Part eight (*), Chapter IV: Heart of Mary, Mirror of Charity

Heart of Mary, Mirror of Charity

AMONG the innumerable blessings we have received from the liberal hand of our Heavenly Father, there are three very important favors which seem to pass unnoticed by the majority of men. They are three special graces wherewith His immense goodness honored us when we were given the first two commandments: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart ... and thy neighbor as thyself."(1)

The first of these favors consists in the fact that it pleased God to command us to love Him. What goodness! How great a favor! To understand this commandment accurately we would have to measure the infinite distance that separates God from man, the Creator from the creature, the A l l from the nothingness, the Saint of saints from the most miserable sinner, God Who is the Sovereign good and the source of all good from man who is a dark pit of evil and miseries. If we but knew who God is and what we are, we would certainly be amazed by His divine Majesty's command to love Him, for we should clearly see that God confers tremendous privileges by merely allowing us to think of Him, and that it would be a signal honor if He simply permitted us to adore Him as our Creator and Sovereign Lord. But this does not satisfy His infinite goodness towards us; He therefore commands us to love Him as our Father.

The second favor manifested is that God is not content with loving us as His children, but publishes an explicit commandment to all men on earth, whatever their condition, enjoining them to love each other as they love themselves, under penalty of incurring His eternal wrath and indignation. He forbids them, with the threat of bell fire, to harm their brethren in any way, whether by deed, word, intention.or even thought, in their bodies, their Souls, their reputation o r anything that belongs to them. 0 ineffable goodness! 0 admirable love!

The third favor, even greater than the others, is that God commands (1). Luke 10, 27.

all men to love each other not only as they love themselves, but as they love Him. St. Augustine, St. Thomas and all theologians teach us that the love or charity with which we must love God and our neighbor is but one and the same virtue, namely, the third theological virtue. Hence our Saviour declares in the holy Gospel that the second commandment, obliging us to love our neighbor, is like unto the first, which enjoins us to love God. The reason is that, in order to love our neighbor as God wills, we must love him in God and for God. This means that we must love our fellow man with the love wherewith God loves him, not for our own interest and satisfaction, but for the love of God, and because God wants us to love him. Now to love God in this way is to love Him in our neighbor, and to love our neighbor with love similar to our love for God. Hence the second commandment is like unto the first.

Thus does the Blessed Virgin love us with a most great and ardent love. In the first place, she loves us with the same love she has for God, seeing and loving God in us. The third theological virtue in Mary's Heart is not of another nature than the one in the hearts of the rest of the faithful, which has as its sole object God and neighbor. It is true that this divine virtue is, in a sense, indescribably more ardent in the Blessed Virgin's Heart where its object is God instead of ourselves; nevertheless it is substantially the same charity (though different in degree), and the Mother of Fair Love truly loves us with the same love wherewith she loves God Himself.

I maintain, in the second place, that the most glorious Virgin loves us with a supremely ardent love, because she loves us with the very same love with which she loves the God-Man, her Divine Son Jesus Christ, for she knows that He is our Head and we are His members, that we are therefore one with Him, as members are one with their head. She thus considers us her children and loves us, in a way, even as her own Son. We are her children for two reasons: first, because as Mother of our Head, she is mother of His members as well, and Second because our merciful Saviour, when He was suspended on the Cross, out of an excess of inconceivable goodness gave us to His Blessed Mother to be her children. We had nailed Him to the Cross by our sins, we had made Him suffer the most ignominious and cruel death; yet at the very hour when we were thus unworthily and cruelly treating Him, He conferred upon us the most signal favor, the gift of His most admirable Mother. Christ gave her to us to be not only our Queen and our Lady, but Our Mother as well, saying to each of us in the person of the beloved Disciple: "Behold thy Mother." (2) He gave us to her, not as Servants and (2). John 19, 27.

slaves (which in itself would be a great honor for us), but as her children: "Behold thy Son." Thus did Christ speak of each one of us, as though He were saying: "Mother, behold all my members: I give them to thee to be thy children. I put them in my place, that thou mayest consider them as being myself, and may love them with the same love as thou lovest me. Thou dost see, by my horrible torments and cruel death, how much I love them; do thou likewise love them as I do." Mary's Heart is a burning furnace whose flames reach everywhere, generating more fire and warmth of love for us, than ever existed in the hearts of all fathers and mothers towards their children, of brothers for brothers, of friends for their friends, in one word, more ardour than ever burned in all the hearts of Heaven and of earth.

This love is like a dazzling Sun illuminating all things. It lightens the darkness of those who.approach its glow; it reveals our faults and weaknesses, that we may detest them; it shows us our nothingness and our misery so that we may become humiliated in our own eyes. The glow of Mary's love reveals to us the m;miIlice and snares of the enemies of our salvation, in order to save us from them; it shows us the illusion and deceit of the folly and conceits of the world, teaching us to despise them; and it manifests to us the marvels of the greatness Rod goodness of God, that we may Serve Him with fear and with love.

The charity of Mary is a most vigilant low, ever watching over us and our actions, in order to protect, assist and guide us in all things.

This most holy love, or rather this most holy Heart of the Mother of Uncreated Love, i s Heaven's oracle for all who have recourse to it in their doubts and anxieties. It is an oracle full of incredible goodness, which resolves our difficulties, enlightens our doubts, and always imparts salutary and helpful answers, if we have recourse to it with humility and confidence.

Of this love one can truly say that it is a mighty tower and an impregnable bulwark for all the friends of God, who would choose to die rather than deliberately offend Him, especially for humble souls, for pure persons (as everyone loves most those who resemble him), and for those who have vowed in a particular manner to Serve and honor the beloved of God, namely, Mary most amiable, the Mother of Jesus; for she also loves most dearly those who love and imitate her.

Mary's love is swift to help them that invoke her. "Remember, 0 most pious Virgin," Says St. Bernard, "that never was it known from the beginning of the world that any of those who fled to thy protection and Sought the help of thy prayers, was left unaided." "0 most amiable

Mary," adds the same saint, "we cannot pronounce thy name without being comforted; no one can invoke thee without being heard or with. out feeling the effects of thy assistance." (3)

Mary's is a love that is mild and meek, and knows not how to be severe or terrifying. "She i s full of sweetness," says St. Bernard, "her Heart and mouth are filled with milk and honey." ( 4 ) "Milk and honey are under thy tongue." (5) "Her heart is manna," writes St. Ambrose, "containing all the delights of Paradise." (6) "It is a promised land;' observes St. Augustine, "flowing with milk and honey." (7)

The love of the admirable Heart of the Mother of God is a paradise of delights for all hurts who, being truly detached from all earthly things, strive to Serve, honor and love only Jesus and Mary, the King and Queen of Heaven.

Mary's is a most liberal love, which has given us an immense and infinite treasure encompassing all the riches of Divinity and whatever is rare, precious, desirable and lovable i n Heaven and on earth, in time and eternity. Indeed Mary has given us the treasure of all treasures, because the love of her virginal Heart gave the Son of God, drawn from the adorable Bosom of His Heavenly Father, a resting place on earth; and through her love He entered the hallowed womb of Mary for our sake.

Mary's charity is a love most zealous for the salvation of souls. This zeal gave the Blessed Virgin, from the beginning of her life, a most ardent desire to see the Son of God come into the world to save mankind from universal perdition of sin. This zeal made her offer so many prayers, practice such mortifications and shed so many bitter tears to obtain the grace that the Eternal Father might send His Son into the world to deliver us from the bondage of hell. This zeal induced Mary to give her most willing consent to the mystery of the Incarnation. It caused her to give us the Saviour, and to preserve, nourish and educate Him for us with the greatest imaginable care and affection. It obliged her to offer Him on Calvary at the cost of the greatest suffering and anguish ever experienced.

The love of Mary is a most perfect love, than which none is more perfect or more excellent. (3). In Deprecat. ad V. Mariam. (4).Serm. 4 de Assumpt. (5). Cant. 4, 11. (6). Psal. 35. (7). Serm. 100 de Temp.

It is most constant and firm, for the Mother of all charity loves us with an invincible love: Amore invincibili, says St. Peter Damian.' All the torrent of our ingratitudes, infidelities, negligences and cowardice in her service, all our imperfections and innumerable offenses arc not able to extinguish Mary's love, for it is stronger than death and hell. This love perseveres in its goodness and care until our last b)rcath, and exerts all its power, wisdom and mercy to protect us from the malice and snares of the enemies of our salvation.

0 Mother of Love, make us sharers in thy boundless charity. Obtain for us the grace of doing all things for the pure love and glory of God. (8). Serm. I de Nativ. Virg. 231-