peace, but there was no peace, because men would not follow the ways of peace. Peace is the result of order in men’s relations to God and to their fellow men. God Himself has made this order known in His commandments. When and where these commandments are ignored and transgressed there is disorder and strife. Wars, revolutions, social upheavals are the effects of the combined disorders in the moral conduct of men. Peace is meant for men of good will, but good is the will of those only who conform their will to the infinitely good will of God. According to the will of God there are some things that must be avoided and others that must be done. In both respects Mary, the Mother of the Prince of peace, leads the way and therefore she is the Queen of peace.
DISTURBANCES OF PEACE
Any deviation from the will of God is a deviation from the way of peace, for individuals as well as nations. The first disturbance of peace occurred in Heaven; it was the rebellion of the proud angels against their Creator. They would not submit to the will of God, they would not serve as He demanded. The result of this rebellion was disastrous: loss of heavenly peace and condemnation to the everlasting disorder and restlessness of hell. The second disturbance of peace took place on Earth, in Paradise, and was instigated by a rebel angel. Our first parents believed the tempter more than God, and did his will rather than the will of God. The result again was disastrous: loss of grace, expulsion from Paradise, and an endless train of evils for themselves and their posterity. To the present day mankind suffers from the consequences of original sin and will do so to the end of the world.
CONCUPISCENCE
The deadly evil bequeathed by our first parents to their posterity is concupiscence, that ever present urge to act against the order willed by God. Man rebelled against God, and in punishment his own nature now rebels against him to such an extent that St. John can say, “All that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16).
This evil lust spreads its poison through seven channels, which, though different in appearance, are all alike in their deviation from the will of God; they are the so-called seven capital sins: pride, that claims equality with God and perpetuates the rebellion of the fallen angels; greed and avarice, that see an idol in the material goods of this Earth; intemperance, that makes man a slave to food and drink; impurity, that lowers man even below the level of a brute; envy, that makes man sad because of the good fortune of his fellow men; anger, that does not know how to forgive and therefore seeks revenge; sloth, that sets a man craving for ease and comfort and prevents him from doing the work that would earn for him the peace of eternal life.
From these vices stem all the disturbances of peace in the individual; multiplied on a national scale these vices explain the national and international disturbances of peace that plague mankind. It is in the nature of evil that it does not remain isolated in the heart, but seeks expression abroad, and thus these seven deadly streams spread their poison throughout the world.
MARY AND THE WAYS OF PEACE
The Queen of peace possessed profound and undisturbed peace, because she was not touched by the spirit of the first rebellion on Earth; she was without concupiscence, without any inordinate passion, because she was without original sin. She walked the ways of peace in perfect conformity with the will of God and practiced the virtues opposed to those seven deadly vices, amid circumstances which caused her inexpressible pain and agony of heart. She was the most humble handmaid of the Lord ever ready to do His will; she was poor in spirit without the least desire for the goods of this Earth; temperate, allowing herself no food or drink beyond what was necessary to sustain her life; she was and remains the shining example of purity: the Mother most pure and chaste, the Virgin of virgins and Queen of all virgins.
The Queen of peace loves men, her spiritual children, and to see them happy she allows herself to be pierced with the sword of sorrow; could she, meek and humble of heart, the Virgin merciful and Refuge of sinners, ever entertain a thought of anger or revenge? Her life is spent, her energy exhausted, in the most fervent service of God, her last breath is the last act of love in her mortal life.
These are the ways of peace; if all men followed them, national and international life would be peaceful, because there would be peace in the hearts of men. Imagine the state of the world, if there were no pride looking down upon others as inferior because of race or religion; if nations would be content with what Providence has assigned to them in territory or wealth, refrain from enslavement and exploitation of other peoples, be ready to share with others the good things which they possess in abundance; if the ideals of temperance and chastity were accepted and honored; if there were no envy of progress made by other nations, no desire for revenge;, if the practice of religion were fostered in education, government, business―the result would be a truly golden age of peace.
Jesus triumphantly entering Jerusalem wept over the city and addressed to it His last warning, “If thou hadst known in this thy day, even thou, the things that are for thy peace” (Luke 19:24). The efforts of recent popes in behalf of world peace were repetitions of this warning of the Savior. They were not heeded and the world had to suffer unparalleled horrors of war. Let us hope and pray that, at least after these terrible experiences, men will turn to the ways of peace. The Queen of peace is eagerly waiting to lead them to her divine Son, the Prince of peace.
Queen of Peace, pray for us.
DISTURBANCES OF PEACE
Any deviation from the will of God is a deviation from the way of peace, for individuals as well as nations. The first disturbance of peace occurred in Heaven; it was the rebellion of the proud angels against their Creator. They would not submit to the will of God, they would not serve as He demanded. The result of this rebellion was disastrous: loss of heavenly peace and condemnation to the everlasting disorder and restlessness of hell. The second disturbance of peace took place on Earth, in Paradise, and was instigated by a rebel angel. Our first parents believed the tempter more than God, and did his will rather than the will of God. The result again was disastrous: loss of grace, expulsion from Paradise, and an endless train of evils for themselves and their posterity. To the present day mankind suffers from the consequences of original sin and will do so to the end of the world.
CONCUPISCENCE
The deadly evil bequeathed by our first parents to their posterity is concupiscence, that ever present urge to act against the order willed by God. Man rebelled against God, and in punishment his own nature now rebels against him to such an extent that St. John can say, “All that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16).
This evil lust spreads its poison through seven channels, which, though different in appearance, are all alike in their deviation from the will of God; they are the so-called seven capital sins: pride, that claims equality with God and perpetuates the rebellion of the fallen angels; greed and avarice, that see an idol in the material goods of this Earth; intemperance, that makes man a slave to food and drink; impurity, that lowers man even below the level of a brute; envy, that makes man sad because of the good fortune of his fellow men; anger, that does not know how to forgive and therefore seeks revenge; sloth, that sets a man craving for ease and comfort and prevents him from doing the work that would earn for him the peace of eternal life.
From these vices stem all the disturbances of peace in the individual; multiplied on a national scale these vices explain the national and international disturbances of peace that plague mankind. It is in the nature of evil that it does not remain isolated in the heart, but seeks expression abroad, and thus these seven deadly streams spread their poison throughout the world.
MARY AND THE WAYS OF PEACE
The Queen of peace possessed profound and undisturbed peace, because she was not touched by the spirit of the first rebellion on Earth; she was without concupiscence, without any inordinate passion, because she was without original sin. She walked the ways of peace in perfect conformity with the will of God and practiced the virtues opposed to those seven deadly vices, amid circumstances which caused her inexpressible pain and agony of heart. She was the most humble handmaid of the Lord ever ready to do His will; she was poor in spirit without the least desire for the goods of this Earth; temperate, allowing herself no food or drink beyond what was necessary to sustain her life; she was and remains the shining example of purity: the Mother most pure and chaste, the Virgin of virgins and Queen of all virgins.
The Queen of peace loves men, her spiritual children, and to see them happy she allows herself to be pierced with the sword of sorrow; could she, meek and humble of heart, the Virgin merciful and Refuge of sinners, ever entertain a thought of anger or revenge? Her life is spent, her energy exhausted, in the most fervent service of God, her last breath is the last act of love in her mortal life.
These are the ways of peace; if all men followed them, national and international life would be peaceful, because there would be peace in the hearts of men. Imagine the state of the world, if there were no pride looking down upon others as inferior because of race or religion; if nations would be content with what Providence has assigned to them in territory or wealth, refrain from enslavement and exploitation of other peoples, be ready to share with others the good things which they possess in abundance; if the ideals of temperance and chastity were accepted and honored; if there were no envy of progress made by other nations, no desire for revenge;, if the practice of religion were fostered in education, government, business―the result would be a truly golden age of peace.
Jesus triumphantly entering Jerusalem wept over the city and addressed to it His last warning, “If thou hadst known in this thy day, even thou, the things that are for thy peace” (Luke 19:24). The efforts of recent popes in behalf of world peace were repetitions of this warning of the Savior. They were not heeded and the world had to suffer unparalleled horrors of war. Let us hope and pray that, at least after these terrible experiences, men will turn to the ways of peace. The Queen of peace is eagerly waiting to lead them to her divine Son, the Prince of peace.
Queen of Peace, pray for us.