Fifteenth Day
Nearer than all to Jesus Christ, though at a distance which is infinite, there exists a created being f St. Luke xxiii. 46. ** Ps. xxxv. 10.
ft Ps. iv. 4. (In the French: "hath marvellously glorified His holy One.") %\ St. John iii. 30.
§§ Although we have made several quotations from this devout meditation on our Lady, we give it entirely for the fifteenth day, consecrated to it by Elizabeth in her little retreat.12
who was also the great " Praise of glory " of the Blessed Trinity. She responded fully to the divine vocation of which the Apostle speaks ; she was always holy, unspotted, blameless, in the sight of the thrice holy God.
Her soul is so simple, its movements are so profound, that they cannot be detected ; she seems to reproduce on earth the life of the Divinity, the simple Being. And she is so transparent, so luminous, that she might be taken for the light itself ; yet she is but the mirror of the Sun of justice (Speculum jus titi<e}.
" His Mother kept all these words in her heart."3 Her whole history can be summed up in these few words. It was within her own heart that she dwelt, and so deeply did she enter it that no human eye can follow her.
When I read in the Gospel that Mary " went into the hill-country with haste into a city of Juda,"f to perform her charitable office to her cousin Elizabeth, I picture her to myself as she passes — beautiful, calm, majestic, absorbed in communion with the Word of God within her. Like Him, her prayer was always : « Ecce !"— " Here am I !" Who ? " The handmaid of the Lord," the last of His creatures, she, His Mother !
Her humility was so genuine ! For she was always self-forgetful, knowing nothing, freed from self, so that she could sing : " Behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. Because He that is mighty hath done great things to me 1" J
This Queen of virgins is the Queen of martyrs
\ Ibid., 48, 49.
too ; but it was within her heart that the sword transpierced her, for with her everything took place within her soul.
Oh ! how beautiful she is to contemplate during her long martyrdom, enveloped in a majesty both strong and sweet, for she has learnt from the Word how those should suffer who are chosen as victims by the Father ; those whom He has elected as associates in the great work of the redemption ; whom He has known and " predestinated to be conformed to His Christ," crucified by love.
She is there, at the foot of the cross ; she stands in her strength and courage, and my Master tells me : " Ecce Mater tua." He gives her to me for my Mother ! And now that He has returned to His Father, that He has put me in His place on the cross, so that I may " fill up those things which are wanting of the sufferings of Christ in my flesh for His Body, which is the Church," our Lady is there still, to teach me to suffer as He did, to let me hear the last song of His soul which no one but His Mother could overhear.
When I shall have said my consummatum est> it will be she again, Janua cceli, who will introduce me into the eternal courts as she utters the mysterious words : " Latatus sum in his qua dicta sunt mifn, in domum Domini ibimus."
Footnotes
Chapter 15 of 16