Part ten, Chapter V11: "he That is Mighty Hath Done Great Things: Unto Me: and Holy is his Name"

"he That is Mighty Hath Done Great Things

Unto Me: and Holy is his Name"

IN THE preceding verse the Blessed Virgin prophesied that all generations shall call her blessed; i n this verse she reveals the reasons for this honor, ~namely the great things that God has done to her.

What are these great things? Let us listen to St. Augustine. "It is a great thing," he says, "for a virgin to be a mother without the cooperation of man. It is a great thing for her to have borne in her womb the Word of God the Father, to have clothed Him with her own flesh. It is a great thing for her who characterizes herself as a handmaid to become the Mother of her Creator." (1)

"It is a great thing," says St. Antoninus,(2) "to have created heaven and earth out of nothing. It is a great thing to have brought manna down from heaven in order to nourish the Chosen People i n the desert for forty years. It is a great thing to have given the Israelites possession of the promised land after having exterminated all the kings and people who inhabited it. All the miracles that our Saviour performed in Judea, giving sight to the blind, driving out devils from the bodies of those who were possessed, curing the sick, restoring the dead to life, arc great and marvelous things. But the mystery of the Incarnation, which the infinite power of God wrought in the Blessed Virgin, incomparably surpasses all these other things. It is what prompts her to say, 'He that is mighty hath done great things! " "Here arc the great things," says ST. Thomas of Villanova,(3) "that God wrought in the most holy Virgin. He elevated her to such a high degree of grandeur that all the eyes of men and angels cannot scan that eminence. He transformed this granddaughter of Adam into the Mother of her own Creator, the Lady of the world, the Queen of heaven and the Empress of all creatures. A new prodigy appeared in the world, to the (1). In Magnif. (2). Summa theol. Part. 4, titul. 15, Cap. 22. (3). Concio 2 in Annunt. B.Y.

great wonderment of heaven and earth: a God-Man, a Man-God; God become man, and man united with God. Prodigy of prodigies, miracle of miracles, after which there remains nothing on earth worthy to be admired!" "It is quite true that all the wonders witnessed on earth are as nothing compared with this incomprehensible event. We admire the miracle that God performed when He allowed His people to pass dry-shod across the Red Sea. That is a trifle. Here is something far greater: it is the immense ocean of the Divinity confined within the body of a young and mortal virgin. We admire the bush that burned without being consumed. That is a little thing; here is a virgin who brings forth a Child while preserved. serving her virginity intact. We admire the prophet Moses lying in a tiny cradle of rushes. That is insignificant; let us rather admire the King of Heaven lying in a manger. We admire a column of fire and a pillar of cloud which guided the people of God in the desert. That is nothing; instead let us admire the essential fire of Divinity enclosed in a tiny cloud in order to guide and govern the whole world. We admire the manna sent from heaven. That is a mere nothing; let us admire the Word of the Almighty Father Who descends from heaven into the bosom of the Virgin Mother. We admire the sun halted in its course by the command of Josue, or retreating at the prayer of Ezechias. That is unimportant; let us admire the God who voluntarily annihilates Himself. We admire the prophet Elias restoring a dead child to life. That is a small thing; let us admire the Son of God, coequal and coeternal with His Father, restoring Himself to life after having died on the Cross. We admire the same prophet Elias ascending into heaven. That is nothing wonderful; let us admire the Man who ascends to the throne of the Divinity and becomes God." It is what St. Cyprian (4) extols when he exclaims, "0 Lord, how admirable is Thy name! Truly Thou art a God Who dost perform wonders. I no longer admire the marvelous construction of the world, nor the stability of the earth, nor the order and arrangement of the days, nor the course and brilliance of the sun; but I admire a God made man in the womb of a virgin; I admire the Almighty brought down into a cradle; I admire the Word of God united personally with the mortal and perishable body of a man." (5)

Finally, God wrought such great things to this chosen virgin that He could not have accomplished greater marvels. He could easily make a (4). Serm. de Nativ. Christi. (5). Serm. de Nativ. Christi.

world larger than the one He did make, a sky More vast, a sun more brilliant; but He cannot make, says St. Bonaventure, a mother greater and nobler than the Mother of God. For if He could make a greater mother, He would have to give her a more excellent son. Now is it possible. to find a son more worthy than the Son of God, whose Mother is the Blessed Virgin?

What more shall I say? I quote a great prelate distinguished for learning and piety, Rutilius Benzonius, Bishop of Loretto, who is not afraid to assert that God elevated this incomparable Virgin to such heights and granted her such extraordinary privileges that it may be said that she gave, so to speak, greater things to His Divine Majesty, in a certain sense, than the gifts granted to her. Everything that Mary received is finite and limited, confined within the bounds of created things, but the Queen of Heaven, gave birth to the Son of God, the Creator and Sovereing Lord, the Saviour and Redeemer of the world. From God she received the privilege of being His creature, of being pleasing to Him, of being full of grace, of being blessed among all women. But she made it possible for God to be our Emmanuel, that is to say, God with us; to be the Redeemer of men through the precious blood that He received from her; to possess all power in heaven and on earth as a man; to be the universal Judge of the whole world as a man; to be seated at the right hand of the Father as a man; to be the head of the whole Church as a man; to be the leader of the angels as a man; to forgive sins as a man.

If our Saviour gave His Apostles the power to perform miracles greater than those that He Himself performed, according to the testimony of the Gospel,(6) we need not be astonished that He granted to His most holy Mother the power to give Him gifts even greater than those she received from Him and this power is one of the marvels to which Mary refers when declaring that the Almighty "hath done great things to her." After that, who will not admire the great and wonderful accomplishments of Almighty God with regard to the glorious Virgin? And who will not acknowledge that it is the Holy Spirit Who was speaking through her: Fecit mihi magna qui potens est? Oh, what a wealth of prodigies and miracles is bound up in these words! Oh, what a great thing it is to be both virgin and mother, and to be a virgin and the Mother of God! Oh, what a great privilege it is to be associated with the Eternal Father in His divine fatherhood, to be the Virgin Mother, in the fulness of time, of the very Son generated from all eternity (6). John 14, 12.

without a mother! Oh, what a great thing it is to be clothed with the virtue of the Most High, to be a partaker of His adorable fecundity in order to be the Mother of the Son, who is consubstantial, c o - equal and co-eternal with God His Eternal Father! Oh, what a great thing it is to give temporal birth from a virginal bosom to Him who was born before the beginning of time in the bosom of the Father of mercy! Oh, what a great thing it is for a mortal creature to give life to Him from whom she received her own life! Oh, what a great thing it is to be the worthy Spouse of the Holy Spirit, associated with Him in the production of His adorable masterpiece, the God- Man.

Such indeed are the great and marvellous things that God wrought upon the Queen of heaven, but lo! here follows the miracle of miracles. Great, holy and admirable as thou wert, 0 Virgin Mother, thou didst always look upon, demean and humble thyself as if thou wert the least and most insignificant of all creatures. "It is a great thing for the Queen of Angels to be a virgin," says a Holy Father of the Church, (7) "it is a great thing for her to be a mother, it is a greater thing for her to be a mother and virgin at the same time, and it is a very great thing for her to be a virgin and the Mother of God; but what surpasses all else is that, great as she is, Mary considers herself as if she were nothing." Furthermore, Mary uses all these tremendous powers, her immense privileges, her sublime mercies, to help the humble, the wretched and even the most hopeless, if they will simply have recourse to her with humility and confidence. "All power," says the holy cardinal, Peter Damian, " i s given to Mary in heaven and on earth, and nothing is impossible to her who holds the power to restore and hope of salvation in the most despairing individuals." (8) "Yes," exclaims St. Bonaventure, "because the Almighty Lord is most powerfully with thee, 0 Mary, thou art therefore most powerful with God, most powerful through Him, most powerful in Him." (9)

0 most powerful and benign Virgin, with all my heart do I give infinite thanks to the Almighty for having made thee so great, so powerful and so admirable. With all my heart do I also offer, deliver and abandon myself entirely and irrevocably to the great power that God has granted thee, imploring thee most humbly to exercise it on my behalf for the total destruction of whatever in me i s displeasing to Him an (7). Venerable Bede-Magnum, quia Virgo; magnum quia Mater; majus, quia utrumque; maximum, quia Deiparens; sed majus, quia, cum tanta sit, putat se nihil esse. (8). Serm. 1 de Nativ. B. Virg. (9). In Spec. Virg. Cap. 8.

to thee, and to establish in its stead the perfect reign of His glory and love.

The Blessed Virgin, having affirmed that the Almighty has wrought great things in her, then adds these words: "And holy is His name," words which contain six great mysteries.

The first is that the mystery of the Incarnation, being a mystery of love, is attributed to the Holy Spirit, who is personal love, as the masterpiece of His love and bounty, in fulfilment of the words of the angel: "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee." (10)

The second mystery indicated in the words, "and holy is his name," is that the holy humanity of the divine Infant whom the Blessed Virgin conceived in her womb is sanctified by His most intimate union with essential Holiness, the Divinity. This is further designated by these words of St. Gabriel: "The Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God."(11)

The third mystery is that the Infant God is thus sanctified and made the Saint of saints in order to sanctify and glorify the name of the Thrice Holy One as much as it deserves, as well as to make i t sanctified and glorified on earth, in heaven and throughout the universe, thus fulfilling the proclamation: «Hallowed be thy name.» (12)

The fourth mystery included in the words, "And holy is His name," is that the Saviour of the world, whom the holy Virgin bears in her most sacred womb, is divinely annointed with the unction of divinity, that is, He is sanctified and consecrated as a Saviour so that He may exercise the functions of Saviour, and of the Sanctifier of all men, a mission He commences at once with regard to His precursor, the Baptist, and His relatives, St. Zachary and St. Elizabeth.

The fifth mystery is that the Holy Spirit, by overshadowing Mary in order to accomplish i n her the most holy work that ever was or will be done, and the Saint of saints, holiness itself and the source of all holiness, by being conceived by her, filled and overwhelmed her with an ocean of grace and inconceivable holiness.

The sixth mystery indicated in these words, "And holy is his name," is that the ineffable mystery of the Incarnation is an inexhaustible source of all the grace and holiness that has ever been, is now and ever will exist in heaven and upon earth.

Behold and admire how many wonders are contained in these few (10). Luke 1, 35 (11). Luke 1, 35. (12). Matt. 6, 9.

words pronounced by the hallowed lips of the Mother of the Saint of saints, Whose holy name be praised, sanctified and glorified for all eternity.

For this intention let us repeat together with the seraphim, with all paradise and with holy Church: "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts. Heaven and earth arc full of thy glory." 301-