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II.12. The Mother of the Incarnate Word

Summary. — The place that devotion to the Virgin Mary holds in our spiritual life : the disciple of Christ must, like Jesus, be the Son of Mary. — I. What Mary has given to Jesus. By her ” Fiat”, the Virgin consented to give a human nature to the Word; she is the Mother of Christ ; as such, she enters essentially into the vital mystery of Christianity. — I. What Jesus has given to His Mother. He chose her from among all women; He loved and obeyed her. He has associated her, in the closest manner, with His mysteries, especially with that of the Redemption. — Il. The homage we owe to Mary: to exalt her privileges, following the example of the Church in her liturgy. — IV. The profit that devotion to the Blessed Virgin brings to the soul: Mary inseparable from Jesus in the Divine Plan ; her all powerful influence with God ; her grace of spiritual maternity. — To ask Mary to ” form Jesus” within us. all holiness for us consists in the imitation of Jesus Christ, in the conformity of our whole being to the Son of God, and in our participation in His Divine Sonship. To be by grace what Jesus is by nature is the end of our predestination and the norm of our sanctity: Quos praescivit et praedestinavit conformes fiert imaginis Filii sui?. Now, in Our Lord some things are essential to Him and some accidental. Christ was born at Bethlehem, He fled into Egypt, He passed His childhood and youth at Nazareth, _ He died under Pontius Pilate; these diverse circumstances of place and time are only accidental to Christ’s existence. There are other things so far essential to Him that without them Christ would no longer be Christ. He is God and Man, Son of God and Son of man, true God and true Man: these are constitutive, intangible qualities. In the Scriptures, some astonishing words are applied to Eternal Wisdom, the Word of God. ” My delights are to be with the children of men”: Deliciae meae esse cum filus

I w the course of these conferences, I have often said that kominum*. Who could have believed that? The Word is God: Deus erat Verbum; in the bosom of His Father, He lives in infinite light; He possesses all the riches of the Divine perfections; He enjoys the fulness of all life and all beatitude. And yet He declares by the sacred writer that He finds His joy in living among men.1

This marvel has come to pass; for ” the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us”, Et Verbum caro factum est et habitavit in nobis. The Word desired to become one of us; He has realised His Divine desire in an ineffable manner; and this realisation seems, so to speak, to have fulfilled His desires. When we read the Gospel, we see indeed that Christ often affirms His Divinity, as when He speaks of His eternal relations with His Father: “I and My Father are one*”, or when He confirms the profession of faith of His hearers: ” Blessed art thou”, He said to Peter upon his proclaiming the divinity of his Master, ” blessed art thou, for it is My Father hath revealed it to thee*”; however, we do not hear Him in express words give Himself the title of ” Son of God”.

How many times, on the contrary, do we not hear Him call Himself the” Son of Man”. One would say that Christ is proud of this title which He loves to give Himself. But He never separates it from His Divine Sonship or the privileges of His Divinity. He tells us that ” the Son of man has the power (which alone belongs to God), to forgive sins*’”; we see that, immediately after His disciples have proclaimed Him ” Christ, the Son of God”, He announces to them that this Christ, ” the Son of man” must suffer, that He will ” be put to death, and after three days rise again ®”,

Nowhere, perhaps, has our Divine Saviour more clearly and forcibly spoken of Himself as both God and Man as in the days of His Passion. See Him before the tribunal of the Jewish high priest Caiphas. Caiphas, in the midst of the assembly, conjures Jesus to declare if He is the Son of God. ” Thou hast said it”, Jesus answers: ” nevertheless I say to you, hereafter you shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of the power of God and coming in the clouds of heaven®”. Notice that Jesus does not say as we might have expected, — since here, there is only question of

  1. Prov. vill, 31. — 2. Joan. x, 30. — 3. Matth. xvi, 17. — 4. Marc MN, 10. — §. Ibid. vi, 31. —6. Matth. xxvi, 64; cf. Joan. 1, 51 ; 11, 13.

Christ, he life of the soul. 24

His Divinity — ” You shall see the Son of God coming in the clouds of heaven as eternal and sovereign Judge”; but: "You shall see the Son of man”. In presence of the supreme tribunal, He joins this last title to that of His Divinity: for Him, these two titles are inseparable, in the same manner as the two natures upon which they are founded are indissolubly united and inseparable. There is not less sin in rejecting the Humanity of Christ than there is in denying His Divinity.

Now, if Jesus Christ is the Son of God by His ineffable and eternal birth ” in the bosom of the Father”, Filius meus es tu, ego hodie genui te, He is Son of man by His temporal birth in the bosom of a woman: Misit Deus Filium suum, factum ex muliere ?.

This woman is Mary, and she is a Virgin. It is from her, and from her alone, that Christ takes His human nature; it is to her He owes it that He is Son of man; she is truly Mother of God. Mary, therefore, occupies a transcendent, essential and unique place in Christianity. In the same way as the quality of ” Son of man” cannot be separated in Christ from that of ” Son of God”, so is Mary united to Jesus: indeed, the Virgin Mary enters into the mystery of the Incarnation by a title belonging to the very nature of the mystery.

_ That is why we must stay a few moments to contemplate this marvel of a simple creature being associated, by such close bonds, with the economy of the fundamental mystery of Christianity and, consequently, with our supernatural life, that divine life which comes to us from Christ, the God-Man, and that Christ gives to us, inasmuch as He is God, but by means of His Humanity *. We must be, like Jesus, Filius Dei and Filius Mariae; He is both of these perfectly ; if then we wish to reproduce His likeness within us, we must bear this double quality.

No piety would be truly Christian if it did not include in its object the Mother of the Incarnate Word. Devotion towards the Virgin Mary is not only important, but necessary, if we wish to draw abundantly at the source of life. To separate Christ from His Mother in our piety, is to divide Christ ; it is to lose sight of the essential mission of His holy humanity in the distribution of divine grace. Where the Mother is left out, the Son is no longer understood. Has not this befallen Protestant nations? In rejecting devotion to Mary under pretext of not derogating from the dignity of a single Mediator, have they not ended in even losing faith in the Divinity of Christ Himself? If Jesus Christ is our Saviour, our Mediator, our Elder Brother, because He has taken upon Himself our human nature, how can we love Him truly, how can we resemble Him perfectly, without having a special devotion for her from whom He took this human nature?2

But this must be an enlightened devotion. Let us say, then, in a few words what Mary has given to Jesus; secondly, what Jesus ‘has done for His Mother; from this we shall see what the Blessed Virgin must be for us; and finally what is the supernatural fruitfulness of our devotion to the Mother of Christ. if

What has Mary given to Jesus?

While remaining a virgin, she has given Him a human nature. That is a unique privilege that Mary shares with none: Nec primam similem visa est, nec habere sequentem*. The Word might have appeared here below by taking a human nature created ex nihilo, drawn out of nothing, and already formed in the perfection of its organism, as Adam was formed in the earthly paradise. For reasons of infinite wisdom, this was not done. In uniting Himself to humanity, the Word willed to pass through all the stages of human growth in order to sanctify them; He willed to be born of a woman.

But what is so wonderful in this birth is that the Word made it subject, so to speak, to the consent of this woman.

Let us transport ourselves in spirit to Nazareth and contemplate this ineffable scene. The Angel appears to the young virgin. After having saluted her, he delivers his message: ” Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son, and thou shalt call His name Jesus, He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most3

High... and of His kingdom there shall be no end”. Mary asks the angel how this shall be done, since she is a virgin: Quomodo fiet istud quomiam virum non cognosco 1? Gabriel answers :” The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God”. Then, instancing the example of Elizabeth, who has conceived in spite of her former barrenness, because it hath thus pleased the Lord, the Angel adds: ” No word shall be impossible with God”; He can, when He so wills, suspend the laws of nature.

God proposes the mystery of the Incarnation which will only be fulfilled in the Virgin when she shall have given her free consent. The accomplishment of the mystery hangs in suspense until then. At this moment, according to the saying of St. Thomas, Mary represents us all in her person. It is as if God awaited the response of the humanity to which He wills to unite Himself: Per annuntiationem exspectabatur consensus virginis loco totiushwmanae naturae *. What a solemn moment it is! For now the vital mystery of Christianity is about to be decided. St. Bernard, in one of his most beautiful homilies on the Annunciation *, shows us the whole human race, who for thousands of years have hoped for salvation, the Angelic choirs, and even God Himself, as if in suspense, awaiting the acceptation of the young Virgin.

And Mary gives her reply: full of faith in the heavenly word, and entirely submissive to the Divine Will that has just been manifested to her, she says: Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to thy word”, Ecce ancilla Domini; fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum‘. This Fiat is Mary’s consent to the Divine plan of Redemption ; this Fiat is like the echo of the Fiat of the creation; but it is a new world, an infinitely higher world, a world of grace that God Himself creates after this consent: for at this moment the Divine Word, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, becomes incarnate in Mary : Et Verbum caro factum est ®,

It is certain,as we have just heard by the voice of the angel, no human concourse is to intervene, for all must be holy in4

Christ’s conception and birth; but it is from her most pure blood that Mary conceives by the operation of the Holy Ghost, it is from her that the Man-God is to come forth. When Jesus is born at Bethlehem, who is it Who lies there upon the straw? It is the Child-God, it is the Word, Who, while remaining a Divine Person, Quod erat permansit}, has united to Himself a human nature in the bosom of the Virgin. In this Child there are two quite distinct natures, but only one Person, the Divine Person: the term of this virginal birth is the Man-God: ” The Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God ?; this Man-God, this God-made-man, is Mary’s Son. This is what Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Ghost, said to her: ” Whence is this to me, that the Mother of my Lord should come to me 3? Mary is the Mother of Christ, for, as all other mothers do for their children, she formed and nourished with her most pure substance the body of Jesus. This is a dogma of faith. If by His eternal birth Jn splendoribus sanctorum *, Christ is truly the Son of God, Deum verum de Deo vero, by His temporal birth, He is truly the Son of Mary; the only Son of God is also the only Son of the Virgin.

Such is the ineffable union existing between Jesus and Mary: she is His Mother, He is her Son. This union is indissoluble ; and as Jesus is at the same time the Son of God, come to save the world, Mary is indeed intimately associated with the vital mystery of all Christianity. All her greatness is founded on this special privilege of her divine Motherhood.

TF.

This privilege is not the only one. A whole crown of graces adorn Christ’s Virgin Mother, all due to her Divine maternity. Jesus, as man, depends on Mary; but, as the Eternal Word, He is anterior to her. Consider what He has done for her from whom He was to take a human nature. Being God, that is to say the Almighty and Infinite Wisdom, He will adorn this His creature with priceless jewels.

First He has, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, chosen her in preference to all others. To show the eminence of this choice, the Church, on the feasts of Our Lady, applies to her a passage of Scripture which can only relate in certain points to Eternal Wisdom: ” The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His ways, before He made anything from the beginning. I was set up from eternity, and of old before the earth was made. The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived... the mountains had not as yet been established: before the hills I was brought forth”: Ante colles ego parturiebar...*. What do these words show ? The specia! predestination of Mary in the Divine plan. The Eternal Father, in His Divine thoughts, does not separate her from Christ: He comprehends in the same act of love, the Virgin, who is to be the Mother of Christ, and the Humanity of His Son in Whom He is well pleased?. This singular predestination is the fountainhead of unique graces for Mary.5

The Virgin Mary is immaculate. All the children of Adam are born with she stain of original sin, slaves of the devil, enemies to God. This is the law passed by God for all Adam’s race. Alone out of all creatures, Mary is to escape this universal law. The Eternal Word will make this one exception — one only — for her in whom He is to be incarnate. Not for a single moment is the soul of Mary to belong to the devil; it will be radiant with purity; and that is why, from the morrow of the Fall of our first parents, God put absolute enmity between the devil and the chosen Virgin; it is she whose heel is to crush the infernal serpent . With the Church, let us often remind Mary of this privilege which she alone possesses, of being without stain; let us love to repeat to her: Tota pulchra es Maria, et macula originalis non est in te. ” Thy garments are white as snow and thy face like the sun °: therefore the King of glory hath ardently desired thee”.

Not only is Mary born immaculate, but grace abounds in her. When the Angel salutes her, he declares her ” full of grace”, Gratia plena; for the Lord, the source of all grace, is within her: Dominus tecum. Then, in the conception

  1. Prov. VIM, 23, 25. — 2. Ipsissima.verba quibus divinae scripturae de increata Sapientia loquuntur ejusque sempiternas origines repraesentant, consucvit Ecclesia... ad illius virginis primordia transferre quae uno eodemque decreto cum divinae Sapientiae incarnatione fuerant praestituta. Pius X, Bull Ineffabilis for the definition of the Immaculate and birth of Jesus, Mary keeps her virginity intact. She brings forth, while remaining a virgin; as the Church sings, with the honour of virginity, Mary has the joy of motherhood: Gaudia matris habens cum virginitatis honore?. There are the graces that the hidden life with Jesus brings to Mary; there are those coming from her union with her Son in the mysteries of His public life and of His Passion; and, to fill up the measure, there is her Assumption into Heaven. Mary’s virginal body, whence Christ took the substance of His human nature, is not to know corruption; upon her head is to be placed a crown of inestimable price; she will reign as queen at her Son’s right hand, adorned with the vestment of glory woven for her by all these privileges: Adstitit regia a dextris tuis, in vestitu deaurato ”.6

Now, whence does Mary derive all these signal graces, all these wonderful privileges, which make her a creature above every other creature, Benedicta tu in mulieribus ? From the eternal choice God made of Mary to be the Mother of His Son. If she is ” blessed among women”; if, for her, God has set aside so many of the laws He had Himself established, it is because she is to be the Mother of His Son. If you take away this dignity from Mary, all these prerogatives would have no more reason or meaning’; for all these privileges prepare or accompany Mary as Mother of God.

But what is incomprehensible is the love which determined this unique choice that the Word made of this young Virgin, in order to take from her a human nature.

Christ loved His Mother. Never has God so loved a simple creature; never has son loved his mother as Jesus Christ has done. He has so loved men, He Himself tells us, as to die for them, and He could not give them a greater proof of love: Majorem hac dilectionem nemo habet, ut animam suam ponat quis pro amicis suis*. But never forget this truth: Christ above all died for His Mother, to pay for her privileges. The singular graces Mary received are the first fruits of the Passion of Jesus. The Blessed Virgin would not have enjoyed any prerogative without the merits of her Son; she is the greatest glory of Christ because she has received the most from Him.

The Church gives us to understand this doctrine very clearly when she celebrates the Immaculate Conception, the first, according to time, of the graces received by the Virgin. Read the collect for the feast; you will see that this signal privilege is granted to Our Lady because the death of Jesus, foreseen in the eternal decrees, had paid the price of it in advance: Deus qui per immaculatam Virginis Conceptionem dignum Filio tuo habitaculum praeparasti, concede, quaesumus, ut qui ex morte ejusdem Fil tui PRAEVISA, eam ab omni labe praeservastt... We may say that Mary was the first object, out of all humanity, of the love of Christ, even of the Suffering Christ: it is above all for her, in order that grace might abound in her in a singular measure, that Jesus Christ shed His Precious Blood.7

Lastly, Jesus obeyed His Mother. You have read how all that the Evangelists tell us of Christ’s hidden life at Nazareth, with Mary and Joseph, is that ” He was subject to them” and ” advanced in wisdom and age?”. Is there anything incompatible with His Divinity in this ? Certainly not. The Word is made Flesh, He has stooped so far as to take a nature like to ours, sin excepted; He came, said He, ” not to be ministered unto, but to minister 2” ; to be ” obedient unto death ”; that is why He willed to obey His Mother. At Nazareth, He obeyed Mary and Joseph, the two privileged beings whom God had placed near Him. In a certain measure, Mary shares in the authority of the Eternal Father over His Son’s Humanity. Jesus could say of His Mother what He said of His Father in Heaven: Quae placita sunt ei facio semper. "1 do always the things that please her”.

The Word not only predestined Mary to be His Mother according to His Humanity, He not only gave her, in filling her with grace, the honour belonging to this dignity, but He associated her in His mysteries.

We see in the Gospel that Jesus and Mary are inseparable in Christ’s mysteries. When the angels announce the birth of the Saviour in the cave of Bethlehem, the shepherds come and find ” Mary... and the Infant®”; it is Mary who presents Jesus in the Temple as a prelude to the Sacrifice of Calvary °; all the life at Nazareth, as I have just said, is lived under Mary’s authority; it is at her request that Jesus, at the beginning of His public life, reveals Himself by His first miracle at Cana’; the Evangelists tell us that she followed Christ in more than one of His apostolic journeys.8

But notice, there is not question here of only a simple material union. It is with her heart and soul that the Virgin Mary enters into the mysteries of her Son. St. Luke tells us that the Mother of Jesus kept all the words of her Son ” pondering them in her heart”: Maria autem conservabat omnia verba haec, conferens in corde suo”. The words of Jesus were for her sources of contemplation; can we not say as much of the mysteries of Jesus? When Christ lived these mysteries, He assuredly enlightened the soul of His Mother upon each of them; she understood them, she associated herself with them; all that Our Lord said or did was for her a source of graces. In return for the human life He had received from her, Jesus, so to speak, gave her the Divine life of which He is the source. That is why Christ and the Virgin are so indissolubly united in every mystery ; and that is also why Mary has united us all in her heart with her Divine Son.

Now the pre-eminent work of Jesus, the holy of holies of His mysteries, is His Passion; it is by His bloody sacrifice upon the Cross that He achieves the restoration of life to men, that He raises them up again to their dignity as children of God. Christ Jesus willed to make His Mother enter into this mystery by so special a title and Mary united herself so fully to the will of Her Son, our Redeemer, that, while keeping her rank of simple creature, she truly shares with Him the glory of having at that moment brought us forth to the life of grace.

Let us go to Calvary at the moment when Christ Jesus is about to consummate the work that His Father has given Him to do here below. Our Lord has reached the end of His apostolic mission: He is about to reconcile all mankind with His Father. Whom do we find at the foot of the Cross at this supreme instant? Mary, the Mother of Jesus, with John, the beloved disciple, the Magdalen and several other women: Stabat mater ejus*. Mary is standing there; she has just renewed the offering of her Son — that offering she made when she presented Him in the Temple; at this moment she offers the ” blessed fruit of her womb” to the9

Eternal Father for the ransom of the world. Jesus has only a few minutes to live; then the sacrifice will be accomplished, and Divine grace restored to men. He wills to give us Mary to be our Mother. This is one of the forms of the truth that the Word is united, in the Incarnation, to all humanity, and that the elect form the mystical body of Christ from Whom they cannot be separated. Christ will give us His Mother to be also ours in the spiritual order ; Mary will not separate us from Jesus, her Son and our Head.

Then, before expiring and achieving, as St. Paul says, the conquest of the world of souls that He wishes to make His glorious kingdom 1, Jesus sees, at the foot of the Cross, His Mother, plunged in deep sorrow and the disciple He so much loved, the same who heard and has related to us the Last Words. Jesus says to His Mother: ” Woman, behold thy son”; then He says to the disciple: ” Behold thy mother ”. St. John here represents us all; it is to us that Jesus, when dying, bequeathed His Mother. Is He not our ” Elder Brother”? Are we not predestined to be like to Him, so that He may be ” the Firstborn among many brethren” ? Now if Christ has become our Elder Brother in taking from Mary a nature like ours, which makes Him one of our race, is it astonishing that, in dying, He should have given her to be our mother in the order of grace who was His Mother according to human nature?

And as this word, being that of the Eternal Word, is omnipotent and of Divine efficacy, it creates in the heart of St. John filial sentiments worthy of Mary, as it gives birth in the Blessed Virgin’s heart to a special tenderness for those whom grace renders brothers of Jesus Christ. Can we doubt fer a moment that, for her part, the Virgin responded as at Nazareth with a Fiat, a silent one this time, but equally full of love, humility and obedience, in which the plenitude of her will lost itself in that of Jestis, so as to bring about her Son’s supreme wish.

St. Gertrude relates that hearing one day, in the chanting of the Divine Office, those words of the Gospel naming Christ: Primogenitus Mariae Virginis, ” the Firstborn Son

  1. Dilexit Ecclesiam et seipsum tradidit pro ea... ut exhiberet ipse sibi of the Virgin Mary” she said to herself: ” The title of Only Son would seem to be more befitting for Jesus than that of Firstborn”. While she was dwelling on this thought, the Virgin Mary appeared to her: ” No”, said she to the holy nun, ” it is not ” Only Son” but ” Firstborn Son” which is most befitting; for, after Jesus, my Sweetest Son, or more truly, in Him and by Him, I have given birth to you ail in my heart and you have become my children, the brothers and sisters of Jesus?”.10

PLES

In order to acknowledge the unique place Jesus has willed to give Mary in His mysteries and the love of the Virgin for us, we should give her the honour, love and confidence due to her as the Mother of Jesus and our Mother.

How can we fail to love her if we love Our Lord? If Christ Jesus wishes us, as I have said, to love all the members of His mystical body, how can we do otherwise than give the first place in that love to the one who gave Him that human nature by which He became our Head, that Humanity which is the instrument He uses to communicate grace to us? Wecannot doubt that the love we show to the Mother of Jesus is extremely pleasing to Christ. If we want to love Christ, if we want Him to be everything to us, we must have a very special love for His Mother.

In what way shall we manifest this love? Jesus, as God, loved His Mother and heaped sublime privileges upon her; we shall show our love by exalting these privileges; if we wish to be greatly pleasing to Our Lord, let us admire the marvellous gifts with which, through ilove, He has adorned the soul of His Mother. He wills that, with her, we should render unceasing thanksgiving to the Holy Trinity for these graces, and that we should praise the Virgin herself for having been chosen from among all women to give a Saviour to the world. By this, we shall truly enter into the feelings which Jesus had for her to whom He owes it that He is the Son of man. Yes, we shall sing to her: ” thou alone hast ravished the Heart of thy God”; Sola sine exemplo placisti Domino”; thou art blessed among all creatures; blessed because thou didst believe in the Divine word and in thee are fulfilled the eternal promises.11

To be helped in this devotion, we have only to see what the Church does. See how the Bride of Christ has multiplied here below her testimonies in honour of Mary, and how she observes that worship which is called hyperdulia since it transcends the worship of all the other saints *.

The Church has consecrated numerous feasts to the Mother of God: she celebrates in turns her Immaculate Conception, her Presentation in the Temple, the Annunciation, Visitation, Purification and Assumption.

See, too, how, at each of the principal seasons of the liturgical cycle, she consecrates to the Blessed Virgin a special antiphon, which is to be recited daily at the end of the Canonical Hours by all who are bound to the Divine Office. You will notice how in each of these Antiphons, the Church delights in recalling the privilege of the Divine Motherhood, the foundation of all Mary’s greatness. ” Fruitful Mother of the Redeemer” we sing during Advent and Christmastide, ’ thou hast to the astonishment of nature, given birth to thy Creator; Virgin in thy Conception, thou didst after child-bearing, remain a Virgin; Mother of God, intercede for us”. During Lent, we salute her as ” the root of which Christ is the flower, and as the gate through which light has arisen upon the world”. At Eastertide, it is a hymn of gladness; we congratulate Mary on the triumph of her Son; we recall to her the joy that inundated her soul at the dawning of this glory. ” Queen of Heaven, rejoice, He Whom thou didst bear, hath arisen ; yea, rejoice and exult, O Virgin, for Christ the Lord hath truly arisen, glorious and living from the tomb”. Then, during the time after Pentecost, symbolising the time of our pilgrimage here below, it is the Salve Regina, full of confidence: ” Mother of Mercy, our hope and our salvation, to thee do we sigh in this valley of tears... Show unto us after this exile, Jesus the blessed fruit of thy womb. Pray for us, Holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ”. Thus, there is not a single day on which the voice of the Church is not uplifted to congratulate Mary on her graces and remind her that we are her children.12

Is this all? No. Every day at Vespers, the Church sings the Magnificat; she unites with the Virgin herself in praising God for His bountiful goodness to the Mother of His Son. Let us often say after Our Lady and with the Church : ” My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit doth rejoice in God my Saviour... for He hath regarded the lowliness of His handmaiden... Henceforth, O Mary, all nations shall call thee blessed, for He that is mighty hath done great things in thee”. When we sing these words, it is a song of gratitude we offer to the Holy Trinity for Mary’s privileges as if these privileges were ours.

There is also the ” Little Office” of the Blessed Virgin ; there is the Rosary so pleasing to Mary because in it we always praise her united with her Divine Son, by ever lovingly repeating the salutation that the heavenly messenger addressed to her on the day of the Incarnation: Ave Maria, gratia plena. It is an excellent ” practice” to recite the rosary devoutly every day; thus to contemplate Christ in His mysteries so as to unite ourselves to Him; to congratulate the Virgin on having been so closely associated with these mysteries and return thanks to the Holy Trinity for Mary’s privileges. Then, if each day we have often said to the Virgin: ” Mother of God, pray for us... now and at the hour of our death”, we may be sure that, when the moment comes at which nunc and the hora mortis nostrae will be one and the same, the Blessed Virgin will not forsake us. There is still the Litany of Our Lady; there is the Angelus, by which we renew in the heart of the Virgin the ineffable joy she must have felt at the moment of the Incarnation. There are besides many other forms of devotion.

It is not necessary to overburden one’s self with ” practices”; let us chose some, and once the choice is made let us remain faithful to them; this daily homage offered to His Mother will be most acceptable to Our Lord.

IV

Besides being extremely acceptable to Jesus Christ, this devotion to the Blessed Virgin is very profitable for us. And it is so for three reasons which you will have already foreseen.

First of all, because, in the Divine plan, Mary ts inseparable from Jesus, and our holiness consists in entering as far as we can into the Divine economy. In God’s eternal thoughts, Mary belongs indeed to the very essence of the mystery of Christ; Mother of Jesus, she is the Mother of Him in whom we find every thing. According to the Divine plan, life is only given to mankind through Christ the Man- God: Nemo. venit ad Patrem nisi per me*, but Christ is only given to the world through Mary: Propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem, descendit de caelis et incarnatus est... ex Maria Virgine*. This is the Divine order and it is unchanging. For, notice that this order was not meant only for the day when the Incarnation took place; it still continues as regards the application of the fruits of the Incarnation to souls. Why is this? Because the source of grace is Christ, the Incarnate Word; but as Christ, as Mediator, He remains inseparable from the human nature which He took from the Virgin *.

The second reason, which is very closely related to the preceding, is that no one has more influence than the Mother of God in obtaining grace for us. In consequence of the Incarnation, God is pleased — not so as to derogate from the power of His Son’s mediation but on the contrary to extend and exalt it — to recognise the credit of those who _are united to Jesus, the Head of the mystical body; this credit is so much the more powerful according as the union of the saints with Christ is the more intimate.

” The nearer a thing approaches to its principle”, says St. Thomas, ” the more it experiences the effects produced by this principle. The nearer you come to a furnace, the more you feel the heat which radiates from it”. The holy

  1. Joan. xIv, 16. — 2. Credo of the Mass. — 3. God having once willed to give Jesus Christ to us by the Blessed Virgin, and the gifts of God being without repentance, this order never changes. It is and ever will be true that having received through her love the universal principle of all grace, we still receive, through her the divers applications of grace in all the different states which composes the Christian life. Her maternal love having contributed so much to our salvation in the mystery of the Incarnation, which is the universal principle of grace, she will eternally contribute to it in all the other operations which are only dependent on this mystery.” Bossuet, Sermon for the Feast of the Conception, 1669. Let us likewise quote these words of Pope Leo XIII: " Of the magnificent treasure of grace brought to us by Christ, nothing, according to the eternal designs, is to be distributed to us except through Mary. Hence, it is through her we must go to Christ, almost in the same way as through Christ we approach our Heavenly Father." Encycl. on the Rosary, Sept. 22. 1891. doctor adds: ” Now, Christ is the principle of grace since, as God, He is the Author of it, and, as Man, He is the instrument of it; and the Blessed Virgin being the nearest of anycreature to the Humanity of Christ, Christ having taken this human nature from her, she has received from Him higher graces than any creature.

” But each one receives from God (it is still St. Thomas who is speaking) grace proportionate to his providential destination. As Man, Christ was predestined and elected in order that, being the Son of God, He might have power to sanctify all men, Jn virtute sanctificandi; therefore He, and He alone, was to possess such plenitude that it might overflow on all souls: De plenitudine ejus omnes nos accepimus. The fulness of grace received by the Blessed Virgin had for its end to bring her nearer than any other creature to the Author of grace; so near, indeed, that she enclosed in her bosom the One Who is full of grace, and in giving Him to the world by bringing Him forth, she, so to speak, gave grace itself to the world, because she gave Him Who is the source of it”: Ut eum, qui est plenus omni gratia, pariendo, quodammodo gratiam ad omnes derivaret*. In giving us Jesus, the Blessed Virgin has given us the very Author of life. The Church sings this in the prayer after the antiphon to the Virgin, during Christmastide, when celebrating Christ’s birth: Per quam meruimus auctorem vitae suscipere, " by whom we have been made worthy to receive the Author of life ” ; and the Church invites the redeemed nations to hymn, in exultation, the Life which this virginal Motherhood has brought to them:

Vitam datam per Virginem Gentes redemptae plaudite.

If, therefore, you wish to draw largely from the fountain of Divine life, go to Mary; ask her to lead you to this fountain; she it is, indeed, more than any other creature, who will bring you near to Jesus. That is why we so justly name her: Mater divinae gratiae, "Mother of Divine grace”; © again that is why the Church applies to her this passage of the Sciptures: ” He that shall find me, shall find life, and he shall have salvation from the Lord”, Qui me invenerit, mvemiet vitam et hauriet salutem a Domino?. Salvation, the life of our souls, only comes from the Lord Jesus, @ Domino, He alone is the one Mediator; — but who more surely than Mary will lead us to Him, who will have more power to render Him propitious to us than His Mother ¢13

She has, moreover, received from Jesus Himself a special grace of maternity towards His mystical body. That is the last reason why devotion to the Blessed Virgin is so profitable for our souls. Christ, having received human nature from Mary, has associated His Mother, as I have said, with all His mysteries from the offering in the Temple to the immolation on Calvary. Now what is the end of all Christ’s mysteries? To make of Him the example of all our supernatural life,the ransom for our sanctification and the source of all our holiness; to create for Him an eternal and glorious fellowship of brethren like unto Himself. That 1s why Mary, like a new Eve, is associated with the new Adam; but much more truly than Eve, Mary is ” the Mother of all the living? ”, the Mother of all who live by the grace of her Son.

This association was not only outward. Christ, being God, being the omnipotent Word, created in the soul of His Mother the feelings she was to have towards those who being born of her and living by His mysteries, He willed to constitute His brethren. The Virgin, for her part, enlightened by the grace abounding in her, responded to this call of Jesus by a Fiat of entire submission and in union of spirit with her Divine Son. In giving her consent to the Divine proposition of the Incarnation, she accepted to enter into the plan of the Redemption in a unique capacity ; she accepted, not only to be the Mother of Jesus, but to be associated with all the mission of the Redeemer. To each of these mysteries of Jesus, she had to renew this Fiat full of love until the moment when she was able to say: ” All is consummated ”, after having offered at Calvary, for the world’s salvation, this Jesus, this Son, this Body she had formed, this Blood which was her own. At this blessed hour, Mary entered so deeply into the mind of Jesus that she may truly be called Co-Redemptress. Like Jesus, she, at this moment, achieved the act of love of bringing us forth to the life of grace*. Mother of our Head, according to the thought of St. Augustine, in bearing Him corporally, she became spiritually the Mother of all the members of this Divine Head : Corpore mater capitis nostri, spiritu mater membrorum ejus*.14

And because here below she is thus associated with all the mysteries of our Redemption, Jesus has crowned her not only with glory, but with power. He has placed His Mother at His right hand that she may dispose of the treasures of eternal life by a unique title — that of Mother of Cod :- Adstitit regina a dextris tuis®. This is what Christian piety means when it proclaims the Mother of Jesus : Omnipotentia sup plex.

Full of confidence, let us then say to her with the Church: ’ Show thyself our Mother: Mother of Jesus by thy influence with Him; our Mother by mercy towards us. May Christ receive our prayers through thee, this Christ Who, born of thee to bring us life, willed to be thy Son”.

Monstra te esse Matrem Sumat per te preces Qui pro nobis natus Tulit esse tuus *.

Who, indeed, better than she knows the Heart of her Son? We find in the Gospel * a splendid example of her confidence in Jesus. It is at the feast at Cana. She is there with Jesus and she is not so absorbed in contemplation as to know nothing of what is passing around her. The wine begins to fail. Mary notices the confusion of her hosts; she says to Jesus: ” They have no wine”, Vinum non habent. We here recognise the heart of a mother. What of such ” mystics” as would not have wanted to think of the wine ! And yet what are they in comparison with the Blessed Virgin? Urged by her kindness, she asks her Son to come to the aid of those whose embarrassment she sees. Our Lord looks upon her and only says: Quid mihi et tibi est, mulier? But she knows her Jesus. She is so sure of Him that she says at once to the servant: ” Whatsoever He shall say to you, do ye”, Quodcumque dixerit vobis, facite. And

  1. S. Aug. De sancta Virginitate, n.6. — 2. Ps. xLiv, 10. — 3. Hymn Ave Maris stella. — 4. Joan. u, 1 seq.

Christ, the life of the soul. 25 indeed, at the word of Christ, the amphorae are found to be filled with excellent wine.

What shall we ask of the Mother of Jesus, if not that, before and above all, she will form Jesus within us by communicating her faith and love to us?

All Christian life consists in forming Christ within us and making Him liveinus. This is the idea of St. Paul*. Now where was Christ first formed? In the Virgin’s bosom, by the operation of the Holy Ghost. But, say the Holy Fathers, Mary first bore Jesus by faith and love, when, by her Fiat, she gave the awaited consent : Prius concepit mente quam corpore*. L,et us ask of her to obtain for us this faith that will make Jesus dwell in us: Christum habitare per fidem m cordibus vestris; this love which will make us live by the life of Jesus. Let us ask of her that we may become like to her Son; there is no greater favour we could ask her; neither . is there any she more wishes to grant us. For she knows, she sees that her Son cannot be separated from His mystical body; she remains so united in heart and soul to her Divine Son that, now in glory, she only desires one thing, and this is that the Church, the kingdom of the elect, bought with the blood of Jesus, should appear before Him, as a ” glorious ” Church not having spot not wrinkle, but... holy and without blemish *”.

Therefore, when we speak to the Blessed Virgin, let us do so united with Jesus and say: ”O Mother of the Incarnate Word, your Son has said : All that you do to the least of Mine, you do it unto Me. I am one of the least of the members of your Son Jesus; it is in His name I come before you to implore your help”. In refusing petitions thus made, Mary would be refusing something to Jesus.

Let us, then, go to her, but let it be with confidence. There are souls who go to her as to a Mother, confiding to her their interests,laying before her their sorrows and difficulties, having recourse to her in all their needs and temptations, for eternal enmity exists between the Virgin and the devil; with her heel, Mary crushes the head of the infernal serpent *. On every occasion, such souls as I have spoken of

  1. Gal, iv, 19. — 2. S. Aug. De Virgin, c. 3; Sermo ccxv, n. 4; deal with the Blessed Virgin as children with a Mother; they will go before one of her statues to tell her what they want. But this is childishness, you may say. Perhaps it is, but has not Christ said: ” Unless you become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven”?15

Let us, moreover, ask Our Lady that, from the Humanity of her Jesus Who possesses the fulness of grace, it may be poured forth abundantly upon us, so that by love we may become more and more conformed to this beloved Son of the Father, Who is also her Son. It is the best request we make to her. At the Last Supper, Our Lord said to His disciples: ” The Father Himself loveth you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came out from God*”. He could say the same to us of Mary: ” My Mother loveth you, because you love Me, and believe that I was born of her”. Nothing pleases Mary more than to hear it proclaimed that Jesus is her Son, and to see Him beloved by ali creatures.

The Gospel, as you know, has only preserved a very few words of the Blessed Virgin. I have just reminded you of one of these words, that which was said to the servants at the marriage feast at Cana: ’” Whatsoever my Son shall say to you, do ye”, Quodcumque dixerit vobis, facite*. This word is like an echo of the word of the Eternal Father: ” This is my beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased: hear ye Him”: Ipsum audite*. We can apply to ourselves this word of Mary: ” Doall that My Son shall say to you”. That will be the best fruit of this conference; it will be too, the best form our devotion towards the Mother of Jesus can take. The Virgin Mother has no greater wish than to see her Divine Son obeyed, loved, glorified and exalted. Jesus is the Son in whom she, like the Eternal Father, is well pleased.

  1. Matth. xvi, 13. — 2. Joan. xvi, 27. — 3. Ibid. u, 5. — 4. Matth. muir = ck. Ll Pet.) 1, 17.

Footnotes

    1. Rom. vill, 29.
    ↩
    1. Act. xt, 33 ; cf. Ps. 1, 7. — 2. Gal. 1v, 4. — 3. See fourth Conference : Christ, the Efficient Cause of all Grace.
    ↩
    1. Antiphon for the office of Lauds at Christmas.
    ↩
    1. Luc. 1, 34. — 2. S. Thom. III, q. xxx, a. 1. — 3. Homil. 1v. super Missus est, c. 8. — 4. Luc. 1, 38. — 5. Joan. 1, 14.
    ↩
    1. Antiphon for the Office of the Circumcision. —- 2. Luc. 1, 35. — 3. Ibid. 43. — 4. Ps. crx, 3.
    ↩

  6. Conception. — 3. Gen. m1, 15. — 4. Antiphon of Vespers for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. — 5. Ibid. ↩

    1. Antiphon of Lauds at Christmas. —2. Ps. xLiv, 10.— 3. Joan. XV,13-
    ↩
    1. Luc. m, 51-52. — 2. Matth. xx, 28. — 3. Philipp. m, 8. — 4. Joan. vil, 29. — §. Luc. u, 8, 16. — 6. Ibid. 23, 39.
    ↩
    1. Joan, m1, 1-11. — 2. Luc. 1, 19. — 3. Joan. xIx, 25.
    ↩

  10. gloriosam Ecclesiam non habentem maculam. Ephes. v, 25-27. — 2. Joan. XIX, 25-27. — 3. Rom. Vit, 29. ↩

    1. The Herald of Divine Love. Book IV, chap. 3. — 2. Antiphon of the Benedictus for the office of the Blessed Virgin in Sabbato.
    ↩
    1. To all the saints, we owe the homage of dulia, a Greek word meaning service ; the Mother of the Incarnate Word, merits, because of her eminent dignity, altogether special homage which is expressed by the word hyper-dulia.
    ↩
    1. III, gq. xxvu, a. 5. — 2. Prov. vill, 35.
    ↩
    1. Gen. 11, 20. — 2. Cooperata est caritate ut fideles in Ecclesia nascerentur. S. Aug. De sancta Virginitate, n. 6
    ↩

  15. S. Leo, Sermo I de nativitate Domini, c. 1; S. Bernard, Sermo I de Vigilia nativit. —.3. Ephes. v, 27. — 4. Gen. mi, 15. ↩

Chapter 20 of 21