Discourse VI — The Purification of Mary

The great sacrifice that Mary made to God on this day, in offering him the life of her Son.

In the birth of firstborn sons there were two precepts in the old law: one was that the mother should remain as unclean, retired in her house for forty days, after which she would go to purify herself in the temple. The other was that the parents of the firstborn should bring him to the temple and there offer him to God. The most holy Virgin wished to obey both precepts on this day. Although Mary was not bound by the law of purification, since she was ever a virgin and ever pure, nevertheless out of love for humility and obedience she wished to go like other mothers to be purified. She then obeyed the second precept of presenting and offering her Son to the Eternal Father: Et postquam impleti sunt dies purgationis eius, secundum legem Moysi, tulerunt illum in Ierusalem, ut sisterent eum Domino (Luke II, 22). But the Virgin offered him in a manner different from that in which other mothers offered their sons. The others offered them, but they knew that this oblation was a simple ceremony of the law, so that by redeeming them they made them their own again, without fear of having to offer them to death. Mary offered her Son to death in reality, being certain that the sacrifice of the life of Jesus which she then made was one day to be actually consummated on the altar of the cross. Thus, in offering the life of her Son, Mary came — by reason of the love she bore this Son — to sacrifice to God her entire self.

Leaving aside, then, all the other considerations we might make upon the many mysteries of this feast, let us consider only how great was this sacrifice that Mary made of herself to God, in offering him on this day the life of her Son. And this will be the sole subject of this discourse.

The Eternal Father had already determined to save man, lost through sin, and to free him from eternal death. But because he wished that at the same time his divine justice should not be defrauded of its fitting and due satisfaction, therefore, not sparing the life of his own Son, already made man to redeem mankind, he willed that his Son should pay in full rigor the penalty merited by men: Qui... proprio Filio suo non pepercit, says the Apostle, sed pro nobis omnibus tradidit illum (Rom. VIII, 32). He therefore sent him to earth to become man; he appointed him a mother, and this mother he willed should be the Virgin Mary. But just as he did not will that his divine Word should become her son before she accepted him with her express consent, so he did not will that Jesus should sacrifice his life for the salvation of men without the concurrent consent of Mary, so that together with the sacrifice of the life of the Son, the heart of the Mother might also be sacrificed. St. Thomas teaches that the quality of motherhood gives a special right over one's children; hence, since Jesus was in himself innocent and merited no punishment for any fault of his own, it seemed fitting that he should not be destined to the cross as a victim for the sins of the world without the consent of his Mother, who would thereby spontaneously offer him to death.

But although Mary, from the moment she was made the Mother of Jesus, gave her consent to his death, the Lord nevertheless willed that on this day she should make in the temple a solemn sacrifice of herself by solemnly offering him her Son, sacrificing to divine justice his precious life. For this reason St. Epiphanius called her a priestess: Virginem appello velut sacerdotem.

Let us now enter to see how much this sacrifice cost her in sorrow and what heroic virtue she had to exercise in having to sign, with her own hand, the sentence condemning her dear Jesus to death.

Behold, Mary is already on her way to Jerusalem to offer her Son; she hastens her steps to the place of sacrifice, and she herself carries in her arms her beloved victim. She enters the temple, approaches the altar, and there, full of modesty, humility, and devotion, she presents her Son to the Most High. And behold, in the meanwhile, St. Simeon — who had received from God the promise that he would not die before seeing the expected Messiah — takes the divine Infant from the hands of the Virgin, and, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, announces to her how much the sacrifice she was then making of her Son would cost her, for with it her blessed soul was also to be sacrificed. Here St. Thomas of Villanova (Sermon on the Purification of the Virgin) contemplates the holy old man who, having to utter the dreadful announcement to this poor Mother, is troubled and falls silent. Then the saint imagines Mary asking him: Unde tanta turbatio? Why, O Simeon, at a time of such great consolation, are you thus disturbed? To whom he replies: O Virgo regia, nollem tibi talia nuntiare, sed audi. O noble and holy Virgin, he says, I would not wish to be the messenger of such bitter tidings; but since the Lord so wills for your greater merit, hear what I tell you: This child who now brings you such joy — and rightly so — oh God, one day he is to cause you the most bitter sorrow that any creature in the world has ever known; and it will be when you see him persecuted by every kind of people, and set upon earth as a target for the scorn and torment of men, even to having him put to death before your eyes: Nimium nunc pro isto infante laetaris, sed ecce iste positus in signum cui contradicetur. Know that after his death there will be many martyrs who, for love of this Son of yours, will be tormented and slain; but if their martyrdom will be in the body, your martyrdom, O divine Mother, will be in the heart: O quot millia hominum pro isto puero laniabuntur et iugulabuntur: et si omnes patientur in corpore, tu Virgo in corde patieris.

Yes, in the heart — for nothing other than compassion for the sufferings of this Son so dear was to be the sword of sorrow that would pierce the Mother's heart, as St. Simeon indeed foretold: Et tuam ipsius animam doloris gladius pertransibit (Luke 2). The Blessed Virgin, as St. Jerome says, had already been enlightened by the divine Scriptures to know the sufferings the Redeemer was to endure in his life and especially in the time of his death. Well did she understand from the prophets that he was to be betrayed by one of his own: Qui edebat panes meos, magnificavit super me supplantationem, as David foretold (Ps. XL, 10); abandoned by his disciples: Percute pastorem et dispergentur oves (Zech. XIII, 7). Well did she know the contempt, the spitting, the blows, the mockery he was to suffer from the people: Corpus meum dedi percutientibus et genas meas vellentibus: faciem meam non averti ab increpantibus et conspuentibus in me (Is. L, 6). She knew that he was to become the reproach of men and the refuse of the vilest rabble, to the point of being satiated with insults and abuse: Ego autem sum vermis et non homo: opprobrium hominum et abiectio plebis (Ps. XXI, 7). Saturabitur opprobriis (Lam. III, 30). She knew that at the end of his life his most sacred flesh was to be entirely torn and broken by scourges: Ipse autem vulneratus est propter scelera nostra (Is. LIII, 5), to such a degree that his body would be left wholly disfigured, become like a leper all covered with wounds, to the point where the bones could be seen exposed: Non est species ei neque decor... Et nos putavimus eum quasi leprosum (ibid.). Dinumeraverunt omnia ossa mea (Ps. XXI, 18). She knew that he was to be pierced with nails: Foderunt manus meas et pedes meos (ibid.). Placed among malefactors: Et cum sceleratis reputatus est (Is. LIII, 12). And that finally, nailed to the cross, he was to die a condemned man for the salvation of mankind: Et aspicient ad me quem confixerunt (Zech. XII, 10).

Mary already knew, I say, all these sufferings her Son was to endure; but in the words spoken to her by St. Simeon — Et tuam ipsius animam doloris gladius pertransibit — there were made known to her, as the Lord revealed to St. Teresa, all the particular circumstances of the sorrows, both external and internal, that were to torment her Jesus in his Passion. And she consented to everything, and with a constancy that astonishes the angels, she pronounces the sentence that her Son should die, and die by so shameful and painful a death, saying: Eternal Father, since you so will it, non mea voluntas, sed tua fiat; I unite my will to your holy will, and I sacrifice to you this my Son. I am content that he should lose his life for your glory and for the salvation of the world. And with this I also sacrifice my heart to you; let sorrow pierce it as much as it pleases you; it is enough for me that you, my God, are thereby glorified and content: non mea voluntas, sed tua fiat! O charity without measure! O constancy without equal! O victory that merits the eternal admiration of heaven and earth!

And hence it was that in the Passion of Jesus, Mary was silent when they unjustly accused him; she said nothing to Pilate, who was inclined to free him because of the innocence he had recognized in him; she only appeared in public to assist at the great sacrifice that was to be consummated on Calvary. She accompanied him to the place of execution; she was present from the beginning, when the Son was placed upon the cross — stabat iuxta crucem Iesu Mater eius — until she saw him expire and the sacrifice was consummated. All this to carry out the offering she had already made of him to God in the temple.

To understand the violence that Mary had to do to herself in this sacrifice, one would need to comprehend the love this Mother bore for Jesus. Generally speaking, the love of mothers for their children is so tender that when these are at the point of death and they fear losing them, it makes them forget all their faults, their deformities, and even injuries previously received from them, and causes them to suffer inexpressible sorrow. And yet the love of these mothers is a love divided among other children or other creatures. Mary has one Son alone, and he is the most beautiful of all the children of Adam; he is the most lovable, for he has every quality to be loved: he is obedient, virtuous, innocent, holy — it suffices to say he is God. The love of this Mother, moreover, is not divided among other objects; she has placed all her love in this one Son; nor does she fear excess in loving him, since this Son is God, who merits infinite love. And this Son is the victim she must voluntarily sacrifice to death.

Let each one see, then, how much it must have cost Mary and what fortitude of soul she had to exercise in this act of sacrificing to the cross the life of so lovable a Son. Behold, therefore, the most fortunate of mothers, because the Mother of a God, but at the same time the mother most worthy of compassion, because the most sorrowful — being the Mother of a Son whom she saw destined for the scaffold from the very day he was given to her as her son. What mother would accept a son knowing that she would later lose him miserably by an infamous death, and that she would be present to see him die? Mary willingly accepted this Son on such a hard condition, and not only accepted him, but on this day she herself offered him with her own hands to death, sacrificing him to divine justice. St. Bonaventure says that the Blessed Virgin would far more willingly have accepted for herself the sufferings and death of her Son, but to obey God she made the great offering of the divine life of her beloved Jesus, conquering — but with the utmost sorrow — all the tenderness of the love she bore him: Si fieri potuisset, omnia tormenta quae Filius pertulit, sustinuisset; et nihilominus placuit ei, quod Unigenitus eius pro salute generis humani offerretur. Hence in this offering Mary had to do greater violence to herself, and was more generous, than if she had offered herself to all that her Son was to suffer. She surpassed the generosity of all the martyrs, for the martyrs offer their own lives, but the Virgin offered the life of her Son, whom she loved and esteemed immeasurably more than her own life.

Nor did the sorrow of this painful offering end here; indeed, here it only began, for from that time forward, throughout the life of her Son, Mary always had before her eyes his death and all the sufferings he was to endure in dying. Hence the more she discovered how beautiful, gracious, and lovable this Son of hers was, the more the anguish of her heart continually grew. Ah, sorrowful Mother, if you had loved your Son less, or if your Son had been less lovable, or had loved you less, your sorrow in offering him to death would certainly have been less. But there has never been and never will be a mother more loving of any son, because there has never been and never will be a son more lovable and more loving of his mother than your Jesus. O God, if we had seen the beauty, the majesty of the countenance of that divine Child, would we perhaps have had the heart to sacrifice his life for our salvation? And you, O Mary, who are his Mother — a Mother who loves him so greatly — could you offer your innocent Son for the salvation of mankind to the most painful and cruel death any guilty man has ever suffered on earth?

Alas, and what a mournful scene love must have continually placed before Mary's eyes from that day forward, representing to her all the torments and contempt that were to be inflicted on her poor Son! Behold love already showing him to her agonizing with grief in the Garden, torn by scourges and crowned with thorns in the Praetorium, finally nailed to a tree of shame on Calvary. Behold, O Mother, said love, what a lovable and innocent Son you are offering to such great sufferings, to so horrible a death! And what good will it do you to save him from the hands of Herod, only to reserve him for so pitiful an end?

Thus Mary did not only offer her Son to death in the temple, but she offered him at every moment of her life, for she revealed to St. Bridget that this sorrow announced to her by St. Simeon never departed from her heart until she was assumed into heaven: Dolor iste usquedum assumpta fui corpore et anima in caelum, numquam defecit a corde meo. Hence St. Anselm says to her: My Lady, I cannot believe that you, with such sorrow, could have lived a single moment, had not the same God who gives life strengthened you with his divine power: Pia Domina, non crediderim te ullo puncto potuisse stimulos tanti cruciatus, quin vitam amitteres, sustinere, nisi ipse Spiritus vitae te confortasset. But St. Bernard attests, speaking precisely of the great anguish Mary suffered on this day, that from then on Moriebatur vivens, dolorem ferens morte crudeliorem: She lived dying at every instant, because at every instant the sorrow of the death of her beloved Jesus assailed her — a sorrow more cruel than any death.

Hence the divine Mother, by the great merit she acquired in this great sacrifice that she offered to God for the salvation of the world, was justly called by St. Augustine the Restorer of the human race: Reparatrix generis humani. By St. Epiphanius, the Redeemer of captives: Redemptrix captivorum. By St. Ildephonsus, the Restorer of a lost world: Reparatrix perditi orbis. By St. Germanus, the Relief of our miseries: Restauratio calamitatum nostrarum. By St. Ambrose, the Mother of all the faithful: Mater omnium credentium. By St. Augustine, the Mother of the living: Mater viventium. And by St. Andrew of Crete, the Mother of life: Mater vitae. For Arnold of Chartres says: Omnino tunc erat una Christi et Mariae voluntas, unumque holocaustum ambo pariter offerebant; unde communem in mundi salute cum illo effectum obtinuit. In the death of Jesus, Mary united her will to that of her Son, to the extent that both came to offer one and the same sacrifice; and therefore the holy abbot says that both the Son and the Mother effected the human Redemption, obtaining salvation for men — Jesus by satisfying for our sins, Mary by obtaining that such satisfaction be applied to us. And for this reason likewise the Blessed Denis the Carthusian asserts that the divine Mother may be called the Savior of the world; for through the suffering she endured in compassionating her Son — voluntarily sacrificed by her to divine justice — she merited that the merits of the Redeemer be communicated to men: Dici potest Virgo mundi salvatrix propter meritum suae compassionis, quae patienti Filio acerbissime condolendo excellenter promeruit, ut per preces eius meritum Passionis Christi hominibus communicetur.

Since Mary, then, by the merit of her sorrows and of the offering of her Son, was made the mother of all the redeemed, it is right to believe that only through her hand is the milk of divine graces given to them — graces that are the fruits of the merits of Jesus Christ and the means of attaining eternal life. And to this alludes what St. Bernard says: that God placed in Mary's hands the entire price of our Redemption: Redempturus humanum genus, universum pretium contulit in Maria. By which words the saint gives us to understand that through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin the merits of the Redeemer are applied to souls, since through her hand are dispensed the graces that are precisely the price of the merits of Jesus Christ.

And if God so prized the sacrifice of Abraham for having offered his Isaac that he pledged in return to multiply his descendants like the stars of heaven — Quia fecisti hanc rem et non pepercisti filio tuo unigenito propter me, benedicam tibi et multiplicabo semen tuum sicut stellas caeli (Gen. XXII, 16–17) — we must certainly believe that far more pleasing to the Lord was the nobler sacrifice made to him by the great Mother of his Jesus; and therefore it was granted to her that through her prayers the number of the elect, and consequently of her devoted servants, should be multiplied.

St. Simeon received the promise from God that he would not die before seeing the Messiah born: Responsum acceperat a Spiritu Sancto non visurum se mortem, nisi prius videret Christum Domini (Luke II, 26). But this grace he then received only through Mary, since he found the Savior only in Mary's arms. Hence whoever wishes to find Jesus will not find him except through Mary. Let us go, then, to this divine Mother if we wish to find Jesus, and let us go with great confidence. Mary said to her servant Pudenziana Zagnoni that every year, on this day of the Purification, a great mercy would be shown to a sinner. Who knows whether one of us might today be this fortunate sinner? If our sins are great, greater is the power of Mary. The Son can refuse nothing to this Mother: Exaudiet utique Matrem Filius, says St. Bernard. If Jesus is angry with us, Mary immediately appeases him. Plutarch relates that Antipater wrote a long letter of accusations against Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great. Alexander, having read the letter, replied: "Does not Antipater know that a single tear of my mother is enough to blot out countless letters of accusation?" Ignorare Antipatrum sexcentas epistolas una deleri matris lacrimula? Let us imagine that Jesus also responds in this way to the accusations the devil brings against us when Mary prays for us: "Does not Lucifer know that one prayer of my Mother in favor of a sinner is enough to make me forget all the charges of offenses made against me?" In confirmation of this, here is the following example.

Example

This example is not recorded in any book, but was told to me by a companion priest of mine, having happened to himself. While this priest was hearing confessions in a church — the place is not named out of proper respect, although the penitent had already given him permission to publish the account — a young man presented himself standing nearby, who appeared both to want and not to want to go to confession. The Father looked at him several times, then finally called him and asked if he wished to confess. He answered yes, but because the confession was to be quite long, the confessor led him to a secluded room.

There the penitent began by saying that he was a stranger and a nobleman, but could not understand how God could pardon him, having led the life he had led. Besides innumerable other sins of impurity, murder, and more, he said that having utterly despaired of his salvation, he had set about sinning not so much to satisfy himself as to spite God and out of hatred for him. He said, among other things, that he had kept a Crucifix and had thrown it away in contempt. He said that a short time before, that very morning, he had gone to receive Communion sacrilegiously — and for what purpose? To then trample the consecrated Host underfoot. And that in fact, having already received the Host, he had wished to carry out the horrible design, but had been prevented by the people who were watching him. And indeed he then handed the Host, wrapped in a piece of paper, to the confessor. He then related that passing in front of that church he had felt a powerful impulse to enter, which he could not resist, and so he had entered; and that there a great remorse of conscience had come upon him, together with a certain willingness — confused and irresolute — to confess; that he had therefore placed himself before the confessional, but that standing there, so great was his confusion and distrust that he wanted to leave, and it seemed as though someone held him back by force, until — he said — "Father, you called me: now I find myself here confessing, and I do not know how."

The Father then asked him if he had practiced any devotion during this time — meaning toward the Blessed Virgin Mary, since such striking conversions come only from the powerful hands of the Virgin. "Nothing, Father; what devotion?" replied the young man. "I considered myself already damned." "But think back more carefully," the Father said. "Father, nothing," he repeated. "Here, look." But as he put his hand to his breast to open it, he noticed he was wearing the scapular of Our Lady of Sorrows. "Ah, my son," said the confessor then, "do you not see that Our Lady has granted you this grace? And know that this church is a church of Our Lady." Hearing this, the young man was moved to tenderness and began to feel compunction, and at the same time to weep; and as he continued to reveal his sins, his compunction grew to such a degree, with torrents of tears, that he fainted from sorrow — so it appeared — at the Father's feet. The confessor, having revived him with smelling salts, finally concluded the confession, absolved him with great consolation, and sent him back to his homeland entirely contrite and resolved to change his life, having received from him ample permission to preach and publish everywhere the great mercy shown him by Mary.

Prayer

O holy Mother of God and my Mother Mary, you were so concerned for my salvation that you went so far as to sacrifice to death the dearest object of your heart, your beloved Jesus? If, then, you desired so greatly to see me saved, it is right that after God I should place all my hopes in you. O blessed Virgin, yes, in you I place all my trust. For the merit of this great sacrifice that you on this day offered to God of the life of your Son, pray him to have mercy on my soul, for which this immaculate Lamb did not refuse to die upon the cross.

I too, my Queen, would wish on this day, in imitation of you, to offer my poor heart to God; but I fear he will refuse it, seeing it so stained and foul. But if you offer it to him, he will not refuse it. The offerings presented to him through your most pure hands he always welcomes and receives. To you, then, O Mary, today I present myself, wretched as I am, and to you I give myself entirely. Offer me as your own to the Eternal Father together with Jesus, and pray him that through the merits of his Son and for your sake he accept me and take me as his own.

Ah, my sweetest Mother, for the love of this Son sacrificed by you, help me always and do not abandon me. Do not permit that this most lovable Redeemer of mine, whom you today offered to the cross with such great sorrow, I should one day lose through my sins. Tell him that I am your servant; tell him that in you I have placed all my hope; tell him, in short, that you wish me to be saved, and he will surely hear you. Amen.