Chapter XXI: Of the Place which our Blessed Lady holds in our Spiritual Life

A BOOK on prayer would not be complete if it contained no mention of one of the principal agents in the work of our sanctification, if it failed to speak of that special help provided by our Saviour's goodness for enabling us to become true adorers; in a word, if it overlooked the important place held by the Blessed Virgin Mary in the spiritual life of each one of us.

After God, we owe our natural life to our father and mother, the salutary influence of the latter lasting sometimes through the whole of our life. The Decalogue makes no distinction between our parents, either in our love of them or in our duties towards them, and many are the lessons given in the holy Scriptures on this subject: "My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother, that grace maybe added to thy head and a chain of gold to thy neck."¹ One of the causes of an impure life, according to the Holy Spirit, is to be found in a wrong attitude towards our parents: "There is a generation that curseth their father, and doth not bless their mother, a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet are not washed from their filthiness."² After our duties towards God there is in Christian morality nothing that is more strongly insisted upon than our duties towards our parents.

Nevertheless the importance and sacredness of these natural ties is far surpassed by what, in the supernatural order, God has willed to establish for us. It is hardly correct, even in our language, to take as our exemplar the natural order; yea, rather it is the supernatural order that holds the priority; for though there is reality in the natural order, it is but the reflection, the copy of the things from above. Hence relationships and names in the natural order have less meaning and less strength than those of the supernatural order.

God's paternity over us is not a mere name and imputation, but a reality higher and more complete than human paternity, as St. Paul acknowledged when speaking of God the Father: "Of whom all paternity in heaven and in earth is named."³ And although the divine paternity in our regard is not a paternity of nature, but of adoption, we must understand the words here in a particular sense. The adoption of which we are the object is not simply juridical and purely external, as among men; it contains a real filiation by the intrinsic change which takes place in us by elevating grace, which transforms us into new creatures, "partakers of the divine nature."

But our Lord Jesus Christ, who obtained for us that His Father should become our Father, has set no limits to His favours; and as man, having Himself a Mother, the true gem of her race, He would have her adopt us as her children, in virtue of an adoption very different also from juridical adoption. In point of fact, when in the sublime scene of the Annunciation our Lady gave her assent to the mystery of the Incarnation, and pronounced the words, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to Thy word,"⁴ there can be no doubt that, divinely instructed, she assented to become the Mother, not only of God, but also of man. For our Lord is not complete without us, since He is the Head and we are the members: "That He might be the firstborn amongst many brethren."⁵ And Mary, Mother of the real body of her Son, was equally to be Mother of His mystical body. Just in the same way as we are the members of our Lord: "Because we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones,"⁶ so also are we the true children of the Mother of God.

But this is not all: Mary is our Mother also by alliance. Most certainly the Blessed Virgin was not ignorant that her Son was the Saviour promised to mankind, and that out of mankind He should form His Church, His beloved bride: "Christ loved the Church, and delivered Himself up for it, that He might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life. That He might present it to Himself a glorious Church."⁷ Mary knew the whole mystery of these divine nuptials, concerning which the Old Testament itself could not be silent, since their realization was the expectation and the desire of the whole world. She was acquainted with the language of the prophets, she knew that Jeremias in God's name had challenged sinful humanity, saying with tenderness: "Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore have I drawn thee, taking pity on thee."⁸ And again: "Return, O ye revolting children, saith the Lord, for I am your husband."⁹ Neither was she ignorant that

God had promised to contract a new alliance, even after the bride's infidelity to a first alliance, as He had declared by Ezechiel; "And I will remember My covenant with thee in the days of thy youth; and I will establish with thee an everlasting covenant"¹⁰—a covenant confirmed by the Prophet Osee, "And I will espouse thee to Me for ever; and I will espouse thee to Me in justice and judgment and in mercy and in commiserations."¹¹

Our Lady, knowing all these and many other texts, could conclude from them that her Son would be the Bridegroom announced in the Canticle of Canticles. That being the case, her maternal heart would go forth towards that predestined bride, whose nuptial feast was to be prepared by her care: "Go forth, ye daughters of Sion, and see King Solomon in the diadem wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals and in the day of the joy of his heart."¹² In truth, our Mother, even from the days of Nazareth, looked upon us, in virtue of our alliance with the King her Son, as her children.

The declaration made to her on Calvary: "Woman, behold thy Son,"¹³ was but the full revelation and public announcement of a truth which had long been familiar to her. At that solemn hour, when the Church was about to come forth from the open side of the new Adam, it was highly fitting that Mary's maternity should be proclaimed in all its fulness, as Isaias had sung of it in sublime prophetic language: "Before she was in labour, she brought forth; before her time came to be delivered, she brought forth a Man-child. Who hath ever heard such a thing? And who hath seen the like to this? Shall the earth bring forth in one day? Or shall a nation be brought forth at once, because Sion hath been in labour, and hath brought forth her children.”¹⁴ Here we have first a giving birth to an only Son, and that without labour; then to a whole nation in anguish and suffering; finally, that no error may be possible regarding the source of this double maternity, we have God declaring that He is without any human cooperation the author of this miraculous work. “Shall not I that make others to bring forth children myself bring forth? saith the Lord; Shall I that give generation to others be barren? saith the Lord thy God.”¹⁵

Had not the august Virgin these prophetic words in her mind when the angel Gabriel assured her that the Holy Spirit should come upon her, that the power of the Most High should overshadow her, and that, without detriment to her virginity, she should become the Mother of God? Isaias, in prophetic light contemplating these marvels, congratulated the favoured object of them, and called upon all men to praise her: “Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all you that love her; rejoice for joy with her, all you that mourn for her.”¹⁶ All nature had responded to the appeal of this heroic Mother when she exclaimed: “O all ye that pass by the way, attend, and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow;”¹⁷ and all nature had the right to rejoice with her, but the children of her sorrow, ever bearing in mind that injunction of holy Tobias to his son: "Thou shalt honour thy mother all the days of her life, for thou must be mindful what and how great perils she suffered for thee,"¹⁸ had a special right to rejoice with her.

Nevertheless our Lady's mission is no more ended when once the mysteries of the Incarnation and Redemption are accomplished than are these mysteries themselves which last through all generations and are only completed when the last of the elect has been formed. Mary is our Mother in the work of our sanctification; by her our Lord came to us, and by her He will always come—He who is ceaselessly coming till at the end of ages He will come for the last time to judge the living and the dead.

Mary untiringly cooperates in the formation of the mystical body of her Son, which is His fulness. Of this mystical body Christ is the Head, and Mary is the neck—collum Ecclesiæ Mysticum—while we are the members. Now, in a body the members are joined to the head, and communicate with it only by the neck, its throne and support.

Since our Lord comes to us through our Lady, she is our channel of supernatural life; it is through her that all non-sacramental graces come to us, and all the preparatory dispositions requisite for a fruitful reception of the Sacraments. And as each Sacrament is, strictly speaking, but an act of our Lord by and in His Church, it is again our Lady whom we meet in her Son. The Blood which empurples our chalice and our lips comes from her maternal heart, since it was from that immaculate source that the Word Himself drew it.

It is not without reason that the Church, applying to the Son of God and to His Virgin Mother certain texts of the Book of Wisdom, places on the lips of Mary these noble affirmations: "I am the Mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge and of holy hope. In me is all grace of the way and of the truth, in me is all hope of life and of virtue."¹⁹ She is the mother of these blessings; hence she can communicate them to her children, to whom she says: "He that shall find me shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord."²⁰ She is herself like a kind of sacrament, communicating to us life and supernatural blessings.

This is true with regard to all men, but it seems to be still more real in the case of souls who are advancing in the spiritual life. If we are to believe those words of the sacred Canticle: "I held him, and I will not let him go till I bring him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that bore me,"²¹ a soul beginning to grow conscious of our Lord's presence within herself, feels more than any other the need of being sheltered and protected under the safe keeping of God's Mother; she feels the need of being upheld by that blessed Mother in those paths whereby she aspires not only to become the bride of the Son of God, but moreover to grow up to the revelation of their one common origin where she will be proclaimed His sister. Hence she once again repeats: "I will take hold of thee, and bring thee into my mother's house: there thou shalt teach me, and I will give thee a cup of spiced wine and a new wine of my pomegranates."²² It is under Mary's eye that the bride triumphantly adopted by this blessed Mother will receive the most fruitful teaching; and divinely instructed, will learn to love her Lord with perfect charity. Is it not our Lady who possesses the secret of the mysteries of the Incarnation and of the Redemption? She it is who can reveal them to us, and while manifesting them, can witness to the greatness of the love wherewith we have been loved from all eternity, and thus make that fountain break forth which will enable us to give back to our God the tribute of our truest love.

Thus interested in the work of our sanctification, Mary is also our wall of defence against all the enterprises of the old serpent whose head ever lies low under her victorious foot. If the feeble and pusillanimous fear the dragon's terrible tail, let them take refuge under the protection of her who is "terrible as an army set in array."²³ She will inspire them with her own courage which is greater far than that of Judith, for her sons can chant with even more truth than did the Jewish people: "Thou art the glory of Jerusalem, thou art the joy of Israël, thou art the honour of our people, for thou hast done manfully .... therefore also the hand of the Lord hath strengthened thee, and therefore thou shalt be blessed for ever."²⁴ Those who feel themselves too weak for the battle need never hesitate to call for help to her, as Barac called for the help of Deborah: "If thou wilt come with me, I will go; if thou wilt not come with me, I will not go."²⁵

In her prudence, graceful as Abigail, Mary is able to appease the true David, irritated by the low vulgarity of the countless Nabals who fill the world; she pleads their cause with success, and in her turn deserves to hear: "Go in peace into thy house, behold I have heard thy voice, and have honoured thy face."²⁶ And by her beauty captivating the king's heart far more than did Queen Esther, she appears in very truth, like a suppliant omnipotence—Omnipotentia supplex.

At the marriage feast of Cana what a Mother our Lady showed herself! In her condescension she is watchful over everything, and she, the guest, spontaneously would spare her hosts the humiliation of adverting to the failure of their wine. But that we might be the better instructed, instead of herself working a miracle, she had recourse to her divine Son, and said to Him: "They have no wine."²⁷ And our Lord, accustomed no doubt to His Mother's frequent and merciful interventions on behalf of men, replies to her in words which for those round about are an enigma, but which for the Mother who so well understood the mind of her Son are an answer to her request. Therefore she hastened to say to the waiters what she is unceasingly repeating to us: "Whatsoever He shall say to you do ye."²⁸ Then she withdraws, certain of the success of her all-powerful intercession in our regard.

In another circumstance, of which only tradition speaks, we again perceive the efficacy of our Lady's mediation—it is on Mount Calvary, where she stood silent. Scarcely had our Saviour's words proclaimed her maternity with respect to all men, than the thief, crucified at the right hand of her Son, at once ceases to blaspheme, and under the influence of a renovating grace which illumines, penetrates and transforms him, he humbly confesses his crimes, and concludes with this ardent prayer: "Lord, remember me when Thou shalt come into

Thy kingdom.”²⁹ What has taken place in this soul, a moment before so hardened and so blinded? Mary has prayed that the Blood of her Son may be fruitful and do its work; and at once she has the joy of hearing the sentence of pardon falling from the lips of Him who, though in the midst of humiliations, is still Judge of the living and the dead, having all power to forgive sins.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, the just valuer of His Mother’s love, knew how necessary this Mother was to us, and He would have considered that He had not wholly and entirely given Himself to us if He had kept her for Himself only. She is necessary to us not as the author of grace, but as the channel by which grace comes to us. Mary is not our end, because God has willed that nothing created should be our end; but she is the most delightful path which leads us to our end. Our weak eyes cannot bear long the splendour of the divine Sun; she gently and graciously screens and tempers its rays for us. This sweet Mother brings the eternal truth in some sort within our reach by giving us so exact an expression of it, that she becomes, after the Incarnate Word, the most perfect likeness of God’s beauty. She compassionates our wants like the tenderest of mothers, and she watches over us like a visible providence, the image of that loving Providence which numbers the very hairs of our head.

And our consolation is that with respect to Mary, our Lady and our Mother, we are always children. The duties of our natural mother continue but for a time, and, though her love lasts, her office sooner or later ceases. But in the eyes of the ever-blessed Virgin we never grow old: “Ye shall be carried at the breasts, and upon the knees they shall caress you.”³⁰ The

Apostle did not fear to say to the Galatians: "My little children, of whom I am in labour again, until Christ be formed in you."³¹ But what can St. Paul's zeal be compared with that which our Lady displays in forming us to the likeness of her Son? However, the day will come when we shall have grown to maturity, when we shall have attained the fulness of the age of Christ; and yet we shall always continue to receive from Him, we shall always continue to receive from His Mother also; and, like God's reign, Mary's royal maternity will never have an end.

Having, therefore, proved that Mary is truly our Mother we must further understand that we have duties towards her: "He that honoureth his mother is as one that layeth up a treasure."³² The more our blessed Mother's maternity surpasses natural maternity, the more ought our honour of her to exceed that which we pay to our natural parents.

More still, devotion of an ordinary kind such as we render to the saints will not suffice for our Lady; we worship her not with dulia, but with hyperdulia, superior homage, as theologians express it. In fact we can only rightly use the word devotion in respect to our Lady if we make it mean a worship that is not a matter of choice or of supererogation but of obligation, since the honouring of the Blessed Virgin Mary is part of our Catholic belief. And just as her motherhood in regard of us is based upon realities, and does not consist only in an incomparable mother's love and feeling towards us, so we on our side must be ever mindful that our childhood in regard of Mary is based upon a sum of doctrinal truth much deeper and stronger than tender sentiments of piety. We lower our worship of Mary by making it a mere devotion, and we lessen our love of her when it falls short of doctrine.

To show in brief how perfectly just is this theological worship of our Lady, let us add that the dignity of the Mother of God makes her absolutely peerless and in fact a world apart. This divine maternity places her in a relation of singular intimacy with the Father, whose only Son is also her Son; with the Word, to whom she gave His human nature; with the Holy Spirit, for the Son of the Virgin as God, is the principle of this divine Spirit, and as a man, He is His holy and sanctifying fruit.

Moreover, the divine maternity is not for Mary a privilege only; it is also a source of eminent grace and incomparable sanctification. Therefore, not without reason did the angel proclaim her "full of grace."³³ To this starting point must be added the thirty years which she spent with Him who is the very source of grace and of supernatural beauty, her cooperation in the mysteries of the Passion, Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord, the Pentecostal grace, the fifteen years of solicitude and devotedness which she lavished upon the early Church, and in addition to all this, her constant increase of virtue, purity and charity. Hence we must acknowledge that after God no object can be found more worthy of our homage and love.

As the formal cause of our worship of the Blessed Virgin, we must also mention the signal prerogatives with which she has been endowed, and which she shares with no other creature, namely, her Immaculate Conception; her absolute immunity and freedom from all concupiscence, her exemption from all personal sin and from all imperfection, her exact correspondence to grace, her spotless virginity, her preservation from corruption in the tomb, and finally her triumphant Assumption. Her beginnings even are beyond the reach of man, as we sing in the psalm: "Her foundations are in the holy mountains. . . . Glorious things are said of thee, O city of God.”³⁴ Mary is altogether matchless as holy Church sings: Nec primam similem visa est, nec habere sequentem.

To be true to our faith and our Baptism, we must then cherish towards our Blessed Lady a love that is both filial and doctrinal; we must offer her a worship befitting her eminent dignity. The Church in her official prayer does not overlook a duty such as this. In the Divine Office, she daily repeats Mary’s incomparable canticle, whose deep accents ever new and ever living, are as well suited to Good Friday and to the Office of the Dead, as to feasts the most resplendent with supernatural joy. The Canonical Hours are not complete unless the Ave Maria follows the Pater noster at the beginning. The last echo of the social prayer is consecrated to the Madonna in a graceful antiphon which varies according to the liturgical seasons.

Again we have our Lady’s feasts calling to mind the mysteries of her holy and immaculate life, or the titles conferred upon her by the gratitude of her children for signal benefits received. All Saturdays are dedicated to her, unless in the cycle a feast of higher degree occur, thus depriving her of this filial remembrance; and three times a day the Angelus bell calls upon Christians to salute the Mother of God.

Outside this official portion of the Church’s worship of our Lady, innumerable are the practices of filial piety towards the Mother of God which the Church approves and encourages: chief among these we must place the devotion of the most holy Rosary. In this vast field all may choose according to their attraction; for though these practices are praiseworthy and commendable, they are not obligatory. But we must beware of overburdening ourselves with even good practices, lest they should stifle the true spirit of prayer and the true worship of our immaculate Mother, which are fed always by the heart: “When I go into my house, I shall repose myself with her; for her conversation hath no bitterness, nor her company any tediousness, but joy and gladness.”³⁵

Mary would not be a mother, if she were not condescending; hence she deigns to allow her children to comport themselves with her in various ways. Some love her with an exclusive, sensible and affective love; others, while acknowledging her excellence, her beauty and her dignity, feel their hearts thrilling with only a rational love towards her. One behaves towards her as a little child full of confidence and self-surrender; another takes the attitude of a knight towards his lady and his queen. Some souls from their tenderest infancy are drawn to her, and in consequence of this they have a special characteristic; their ways are more simple, easy and tranquil like those of children who have never left their father’s home. Others, on the contrary, not feeling this special attraction, are on that account filled with extreme sorrow, this alone sufficing to prove their real love. At one time it is our Lady that makes known unto souls her Divine Son, and at another it is our Lord that leads souls to His Mother. The love of our Lady is for some the beginning of the spiritual life; while for others this love expands only as the soul grows to perfection.

The gracious Mother of God, as merciful as she is powerful, lends herself to this variety of dispositions and has a smile for all her children, for all belong to her provided that they really belong to her Son, that they listen to his teaching and practise what they have learnt. Then she exerts her maternal, watchful and devoted care to gain them admittance into the heavenly Jerusalem, where, as Queen of Angels and Mother of men, she reigns at the right hand of her Son, in all the splendour of her beauty.

Footnotes

1. Audi, fili mi, disciplinam patris tui, et ne dimittas legem matris tuæ, ut addatur gratia capiti tuo, et torques collo tuo (Prov. i, 8,9) ↩

2. Generatio quæ patri suo maledicit, et quæ matri suæ non benedicit. Generatio quæ sibi munda videtur, et tamen non est lota a sordibus suis (Prov. xxx, 11, 12). ↩

3. Ex quo omnis paternitas in cœlis et in terra nominatur (Eph. iii, 15). ↩

4. Ecce ancilla Domini: fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum (Luc. i, 38). ↩

5. Ut sit ipse primogenitus in multis fratribus (Rom. viii, 29). ↩

6. Quia membra sumus corporis ejus, de carne ejus et de ossibus ejus (Eph. v, 30). ↩

7. Christus dilexit Ecclesiam, et semetipsum tradidit pro ea, ut illam sanctificaret, mundans lavacro aquæ in verbo vitæ, ut exhiberet ipse sibi gloriosam Ecclesiam (Eph. v, 25-27). ↩

8. In caritate perpetua dilexi te: ideo attraxi te, miserans (Jer. xxxi, 3). ↩

9. Convertimini, filii revertentes, dicit Dominus, quia ego vir vester (Jer., iii, 14). ↩

10. Recordabor ego pacti mei tecum in diebus adolescentiæ tuæ, et suscitabo tibi pactum sempiternum (Ezech., xvi, 60). ↩

11. Sponsabo te mihi in sempiternum; et sponsabo te mihi in justitia, et judicio, et in misericordia, et in miserationibus (Osee ii, 19). ↩

12. Egredimini et videte, filiæ Sion, regem Salomonem in diademate quo coronavit illum mater sua in die desponsationis illius, et in die lætitiæ cordis ejus (Can., iii, 11). ↩

13. Mulier, ecce filius tuus (Joann, xix, 26). ↩

14. Antequam parturiret, peperit; antequam veniret partus ejus, peperit masculum. Quis audivit unquam tale? et quis vidit huic simile? Numquid parturiet terra in die una, aut parietur gens simul, quia parturivit et peperit Sion filios suos (Isa. lxvi, 7, 8). ↩

15. Numquid ego qui alios parere facio, ipse non pariam? Dicit Dominus; si ego qui generationem ceteris tribuo, sterilis ero? ait Dominus Deus tuus (Isa., lxvi, 9). ↩

16. Lætamini cum Jerusalem, et exsultate in ea, omnes qui diligitis eam; gaudete cum ea gaudio universi qui lugetis super eam (Isa., lxvi, 10). ↩

17. O vos omnes qui transitis per viam, attendite, et videte si est dolor sicut dolor meus (Thren., i, 12). ↩

18. Honorem habebis matri tuæ omnibus diebus vitæ ejus; memor enim esse debes quæ et quanta pericula passa sit propter te (Tob., iv, 3, 4). ↩

19. Ego mater pulchræ dilectionis et timoris, et agnitionis et sanctæ spei. In me gratia omnis viæ et veritatis; in me omnis spes vitæ et virtutis (Eccli. xxiv, 24, 25). ↩

20. Qui me invenerit inveniet vitam, et hauriet salutem a Domino (Prov., viii, 35). ↩

21. Tenui eum, nec dimittam, donec introducam illum in domum matris mea; et in cubiculum genitricis mea; (Cant, iii, 4). ↩

22. Apprehendam to et ducam in domum matris meæ; ibi me docebis, et dabo tibi poculum ex vino condito, et mustum malorum granatorum meorum (Cant, viii, 2). ↩

23. Terribilis ut castrorum acies ordinata (Cant., vi, 9). ↩

24. Tu gloria Jerusalem, tu lætitia Israël, tu honorificentia populi nostri, quia fecisti viriliter. ... Ideo et manus Domini confortavit te, et ideo eris benedicta in æternum (Judith xv, 10, 11). ↩

25. Si venis mecum, vadam; si nolueris venire mecum, non pergam (Jud., iv, 8). ↩

26. Vade pacifice in domum tuam; ecce audivi vocem tuam, et honoravi faciem tuam (1 Reg., xxv, 35). ↩

27. Vinum non habent (Joann., ii, 3). ↩

28. Quodcumque dixerit vobis, facite (Joann., ii 5). ↩

29. Memento mei, Domine, cum veneris in regnum tuum (Luc., xxiii, 42). ↩

30. Ad ubera portabimini, et super genua blandientur vobis (Isa., lxvi, 12). ↩

31. Filioli mei, quos iterum parturio, donec formetur Christus in vobis (Gal., iv, 19). ↩

32. Sicut qui thesaurizat, ita et qui honorificat matrem suam (Eccli iii, 5). ↩

33. Gratia plena (Luc., I, 28). ↩

34. Fundamenta ejus in montibus sanctis. . . . Gloriosa dicta sunt de te, civitas Dei (Ps., lxxxvi). ↩

35. Intrans in domum meam conquiescam cum illa: non habet amaritudinem conversatio illius, nec tædium convictus illius, sed lætitiam et gaudium (Sap., viii, 16). ↩