Chapter VIII. Mother of Mercy

We shall consider this title first in itself and then in its principal manifestations which are, as it were, that radiance of the revealed doctrine concerning Mary which makes it accessible to all minds.

Article I GREATNESS AND POWER OF THIS MATERNITY

The title of Mother of Mercy is one of Mary’s greatest. arsed is not the same thing as mere emotional pity. Mercy is in the will, pity is but a good inclination of the sensibility. Pity, which does not exist in God Who is a pure spirit, leads us to suffer in unison with our neighbour as if we felt his suffering in ourselves. It is a good inclination but usually a timid one, being accompanied by fear of harm to ourselves and often helpless to render effective aid.

Mercy, on the contrary, is a virtue of the will, and, as St Thomas so well notes,! whereas pity is found most of all in feeble and timid beings who feel themselves threatened by the evil that has befallen their neighbour, mercy is the virtue of the powerful and the good, who are capable of giving real assistance. That is why it is found in God nedaly as one of the prayers of the Missal says,? it is one of the greatest manifestations of His power and goodness. St Augustine remarked that it was more glorious for God to obtain good out of evil than to create out of nothing: it is greater to

: 2. Deus gui maxime parcendo et miserando, potentiam tuam maniestas, convert a sinner by givin him grace than to make a whole universe, heaven and earth, out of nothing.3 ae

As Mother of Mercy, Mary reminds us that if God is Being, Truth and Wisdom, He is also Goodness and Love, and that His infinite Mercy, which is the radiation of His Goodness, flows from His love and anticipates His vindicatory Justice which proclaims the inalienable right that the Supreme Good has to be loved above every other object: ‘Mercy exalteth itself above justice’ (James ii, 13). She teaches us, though, that if mercy is not justice it is not opposed to it as injustice is, but unites itself to it and goes beyond it: most of all in pardoning, for to pardon is to go beyond what is demanded by justice in forgiving an offence.4

Every work of divine justice presupposes a work of mercy or of gratuitous goodness.5 If God can be said to owe anything to a creature it is because of some preceding gratuitous gift: if He owes a recompense to our merits, it is because He has first of all given the grace to merit, and if He punishes, it is after having given us the assistance which made the accomplishment of His precepts really possible, for He never commands the impossible.

Mary reminds us too that God often gives us His mercy more than we need, more than He is obliged in justice to Himself to give; that He gives us more than we merit—the grace of Holy Communion, for example, which is not merited. She tells us that mercy is wedded to justice in the trials of this life. Trials are a medicine to heal us, to make us right again, to bring us to the good. She tells us finally that mercy often makes the good inequality of natural conditions among men by a correspondingly more generous distribution of graces. This is the lesson of the different beatitudes

5. ib. a. 4: ‘Opus divinae ‘ustitiae semper praesupponit opus misericordiae, et in co fundatur,’

—of the poor, the meek, those that weep, those that hunger and thirst after justice, those that are merciful, those that are pure of heart, those that are peacemakers, those that suffer persecution for justice.

Article II PRINCIPAL MANIFESTATIONS OF MERCY

Mary manifests herself as Mother of Mercy by being ‘Health of the sick, Refuge of sinners, Comforter of the afflicted, Help of christians.’ The gradation of titles here is very beautiful. It shows that Mary is merciful to those who are sick of body in order to benefit their souls, and that afterwards she consoles them in their afflictions and strengthens them in the midst of all the difficulties they have to overcome. Among creatures no one is higher than Mary, and yet no one is more approachable, more helpful, and more gentle.®

Health of the Sick

Mary is Health of the Sick by the many providential or miraculous cures which have been obtained through her intercession in christian sanctuaries up to our own days. So many have these cures been that it may be said that Mary is a fathomless ocean of miraculous healing. But it is to help the infirmity of the soul that she cures the body, Her most important cures are those of the four spiritual wounds which we have suffered as a result of original sin and our personal sins—the wounds of concupiscence, of weakness, of ignorance, and of malice.

6. These points are developed by the Polish Domin‘can, Justin of Miéchow, in his Collationes in Litanias B. Mariae Virginis, translated into French by A. Ricard under the title Conférences sur E litanies de la Très Sainte Vierge, 3rd edit., Paris, 1870. We shall draw much of our inspiration for the following pages from this work.

She heals concupiscence—a wound of our sensibility—by diminishing the ardour of our passions and by breaking our sinful habits. She helps the sinner to begin to will what is right with sufficient firmness to enable him to reject evil desires as well as the appeal of honours and riches. In this way she cures the concupiscence of the flesh and that of the eyes.

"She heals the wound of weakness too, our feeble pursuit of the good, our spiritual sloth. She makes the will constant and firm in its practice of virtue and helps it to despise the attractions of this world by throwing itself into the arms of God. She strengthens those who falter and lifts up those who have fallen.

She heals the wound of ignorance by lighting up the darkness of our minds and providing us with the means to escape from error. She calls to our minds the simple and proband truths of the Our Father, thereby lifting our minds up to God. St Albert the Great, to whom she gave the light to persevere in his vocation and to see through the wiles of Satan, said frequently that she preserves us from losing rightness and firmness of judgement, that she helps us not to grow weary in the pursuit of truth, and that she leads us eventually to a relish of the things of God. He himself speaks of her in his Mariale with a spontaneity, an admiration, a freshness, and a fluency which are rarely found in the works of great students.

She heals us finally of the wounds of malice, by urging our wills Godwards, sometimes by gentle advice, sometimes by stern reproaches. Her sweetness checks anger, her humility lowers pride and restrains the temptations of the evil one. In a word, she heals us of the wounds which we bear as a result of original sin and which our personal sin has made all the more dangerous.

Sometimes this healing power of hers works in a miraculous manner by producing its effects instantaneously. An example is the conversion of the young Alphonse Ratisbonne, at the time a Jew and far removed from the faith, who visited the Church of Sant’ Andrea delle Frate in Rome through curiosity. Mary appeared to him there, as she is represented on the miraculous medal, with rays of light issuing from her hands. She indicated gently to him to kneel. He obeyed, and while on his knees lost the use of his senses. When he returned to himself he expressed an intense desire for baptism. He was baptised and later, with his brother who had been converted before him, founded the congregation of the Fathers of Sion and that of the Religious of Sion, to pray, suffer, and work for the conversion of the Jews, saying daily at Holy Mass: ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’

Refuge of Sinners

Mary is Refuge of sinners precisely because she is so holy. Detesting sin, which does so much harm to souls, she welcomes sinners and wishes to bring them to repentance. She frees them from the bonds of sinful habits by the power of her intercession; she obtains their reconciliation with God by the merits of her Son, and reminds the sinner too of the same merits. Once converted to penance, she protects them from Satan, against everything which could lead to fresh falls. She helps them to learn of the sweetness of penance.

To her, es Jesus, all sinners now in heaven owe their salvation. She has converted them in countless numbers, especially in places of pilgrimage—at Lourdes where she issued the invitation ‘Pray a do penance’, and more recently at Fatima where the number of conversions since 1917 is known to God alone. There are many condemned criminals who owe to her their conversion at the last moment. She has inspired the foundation of religious orders consecrated to prayer, to penance, and to the apostolate of the conversion of sinners—those of St Dominic and of St Francis, the Redemptorists, the Passionists, and so many others.

What sinners are there whom she does not protect? Those only who despise God’s mercy and call down His malediction on themselves. She is not the refuge of those who are

228 MARY'S UNIVERSAL MEDIATION AND OUR INTERIOR LIFE obstinate in evil—in blasphemy, perjury, impurity, avarice, pride of the spirit. But even to them she sends from time to time, as Mother of Mercy, graces for the mind and the will, and if they accept them they will be led from grace to grace and finally to the grace of conversion, To such she has suggested by the lips of a dying mother that they should say at least one Hail Mary cach day, and often it has happened that though they made no other effort than that to change their lives, the feeble spark of good-will it contained was enough to light them the way to a worthy and penitent reception of the Last Sacraments. They have been labourers of the last hour, called and saved by Mary.7 For almost two thousand years Mary has been the Refuge of sinners.

Consoler of the Afflicted

Mary was Consoler of the afflicted even during her lifetime on earth: she consoled Jesus by her presence on Calvary; she consoled the Apostles in the difficulties they encountered in the conversion of the pagan world and obtained for them a spirit of strength and holy joy in their sufferings. She must have helped St Stephen by her prayers when he was being stoned to death. She obtained for many the grace to bear persecution patiently and without giving way to cowardly fears. Though she saw the dangers which threatened the infant Church, she did not waver; her face was ever calm, for her soul was tranquil and confident. Sadness never took paa of her heart. What we know of the intensity of er love of God assures us that she remained joyous in affliction, that she did not complain of poverty or privations, that insults had no power to alter her meckness, Her example alone was enough to hearten many a despairing soul.

She has given to many saints the grace to be themselves consolers of the afflicted. Such were St Genevieve, St Elizabeth, St Catherine of Siena, St Germaine de Pibrac.

The Holy Ghost is called the Consoler most of all because

7. This was the case in France of the immoral writer Armand Silvestre.

He makes us shed tears of contrition, thereby to wash away our sins and to restore to us the joy of God’s friendship. For the same reason the Blessed Virgin is the Consoler of the afflicted when she prompts them to bewail their sins from a contrite heart. '

Mary is particularly attentive to our inner-or secret ‘beat she knows how little are the resources of our earts, and she comes to their assistance. She knows all the needs of soul and body: she has consoled christians in persecution, she has delivered the possessed, she has assisted and strengthened the dying by i to their minds the infinite merits of her Son. She lessens the rigours of purgatory, and obtains for those who suffer there that the faithful pray and have Masses offered on their behalf.

In a sense, Mary’s power as Consoler of the afflicted is felt even in the terrible regions of hell. For St Thomas tells us that the damned suffer less than they deserve8 since the divine mercy is found even in the strictest exercise of divine justice. Whatever less there is of the pain of hell than there might be is due to the merits of Jesus and Mary. St Odilon of Cluny says in his sermon on the Assumption that the Feast of the Assumption brings some slight alleviation of pain to hell’s torments.

Mary has been Consoler of the afflicted throughout the ages in the most varied ways, because of her great knowledge of the many trials through which men pass.

Help of Christians

Mary is Help of christians. Help is an effect of love, and Mary has now consummated fulness of love. She loves the souls redeemed by Jesus’ blood. She helps them in their difficulties and assists them in the practice of the virtues.

The thought of Mary, Help of christians, inspired St Bernard in the well-known passage from his second homily on the Missus est: ‘If the tempest of temptation rages, if the

8. Ia, q. 21, a. 4, ad L torrent of tribulation carries you away, look at the star, look at Mary. If the waves of pride and ambition, of slander and jealousy, buffet you and almost engulf you, look at the star, look at Mary. If anger or avarice or passion tosses the frail bark of your soul and threatens to wreck it, look once more at Mary. Let her memory be ever in your heart and her name always on your lips. . . . But remember that to obtain the benefit of her prayer you must walk in her footsteps.’

She has been the refuge of whole peoples as well as of individuals. Baronius tells us that Narses, general of the armies of the Emperor Justinian, delivered Italy by her help in 553 from bondage to Totila the Goth. He tells us also that in 718 the city of Constantinople was rescued from the Saracens, who had been put to flight on many similar occasions already with Mary’s aid. In the 13th century, Simon, Count of Montfort, defeated a powerful Albigensian army near Toulouse while St Dominic invoked the Mother of God. In 1513 the city of Dijon was delivered miraculously through her. On the 7th of October, 1571, a Turkish fleet, much more numerous and powerful than that of the christians, was defeated at Lepanto, at the entrance of the Gulf of Corinth, through the help of Mary invoked in the Rosary. Finally, Mary’s title of Our Lady of Victories reminds us how often her intervention on the battlefield has been decisive in favour of oppressed christian peoples.

The four invocations of the Litany of Loreto, Health of the Sick, Refuge of Sinners, Consoler of the Afflicted, Help of Christians, recall unceasingly to the faithful how truly Mary is Mother of divine grace and Mother of mercy. The Church sings that she is our hope: Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of mercy! Hail, our life, our sweetness, and our hope! She is our has in that she has merited, with her Son, all that we need of help from God, and in that she transmits it to us now by her intercession. She is therefore the living expression and the instrument of God’s helping Mercy, which is the formal motive of our hope. Confidence, or firm

hope, is certain in its tendency to salvation,’ and its certainty increases with our growth in grace. This certainty derives from our faith in the goodness of God Omnipotent and in His fidelity to His promises. Thence comes that almost constant sense of His watchful Paternity which we find in the saints. Mary’s influence leads us gradually to this perfect confidence and makes its motive ever more clear.

Mary is even called Mother of holy joy and Cause of our joy, for she obtains for generous souls the hidden treasure ot sata joy in the midst of suffering. She obtains for them om time to. time the grace to carry their cross with joy after the Lord Jesus. She initiates them into love of the cross. And even though they do not experience that joy uninterpe gd themselves, she helps them to communicate it to others.

In La Vie Spirituelle, April, 1941, p. 281, Fr M. J. Nicolas, O.P., has written of a holy religious, Fr Vayssitre, who died as Provincial of the Dominicans at Toulouse: “The grace of intimacy with Mary that he received, he owed first of all to the state of littleness to which he had been reduced and to which he had consented. But he owed it as well to his Rosary. During the long days of solitude at Sainte-Baume, he had acquired the habit of saying several Rosaries in the day, sometimes as many as six. He often said the whole of it kneeling. And it was not a mechanical and superficial recitation: his whole soul went into it, he delighted in it, he devoured it, he was persuaded that he found in it al) that one could seek for in prayer. “Recite each decade”, he used to say, “less reflecting on the mystery than communicating through the heart in its grace, and in the spirit ot Jesus and Mary as the mystery presents it to us. The Rosary is the evening Communion (elsewhere he calls it the Communion of the whole day) and it translates into light and fruitful resolution the morning Communion. It is not merely a series of Ave Marias piously recited; it sjan living again in the soul through Mary’s maternal action.” Thus he lived in the perpetually moving cycle of his Rosary, as if “surrounded” by Christ and by Mary, communicating, as he said, in each of their states, in each aspect of their grace, entering thus into and remaining in the depth of God’s Heart: “The Rosary is a chain of love from Mary to the Trinity.” One can understand what a contemplation it had become for him, what a way to pure union with God, what a need, like to that of Communion.’

9. Ia Iae, q. 18, a. 4: ‘Spes certitudinaliter tendit ad suam finem, quasi participans certitudinem a fide.’

‘CHAPTER V Mary’s Universal Queenship

In the language of the Church, both in the Liturgy and in her universal preaching, Mary is not only Mother and Mediatrix but Queen of all men and even of the angels and the whole universe. In what sense is she a queen? In a true or in a merely metaphorical sense?

It should be recalled first that God alone has universal kingship over all things through His Essence: He governs all things and leads them to their end. Jesus and Mary share in this Divine Kingship. Even as man, Jesus shares in it for three reasons: because of His Divine Personality,! because of His fulness of grace which overflows on men and angels, and because of His victory over sin, Satan and death.? He is King of all men and of all creatures including the angels, who are ‘His angels’. Thus He says (Mk. xiii, 26): “And then they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds, with great power and glory. And then shall He send his angels. . . . For Jesus is Son of God by nature, whereas the angels are but God’s servants and adopted sons. Jesus has said too of Him-

1. Cf. Pius XI, encyc. Quas primas, Dec. 11th, 1925 (Denz. 2194): ‘Eius principatus illa nititur unione admirabili, quam hypostaticam appellant, Unde consequitur, non modo ut Christus ab angelis et hominibus Deus sit adorandus, sed etiam ut eius imperio Hominis angeli et homines pareant et subjecti sint: nempe ut vel solo hypostaticae unionis nomine Christus potestem in universas creaturas obtineat,’ Because ofits personal union with the Word the Humanity of Christ is entitled to adoration and participation in God’s universal kingship over all creatures. Christ as Man has been predestined to be Son of God by nature, not by adoption, whereas angels and men are only adoptive sons.

2. Since He accepted the humiliations of His Passion in love ‘God also hath exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above all names: That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth’ (Phil. ii, 9-10).

HER QUEENSHIP IN GENERAL 233 self: “All power is given to me in heaven and on earth’ (Mt. xxviii, 18), and we read in the Apocalypse that He is ‘King of Kings and Lord of Lords’ (Apoc. xix, 16).

Article I HER QUEENSHIP IN GENERAL

Can it be said of Mary, since her Assumption especially, and her crowning in heaven, that she shares in God’s universal Kingship in the sense that she is Queen of all creatures in subordination to Christz3

She could certainly be called a queen in the wide sense of the term by reason of her spiritual qualities and her fulness of grace, of glory and of charity hich raise her above all other creatures. It is quite customary to use the words king and queen to designate persons of such eminence. Her motherhood of Christ the King would also entitle her to be called a queen—still in a wide sense of the term at least.

But would it not appear that she is a queen in the literal sense of the term by the fact of having received royal authority and power? Has she not, in dependence on Jesus and through Him, not only a primacy of honour in regard to the angels and saints, but a real power to command both angels and men? This is, in fact, what emerges from an examination of Tradition as expressed in the preaching of the universal Church, the Fathers, the statements of different Popes, the Liturgy. There are theological arguments besides in favour of the affirmative answer.

The Fathers of both East and West referred frequently to Mary under such titles as Domina, Regina, Regina nostrae salutis. It is sufficient to mention a few among many: in the East SS. Ephrem, Germanus of Constantinople, Andrew of

3. Cf. De Gruyter, De B. Maria Regina, Buscoduci, 1934: Garénaux, La Royauté de Marie, Paris, 1935; M. J. Nicholas, La Vierge Reine, in the Revue Thomiste, 1939; Merkelbach, Mariologia, 1939, p. 382.

Crete, John Damascene; in the West St Peter Crysologus, the Venerable Bede, St Anselm, St Peter Damien, St Bernard. The same titles occur also in the works of the theologians: in St Albert the Great,4 St Bonaventure, St Thomas,5 Gerson, St Bernadine of Siena, Denis the Carthusian, St Peter Canisius, Suarez, St Grignon de Montfort, St Alphonsus. Different Sovercign Pontiffs have often used the same expressions, ©

The Roman and Oriental liturgies proclaim Mary Queen of the heavens, Queen of angels, Queen of the world, Queen of all the saints. Among the mysteries of the Rosary commonly recited in the Church since the 13th century the last of all is that of the crowning of Our Lady in heaven—a scene represented in one of Fra Angelico’s most beautiful frescoes.

The arguments adduced by theologians to prove that Mary has universal Queenship in the proper, non-metaphorical sense of the term, are conclusive. They may all be reduced to the following three.

pes Christ is King of the universe, even as man, in virtue of His Divine Personality. But Mary as Mother of God made man belongs to the hypostatic order and shares in the dignity of her Son, for His Person is the term of her divine

4. Mariale, q. 43, 2: “Virgo assumpta est in salutis auxilium et regni consortium , . . habet coronam regni triumphantis et militantis Ecclesiae, unde... est regina et domina angelorum . . . imperatrix totius mundi...; in ipsa est plenitudo potestatis coelestis perpetuo ex auctoritate ordinaria.. .; legitima dominandi potestas i ligandum et solvendum per imperium; totam habet B. Virgo potestatem in coelo, in purgatorio et in inferno... B. Virgo vere et jure et proprie est domina omnium quae sunt in misericordia Dei, ergo proprie est regina misericordiae . . . ipsa enim ejusdem regni regina est cujus ipse est rex.’ Cf. Ibid. qq. 158, 162, 165.

$. In expos. Salut, Angelicae,

6. In his letter to St Germanus of Constantinople read at the 2nd Council of Nicaea (787), Pope Gregory II terms Mary Domina Omnium, and the council itself approves of statues erected in Mary’s honour. Leo XIII frequently spoke Ep Mary as Regina and Domina universorum in his encyclicals. Similarly Pius X in the encyclical Ad diem illun: ‘Maria adstat regina a dextris ejus,’

HER QUEENSHIP IN GENERAL 235 motherhood. Hence she shares connaturally, as Mother of God, in His universal Kingship.7 Our Blessed Lord owes it to Himself to recognise His Mother’s title in gratitude.

A second argument is that Jesus is King of the universe by His fulness of grace and by the victory which He won over Satan and sin by His humility and His obedience unto death, “For which cause God hath exalted Him....’ But Mary was associated with His victory over Satan, sin, and death by her union with Him in His humiliations and sufferings. She is therefore really associated with Him in His Kingship.

The same conclusion may be arrived at by considering the close relationship in which Mary stands to God the Father, of Whom she is the first adoptive daughter and the highest in grace, and God the Holy Ghost through Whose operation the Word took flesh in her womb.

It has been objected that the mother of a king, the queenmother, is not by that simple fact queen in the strict sense of the term: she has nothing of royal power. Neither then has Mary. We have answered this objection already. There is no parity between the two cases. A queen-mother is simply the mother of a child who later became king. But Mary is the mother of Him Who from the instant of His conception is King of the universe by His hypostatic union and His fulness of grace. Besides, Mary was associated closely with the victory by which He obtained universal kingship as a right of conquest, even though He possessed it already as Son of God. Mary is therefore associated with His Kingslup in a true, even if in a subordinate, manner.

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Many consequences follow from this truth. As universal King, Jesus has power to establish and promulgate the New Law, to propose revealed doctrine, to judge the living and

the dead, to give souls sanctifying grace and all the virtues.8 Mary shares in this universal kingship especially by dispensing in an interior and hidden manner the graces which she merited in dependence on Jesus. She participates in it exteriorly also by i fact that she gave on earth the example of all the virtues, that she helped to enlighten the oats and that she continues to h us when, for example, she manifests herself exteriorly in sanctuaries such as those of Lourdes, La Salette, and Fatima. Theologians note that she does not seem to share in any special way in the royal judicial ower of inflicting punishment for sin, for Tradition calls be not the Mother of justice but the Mother of mercy, a title which is hers in virtue of her mediation of all graces.9 Jesus seems to have kept to Himself the reign of justice! as is becoming Him Who is the ‘judge of the living and the dead’.11 l

Mary has a radical right to universal queenship by the fact of her divine motherhood, but the divine plan was that she should merit it also by her union with her suffering Son, and that she should not exercise it fully before being crowned queen of all creation in heaven. Her royalty is spiritual and supernatural rather than temporal and natural, though it extends in a secondary way to temporal affairs considered in their relation to salvation and sanctification.

We have seen how Mary exercises her queenship on earth. She exercises it in heaven also. The essential glory of the blessed depends on Jesus’ merits and hers. She contributes to their sedda glory—as well as to that of the angels—by the light she communicates to them, and by the joy they have in her presence and in the realisation of what she does

8. Cf. Encyc. Quas prinias (Denz. 2194) and Ia Iac, q. 106, a. 1. Jesus is all the more King of minds, hearts and wills, by the be that the New

Law is not primarily a written law, but one imprinted on the soul by grace.

for souls. To both the angels and the saints she manifests Christ’s plan for the extension of His Kingdom.

Mary's queenship extends to purgatory, for she prompts the faithful on earth to pray for the souls detained A ie and to have Masses offered for them. She herself offers their prayers to God, thereby increasing their value. She applies the fruits of the merits of Jesus and of herself to the Holy Souls in Jesus’ name.

Her queenship extends to the demons too who are obliged to recognise her power, for she can make their temptation cease, can save souls from their snares, and can repulse their attacks. ‘The demons suffer more’, says St Grignon de Montfort, “from being conquered by the humility of Mary than by the Omnipotence of God.’ Her reign of mercy extends to hell itself, as we have seen, in the sense that the lost souls are punished less than they deserve,!2 and that on certain days—including possibly the Assumption—their sufferings become less fearful.

Thus Mary’s queenship is truly universal. There is no tegion to which it does not extend in some way.

Article II SPECIAL Aspects OF MARY’s QUEENSHIP

Mary’s universal queenship comes home to us in a more concrete form if we consider its different aspects as presented in the Litany of Loreto: Queen of angels, of patriarchs, of prophets, of martyrs, of confessors, of virgins, of all the saints, of peace.

12. Ia, q. 21, a. 4, ad 1: ‘In damnatione reproborum apparet misericordia non quidem totaliter relaxans, sed aliqualiter allevians, dum (Deus) punit citra condignum.’ This intervention of Divine Mercy is not independent of the merits of Jesus and Mary.

Queen of Angels

Mary is Queen of the angels since her mission is higher than theirs. They are but servants, whereas she is the Mother of God. She is as much above them as the word ‘mother’ surpasses the word ‘servant’. She alone with the Father can say to Jesus: “Thou art my Son, I have begotten thee.’

She is higher than the angels also by her fulness of grace and glory, which surpasses that of all the angels united. She is purer than they, for she has received purity for others as well as for herself. She was more perfect than they and more rompt in her obedience to God’s commandments and in Ellswing His counsels. By her co-operation in the redemption she merited de congruo for the angels themselves the accidental graces by which they help us to save our souls and the joy which they experience in doing so.

As Justin of Miéchow well remarks,13 if the angels have served Our Lord, how much more did not Mary serve Him, she who conceived and bore Him, who cared for Him, who carried Him into Egypt to escape Herod’s anger?

She surpasses the angels in this also, that they have each care of one soul or one community, but she is the guardian of all men and of earth in particular. She is, more than they, the messenger of God who brought us not a created word but the Uncreated Word.

Archangels are appointed to protect this or that city: Mary protects all cities and all pn in them. Principalities are the custodians of provinces: Mary has the pie Church under her protection. Powers repel demons: Mary has crushed the serpent’s head; she is terrible to the demons by the depth of her humility and the ardour of her charity. Virtues perform miracles as God’s instruments: but the greatest miracle was to conceive the Incarnate Word for our salvation. Dominations command the lower angels: Mary commands all the heavenly choirs. The Thrones are those angels in whom God dwells in a specially intimate way:

13. Collationes; circa invocationem: Regina angelorum.

Mary, who gave birth to Jesus, is the Seat of Wisdom, and the Blessed Trinity reside in her more familiarly than in the highest angel—that is to say, in a way proportionate to her consummated grace.

She surpasses even the Cherubim and Seraphim. The Cherubim shine with the splendour of their knowledge: but Mary has penetrated deeper than they into the divine mysteries since she has the light of glory in a degree far above theirs. She has carried in her womb Him in Whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. She lived with Him for thirty years on earth, and in heaven she is nearest of all to Him.

The Seraphim burn with the flame of love: but more ardent still is the living flame of Mary’s charity. She loves God more than all creatures together, for she loves Him not only as Creator and Father but as her Infant and her treasured Son.

She is therefore the Queen of angels. They serve her faithfully, surround her with veneration, marvel at her tender solicitude for each one of us and for the whole Church. Her charity, her zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of souls are the objects of their intense admiration.

Such is the substance of Justin of Miéchow’s treatise on Mary, Queen of Angels.

Queen of Patriarchs

The superiority of Mary to Adam in the state ofinnocence is clear from all that has ian said thus far. She was higher in grace than he, and had as well the principal effects of original justice: subordination of the sensibility to the higher faculties, and subordination of these latter to God, Mary’s charity was greater from the first instant of her conception than da of Adam in the state of innocence, and she had in addition the special grace of freedom from all sin however slight, even though ie was conceived in passible and mortal flesh.

Her intimacy with God was much closer than that of

240 MARY'S UNIVERSAL MEDIATION AND OUR INTERIOR LIFE Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or Joseph. Abraham's most heroic act was that of preparing himself to immolate his son Isaac, the son of the promise. It was far more for Mary to offer Jesus Who was dearer to her than her own life: nor did an angel come to arrest Jesus’ immolation as one did in the case of Isaac.

Her title of Mother of God, her charity and the heroicity of all her virtues make Mary shine as a star without compare among the patriarchs.

Queen of Prophets

Prophecy in the strict sense of the term is the gift of knowing with certainty and predicting the future under divine inspiration. It was given to many in Old Testament times. In the New Testament St John and St Paul were both rophets and apostles. Sacred Scripture tells us of certain ie women also who received the gift of prophecy: Ma the sister of Moses, Deborah, Anne, mother of oral | Elisabeth, mother of John the Baptist.

Mary is Queen of prophets. She foretold the future in the Magnificat when she sang: “Behold from henceforth all nations shall call me blessed.’ Of her the prophets spoke when they announced the mystery of the Incarnation. She bore in her womb Him of Whom the prophets spoke, and a from His own lips the mysteries of the kingdom of God,

She had the gift of prophecy in the highest degree after Our Blessed Lord, and at the same time she had perfect understanding of the fulness of the revelation which He communicated to the world.

Queen of Apostles

In what sense is Mary Queen of the twelve Apostles? Her dignity as Mother of God surpasses theirs. The apostolate is a form of ministry.14 But according to the

14. ‘Let a man so account of us as the ministers of Christ’ (I Cor. iv, 1).

phrase of St Albert which we have quoted already, Mary is not simply God’s minister since as Mother of the Saviour she is still more closely associated with Him. After the Ascension the Apostles had need of direction, of counsel, and no one was better equipped than Mary to give it to them. She consoled them in their grief at the departure of Our Lord when they felt lonely and helpless in face of the task of the evangelisation of the pagan world. Jesus had left them His mother to help them. She was for them, it has been said, a second paraclete, a visible paraclete, a mediatrix; she was their guiding star in the midst of the tempest of persecution that raged about them. She was truly a mother to them. None of them ever left her side without having been enlightened and consoled, without having been strengthened. By her example in suffering calumnies, by her experience of the things of God she sustained them in times of trial and persecution.

There was no one who could talk as she did of the virginal conception of Christ, of His birth, His infancy, His hidden life, of what took place in His soul on the cross. This is what prompted St Ambrose to say: ‘It is not strange that St John should have spoken better of the mystery of the Incarnation than the others did; he lived at the source of heavenly secrets.’ 15 He lived in Mary’s company what he speaks of in the fourth gospel.16

Queen of Martyrs

The title of Queen of Martyrs has been applied to ~ by SS. Ephrem, Jerome, Ildephonsus, Anselm and Bernard. The imped allusion is to her martyrdom of heart of which Simeon spoke: “Thy own soul a sword shall pierce.’

Mary’s grief was proportionate to her love for her Son. She suffered when He was called a seducer, a violator of the Law, one possessed by a devil; she suffered inexpressibly

15. De Institutione Virginis, c. ix.

16. These remarks are a summary of the corresponding section of Justin de Miéchow’s work.

when Barabbas was preferred to Him, when He was nailed to the cross, when He was tortured by the crown of thorns, when He was parched with thirst; she shared in all the anguish of His priestly and victim soul. She felt as it were all the blows Jesus received in His scourging and crucifixion, for her love made her one with Him. As Bossuet exclaims: ‘One cross was enough to make martyrs of Him and her.’ They offered but one sacrifice, and since she, for her part, loved Jesus more than herself, she suffered more than if she herself had been the victim. All this she endured so as to confess her faith in the mystery of the redemptive Incarnation, and in her the faith of the Church was strong at that moment, stronger and more ardent than in all the other martyrs.

We should remember that Mary’s sufferings had the same cause as her Son’s—the accumulated sins of men and their ingratitude which made the sufferings to be partly of no avail, We must remember too that she suffered from the time of the conception of the Saviour, still more after Simeon’s prophecy, still more as she saw the opposition to Jesus mounting, and most of all at the foot of the cross. But even then, even when her soul was inundated with grief, her zeal for the glory of God and for the salvation of souls caused her a holy joy at the sight of her Son consummating His redemptive work by the most perfect of holocausts.

Lastly, she has helped the martyrs in their torments. She is Our Lady of a happy death because of her care for the dying who call on her. Much more does she help those who die to profess their faith in the Redeemer.

Queen of Confessors Mary and Priests

She is Queen of all who confess their faith in Jesus for she herself confessed the same faith more than any other creature. But we shall speak principally in this section of what she is to the priests of Our Blessed Lord. To represent Jesus truly, the priest who brings Him down on the altar and offers Him

-~ sacramentally in Holy Mass should unite himself more and more to His sentiments, to the oblation which is always living in the Heart of Jesus ‘always living to make intercession for us’. In addition, he should, through the different sacraments, distribute the grace which is the fruit of the merits of Jesus and Mary.

Because of the work to which they are called, Mary is specially zealous for the sanctification of priests. She sees that they share in the priesthood of her Son and she watches over their souls that the grace of their ordination may bear fruit in them, that they become living images of the Saviour. She protects them against the dangers which surround them and lifts them up if they happen to stumble. She loves them as sons of predilection, just as she loved St John who was committed to her on Calvary. She attracts their heart to herself to raise it up and to lead them to greater intimac with Jesus, so that one day they may be able to say in al truth: ‘I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me.’

Mary helps priests in a special way at the altar so that they may become more fully conscious of their union with the Principal Offerer. She is spiritually present at that sacramental oblation which perpetuates the substance of the sacrifice of the Cross, and £ distributes to the priest the actual graces he needs to minister with recollection and in a spirit of self-donation. In that way she helps the priest to ihare in Jesus’ victimhood as well as in His priesthood. All this means to form priests to the image of the Heart of Jesus.

With Jesus she arouses priestly vocations and cultivates them. She knows that where there are no priests there is no Baptism, no Confession, no Mass, no christian Marriage, no Extreme Unction, no christian life: without the priest the world returns to paganism.

Our Lord Who has willed to have need of Mary in the work of salvation has willed also to have need of priests, and Mary forms them in holiness. We can see her action clearly in some of the saints who were priests—St John the Evangelist, St Bernard, St Dominic, the Apostle of the Rosary, St Bernardine of Siena, St Grignon de Montfort, St Alphonsus,

244 MARY'S UNIVERSAL MEDIATION AND OUR INTERIOR LIFE Queen of Virgins Mary and Consecrated Souls

Mary is Queen of Virgins since she had the virtue of virginity in the most eminent degree and preserved it in the conception, birth, and after the birth of the Saviour. She teaches souls the value of virginity. It is a true virtue, a spiritual force, something more than a mere good inclination of the sensibility. She teaches them that virginity consecrated to God is higher than simple chastity since it promises integrity of the body and purity of the heart for the whole of life—a consideration which led St Thomas to say that virginity stands in much the same relation to chastity as munificence does to simple liberality, since it is a perfect gift of self, and sign of a perfect zeae G

Mary safeguards virgins from danger, she supports them in their difficulties and leads them, if they are faithful, to great intimacy with her Son.

What is her role in regard to consecrated souls: The Church calls such souls ‘Spouses of Christ’. It follows that Our Lady is their perfect model. Following her example they should live a life of prayer and of reparation in union with Our Blessed Lord. They should become also consolers of the afflicted, remembering that the consolation which they afford in a supernatural spirit to the suffering members of Christ is afforded to Himself and makes amends for the ingratitude, coldness, and even hatred of so many. Thus, these souls are called to reproduce the virtues of Mary and to continue in some measure her work for Our Blessed Lord and for souls. ;

If consecrated souls but know and follow Mary’s guidance they find through her a wonderful compensation for the privations their lives impose on them, and which, though all accepted in advance, are felt most keenly only as they come one by one, day after day. Through Mary they can m a to a certain spiritual motherhood, which is an image of her own, in regard to all—the poor, the afflicted, sinners —who are in need of spiritual care. Our Blessed Lord alluded to that spiritual motherhood when He said: ‘I was hungry, and you gave me eat; I was Gn and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in: a and you covered me: sick, and you visited me: I was in prison and you came to me’ (Mt. xxv, 35-36).

Spiritual motherhood in the life of contemplation and reparation may be practised also by the apostolate of prayer and suffering which makes fruitful the exterior apostolate for the conversion of sinners and the extension of the reign of Christ. A hidden, interior apostolate can be one of great sufferings; but Our Lady will show how to bear them and she will afford some glimpse of their effects in souls.

Another work of Mary’s is to help christian mothers to bring up their children to a life of faith, confidence in God, and love. She helps them also to win back their erring children, as St Monica did St Augustine.

Thus, we see the universality of Mary’s Queenship. She is Queen of all the saints by virtue of her unique mission in God’s providential plan, and her fulness of grace and glory. She is Queen of all the saints, the unknown as well as the known, the uncanonised as well as the canonised, the Queen of all those who strive after holiness on earth, whose trials and joys are so well known to her, and the crown of whose merits she foresees even now,