INTRODUCTION
Works taken from "Letter to the Rev. E. B. Pusey" contained in Newman's
"Difficulties of Anglicans" Volume II
THE BELIEF OF THE CATHOLICS
MARY, THE SECOND EVE
SANCTITY OF MARY
DIGNITY OF MARY
MARY, THE MOTHER OF GOD
MARY'S INTERCESSORY POWER
FAITH AND DEVOTION
Six extracts from Newman's "Discourses to Mixed Congregations", 1849
MATER DEI
MATER PURISSIMA
REFUGIUM PECCATORUM
SINE LABE ORIGINALI CONCEPTA
MARIA ASSUMPTA
GROWTH OF THE CULTUS OF MARY
Extracts from Newman's "Meditations and Devotions" (1893)
MAY THE MONTH OF PROMISE AND OF JOY
VIRGO PURISSIMA
VIRGO PRAEDICANDA
MATER ADMIRABILIS
DOMUS AUREA
MATER AMABILIS
ROSA MYSTICA
VIRGO VENERANDA
SANCTA MARIA
REGINA ANGELORUM
SPECULUM JUSTITIAE
SEDES SAPIENTIAE
JANUA COELI
MATER CREATORIS
MATER CHRISTI
MATER SALVATORIS
REGINA MARTYRUM
VAS INSIGNE DEVOTIONS
VAS HONORABILE
VAS SPIRITUALE
CONSOLATRIX AFFLICTORUM
VIRGO PRUDENTISSIMA
TURRIS EBURNEA
SANCTA DEI GENITRIX
MATER INTEMERATA MATER INTEMERATA
TURRIS DAVIDICA
VIRGO POTENS
AUXILIUM CHRISTIANORUM
VIRGO FIDELIS
STELLA MATUTINA-AVE MARIS STELLA
INTRODUCTION
MANY books are written every year to honour and spread the fame of the
Mother of God, the Virgin Mary -- prayerbooks and books of devotion which
are intended to strengthen the faith and devotion of the faithful, and
to inspire them with a loving trust in the power of Her who has been called
"omnipotentia supplex," the all-powerful suppliant.
This book, "The Mystical Rose," is not a new one. It is a collection
of writings on the Virgin Mary by Cardinal John Henry Newman, who is considered
by many to be the greatest religious thinker of the last century. It is
a book both for study and devotion. There cannot be true devotion without
ideas, without doctrine. Faith is objective, it is always and everywhere
the same; devotion, on the other hand, is subjective and changes with times
and places. The variety of devotions in various times and places has never
even scratched the common faith of Catholics. It is characteristic of the
Church to allow different devotions within the strict unity of the faith.
Even after he became a Catholic, John Henry Newman could never completely
understand some of the exterior forms of devotion practised, for instance,
in Italy; and yet no one could doubt Newman's living faith or his deep
devotion to the Virgin Mary, to which the present work bears ample witness.
This book is intended to be a practical guide to help the faithful to
spend a month or a period of time in union with Mary, the Mother of God
and our Mother -- particularly the month of May, the most beautiful month
of the year, "the month of promise and of joy."
In ancient times, the month of May was dedicated to sexual love with
its rites in honour of Pan. The Church has done an astonishing sublime
deed in transforming these pagan and sensual rites into the cult of the
Most Pure Virgin ! The month of May is the Spring of the year, and Mary
is the Spring of Grace; the month of May is the month of flowers, and Mary
is "The Flower," the Mystical Rose.
It was Pope Pius VII who, when he returned to Rome from his French exile
in the month of May, approved by means of two rescripts published in 1815
and 1822, the sweet custom of dedicating the month of May to Our Lady,
attaching at the same time, special indulgences to the practice. The whole
Catholic world understood then that this beautiful devotion was full of
meaning: it was like an offering of the first fruits to Mary.
The present work is composed of two parts, each of them consisting of
extracts from Cardinal Newman's writings. The passages in the first part
are taken from two of Newman's works: up to page 48 the extracts are from
the "Letter to the Rev. E. B. Pusey," which is contained in Newman's "Difficulties
of Anglicans," Volume II; in this treatise. Newman seeks to show that Catholic
teaching on Mary is based on the New Testament and on the Fathers of the
Ancient Church. Forms of devotion may have changed with the passage of
time, but the faith ha;, remained unchanged.
Then follow six extracts from Newman's "Discourses to Mixed Congregations,"
1849, which are remarkable for the r form and language.
The second part of this volume is a sort of fine embroidery on the Litanies
of Lorets. It is a prose suffused with vivid poetry. It is taken entirely
from Newman's work "Meditations and Devotions," which appeared in 1893,
three years after the great Cardinal's death. It fell to Father Neville,
of the Birmingham Oratory, to publish it. It was perhaps Newman's intention
that "Meditations and Devotions" should be part of a wider plan, part of
a "Year of Devotions," like "The Christian Year" of his Anglican friend,
John Keble; a year of devotions intended to sanctify the liturgical year.
Various circumstances prevented Cardinal Newman from completing a work
which would have been a true "manna" of devotion and edification for the
faithful.
It seems hardly necessary to say anything about the wellknown personality
of Cardinal John Henry Newman. This eminently religious man, who left Anglicanism
for Catholicism after years of interior struggle, who devoted the whole
of his life to the search for truth, who gave up everything for holiness
-- "holiness first," who preferred holiness to peace -- "holiness rather
than peace," who, though living in our world had his thoughts always with
the holy spirits in Heaven, who saw in our earthly pilgrimage always and
only a shadow of eternal life -- "ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem"
(out of the shadows into reality): this man cannot be ignored in his most
intimate distinguishing character: his holiness. Bishop Ullathorne of Birmingham,
who knew him well, could say of him: "There is a Saint in that man."
The thoughts on the Blessed Virgin collected in this book, show us Newman's
sublime faith in Mary and devotion to Her. The reader will draw from them
new strength for his faith and a more tender and trusting love for our
Heavenly Mother.
THE BELIEF OF THE CATHOLICS
I BEGIN by making a distinction which will go far to remove a good part
of the difficulty of my undertaking, as it presents itself to ordinary
enquirers -- the distinction between faith and devotion. I fully grant
that devotion towards the Blessed Virgin has increased among Catholics
with the progress of centuries; I do not allow that the doctrine concerning
her has undergone a growth, for I believe that it has been in substance
one and the same from the beginning.
By "faith" I mean the Creed and assent to the Creed; by "devotion" I
mean such religious honours as belong to the objects of our faith, and
the payment of those honours. Faith and devotion are as distinct in fact
as they are in idea. We cannot, indeed, be devout without faith, but we
may believe without feeling devotion. Of this phenomenon everyone has experience
both in himself and in others; and we bear witness to it as often as we
speak of realising a truth or not realising it. It may be illustrated,
with more or less exactness, by matters which come before us in the. world.
For instance, a great author, or public man, may be acknowledged as such
for a course of years; yet there may be an increase, an ebb and flow, and
a fashion, in his popularity. And if he takes a lasting place in the minds
of his countrymen, he may gradually grow into it, or suddenly be raised
to it. The idea of Shakespeare as a great poet, has existed from a very
early date -in public opinion; and there were at least individuals then
who understood him as well, and honoured him as much, as the English people
can honour him now; yet, I think, there is a national devotion to him in
this day such as never has been before. This has happened, because, as
education spreads in the country, there are more men able to enter into
his poetical genius, and, among these, more capacity again for deeply and
critically understanding him; and yet, from the first, he has exerted a
great insensible influence over the nation, as is seen in the circumstance
that his phrases and sentences, more than can be numbered, have become
almost proverbs among us. And so again in philosophy, and in the arts and
sciences, great truths and principles have sometimes been known and acknowledged
for ? course of years; but, whether from feebleness of intellectual power
in the recipients, or external circumstances of an accidental kind, they
have not been turned to account. Thus the Chinese are said to have known
of the properties of the magnet from time immemorial, and to have used
it for land expeditions, yet not on the sea. Again, the ancients knew of
the principle that water finds its own level, but seem to have made little
application of their knowledge. And Aristotle was familiar with the principle
of induction; yet it was left for Bacon to develop it into an experimental
philosophy. Illustrations such as these, though not altogether apposite,
serve to convey that distinction between faith and devotion on which I
am insisting. It is like the distinction between objective and subjective
truth. The sun in the springtime will have to shine many days before he
is able to melt the frost, open the soil and bring out the leaves; yet
he shines out from the first notwithstanding, though he makes his power
felt but gradually. It is one and the same sun, though his influence day
by day becomes greater; and so in the Catholic Church it is the one Virgin
Mother, one and the same from first to last, and Catholics may have ever
acknowledged her; and yet, in spite of that acknowledgment, their devotion
to her may be scanty in one time and place, and overflowing in another.
This distinction is forcibly brought home to a convert, as a peculiarity
of the Catholic religion, on his first introduction to its worship. The
faith is everywhere one and the same, but a large liberty is accorded to
private judgment and inclination as regards matters of devotion. Any large
church, with its collections and groups of people, will illustrate this.
The fabric itself is dedicated to Almighty God, and that, under the invocation
of the Blessed Virgin, or some particular Saint; or again, of some mystery
belonging to the Divine Name or the Incarnation, or of some mystery associated
with the Blessed Virgin. Perhaps there are seven altars or more in it,
and these again have their several Saints. Then there is the Feast proper
to this or that day; and during the celebration of Mass, of all the worshippers
who crowd around the priest, each has his own particular devotions, with
which he follows the rite. No one interferes with his neighbour; agreeing,
as it were, to differ, they pursue independently a common end, and by paths,
distinct but converging, present themselves before God. Then there are
the confraternities attached to the church -- of the Sacred Heart, or of
the Precious Blood; associations of prayer for a good death, or for the
repose of departed souls, or for the conversion of the heathen; devotions
connected with the brown, blue, or red scapular; not to speak of the great
ordinary Ritual observed through the four seasons, or of the constant presence
of the Blessed Sacrament, or of its ever-recurring rite of Benediction,
and its extraordinary forty hours' Exposition. Or, again, look through
such manuals of prayers as the Raccolta, and you at once will see both
the number and variety of devotions, which are open to individual Catholics
to choose from, according to their religious taste and prospect of personal
edification.
Now these diversified modes of honouring God did not come to us in a
day, or only from the Apostles; they are the accumulations of centuries;
and, as in the course of years some of them spring up, so others decline
and die. Some are local, in memory of some particular Saint, who happens
to be the Evangelist, or Patron, or pride of the nation, or who lies entombed
in the church or in the city where it is found; and these devotions, necessarily,
cannot have an earlier date than the Saint's day of death or interment
there. The first of these sacred observances, long before such national
memories, were the devotions paid to the Apostles, then those which were
paid to the Martyrs; yet there were Saints nearer to Our Lord than either
Martyrs or Apostles; but, as if these sacred persons were immersed and
lost in the effulgence of His Glory, and because they did not manifest
themselves, when in the body, in external works separate from Him, it happened
that for a long while they were less dwelt upon. However, in process of
time, the Apostles, and then the Martyrs, exerted less influence than before
over the popular mind. and the local Saints, new creations of God's power,
took their place, or again, the Saints of some religious order here or
there established. Then, as comparatively quiet times succeeded, the religious
meditations of holy men and their secret intercourse with heaven gradually
exerted an influence out of doors, and permeated the Christian populace,
by the instrumentality of preaching and by the ceremonial of the Church.
Hence at length those luminous stars rose in the ecclesiastical heavens,
which were of more august dignity than any which had preceded them, and
were: late in rising, for the very reason that they were so specially glorious.
Those names, I say, which at first sight might have been expected to enter
soon into the devotions of the faithful, with better reason might have
been looked for at a later date, and actually were late in their coming.
St. Joseph furnishes the most striking instance of this remark; here is
the clearest of instances of the distinction between doctrine and devotion.
Who, from his prerogatives and the testimony on which they come to us,
had a greater claim to receive an early recognition among the faithful
than he? A Saint of Scripture, the foster-father of Our Lord, he was an
object of the universal and absolute faith of the Christian world from
the first, yet the devotion to him is comparatively of late date. When
once it began, men seemed surprised that it had not been thought of before;
and now, they hold him next to the Blessed Virgin in their religious affection
and veneration.
MARY, THE SECOND EVE
WHAT is the great rudimental teaching of Antiquity from its earliest
date concerning her? By "rudimental teaching," I mean the prima facie view
of her person and office, the broad outline laid down of her, the aspect
under which she comes to us, in the writings of the Fathers. She is the
Second Eve. Now let us consider what this implies. Eve had a definite,
essential position in the first Covenant. The fate of the human race lay
with Adam; he it was who represented us. It was in Adam that we fell; though
Eve had fallen, still, if Adam had stood, we should not have lost those
supernatural priveleges which were bestowed upon him as our first father.
Yet though Eve was not the head of the race, still, even as regards the
race, she had a place of her own; for Adam, to whom it was divinely committed
the naming of all things, named her "the mother of all the living," a name
surely expressive, not of a fact only, but of a dignity; but further, as
she thus had her own general relation to the human race, so again she had
her own special place, as regards its trial and its fall in Adam. In those
primeval events, Eve had an integral share. "The woman, being seduced,
was in the transgression." She listened to the Evil Angel; she offered
the fruit to her husband, and he ate of it. She co-operated. not as an
irresponsible instrument, but intimately and personally in the sin: she
brought it about. As the history stands, she was a sine qua non, a positive,
active cause of it. And she had her share in its punishment; in the sentence
pronounced on her, she was recognised as a real agent in the temptation
and its issue, and she suffered accordingly. In that awful transaction
there were three parties concerned -- the serpent, the woman and the man;
and at the time of their sentence, an event was announced for a distant
future, in which the three same parties were to meet again, the serpent,
the woman and the man; but it was to be a second Adam and a second Eve,
and the new Eve was to be the mother of the new Adam: "I will put enmity
between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed." The Seed
of the woman is the Word Incarnate, and the Woman, whose seed or son He
is, is His Mother Mary. This interpretation, and the parallelism it involves,
seem to me undeniable; but at all events, (and this is my point) the parallelism
is the doctrine of the Fathers, from the earliest times; and, this being
established, we are able, by the position and office of Eve in our fall,
to determine the position and office of Mary in our restoration.
SANCTITY OF MARY
MARY holds, as the Fathers teach us, that office in our restoration
which Eve held in our fall, now, in the first place, what were Eve's endowments
to enable her to enter upon her trial? She could not have stood again the
wiles of the devil, though she was innocent and sinless, without the grant
of a large grace. And this she had; a heavenly gift, which was over and
above and additional to that nature of hers, which she received from Adam,
a gift which had been given to Adam also before her, at the very time (as
it is commonly held) of his original formation. This is Anglican doctrine,
as well as Catholic, it is the doctrine of Bishop Bull. He has written
a dissertation on the point. He speaks of the doctrine which "many of the
Schoolmen affirm, that Adam was created in grace, that is, received a principle
of grace and divine life from his very creation, or in the moment of the
infusion of his soul; of which," he says, "for my own part I have little
doubt." Again, he says, "It is abundantly manifest from the many testimonies
alleged, that the ancient doctors of the Church did, with general consent,
acknowledge that our first parents in the state of integrity, had in them
something more than nature, that is, were endowed with the divine principle
of the Spirit, in order to a supernatural felicity."
Now, taking this for granted, because I know that you and those who
agree with you maintain it as well as we do, have you any intention to
deny that Mary was as fully endowed as Eve? Is it any violent inference
that she, who was to co-operate in the redemption of the world, at least
was not less endowed with power from on high than she who, given as a helpmate
to her husband, did in the event but co-operate with him for its ruin?
If Eve was raised' above human nature by that indwelling moral gift which
we call grace, is it rash to say that Mary had even a greater grace? And
this consideration gives significance to the Angel's salutation of her
as "full of grace" -- an interpretation of the original word which is undoubtedly
the right one, as soon as we resist the common Protestant assumption that
grace is a mere external approbation or acceptance, answering to the word
"favour," whereas it is, as the Fathers teach, a real inward condition
or superadded quality of soul. And if Eve had this supernatural inward
gift given her from the first moment of her personal existence, is it possible
to deny that Mary too had this gift from the very first moment of her personal
existence? I do not know how to resist this inference: well, this is simply
and literally the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. I say the doctrine
of the Immaculate Conception is in its substance this, and nothing more
or less than this (putting aside the question of degrees of grace); and
it really does seem to me bound up in the doctrine of the Fathers, that
Mary is the Second Eve.
It is indeed to me a most strange phenomenon that so many learned and
devout men stumble at this doctrine, and I can only account for it by supposing
that in matter of fact they do not know what we mean by the Immaculate
Conception; and your Volume (may I say it?) bears out my suspicion. It
is a great consolation to have reason for thinking so -- reason for believing
that in some sort the persons in question are in the position of those
great Saints of former times, who are said to have hesitated about the
doctrine, when they would not have hesitated at all if the word "Conception"
had been explained in that sense in which now it is universally received.
I do not see how anyone who holds with Bishop Bull the Catholic doctrine
of the supernatural endowments of our first parents, has fair reason for
doubting our doctrine about the Blessed Virgin. It has no reference whatever
to her parents, but simply to her own person; it does but affirm that,
together with the nature which she inherited from her parents, that is,
her own nature, she had a superadded fullness of grace and that from the
first moment of her existence. Suppose Eve had stood the trial and not
lost her first grace; and suppose she had eventually had children, those
children, from the first moment of their existence would, through divine
bounty, have received the same privilege that she had ever had, that is,
as she was taken from Adam's side, in a garment, so to say, of grace, so
they in turn would have received what may be called an immaculate conception.
They would then have been conceived in grace, as in fact they are conceived
in sin. What is there difficult in this doctrine? What is there unnatural?
Mary may be called, as it were, a daughter of Eve unfallen. You believe
with us that St. John Baptist had grace given to him three months before
his birth, at the time that he Blessed Virgin visited his mother: And accordingly
he was not immaculately conceived, because he was alive before grace came
to him; but Our Lady's case only differs from his in this respect, that
to her the grace of God came, not three months merely before her birth,
but from the first moment of her being, as it had been given to Eve.
But it may be said, How does this enable us to say that she was conceived
without original sin? If Anglicans knew what we mean by original sin, they
would not ask the question. Our doctrine of original sin is not the same
as the Protestant doctrine. "Original sin," with us, cannot be called sin,
in the mere ordinary sense of the word "sin"; it is a term denoting Adam's
sin as transferred to us, or the state to which Adam's sin reduces his
children; but by Protestants it seems to be understood as sin, in much
the same sense as actual sin. We, with the Fathers, think of it as something
negative, Protestants as something positive. Protestants hold that it is
a disease, a radical change of nature, an active poison internally corrupting
the soul, infecting its primary elements, and disorganising it; and they
fancy that we ascribe a different nature from ours to the Blessed Virgin,
different from that of her parents, and from that of fallen Adam. We hold
nothing of the kind; we consider that in Adam she died, as others; that
she was included, together with the whole race, in Adam's sentence; that
she incurred his debt, as we do; but that, for the sake of Him Who was
to redeem her and us upon the Cross, to her the debt was remitted by anticipation,
on her the sentence was not carried out, except indeed as regards her natural
death, for she died when her time came, as others. All this we teach, but
we deny that she had original sin; for by original sin we mean. as I have
already said something negative, viz., this only, the deprivation of that
supernatural unmerited grace which Adam and Eve had on their first formation
-- deprivation and the consequences of deprivation. Mary could not merit,
any more than they, the restoration of that grace; but it was restored
to her by God's free bounty, from the very first moment of her existence,
and thereby, in fact, she never came under the original curse, which consisted
in the loss of it. And she had this special privilege in order to fit her
to become the Mother of her and our Redeemer, to fit her mentally, spiritually
for it; so that, by the aid of the first grace, she might so grow in grace,
that, when the Angel came and her Lord was at hand, she might be "full
of grace," prepared as far as a creature could be prepared, to receive
Him into her bosom.
I have drawn the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception as an immediate
inference, from the primitive doctrine that Mary is the Second Eve. The
argument seems to me conclusive: and, if it has not been universally taken
as such, this has come to pass because there has not been a clear understanding
among Catholics what exactly was meant by the "Immaculate Conception."
To many it seemed to imply that the Blessed Virgin did not die in Adam,
that she did not come under the penalty of the fall, that she was not redeemed,
that she was conceived in some way inconsistent with the verse in the "Miserere"
Psalm. If controversy had in earlier days so cleared the subject as to
make it plain to all, that the doctrine meant nothing else than that in
fact in her case the general sentence on mankind was not carried out, and
that, by means of the indwelling in her of divine grace from the first
moment of her being (and this is all the decree of 1854 has declared).
I cannot believe that the doctrine would have ever been opposed; for an
instinctive sentiment has led Christians jealously to put the Blessed Mary
aside when sin comes into discussion. This is expressed in the wellknown
words of St. Augustine, All have sinned "except the Holy Virgin Mary, concerning
whom, for the honour of the Lord, I wish no question to be raised at all,
when we are treating of sins"; words which, whatever was St. Augustine's
actual occasion of using them, certainly, in the spirit which they breathe,
are well adapted to convey the notion that, though her parents had no privilege
beyond other parents, she had not personally any part in sin whatever.
DIGNITY OF MARY
HERE let us suppose that our first parents had overcome in their trial;
and had gained for their descendants for ever the full possession, as if
by right, of the privileges which were promised to their obedience -- grace
here and glory hereafter. Is it possible that those descendants, pious
and happy from age to age in their temporal homes, would have forgotten
their benefactors? Would they not have followed them in thought into the
heavens, and gratefully commemorated them on earth? The history of the
temptation, the craft of the serpent, their steadfastness in obedience
-- the loyal vigilance, the sensitive purity of Eve -- the great issue,
salvation wrought out for all generations -- would have been never from
their minds, ever welcome to their ears. This would have taken place from
the necessity of our nature. Every nation has its mythical hymns and epics
about its first fathers and its heroes. The great deeds of Charlemagne,
Alfred, Coeur de Lion, Louis the Ninth, Wallace, Joan of Arc, do not die;
and though their persons are gone from us, we make much of their names.
Milton's Adam, after his fall, understands the force of this law and shrinks
from the prospect of its operation.
"Who of all ages to succeed, but, feeling The evil on him brought by
me, will curse My head? 111 fare our ancestor impure, For this we may thank
Adam."
If this anticipation of the first man has not been fulfilled in the
event, it is owing to the exigencies of our penal life, our state of perpetual
change, and the ignorance and unbelief caused by the fall; also because,
fallen as we are, still from the hopefulness of our nature, we feel more
pride in our national great men, than dejection at our national misfortunes.
Much more then in the great kingdom and people of God -- the Saints are
ever in our sight, and not as mere ineffectual ghosts or dim memories,
but as if present bodily in their past selves. It is said of them, "Their
works do follow them"; what they were here, such are they in heaven and
in the Church. As we call them by their earthly names, so we contemplate
them in their earthly characters and histories. Their acts, callings, and
relations below are types and anticipations of their present mission above.
Even in the case of Our Lord Himself, Whose native home is the eternal
heaven, it is said of Him in His state of glory, that He is "a Priest for
ever", and when He comes again, He will be recognised by those who pierced
Him as being the very same that He was on earth. The only question is,
whether the Blessed Virgin had a part, a real part, in the economy of grace,
whether, when she was on earth, she secured by her deeds any claim on our
memories; for, if she did, it is impossible we should put her away from
us, merely because she is gone hence, and should not look at her still
according to the measure of her earthly history, with gratitude and expectation.
If, as St. Irenaeus says, she acted the part of an Advocate, a friend in
need, even in her mortal life, if as St. Jerome and St Ambrose say, she
was on earth the great pattern of Virgins, if she had a meritorious share
in bringing about our redemption, if her maternity was gained by her faith
and obedience, if her divine Son was subject to her, and if she stood by
the Cross with a mother's heart and drank in to the full those sufferings
which it was her portion to gaze upon, it is impossible that we should
not associate these characteristics of her life on earth with her present
state of blessedness; and this surely she anticipated when she said in
her hymn that all "generations should call her blessed."
I am aware that in thus speaking, I am following a line of thought that
is rather a meditation than an argument in controversy, and I shall not
carry it further; but still, before turning to other topics, it is to the
point to enquire, whether the popular astonishment, excited by our belief
in the Blessed Virgin's present dignity, does not arise from the circumstances
that the bulk of men, engaged in matters of this world, have never calmly
considered her historical position in the gospels, so as rightly to realise
what that position imports. I do not claim for the generality of Catholics
any greater powers of reflection upon the objects of their faith than Protestants
commonly have; but, putting the run of Catholics aside, there is a sufficient
number of religious men among us who, instead of expending their devotional
energies (as so many serious Protestants do) on abstract doctrines, such
as justification by faith only, or the sufficiency of Holy Scripture, employ
themselves in the contemplation of Scripture facts, and bring out before
their minds in a tangible form the doctrines involved in them, and give
such a substance and colour to the sacred history, as to influence their
brethren; and their brethren, though superficial themselves, are drawn
by their Catholic instinct to accept conclusions which they could not indeed
themselves have elicited, but which, when elicited, they feel to be true.
However, it would be out of place to pursue this course of reasoning here;
and instead of doing so, I shall take what perhaps you may think a very
bold step - I shall find the doctrine of Our Lady's present exaltation
in Scripture.
I mean to find it in the vision of the Woman and Child in the twelfth
chapter of the Apocalypse: now here two objections will be made to me at
once; first that such an interpretation is but poorly supported by the
Fathers, and secondly that in ascribing such a picture of the Madonna (as
it may be called) to the Apostolic age, I am committing an anachronism.
As to the former of these objections, I answer as follows: Christians
have never gone to Scripture for proof of their doctrines until there was
actual need, from the pressure of controversy; if in those times the Blessed
Virgin's dignity was unchallenged on all hands, as a matter of doctrine,
Scripture, as far as its argumentative matter was concerned. was likely
to remain a sealed book to them. Thus, to take an instance in point; the
Catholic party in the Anglican Church (say, the Nonjurors), unable by their
theory of religion simply to take their stand on Tradition, and distressed
for proof of their doctrines, had their eyes sharpened to scrutinise and
to understand in many places the letter of Holy Scripture, which to others
brought no instruction. And the peculiarity of their interpretation is
this -- that these have in themselves great logical cogency. yet are but
faintly supported by patristical commentators.
As to the second objection which I have supposed, so far from allowing
it, I consider that it is built upon a mere imaginary fact, and that the
truth of the matter lies in the very contrary direction. The Virgin and
Child is not a mere modern idea; on the contrary, it is represented again
and again, as every visitor to Rome is aware, in the paintings of the Catacombs.
Mary is there drawn with the Divine Infant in her lap, and she with hands
extended in prayer, He with His hand in the attitude of blessing. No representation
can more forcibly convey the doctrine of the high dignity of the Mother,
and, I will add, of her influence with her Son. Why should the memory of
His time of subjection be so dear to Christians and so carefully preserved?
The only question to be determined is the precise date of these remarkable
monuments of the first age of Christianity. That they belong to the centuries
of what Anglicans call the "undivided Church" is certain; but lately investigations
have been pursued which place some of them at an earlier date than anyone
anticipated as possible. I am not in a position to quote largely from the
works of the Cavaliere de Rossi, who has thrown so much light upon the
subject; but I have his "Imagini Scelte," published in 1863, and they are
sufficient for my purpose. In this work he has given us from the Catacombs
various representations of the Virgin and Child; the latest of these belong
to the early part of the fourth century, but the earliest he believes to
be referable to the very age of the Apostles. He comes to his conclusion
from the style and the skill of its composition, and from the history,
locality and existing inscriptions of the subterranean in which it is found.
However, he does not go so far as to insist upon so early a date; yet the
utmost concession he makes is to refer the painting to the era of the first
Antonines, that is to a date within half a century of the death of St.
John. I consider then, that, as you would use in controversy with Protestants,
and fairly, the traditional doctrine of the Church in early times, as an
explanation of a particular passage of Scripture, or at least as a suggestion,
or as a defence, of the sense which you may wish to put upon it, quite
apart from the question whether your interpretation itself is directly
traditional? so it is lawful for me, though I have not the positive words
of he Fathers on my side, to shelter my own interpretation of the Apostle's
vision in the Apocalypse under the fact of the extant pictures of Mother
and Child in the Roman Catacombs. Again, there is another principle of
Scripture interpretation which we should hold as well as you, viz., when
we speak of a doctrine being contained in Scripture, we do not necessarily
mean that it is contained there in direct categorical terms, but that there
is no satisfactory way of accounting for the language and expressions of
the sacred writers, concerning the subject-matter in question, except to
suppose that they held concerning it the opinion which we hold -- that
they would not have spoken as they have spoken unless they held it. For
myself I have ever felt the truth of this principle, as regards the Scripture
proof of the Holy Trinity; I should not have found out that doctrine in
the sacred text without previous traditional teaching; but, when once it
is suggested from without, it
commends itself as the one true interpretation, from its appositeness
-- because no other view of doctrine, which can be ascribed to the inspired
writers, so happily solves the obscurities and seeming inconsistencies
of their teaching. And now to apply what I have been saying to the passage
in the Apocalypse.
If there is an Apostle on whom our eyes would be fixed, as likely to
teach us about the Blessed Virgin, it is St. John, to whom she was committed
by Our Lord on the Cross-with whom, as tradition goes, she lived at Ephesus
till she was taken away. This anticipation is confirmed; for, as I have
said above, one of the earliest and fullest of our informants concerning
her dignity, as being the Second Eve, is Irenaeus, who came to Lyons from
Asia Minor, and had been taught by the immediate disciples of St. John.
The Apostle's vision is as follows:
"A great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the Sun, and
the Moon under her feet; and on her head a crown of twelve stars. And being
with child, she cried travailing in birth, and was in pain to be delivered.
And there was seen another sign in heaven; and behold a great red dragon.
. . And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to be delivered,
that, when she should be delivered, he might devour her son. And she brought
forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with an iron rod; and her
son was taken up to God and to His throne. And the woman fled into the
wilderness." Now I do not deny of course that under the image of the Woman,
the Church is signified; but what I would maintain is this, that the Holy
Apostle would not have spoken of the Church under this particular image
unless there had existed a Blessed Virgin Mary who was exalted on high
and the object of veneration of all the faithful.
No one doubts that the "man child" spoken of is an allusion to Our Lord:
why then is not the "Woman" an allusion to His Mother? This surely is the
obvious sense of the words; of course they have a further sense also, which
is the scope of the image; doubtless the Child represents the children
of the Church, and doubtless the Woman represents the Church; this, I grant,
is the real or direct sense, but what is the sense of the symbol under
which that real sense is conveyed? I answer, they are not personifications
but Persons. This is true of the Child, therefore it is true of the Woman.
But again: not only Mother and Child, but a serpent is introduced into
the vision. Such a meeting of man, woman and serpent has not been found
in Scripture since the beginning of Scripture, and now it is found in its
end. Moreover, in the passage in the Apocalypse, as if to supply, before
Scripture came to an end, what was wanting in its beginning, we are told,
and for the first time, that the serpent in Paradise was the evil spirit.
If the dragon of St. John is the same as the serpent of Genesis, and the
man-child is "the seed of the woman," why is not the woman herself she
whose seed the man-child is? And, if the first woman is not an allegory,
why is the second? If the first woman is Eve, why is not the second Mary?
But this is not all. The image of the woman, according to general Scripture
usage, is too bold and prominent for a mere personification. Scripture
is not fond of allegories. We have indeed frequent figures there, as when
the sacred writers speak of the arm or sword of the Lord; and so, too when
they speak of Jerusalem or Samaria in the feminine; or of the Church as
a bride or as a vine; but they are not much given to dressing up abstract
ideas or generalisations in personal attributes. This is the classical
rather than the Scriptural style. Xenophon places Hercules between Virtue
and Vice, represented as women; Aeschylus introduces into his drama Force
and Violence; Virgil gives personality to public rumour or Fame and Plautus
to Poverty. So on monuments done in the classical style, we see virtues,
vices, rivers, renown, death and the like turned into human figures of
men and women. Certainly I do not deny there are some instances of this
method in Scripture, but I say that such poetical compositions are strikingly
unlike its usual method. Thus, we at once feel the difference from Scripture,
when we betake ourselves to the Pastor of Hermas (a second century Christian
writing), and find the Church a woman; to St. Methodius (third century),
and find Virtue a woman; and to St. Gregory Nazianzen's poem (fourth century)
and find Virginity again a woman. Scripture deals with types rather than
personifications. Israel stands for the chosen people, David for Christ,
Jerusalem for heaven. Consider the remarkable representations, dramatic
I may call them, in Jeremiah, Ezechiel, and Hosea: predictions, threatenings,
and promises, are acted out by those prophets. Ezechiel is commanded to
shave his head, and to divide and scatter his hair; and Ahias tears his
garment and gives ten out of twelve parts of it to Jereboam. So, too, the
structure of the imagery in the Apocalypse is not a mere allegorical creation,
but is rounded on the Jewish ritual. In like manner Our Lord's bodily cures
are visible types of the power of His grace on the soul; and His prophecy
of the last day is conveyed under that of the fall of Jerusalem. Even His
parables are not simply ideal, but relations of occurrences which did or
might take place, under which was conveyed a spiritual meaning. The description
of Wisdom in the Proverbs and other sacred books has brought out the instinct
of commentators in this respect. They felt that Wisdom could not be a mere
personification, and they determined that it was Our Lord: and the later-written
of these books, by their own more definite language, warranted that interpretation.
Then, when it was found that the Arians used it in derogation of Our Lord's
divinity, still, unable to tolerate the notion of a mere allegory, commentators
applied the description to the Blessed Virgin. Coming back, then, to the
Apocalyptic vision, I ask, If the Woman ought to be some real person, who
can it be whom the Apostle saw, and intends, and delineates, but that same
Great Mother to whom the chapters in the Proverbs are accommodated? And
let it be observed, moreover, that in this passage, from the allusion made
in it to the history of the fall, Mary may be said still to be represented
under the character of the Second Eve. I make a further remark: it is sometimes
asked, Why do not the sacred writers mention Our Lady's greatness? I answer,
she was, or may have been alive, when the Apostles and Evangelists wrote;
there was just one book of Scripture certainly written after her death,
and that book does (so to say) canonise and crown her.
But if all this be so, if it is really the Blessed Virgin whom Scripture
represents as clothed with the sun, crowned with the stars of heaven, and
with the moon as her footstool, what height of glory may we not attribute
to her?
And what are we to say of those who, through ignorance, run counter
to the voice of Scripture, to the testimony of the Fathers, to the traditions
of East and West, and speak and act contemptuously towards her whom the
Lord delighteth to honour?
MARY, THE MOTHER OF GOD
Now I have said all I mean to say on what I have called the rudimental
teaching of Antiquity about the Blessed Virgin; but after all I have not
insisted on the highest view of her prerogatives, which the Fathers have
taught us. You, my dear Friend, who know so well the ancient controversies
and Councils, may have been surprised why I should not have yet spoken
of her as the Theotokos; but I wished to show on how broad a basis her
dignity rests. independent of that wonderful title; and again I have been
loth to enlarge upon the force of a word, which is rather matter for devotional
thought than for polemical dispute. However, I might as well not write
to you at all, as altogether be silent upon it.
It is, then, an integral portion of the Faith fixed by Ecumenical Council,
a portion of it which you hold as well as I, that the Blessed Virgin is
Theotokos, De para, or Mother of God; and this word, when thus used, carries
with it no admixture of rhetoric, no taint of extravagant affection --
it has nothing else but a well-weighed, grave, dogmatic sense, which corresponds
and is adequate to its sound. It intends to express that God is her son,
as truly as any one of us is the son of his own mother. If this be so,
what can be said of any creature whatever, which may not be said of her?
What can be said too much, so that it does not compromise the attributes
of the Creator? He indeed might have created a being more perfect, more
admirable, than she is; He might have endued that being, so created, with
a richer grant of grace, of power, of blessedness: but in one respect she
surpasses all even possible creations, viz., that she is Mother of her
Creator. It is this awful title, which both illustrates and connects together
the two prerogatives of Mary, on which I have been lately enlarging, her
sanctity and her greatness. It is the issue of her sanctity; it is the
origin of her greatness.; What dignity can be too great to attribute to
her who is as closely bound up, as intimately one, with the Eternal Word,
as a mother is with a son? What outfit of sanctity, what fullness and redundance
of grace, what exuberance of merits must have been hers, when once we admit
the supposition, which the Fathers justify, that her Maker really did regard
those merits, and take them into account, when He condescended "not to
abhor the Virgin's womb"? Is it surprising then that on the one hand she
should be immaculate in her conception? Or on the other than she should
be honoured with an Assumption, and exalted as a queen with a crown of
twelve stars, with the rulers of day and night to do her service? Men sometimes
wonder that we call her Mother of life, of mercy, of salvation; what are
all these titles compared to that one name, Mother of God?
I shall say no more about this title here. It is scarcely possible to
write of it without diverging into a style of composition unsuited to a
Letter; so I will but refer to the history and to instances of its use.
The title of Theotokos, as ascribed to the Blessed Mary, began with
ecclesiastical writers of a date hardly later than that at which we read
of her as the Second Eve. It first occurs in the works of Origen (185-254);
but he, witnessing for Egypt and Palestine, witnesses also that it was
in use before his time; for, as Socrates informs us, he "interpreted how
it was to be used, and discussed the question at length." Within two centuries
of his time (431), in the General Council held against Nestorius, it was
made part of the formal dogmatic teaching of the Church. At that time,
Theodoret, who from his party connections might have been supposed disinclined
to its solemn recognition, owned that "the ancient and more than ancient
heralds of the orthodox faith taught the use of the term according to the
Apostolic tradition." At the same date John of Antioch, the temporary protector
of Nestorius, whose heresy lay in the rejection of the term, said, "This
title no ecclesiastical teacher has put aside. Those who have used it are
many and eminent; and those who have not used it, have not attacked those
who did." Alexander again, one of the fiercest partisans of Nestorius,
witnesses to the use of the word, though he considers it dangerous; "That
in festive solemnities," he says, "or in preaching or teaching, 'theotokos'
should be unguardedly said by the orthodox without explanation is no blame,
because such statements were not dogmatic, not said with evil meaning."
If we look for those Fathers, in the interval between Origen and the Council,
to whom Alexander refers as using the term, we find among them no less
names than Archelaeus of Mesopotamia, Eusebius of Palestine, Alexander
of Egypt, in the third century; in the fourth, Athanasius, who uses it
many times with emphasis, Cyril of Palestine, Gregory Nyssen and Gregory
Nazianzen of Cappadocia, Antiochus of Syria, and Ammonius of Thrace --
not to refer to he Emperor Julian who, having no local or ecclesiastical
domicile, is a witness for the whole of Christendom. Another and earlier
Emperor, Constantine, in his speech before the assembled Bishops at Nicaea,
uses the still more explicit title of the "Virgin Mother of God"; which
is also used by Ambrose of Milan, and by Vincent and Cassian in the south
of France, and then by St. Leo.
So much for the term; it would be tedious to produce the passages of
authors who, using or not using the term, convey the idea "Our God was
carried in the womb of Mary," says Ignatius, who was martyred A.D. 106.
"The Word of God," says Hippolytus, "was carried in that Virgin frame."
"The Maker of all," says Amphilochius, "is born of a Virgin." "She did
compass without circumscribing the Sun of justice -- the Everlasting is
born," says Chrysostom. "God dwelt in the womb," says Proclus. "When thou
hearest that God speaks from the bush," asks Theodotus, "in the bush seest
thou not the Virgin?" Cassian says, "Mary bore her Author." "The One God
only-begotten," says Hilary, "is introduced into the womb of a Virgin."
"The Everlasting," says Ambrose, "came into the Virgin." "The closed gate,"
says Jerome, "by which alone the Lord God of Israel enters, is the Virgin
Mary." "That man from heaven," says Capriolus, "is God conceived in the
womb." "He is made in thee," says St. Augustine, "who made thee."
This being the faith of the Fathers about the Blessed Virgin, we need
not wonder that it should in no long time be transmuted into devotion.
No wonder if their language should become unmeasured, when so great a term
as "Mother of God' had been formally set down as the safe limit of it.
No wonder if it should be stronger and stronger as time went on, since
only in a long period could the fullness of its import be exhausted. And
in matter of fact, and as might be anticipated (with the few exceptions
which I have noted above, and which I am to treat of below), the current
of thought in those early ages did uniformly tend to make much of the Blessed
Virgin and to increase her honours, not to circumscribe them. Little jealousy
was shown of her in those times; but, when any such niggardness of affection
occurred, then one Father or other fell upon the offender, with zeal, not
to say fierceness. Thus, St. Jerome inveighs against Helvidius; thus St.
Epiphanius denounces Apollinaris; St. Cyril, Nestorius; and St. Ambrose,
Bonosus; on the other hand, each successive insult offered her by individual
adversaries did but bring out more fully the intimate sacred affection
with which Christendom regarded her. "She was alone and wrought the world's
salvation and conceived the redemption of all," says Ambrose; "she had
so great grace, as not only to preserve virginity herself, but to confer
it on those whom she visited." "She is the rod out of the stem of Jesse,"
says St. Jerome, "and the Eastern gate through which the High Priest alone
goes in and out, which still is ever shut." "She is the wise woman," says
Nilus, who "hath clad believers, from the fleece of the Lamb born of her,
with the clothing of incorruption, and delivered them from their spiritual
nakedness." "She is the mother of life, of beauty, of majesty, the morning
star," according to Antiochus. "The mystical new heavens," "the heavens
arrying the Divinity," "the fruitful vine," "by whom we are translated
from death unto life," according to St. Ephrem. "The manna which is delicate,
bright, sweet and virgin, which, as though coming from heaven, has poured
down on all the people of the Churches a food pleasanter than honey," according
to St. Maximus.
Basil of Seleucia says that, "she shines out above all the martyrs as
the sun above the stars, and that she mediates between God and men." "Run
through all creation in your thought," says Proclus, "and see if there
be one equal or superior to the Holy Virgin, Mother of God." "Hail, Mother,
clad in light, of the light which sets not," says Theodotus, or someone
else at Ephesus; "hail all undefiled mother of holiness; hail, most pellucid
fountain of the lifegiving stream." And St. Cyril, too, at Ephesus, "Hail.
Mary, Mother of God, majestic common-treasure of the whole world, the lamp
unquenchable, the crown of virginity, the sceptre of orthodoxy, the indissoluble
temple, the dwelling of the Illimitable, Mother and Virgin, through whom
He in the holy gospels is called blessed Who cometh in the name of the
Lord . . . through Whom the Holy Trinity is sanctified . . . through whom
Angels and Archangels rejoice, devils are put to flight . . . and the fallen
creature is received up into the heavens, etc., etc." Such is but a portion
of the panegyrical language which St. Cyril used in the third Ecumenical
Council.
MARY'S INTERCESSORY POWER
I MUST not close my review of the Catholic doctrine concerning the Blessed
Virgin, without directly speaking of her intercessory power, though I have
incidentally made mention of it already. It is the immediate result of
two truths, neither of which you dispute -- first, that "it is good and
useful," as he Council of Trent says, "suppliantly to invoke the Saints
and to have recourse to their prayers"; and secondly, that the Blessed
Mary is singularly dear to her Son, and singularly exalted in sanctity
and glory. However, at the risk of becoming didactic, I will state somewhat
more fully the grounds on which it rests.
To a candid pagan it must have been one of the most remarkable points
of Christianity, on its first appearance, that the observance of prayer
formed so vital a part of its organisation; and that, though its members
were scattered all over the world, and its rulers and subjects had so little
opportunity of correlative action, yet they, one and all. found the solace
of a spiritual intercourse and a real bond of union, in the practice of
mutual intercession. Prayer indeed is the very essence of all religion;
but in the heathen religions it was either public or personal; it was a
state ordinance, or a selfish expedient for the attainment of certain tangible,
temporal goods. Very different from this was its exercise among Christians,
who were thereby knit together in one body, different, as they were, in
races, ranks and habits, distant from each other in country, and helpless
amid hostile populations. Yet it proved sufficient for its purpose. Christians
could not correspond; they could not combine; but they could pray for one
another. Even their pubic prayers partook of this character of intercession;
for to pray for the welfare of the whole Church was in fact a prayer for
all the classes of men and all the individuals of which it was composed.
It was in prayer that the Church was founded. For ten days all the Apostles
"persevered with one mind in prayer and supplication, with the women, and
Mary the Mother of Jesus, and with His brethren." Then again at Pentecost
"they were all with one mind in one place"; and the converts then made
are said to have "persevered in prayer." And when, after a while, St. Peter
was seized and put in prison with a view to being put to death, "prayer
was made without ceasing" by the Church of God for him; and, when the Angel
released him, he took refuge in a house "where many were gathered together
in prayer."
We are so accustomed to these passages as hardly to be able to do justice
to their singular significance; and they are followed up by various passages
of the Apostolic Epistles. St. Paul enjoins his brethren to "pray with
all prayer and supplication at all times in the Spirit, with all instance
and supplication for all saints," to "pray in every place," "to make supplication,
prayers, intercessions, giving of thanks, for all men." And in his own
person he "ceases not to give thanks for them, commemorating them in his
prayers," and "always in all his prayers making supplication for them all
with joy."
Now, was this spiritual bond to cease with life? Or had Christians similar
duties to their brethren departed? From the witness of the early ages of
the Church, it appears that they had; and you, and those who agree with
you, would be the last to deny that they were then in the practice of praying,
as for the living, so for those also who had passed into the intermediate
state between earth and heaven. Did the sacred communion extend further
still, on to the inhabitants of heaven itself? Here too you agree with
us, for you have adopted in your volume the words Or the Council of Trent
which I have quoted above. But now we are brought to a higher order of
thought.
It would be preposterous to pray for those who are already in glory;
but at least they can pray for us, and we can ask their prayers, and in
the Apocalypse at least Angels are introduced both sending us their blessing
and offering up our prayers before the Divine Presence. We read there of
an Angel who "came and stood before the altar, having a golden censer":
and "there was given to him much incense, that he should offer of the prayers
of all the saints upon the golden altar which is before the Throne of God."
On this occasion, surely the Angel performed the part of a great Intercessor
or Mediator above for the children of the Church Militant below. Again,
in the beginning of the same book, the sacred writer goes so far as to
speak of "grace and peace" coming to us, not only from the Almighty, "but
from the seven Spirits that are before His throne," thus associating the
Eternal with the ministers of His mercies; and this carries us on to the
remarkable passage of St. Justin, one of the earliest Fathers, who, in
his "Apology," says, "To Him (God), and His Son who came from Him and taught
us these things, and the host of the other good Angels who follow and resemble
Him, and the Prophetic Spirit, we pay veneration and homage." Further,
in the Epistle to the Hebrews, St. Paul introduces, not only Angels, but
"the spirits of the just" into the sacred communion: "Ye have come to Mount
Sion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, to myriads of angels, to God the Judge
of all, to the spirits of the just made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator
of the New Testament." What can be meant by having "come to the spirits
of the just," unless in some way or other, they do us good, whether by
blessing or aiding us? That is, in a word, to speak correctly, by praying
for us, for it is surely by prayer that the creature above is able to bless
and aid the creature below.
Intercession thus being a first principle of the Church's life, next
it is certain again that the vital force of that intercession, as an availing
power, is (according to the will of God) sanctity. This seems to be suggested
by a passage of St. Paul, in which the Supreme Intercessor is said to be
"the Spirit" -- "the Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us; He maketh
intercession for the saints according to God." And, indeed, the truth thus
implied, is expressly brought out for us in other parts of Scripture, in
the form both of doctrine and of example. The words of the man born blind
speak the commonsense of nature: "if any man be a worshipper of God, him
He heareth." And Apostles confirm them: "The prayer of a just man availeth
much," and "whatever we ask, we receive, because we keep His commandments."
Then, as for examples, we read of the Almighty's revealing to Abraham and
Moses beforehand, His purposes of wrath, in order that they by their intercessions
might avert its execution. To the friends of Job it was said: "My servant
Job shall pray for you; his face I will accept." Elias by his prayer shut
and opened the heavens. Elsewhere we read of "Jeremias, Moses, and Samuel";
and of "Noe, Daniel, and Job," as being great mediators between God and
His people. One instance is given us, which testifies the continuance of
this high office beyond this life. Lazarus, in the parable, is seen in
Abraham's bosom. It is usual to pass over this striking passage with the
remark that it is a Jewish mode of speech; whereas, Jewish belief or not,
it is recognised and sanctioned by Our Lord Himself. What do Catholics
teach about the Blessed Virgin more wonderful than this? If Abraham, not
yet ascended on high, had charge of Lazarus, what offence is it to affirm
the like of her, who was not merely as Abraham, "the friend," but was the
very "Mother of God"?
It may be added, that, though, if sanctity was wanting, it availed nothing
for influence with Our Lord to be one of His company, still, as the Gospel
shows, He on various occasions actually did allow those who were near Him,
to be the channels of introducing supplicants to Him, or of gaining miracles
from Him, as in the instance of the miracles of the loaves; and if on one
occasion, He seems to repel His Mother, when she told Him that wine was
wanting for the guests at the marriage feast, it is obvious to remark on
it, that, by saying that she was then separated from Him ("What have I
to do with thee?") because His hour was not yet come, He implied that when
that hour was come, such separation would be at an end. Moreover, in fact
He did at her intercession work the miracle to which her words pointed.
I consider it impossible then, for those who believe the Church to be
one vast body in heaven and on earth, in which every holy creature of God
has his place, and of which prayer is the life, when once they recognise
the sanctity and dignity of the Blessed Virgin, not to perceive immediately
that her office above is one of perpetual intercession for the faithful
militant, and that our very relation to her must be that of clients to
a patron, and that, in the eternal enmity which exists between the woman
and the serpent, while the serpent's strength lies in being the Tempter,
the weapon of the Second Eve and Mother of God is prayer.
As then these ideas of her sanctity and dignity gradually penetrated
the mind of Christendom, so did that of her intercessory power follow close
upon them and with them. From the earliest times that mediation is symbolised
in those representations of her with uplifted hands, which, whether in
plaster or in glass, are still extant in Rome-that Church, as St. Irenaeus
says, with which "every Church, that is, the faithful from every side,
must agree, because of its more powerful principality"; "into which," as
Tertullian adds, "the Apostles poured out, together with their blood, their
whole doctrine." As far indeed as existing documents are concerned, I know
of no instance to my purpose earlier than A.D. 234, but it is a very remarkable
one; and, though it has been often quoted in the controversy, an argument
is not weaker for frequent use.
St. Gregory Nyssen, then, a native of Cappadocia in the fourth century,
relates that his namesake, Bishop of NeoCaesarea in Pontus, surnamed Thaumaturgus,
in the century preceding, shortly before he was called to the priesthood,
received in a vision a Creed, which is still extant, from the Blessed Mary
at the hands of St. John. The account runs thus: He was deeply pondering
theological doctrine, which the heretics of the day depraved. "In such
thoughts," says his namesake of Nyssa, "he was passing the night, when
one appeared, as if in human form, aged in appearance, saintly in the fashion
of his garments, and very venerable both in grace of countenance and general
mien. Amazed at the sight, he started from his bed and asked who it was,
and why he came; but, at the other calming the perturbation of his mind
with his gentle voice, and saying he had appeared to him by Divine command
on account of his doubts, in order that the truth of the orthodox faith
might be revealed to him, he took courage at the word and regarded him
with a mixture of joy and fright. Then, on his stretching his hand straight
forward and pointing with his fingers at something on one side, he followed
with his eyes the extended hand, and saw another appearance opposite to
the former, in shape of a woman, but more than human. . . When his eyes
could not bear the apparition, he heard them conversing together on the
subject of his doubts; and thereby not only gained a true knowledge of
the faith, but learned their names, as they addressed each other by their
respective appellations. And thus he is said to have heard the person in
woman's shape bid 'John the Evangelist' disclose to the young man the mystery
of godliness; and he answered that he was ready to comply in this matter
with the wish of the 'Mother of the Lord,' and enunciated a formulary,
well-turned and complete, and so vanished. He, on the other hand, immediately
committed to writing that divine teaching of his mystagogue, and henceforth
preached in the Church according to that form, and bequeathed to posterity,
as an inheritance, that heavenly teaching, by means of which his people
are instructed down to this day, being preserved from all heretical evil."
He proceeds to rehearse the Creed thus given: "There is one God, Father
of a Living Word," etc. Bull, after quoting it in his work on the Nicene
faith, alludes to the history of its origin, and adds, "No one should think
it incredible that such a providence should befall a man whose whole life
was conspicuous for revelations and miracles, as all ecclesiastical writers
who have mentioned him (and who has not?) witness with one voice."
Here Our Lady is represented as rescuing a holy soul from intellectual
error. This leads me to a further reflection. You seem, in one place in
your volume, to object to the Antiphon, in which it is said of her, "All
heresies thou hast destroyed alone." Surely the truth of it is verified
in this age, as in former times, and especially by the doctrine concerning
her, on which I have been dwelling. She is the great exemplar of prayer
in a generation, which emphatically denies the power of prayer in toto,
which determines that fatal laws govern the universe that there cannot
be any direct communication between earth and heaven, that God cannot visit
His own earth, and that man cannot influence His providence.
FAITH AND DEVOTION
I CANNOT help hoping that your own reading of the Fathers will on the
whole bear me out in the above account of their teaching concerning the
Blessed Virgin. Anglicans seem to me simply to overlook the strength of
the argument adducible from the works of those ancient doctors in our favour;
and they open the attack upon our medieval and modern writers, careless
of leaving a host of primitive opponents in their rear. . . Had you happened
in your volume to introduce your notice of our teaching about the Blessed
Virgin, with a notice of the teaching of the Fathers concerning her, which
you follow, ordinary men would have considered that there was not much
to choose between you and us. Though you appealed ever so much, in your
defence, to the authority of the "undivided Church," they would have said
that you, who had such high notions of the Blessed Mary, were one of the
last men who had a right to accuse us of quasi-idolatry. When they found
you with the Fathers calling her Mother of God, Second Eve, and Mother
of all Living, the Mother of Life, the Morning Star, the Mystical New Heaven,
the Sceptre of Orthodoxy, the All-undefiled Mother of Holiness, and the
like, they would have deemed it a poor compensation for such language that
you protested against her being called a Co-redemptress, or a Priestess.
And if they were violent Protestants, they would not have read you with
the relish and gratitude with which, as it is, they have perhaps accepted
your testimony against us. Not that they would have been altogether fair
in their view of you -- on the contrary, I think there is a real difference
between what you protest against, and what with the Fathers you hold; but
unread men of the world form a broad practical judgment of the things which
come before them, and they would have felt in this case that they had the
same right to be shocked at you, as you have to be shocked at us -- and
further, which is the point to which 1 am coming, they would have said
that, granting some of our modern writers go beyond the Fathers in this
matter, still the line cannot be logically drawn between the teaching of
the Fathers concerning the Blessed Virgin and our own. This view of the
matter seems to me true and important; I do not think that the line can
be satisfactorily drawn, and to this point I shall now direct my attention.
It is impossible, I say, in a doctrine like this, to draw the line cleanly
between truth and error, right and wrong. This is ever the case in concrete
matters, which have life. Life in this world is motion, and involves a
continual process of change. Living things grow into their perfection,
into their decline, into their death. No rule of art will suffice to stop
the operation of this natural law, whether in the material world or in
the human mind. We can indeed encounter disorders, when they occur, by
external antagonism and remedies; but we cannot eradicate the process itself,
out of which they arise. Life has the same right to decay, as it has to
wax strong. This is specially the case with great ideas. You may stifle
them; or you may refuse them elbow-room; or again, you may torment them
with your continual meddling; or you may let them have free course and
range, and be content, instead of anticipating their excesses, to expose
and restrain those excesses after they have occurred. But you have only
this alternative; and for myself, I prefer much wherever it is possible,
to be first generous and then just; to grant full liberty of thought, and
to call it to account when abused.
If what I have been saying be true of energetic ideas generally, much
more is it the case in matters of religion. Religion acts on the affections;
who is to hinder these, when once roused, from gathering in their strength
and running wild? They are not gifted with any connatural principle within
them, which renders them self-governing and self-adjusting. They hurry
right on to their object and often in their case it is, the more haste,
the worse speed. Their object engrosses them, and they see nothing else.
And of all passions love is the most unmanageable; nay more, I would not
give much for that love which is never extravagant, which always observes
the proprieties, and can move about in perfect good taste, under all emergencies.
What mother, what husband or wife, what youth or maiden in love, but says
a thousand foolish things, in the way of endearment, which the speaker
would be sorry for strangers to hear; yet they are not on that account
unwelcome to the parties to whom they are addressed. Sometimes by bad luck
they are written down sometimes they get into the newspapers; and what
might be even graceful when it was fresh from the heart, and interpreted
by the voice and the countenance, presents but a melancholy exhibition
when served up cold for the public eye. So it is with devotional feelings.
Burning thoughts and words are as open to criticism as they are beyond
it. What is abstractedly extravagant, may in particular persons be becoming
and beautiful, and only fall under blame when it is found in others who
imitate them. When it is formalised into meditations and exercises, it
is as repulsive as love-letters in a police report. Moreover, even holy
minds adopt and become familiar with language which they would never have
originated themselves, when it proceeds from a writer who has the same
objects of devotion as they have; and, if they find a stranger ridicule
or reprobate supplication or praise which has come to them so recommended,
they feel it as keenly as if a direct insult were offered to those to whom
that homage is addressed. In the next place, what has power to stir holy
and refined souls is potent also with the multitude; and the religion of
the multitude is ever vulgar and abnormal; it ever will be tinctured with
fanaticism and superstition, while men are what they are. A people's religion
is ever a corrupt religion, in spite of the provisions of Holy Church.
If she is to be Catholic, you must admit within her net fish of every kind,
guests good and bad, vessels of gold, vessels of earth. You may beat religion
out of men, if you will, and then their excesses will take a different
direction; but if you make use of religion to improve them, they will make
use of religion to corrupt it. And then you will have effected that compromise
of which our countrymen report so unfavourably from abroad -- a high grand
faith and worship which compels their admiration, and puerile absurdities
among the people which excite their contempt.
Nor is it any safeguard against these excesses in a religious system,
that the religion is based upon reason, and develops into a theology. Theology
both uses logic and baffles it; and thus logic acts both for the protection
and for the perversion of religion. Theology is occupied with supernatural
matters, and is ever running into mysteries, which reason can neither explain
nor adjust. Its lines of thought come to an abrupt termination, and to
pursue them or to complete them is to plunge down the abyss. But logic
blunders on, forcing its way, as it can, through thick darkness and ethereal
mediums. The Arians went ahead with logic for their directing principle,
and so lost the truth, on the other hand, St. Augustine intimates that,
if we attempt to find and tie together the ends of lines which run into
infinity we shall only succeed in contradicting ourselves when, in his
"Treatise on the Holy Trinity," he is unable to find a logical reason for
not speaking of three Gods as well as of One, and of one Person in the
Godhead as well as of Three. I do not mean to say that logic cannot be
used to set right its own error, or that in the hands of an able disputant
it may not trim the balance of truth. This was done at the Councils of
Antioch and Nicaea, on occasion of the heresies of Paulus and Arius. But
such a process is circuitous and elaborate; and is conducted by means of
minute subtleties which will give it the appearance of a game of skill
in matters too grave and practical to deserve a mere scholastic treatment.
Accordingly St. Augustine, in the Treatise above mentioned, does no more
than simply lay it down that the statements in question are heretical;
that is, to say there are three Gods is Tritheism, and to say there is
but one Person, Sabellianism.
That is, good sense and a large view of truth are the correctives of
his logic. And thus we have arrived at the final resolution of the matter,
for good sense and a large view of truth are rare gifts; whereas all men
are bound to be devout. and most men busy themselves in arguments and inferences.
Now let me apply what I have been saying to the teaching of the Church
on the subject of the Blessed Virgin. I have to recur to a subject of so
sacred a nature that, writing as I am for publication, I need the apology
of my purpose for venturing to pursue it. I say then, when once we have
mastered the idea, that Mary bore, suckled and handled the Eternal in the
form of a child, what limit is conceivable to the rush and flood of thoughts
which such a doctrine involves? What awe and surprise must attend upon
the knowledge, that a creature has been brought so close to the Divine
Essence? It was the creation of a new idea and of a new sympathy, of a
new faith and worship, when the holy Apostles announced that God had become
incarnate; then a supreme love and devotion to Him became possible, which
seemed hopeless before that revelation. This was the first consequence
of their preaching. But besides this, a second range of thoughts was opened
upon mankind, unknown before, and unlike any other, as soon as it was understood
that Incarnate God had a mother. The second idea is perfectly distinct
from the former, and does not interfere with it. He is God made low, she
is a woman made high. I scarcely like to use a familiar illustration on
the subject of the Blessed Virgin's dignity among created beings, but it
will serve to explain what I mean when I ask you to consider the difference
of feeling, with which we read the respective histories of Maria Theresa
and the Maid of Orleans; or with which the middle and lower classes of
a nation regard a first minister of the day who has come from an aristocratic
house, and one who has risen from the ranks. May God's mercy keep me from
the shadow of a thought, dimming the purity or blunting the keenness of
that love of Him which is our sole happiness and our sole salvation! But
surely when He became man, He brought home to us His incommunicable attributes
with a distinctiveness, which precludes the possibility of our lowering
Him merely by our exalting a creature. He alone has an entrance into our
soul, reads our secret thoughts, speaks to our heart, applies to us spiritual
pardon and strength. On Him we solely depend. He alone is our inward life;
He not only regenerates us, but (to use the words appropriated to a higher
mystery) "semper gignit," "He is ever renewing our new birth" and our heavenly
sonship. In this sense He may be called, as in nature, so in grace, our
real Father. Mary is only our Mother by divine appointment, given us from
the Cross; her presence is above, not on earth; her office is external,
not within us. Her name is not heard in the administration of the Sacraments.
Her work is not one of ministration towards us; her power is indirect.
It is her prayers that avail, and her prayers are effectual by the will
of Him who is our all in all. Nor need she hear us by any innate power,
or any personal gift; but by His manifestation to her of the prayers which
we make to her. When Moses was on the Mount, the Almighty told him of the
idolatry of his people at the foot of it, in order that he might intercede
for them; and thus it is the Divine Presence which is the intermediating
Power by which we reach her and she reaches us.
Woe is me, if even by a breath I sully these ineffable truths! But still,
without prejudice to them, there is, I say, another range of thought quite
distinct from them, incommensurate with them, of which the Blessed Virgin
is the centre. If we placed Our Lord in that centre, we should only be
dragging Him from His throne, and making Him an Arian kind of a God; that
is, no God at all. He who charges us with making Mary a divinity, is thereby
denying the divinity of Jesus. Such a man does not know what divinity is.
Our Lord cannot pray for us, as a creature prays, as Mary prays; He cannot
inspire those feelings which a creature inspires. To her belongs, as being
a creature, a natural claim on our sympathy and familiarity, in that she
is nothing else than our fellow. She is our pride -- in the poet's words,
"Our tainted nature's solitary boast." We look at her without any fear,
any remorse, any consciousness that she is able to read us, judge us, punish
us. Our heart yearns towards that pure Virgin, that gentle Mother, and
our congratulations follow her, as she rises from Nazareth and Ephesus,
through the choir of angels, to her throne on high, so weak, yet so strong;
so delicate, yet so glorious; so modest and yet so mighty. She has sketched
for us her own portrait in the Magnificat. "He hath regarded the low estate
of his handmaid; for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call
me blessed. He hath put down the mighty from their seat; and hath exalted
the humble. He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he
hath sent empty away." I recollect the strange emotion which took by surprise
men and women, young and old, when, at the Coronation of our present Queen,
they gazed on the figure of one so like a child, so small, so tender, so
shrinking, who had been exalted to so great an inheritance and so vast
a rule, who was in such a contrast in her own person to the solemn pageant
which centred in her. Could it be otherwise with the spectators, if they
had human affection? And did not the All-wise know the human heart when
He took to Himself a Mother? Did He not anticipate our emotion at the sight
of such an exaltation in one so simple and so lowly? If He had not meant
her to exert that wonderful influence in His Church, which she has in the
event exerted, I will use a bold word, He it is who has perverted us. If
she is not to attract our homage, why did He make her solitary in her greatness
amid His vast creation? If it be idolatry in us to let our affections respond
to our faith, He would not have made her what she is, or He would not have
told us that He had so made her; but, far from this, He has sent His prophet
to announce to us, "A Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and they shall
call His name Emmanuel," and we have the same warrant for hailing her as
God's Mother, as we have for adoring Him as God.
Christianity is eminently an objective religion. For the most part it
tells of persons and facts in simple words, and leaves that announcement
to produce its effect upon such hearts as are prepared to receive it. (This
at least is its general character; and Butler recognises it as such in
his "Analogy", when speaking of the Second and Third Persons of the Holy
Trinity -- "The internal worship," he says, "to the Son and the Holy Ghost
is no farther matter of pure revealed command than as the relations they
stand in to us are matters of pure revelation; for the relations being
known, the obligations to such internal worship are obligations of reason
arising out of those relations themselves.") It is in this way that the
revealed doctrine of the Incarnation exerted a stronger and broader influence
on Christians, as they more and more apprehended and mastered its meaning
and its bearings. It is contained in the brief and simple declaration of
St. John: "The Word was made Flesh"; but it required century after century
to spread it out in its fullness, and to imprint it energetically on the
worship and practice of the Catholic people as well as on their faith.
Athanasius was the first and the great teacher of it. He collected together
the inspired notices scattered through David, Isaias, St. Paul and St.
John, and he engraved indelibly upon the imagination of the faithful, as
had never been before, that man is God, and God is man, that in Mary they
meet, and that in this sense Mary is the centre of all things. He added
nothing to what was known before, nothing to the popular and zealous faith
that her Son was God; he has left behind him in his works no such definite
passages about her as those of St. Irenaeus or St. Epiphanius; but he brought
the circumstances of the incarnation home to men's minds, by the multiform
evolutions of his analysis, and thereby secured it to us for ever from
perversion. Still, however, there was much to be done; we have no proof
that Athanasius himself had any special devotion to the Blessed Virgin;
but he laid the foundations on which that devotion was to rest, and thus
noiselessly and without strife, as the first Temple was built in the Holy
City, she grew up into her inheritance, and was "established in Sion and
her power was in Jerusalem."
MATER DEI
MERE Protestants have seldom any real perception of the doctrine of
God and man in one Person. They speak in a dreamy, shadowy way of Christ's
divinity; but, when their meaning is sifted, you will find them very slow
to commit themselves to any statement sufficient to express the Catholic
dogma. They will tell you at once that the subject is not to be inquired
into, for that it is impossible to inquire into it at all without being
technical and subtle. Then when they comment on the Gospels, they will
speak of Christ, not simply and consistently as God, but as a being made
up of God and man, partly one and partly the other, or between both, or
as a man inhabited by a special divine presence. Sometimes they even go
on to deny that He was the Son of God in heaven, saying that He became
the Son when He was conceived of the Holy Ghost; and they are shocked,
and think it a mark both of reverence and good sense to be shocked, when
they hear the Man spoken of simply and plainly as God. They cannot bear
to have it except as a figure or mode of speaking, that God had a human
body, or that God suffered; they think that the "Atonement," and "Sanctification
through the Spirit," as they speak, is the sum and substance of the Gospel,
and they are shy of any dogmatic expression which goes beyond them. Such,
I believe, is the ordinary character of the Protestant notions among us
on the divinity of Christ, hether among members of the Anglican communion,
or dissenters from it, excepting a small remnant of them.
Now, if you would witness against these unchristian opinions, if you
would bring out, distinctly and beyond mistake and evasion, the simple
idea of the Catholic Church that God is man, could you do it better than
by laying down in St. John's words that "God became man"? and could you
express this again more emphatically and unequivocally than by declaring
that He was born a man, or that He had a Mother? The world allows that
God is man; the admission costs it little, for God is everywhere, and (as
it may say) is everything; but it shrinks from confessing that God is the
Son of Mary. It shrinks, for it is at once confronted with a severe fact,
which violates and shatters its own unbelieving view of things; the revealed
doctrine forthwith takes its true shape, and receives an historical reality;
and the Almighty is introduced into His own world at a certain time and
in a definite way. Dreams are broken and shadows depart; the divine truth
is no longer a poetical expression, or a devotional exaggeration, or a
mystical economy, or a mythical representation. "Sacrifice and offering,"
the shadows of the Law, "Thou wouldest not, but a body hast Thou fitted
to Me." "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which
we have seen with our eyes, which we have diligently looked upon, and our
hands have handled," "That which we have seen and have heard, declare we
unto you"; such is the record of the Apostle, in opposition to those "spirits"
which denied that "Jesus Christ had appeared in the flesh," and which "dissolved"
Him by denying either His human nature or His divine. And the confession
that Mary is Deipara, or the Mother of God, is that safeguard wherewith
we seal up and secure the doctrine of the Apostle from all evasion, and
that test whereby we detect all the pretences of those bad spirits of "Antichrist
which have gone out into the world." It declares that He is God; it implies
that He is man; it suggests to us that He is God still, though He has become
man, and that He is true man though He is God. By witnessing to the process
of the union, it secures the reality of the two subjects of the union,
of the divinity and of the manhood. If Mary is the Mother of God, Christ
is understood to be Emmanuel,: God with us. And hence it was that, when
time went on, and the bad spirits and false prophets grew stronger and
bolder and found a way into the Catholic body itself, then the Church,
guided by God, could find no more effectual and sure way of expelling them
than that of using this word Deipara against them; and, on the other hand,
when they came up again from the realms of darkness, and plotted the utter
overthrow of Christian faith in the sixteenth century, then they could
find no more certain expedient for their hateful purpose than that of reviling
and blaspheming the prerogatives of Mary, for they knew full sure that,
if they could once get the world to dishonour the Mother, the dishonour
of the Son would follow close. The Church and Satan agreed together in
this, that Son and Mother went together; and the experience of three centuries
has confirmed their testimony; for Catholics who have honoured the Mother
still worship the Son, while Protestants, who now have ceased to confess
the Son, began then by scoffing at the Mother. ("Discourses to Mixed Congregations,"
pp. 346-9.)
MATER PURISSIMA
MARY has been made more glorious in her person that in her office; her
purity is a higher gift than her relationship to God. This is what is implied
in Christ's answer to the woman in the crowd, who cried out, when He was
preaching, "Blessed is the womb that bare Thee, and the breasts which Thou
has sucked." He replied by pointing out to His disciples a higher blessedness;
"Yea, rather blessed," He said, "are they who hear the word of God and
keep it. . ." Protestants take these words in disparagement of our Lady's
greatness, but they really tell the other way. For consider them; He lays
down a principle that it is more blessed to keep His commandments than
to be His Mother; but who even of Protestants will say that she did not
keep His commandments? She kept them surely, and our Lord does but say
that such obedience was in a higher line of privilege than her being His
Mother; she was more blessed in her detachment from creatures, in her devotion
to God, in her virginal purity, in her fullness of grace, than in her maternity.
This is the constant teaching of the Holy Fathers: "More blessed was Mary,"
says St. Augustine, "in receiving Christ's faith, than in conceiving Christ's
flesh"; and St. Chrysostom declares that she would not have been blessed,
though she had borne Him in the body, had she not heard the word of God
and kept it. This of course is an impossible case; for she was made holy,
that she might be made His Mother, and the two blessednesses cannot be
divided. She who was chosen to supply flesh and blood to the Eternal Word,
was first filled with grace in soul and body; still, she had a double blessedness.
of office and of qualification for it, and the latter was the greater.
And it is on this account that the Angel calls her blessed; "Full of grace,"
he says, "blessed among women"; and St. Elizabeth also, when she cries
out, "Blessed thou that has believed." Nay, she herself bears a like testimony,
when the Angel announced to her the favour which was coming on her. Though
all Jewish women in each successive age had been hoping to be Mother of
the Christ, so that marriage was honourable among them, celibacy a reproach,
she alone had put aside the desire and the thought of so great a dignity.
She alone, who was to bear the Christ, all but refused to bear Him; He
stooped to her, she turned from Him; and why? because she had been inspired,
the first of womankind, to dedicate her virginity to God, and she did not
welcome a privilege which seemed to involve a forfeiture of her vow. How
shall this be, she asked, seeing I am separate from man? Nor, till the
Angel told her that the conception would be miraculous, and from the Holy
Ghost, did she put aside her "trouble" of mind, recognise him securely
as God's messenger, and bow her head in awe and thankfulness to God's condescension.
Mary then is a specimen, and more than a specimen, in the purity of
her soul and body, of what man was before his fall, and what he would have
been, had he risen to his full perfection. It had been hard, it had been
a victory for the Evil One, had the whole race passed away, nor any one
instance in it occurred to show what the Creator had intended it to be
in its original state. Adam, you know, was created in the image and after
the likeness of God; his frail and imperfect nature, stamped with a divine
seal, was supported and exalted by an indwelling of divine grace. Impetuous
passion did not exist in him, except as a latent element and a possible
evil; ignorance was dissipated by the clear light of the Spirit; and reason,
sovereign over every motion of his soul, was simply subjected to the will
of God. Nay, even his body was preserved from every wayward appetite and
affection, and was promised immortality instead of dissolution. Thus he
was in a supernatural state; and, had he not sinned year after year would
he have advanced in merit and grace, and in God's favour, till he passed
from paradise to heaven. But he fell; and his descendants were born in
his likeness; and the world grew worse instead of better, and judgment
after judgment cut off generations of sinners in vain, and improvement
was hopeless, "because man was flesh," and "the thoughts of his heart were
bent upon evil at all times." But a remedy had been determined in heaven;
a Redeemer was at hand; God was about to do a great work, and he purposed
to do it suitably; "where sin abounded, grace was to abound more." Kings
of the earth, when they have sons born to them, forthwith scatter some
large bounty, or raise some high memorial; they honour the day, or the
place, or he heralds of the auspicious event, with some corresponding mark
of favour; nor did the coming of Emmanuel innovate on the world's established
custom. It was a season of grace and prodigy, and these were to be exhibited
in a special manner in the person of His Mother. The course of ages was
to be reversed; the tradition of evil was to be broken; a gate of light
was to be opened amid the darkness, for the coming of the Just; a Virgin
conceived and bore Him. It was fitting, for His honour and glory, that
she who was the instrument of His bodily presence, should first be a miracle
of His grace; it was fitting that she should triumph, where Eve had failed,
and should "bruise the serpent's head" by the spotlessness of her sanctity.
In some respects, indeed, the curse was not reversed; Mary came into a
fallen world, and resigned herself to its laws; she, as also the Son she
bore, was exposed to pain of soul and body; she was subjected to death;
but she was not put under the power of sin. As grace was infused into Adam
from the first moment of his creation, so that he never had experience
of his natural poverty till sin reduced him to it; so was grace given from
the first in still ampler measure to Mary, and she never incurred, in fact,
Adam's deprivation. She began where others end, whether in knowledge or
in love. She was from the first clothed in sanctity, sealed for perseverance,
luminous and glorious in God's sight, and incessantly employed in meritorious
acts, which continued till her last breath. Hers was emphatically "the
path of the just, which, as the shining light, goeth forward and increaseth
even to the perfect day"; and sinlessness in thought, word, and deed, in
small things as well as great, in venial matter as well as grievous, is
surely but the natural and obvious sequel of such a beginning. If Adam
might have kept himself from sin in his first state, much more shall we
expect immaculate perfection in Mary. ("Discourses to Mixed Congregations."
pp. 351-5.)
REFUGIUM PECCATORUM
SUCH is her prerogative of sinless perfection, and it is, as her maternity,
for the sake of Emmanuel; hence she answered the Angel's salutation "Gratia
plena," with the humble acknowledgment, Ecce ancilla Domini, "Behold the
handmaid of the Lord." And like to this is her third prerogative, which
follows both from her maternity and from her purity, and which I will mention
as completing the enumeration of her glories. I mean her intercessory power.
For if "God heareth not sinners, but if a man be a worshipper of Him and
do His will, him He heareth"; if "the continual prayer of a just man availeth
much"; if faithful Abraham was required to pray for Abimelech, "for he
was a prophet"; if patient Job was to "pray for his friends," for he had
"spoken right things before God"; if meek Moses, by lifting up his hands,
turned the battle in favour of Israel, against Amalec; why should we wonder
at hearing that Mary, the only spotless child of Adam's seed, has a transcendent
influence with the God of grace? And if the Gentiles at Jerusalem sought
Philip, because he was an apostle, when they desired access to Jesus, and
Philip spoke to Andrew, as still more closely in our Lord's confidence,
and then both came to Him, is it strange that the Mother should have power
with the Son, distinct in kind from that of the purest angel and the most
triumphant saint? If we have faith to admit the Incarnation itself, we
must admit it in its fullness; why then should we start at the gracious
appointments which arise out of it, or are necessary to it, or are included
in it? If the Creator comes on earth in the form of a servant and a creature,
why may not his Mother on the other hand rise to be the Queen of heaven,
and be clothed with the sun, and have the moon under her feet? ("Discourses
to Mixed Congregations," pp 355-6.)
SINE LABE ORIGINALI CONCEPTA
WE should be prepared . . . to believe that the Mother of God is full
of grace and glory, from the very fitness of such a dispensation, even
though we had not been taught it; and this fitness will appear still more
clear and certain when we contemplate the subject more steadily. Consider,
then, that it has been the ordinary rule of God's dealings with us that
personal sanctity should be the attendant upon high spiritual dignity of
place or work. The angels who, as the word imports, are God's messengers,
are also perfect in holiness; "without sanctity no one shall see God";
no defiled thing can enter the courts of heaven; and the higher its inhabitants
are advanced in their ministry about the throne, the holier are they, and
the more absorbed in their contemplation of that Holiness upon which they
wait. The Seraphim, who immediately surround the Divine Glory, cry day
and night, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts." So is it also on earth;
the prophets have ordinarily not only gifts, but graces; they are not only
inspired to know and to teach God's will, but inwardly converted to obey
it. For surely those only can preach the truth duly who feel it personally;
those only transmit it fully from God to man who have in the transmission
made it their own.
I do not say that there are no exceptions to this rule, but they admit
of an easy explanation; I do not say that it never pleases Almighty God
to convey any intimation of His will through bad men; of course, for all
things can be made to serve Him. By all, even the wicked, He accomplishes
His purposes, and by the wicked He is glorified. Our Lord's death was brought
about by His enemies, who did His will, while they thought they were gratifying
their own. Caiaphas, who contrived and effected it, was made use of to
predict it. Balaam prophesied good of God's people in an earlier age, by
a divine compulsion, when he wished to prophesy evil. This is true; but
in such cases Divine Mercy is plainly overruling the evil, and manifesting
his power, without recognising or sanctioning the instrument. And again,
it is true, as He tells us Himself, that in the last day "Many shall say,
Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy Name, and in Thy Name cast out
devils, and done many miracles?" and that He shall answer, "I never knew
you." This, I say, is undeniable; it is undeniable first, that those who
have prophesied in God's Name may afterwards fall from God, and lose their
souls. Let a man be ever so holy now, he may fall away; and, as present
grace is no pledge of perseverance, much less are present gifts; but how
does this show that gifts and graces do not commonly go together? Again,
it is undeniable that those who have had miraculous gifts may nevertheless
have never been in God's favour, not even when they exercised them; as
I will explain presently. But I am now speaking, not of having gifts, but
of being prophets. To be a prophet is something much more personal than
to possess gifts. It is a sacred office, it implies a mission, and is the
high distinction, not of the enemies of God, but of His friends. Such is
the Scripture rule. Who was the first prophet and preacher of justice?
Enoch, who walked "by faith," and "pleased God," and was taken from a rebellious
world. Who was the second? "Noe," who "condemned the world, and was made
heir of the justice which is through faith." Who was the next great prophet?
Moses, the lawgiver of the chosen people, who was the "meekest of all men
who dwell on the earth." Samuel comes next, who served the Lord from his
infancy in the Temple; and then David, who, if he fell into sin, repented,
and was "a man after God's heart." And in like manner Job, Elias, Isaias,
Jeremias, Daniel, and above them all St. John Baptist, and then again St.
Peter, St. Paul, St. John, and the rest, are all especial instances of
heroic virtue, and patterns to their brethren. Judas is the exception,
but this was by a particular dispensation to enhance our Lord's humiliation
and suffering.
Nature itself witnesses to this connection between sanctity and truth.
It anticipates that the fountain from which pure doctrine comes should
itself be pure; that the seat of divine teaching, and the oracle of faith,
should be the abode of angels; that the consecrated home, in which the
word of God is elaborated, and whence it issues forth for the salvation
of the many, should be holy as that word is holy. Here you see the difference
of the office of a prophet and a mere gift, such as that of miracles.-
Miracles are the simple and direct work of God; the worker of them is but
an instrument or organ. And in consequence he need not be holy, because
he has not, strictly speaking, a share in the work. So again the power
of administering the Sacraments, which also is supernatural and miraculous,
does not imply personal holiness; nor is there anything surprising in God's
giving to a bad man this gift, or the gift of miracles, any more than in
His giving him any natural talent or gift, strength or agility of frame,
eloquence, or medical skill. It is otherwise with the office of preaching
and prophesying, and to this I have been referring; for the truth first
goes into the minds of the speakers, and is apprehended and fashioned there,
and then comes out from them as, in one sense, its source and its parent.
The divine word is begotten in them, and the offspring has their features
and tells of them. They are not like "the dumb animal. speaking with man's
voice," on which Balaam rode, a mere instrument of God's word, but they
have "received an unction from the Holy One, and they know all things,"
and "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty"; and while they
deliver what they have received, they enforce what they feel and know.
"We have known and believed," says St. John, "the charity which God hath
to us."
So has it been all through the history of the Church; Moses does not
write as David; nor Isaias as Jeremias; nor St. John as St. Paul. And so
of the great Doctors of the Church, St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, St.
Ambrose, St. Leo, St. Thomas, each has his own manner, each speaks his
own words, though he speaks the while the words of God. They speak from
themselves, they speak in their own persons, they speak from the heart,
from their own experience, with their own arguments, with their own deductions,
with their own modes of expression. Now can you fancy such hearts, such
feelings to be unholy? how could it be so, without defiling, and thereby
nullifying, the word of God? If one drop of corruption makes the purest
water worthless, as the slightest savour of bitterness spoils the most
delicate viands, how can it be that the word of truth and holiness can
proceed profitably from impure lips and an earthly heart? No, as is the
tree, so is the fruit; "beware of false prophets," says our Lord; and then
He adds, "from their fruits ye shall know them. Do men gather grapes of
thorns, or figs of thistles?" Is it not so, my brethren? Which of you would
go to ask counsel of another, however learned, however gifted, however
aged, if you thought him unholy? nay, though you feel and are sure, as
far as absolution goes, that a bad priest could give it as really as a
holy priest, yet for advice, for comfort, for instruction, you would not
go to one whom you did not respect. "Out of the abundance of the heart,
the mouth speaketh"; "a good man out of the good treasure of his heart
bringeth good, and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth
evil."
So then is it in the case of the soul; and so is it with the body also;
as the offspring of holiness is holy in the instance of spiritual births,
so is it in the instance of physical. The child is like the parent. Mary
was no mere instrument in God's dispensation; the word of God did not merely
come to her and go from her; He did not merely pass through her, as He
may pass through us in Holy Communion; it was no heavenly body which the
Eternal Son assumed, fashioned by the Angels, and brought down to this
lower world: no, He imbibed, He sucked up her blood and her substance into
His Divine Person; He became man of her; and received her lineaments and
her features, as the appearance and character under which He should manifest
Himself to the world. He was known doubtless, by His likeness to her, to
be her Son. Thus His Mother is the first of Prophets, for of her came the
Word bodily; she is the sole oracle of Truth, for the Way, the Truth, and
the Life, vouchsafed to be her Son; she is the one mould of Divine Wisdom,
and in that mould it was indelibly cast. Surely then, if "the first fruit
be holy, the mass also is holy; and if the root be holy, so are the branches."
It was natural, it was fitting, that so it should be; it was congruous
that, whatever the Omnipotent could work in the person of the finite, should
be wrought in her. I say, if the Prophets must be holy, "to whom the word
of God comes," what shall we say of her, who was so specially favoured,
that the true and substantial Word, and not His shadow or His voice, was
not merely made in her, but born of her? who was not merely the organ of
God's message, but the origin of His human existence, the living fountain
from which He drew His most precious blood, and the material of His most
holy flesh? Was it not fitting, beseemed it not, that the Eternal Father
should prepare her for this ministration by some pre-eminent sanctification?
Do not earthly parents act thus by their children? do they put them out
to strangers? do they commit them to any chance person to suckle them?
Shall even careless parents show a certain tenderness and solicitude in
this matter, and shall not God himself show it, when He commits His Eternal
Word to the custody of man? It was to be expected then that, if the Son
was God, the Mother should be as worthy of Him, as creature can be worthy
of Creator; that grace should have in her its "perfect work"; that, if
she bore the Eternal Wisdom, she should be that created wisdom in whom
"is all the grace of the Way and the Truth"; that if she was the Mother
of "fair love, and fear, and knowledge, and holy hope," "she should give
an odour like cinnamon and balm, and sweetness like to choice myrrh." Can
we set bounds to the holiness of her who was the Mother of the Holiest?
Such, then, is the truth ever cherished in the deep heart of the Church,
and witnessed by the keen apprehension of her children, that no limits
but those proper to a creature can be assigned to the sanctity of Mary.
Did Abraham believe that a son should be born to him of his aged wife?
then Mary's faith was greater when she accepted Gabriel's message. Did
Judith consecrate her widowhood to God to the surprise of her people? much
more did Mary, from her first youth, devote her virginity. Did Samuel,
when a child, inhabit the Temple, secluded from the world? Mary, too, was
by her parents lodged in the same holy precincts, at the age when children
begin to choose between good and evil. Was Solomon on his birth called
"dear to the Lord"? and shall not the destined Mother of God be dear to
Him, from the moment she was born? But further still; St. John Baptist
was sanctified by the Spirit before his birth; shall Mary be only equal
to him? is it not fitting that her privilege should surpass his? is it
wonderful, if grace, which anticipated his birth by three months, should
in her case run up to the very first moment of her being, outstrip the
imputation of sin, and be beforehand with the usurpation of Satan? Mary
must surpass all the Saints; the very fact that certain privileges are
known to have been theirs, proves to us at once, from the necessity of
the case, that she had the same and higher. Her conception then was immaculate,
in order that she might surpass all Saints in the date as well as the fullness
of her sanctification. ("Discourses to Mixed Congregations," pp. 365-72.)
MARIA ASSUMPTA
IT was surely fitting, it was becoming, that she should be taken up
into heaven and not lie in the grave till Christ's second coming, who had
passed a life of sanctity and of miracles such as hers. All the works of
God are in a beautiful harmony; they are carried on to the end as they
begin. This is the difficulty which men of the world find in believing
miracles at all; they think these break the order and consistency of God's
visible world, not knowing that they do but subserve to a higher order
of things, and introduce a supernatural perfection. But at least, when
one miracle is wrought, it may be expected to draw others after it for
the completion of what is begun. Miracles must be wrought for some great
end; and if the course of things fell back again into a natural order before
its termination, how could we but feel a disappointment? and if we were
told that this certainly was to be, how could we but judge the information
improbable and difficult to believe? Now this applies to the history of
our Lady. I say, it would be a greater miracle, if, her life being what
it was, her death was like that of other men, than if it were such as to
correspond to her life. Who can conceive that God should so repay the debt,
which He condescended to owe to His Mother, for the elements of His human
Body, as to allow the flesh and blood from which It was taken to moulder
in the grave? Do the sons of men thus deal with their mothers? do they
not nourish and sustain them in their feebleness, and keep them in life
while they are able? Or who can conceive that that virginal frame, which
never sinned, was to undergo the death of a sinner? Why should she share
the curse of Adam, who had no share in his fall? "Dust thou art, and into
dust thou shalt return," was the sentence upon sin; she then, who was not
a sinner, fitly never saw corruption. She died then because even our Lord
and Saviour died; she died, as she suffered, because she was in this world,
because she was in a state of things in which suffering and death are the
rule. She lived under their external sway; and, as she obeyed Caesar by
coming for enrolment to Bethlehem, so did she, when God willed it, yield
to the tyranny of death, and was dissolved into soul and body, as well
as others. But though she died as well as others, she died not as others
die; for, through the merits of her Son, by whom she was what she was,
by the grace of Christ which in her had anticipated sin, which had filled
her with light, which had purified her flesh from all defilement, she had
been saved from disease and malady, and all that weakens and decays the
bodily frame. Original sin had not been found in her, by the wear of her
senses, and the waste of her frame, and the decrepitude of years, propagating
death. She died, but her death was a mere fact, not an effect; and, when
it was over, it ceased to be. She died that she might live; she died as
a matter of form or (as I may call it) a ceremony, in order to fulfil what
is called the debt of nature -- not primarily for herself or because of
sin. but to submit herself to her condition, to glorify God, to do what
her Son did; not however as her Son and Saviour, with any suffering for
any special end; not with a martyr's death, for her martyrdom had been
in living; not as an atonement, for man could not make it, and One had
made it and made it for all; but in order to finish her course, and to
receive her crown.
And therefore she died in private. It became Him who died for the world,
to die in the world's sight; it became the Great Sacrifice to be lifted
up on high, as a light that could not be hid. But she, the lily of Eden,
who had always dwelt out of the sight of man, fittingly did she die in
the garden's shade, and amid the sweet flowers in which she had lived.
Her departure made no noise in the world. The Church went about her common
duties, preaching, converting, suffering; there were persecutions, there
was fleeing from place to place, there were martyrs, there were triumphs;
at length the rumour spread abroad that the Mother of God was no longer
upon earth. Pilgrims went to and fro; they sought for her relics, but they
found them not; did she die at Ephesus? or did she die at Jerusalem? reports
varied; but her tomb could not be pointed out, or if it was found, it was
open; and instead of her pure and fragrant body, there was a growth of
l lies from the earth which she had touched. So, inquirers went home marvelling,
and waiting for further light. And then it was said how that when her dissolution
was at hand, and her soul was to pass in triumph before the judgment-seat
of her Son, the Apostles were suddenly gathered together in one place,
even in the Holy City, to bear part in the joyful ceremonial; how that
they buried her with fitting rites; how that the third day, when they came
to the tomb, they found it empty, and angelic choirs with their glad voices
were heard singing day and night the glories of their risen Queen. But,
however we feel towards the details of this history (nor is there anything
in it which will be unwelcome or difficult to piety), so much cannot be
doubted, from the consent of the whole Catholic world and the revelations
made to holy souls, that as is befitting, she is, soul and body, with her
Son and God in heaven, and that we are enabled to celebrate not only her
death, but her Assumption. ("Discourses to Mixed Congregations," pp. 375-8.)
GROWTH OF THE CULTUS OF MARY
ONE word more, and I have done; I have shown you how full of meaning
are the truths themselves which the Church teaches concerning the Most
Blessed Virgin, and now consider how full of meaning also has been the
Church's dispensation of them.
You will find, then, in this respect, as in Mary's prerogatives themselves,
there is the same careful reference to the glory of Him who gave them to
her. You know, when first He went out to preach, she kept apart from H
m; she interfered not with His work; and even when He was gone up on high,
yet she, a woman, went not out to preach or teach, she seated not herself
in the Apostolic chair, she took no part in the Priest's office; she did
but humbly seek her Son in the daily Mass of those who, though her ministers
in heaven, were her superiors in the Church on earth. Nor, when she and
they had left this lower scene, and she was a Queen upon her Son's right
hand, not even then did she ask of Him to publish her name unto the ends
of the world, or to hold her up to the world's gaze, but she remained waiting
for the time when her own glory should be necessary for His. He indeed
had been from the very first proclaimed by Holy Church, and enthroned in
His temple, for He was God; ill had it beseemed the living Oracle of Truth
to have withholden from the faithful the very object of their adoration;
but it was otherwise with Mary. It became her, as a creature, a mother
and a woman, to stand aside and make way for the Creator, to minister to
her Son, and to win her way into the world's homage by sweet and gracious
persuasion. So when His Name was dishonoured, then it was that she did
Him service; when Emmanuel was denied, then the Mother of God (as it were)
came forward; when heretics said that God was not incarnate, then was the
time for her own honours. And then, when as much as this had been accomplished,
she had done with strife; she fought not for herself. No fierce controversy,
no persecuted confessors, no heresiarch, no anathema, marks the history
of her manifestation; as she had increased day by day in grace and merit,
while the world knew not of it, so has she raised herself aloft silently,
and has grown into her place in the Church by a tranquil influence and
a natural process. It was as some fair tree, stretching forth her fruitful
branches and her fragrant leaves, and overshadowing the territory of the
Saints. And thus the Antiphon speaks of her; "Let thy dwelling be in Jacob,
and thine inheritance in Israel, and strike thy roots in My elect." Again,
"And so in Sion was I established, and in the holy city I likewise rested,
and Jerusalem was my power. And I took root in an honourable people, and
in the glorious company of the Saints was, I detained. I was exalted like
a cedar in Lebanus, and as a cypress in Mount Sion; I have stretched out
My branches as the terebinth, and My branches are of honour and of grace."
Thus was she reared without hands, and gained a modest victory, and exerts
a gentle sway, which she has not claimed. When dispute arose about her
among her children, she hushed it; when objections were urged against her,
she waived her claims and waited; till now, in this very day, should God
so will, she will win at length her most radiant crown, and, without opposing
voice, and amid the jubilation of the whole Church, she will be hailed
as immaculate in her conception.
Such art thou, Holy Mother, in the creed and in the worship of the Church,
the defence of many truths, the grace and smiling light of every devotion.
In thee, O Mary, is fulfilled, as we can bear it, an original purpose of
the Most High. He once had meant to come on earth in heavenly glory, but
we sinned; and then He could not safely visit u,, except with shrouded
radiance and a bedimmed mahesty. for He was God. So He came Himself in
weakness, not in power; and He sent thee a creature in His stead, with
a creature's comeliness and lustre suited to our state. And now thy very
face and form, dear Mother, speak to us OI the Eternal; not like earthly
beauty, dangerous to look upon, but like the morning star, which is thy
emblem, bright and musical, breathing purity, telling of heaven, and infusing
peace. O harbinger of day! O hope of the pilgrim! lead us still as thou
hast led; in the dark night, across the bleak wilderness, guide us on to
our Lord Jesus guide us home.
Maria, mater gratiae,
Dulcis parens clementiae, Tu nos ab hoste protege
Et mortis hora suscipe.
("Discourses to Mixed Congregations," pp. 357-60.)
MAY THE MONTH OF PROMISE AND OF JOY
WHY is May chosen as the month in which we exercise a special devotion
to the Blessed Virgin?
The first reason is because it is the time when the earth bursts forth
into its fresh foliage and its green grass after the stern frost and snow
of winter and the raw atmosphere and the wild wind and rain of the early
spring. It is because the blossoms are upon the trees and the flowers are
in the gardens. It is because the days have got long, and the sun rises
early and sets late. For such gladness and joyousness of external Nature
is a fit attendant on our devotion to her who is the Mystical Rose and
the House of Gold.
A man may say, "True; but in this climate we have sometimes a bleak,
inclement May." This cannot be denied; but still, so much is true that
at least it is the month of promise and of hope. Even though the weather
happen to be bad, it is the month that begins and heralds in the summer.
We know, for all that may be unpleasant in it, that fine weather is coming
sooner or later. "Brightness and beautifulness shall," in the Prophet's
words, "appear at the end, and shall not lie: if it make delay, wait for
it, for it shall surely come, and shall not be slack."
May then is the month, if not of fulfilment, at least of promise; and
is not this the very aspect in which we most suitably regard the Blessed
Virgin, Holy Mary, to whom this month is dedicated?
The Prophet says, "There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse,
and a flower shall rise out of his root." Who is the flower but our Blessed
Lord? Who is the rod, or beautiful stalk or stem or plant out of which
the flower grows, but Mary, Mother of our Lord, Mary, Mother of God?
It was prophesied that God should come upon earth. When the time was
now full, how was it announced? It was announced by the Angel coming to
Mary. "Hail, full of grace," said Gabriel, "the Lord is with thee; blessed
art thou among women." She then was the sure promise of the coming Saviour,
and therefore May is by a special title her month.
Why is May called the month of Mary, and especially dedicated to her?
Among other reasons there is this, that of the Church's year, the ecclesiastical
year, it is at once the most sacred and the most festive and joyous portion.
Who would wish February, March, or April, to be the month of Mary, considering
that it is the time of Lent and penance? Who again would choose December,
the Advent season -- a time of hope, indeed, because Christmas is coming,
but a time of fasting too? Christmas itself does not last for a month;
and January has indeed the joyful Epiphany, with its Sundays in succession;
but these in most years are cut short by the urgent coming of Septuagesima.
May on the contrary belongs to the Easter season, which lasts fifty
days, and in that season the whole of May commonly falls, and the first
half always. The great Feast of the Ascension of our Lord into heaven is
always in May, except once or twice in forty years. Pentecost, called also
Whit-Sunday, the Feast of the Holy Ghost, is commonly in May, and the Feasts
of the Holy Trinity and Corpus Christ are in May not unfrequently. May,
therefore, is the time in which there are such frequent Alleluias, because
Christ has risen from the grave, Christ has ascended on high, and God the
Holy Ghost has come down to take His place.
Here then we have a reason why May is dedicated to the Blessed Mary.
She is the first of creatures, the most acceptable child of God, the dearest
and nearest to Him. It is fitting then that this month should be hers,
in which we especially glory and rejoice in His great Providence to us,
in our redemption and sanctification in God the Father, God the Son, and
God the Holy Ghost.
But Mary is not only the acceptable handmaid of the Lord. She is also
Mother of His Son, and the Queen of all Saints, and in this month the Church
has placed the feasts of some of the greatest of them, as if to bear her
company. First, however, there is the Feast of the Holy Cross, on the 3rd
of May, when we venerate that Precious Blood in which the Cross was bedewed
at the time of our Lord's Passion. The Archangel St. Michael, and three
Apostles, have feast-days in this month: St. John the beloved disciple,
St. Philip and St. James. Seven Popes, two of them especially famous, St.
Gregory VII, and St. Pius V; also two of the greatest Doctors, St. Athanasius
and St. Gregory Nazianzen; two holy Virgins especially
favoured by God, St. Catherine of Sienna (as her feast is kept in England),
and St. Mary Magdalen of Pazzi; and one holy woman most memorable in the
annals of the Church, St. Monica, the mother of St. Augustine. And above
all, and nearest to us in this church, our own Holy Patron and Father,
St. Philip, occupies, with his Novena and Octave, fifteen out of the whole
thirty-one days of the month. These are some of the choicest fruits of
God's manifold grace, and they form the court of their glorious Queen.
VIRGO PURISSIMA
BY the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin is meant the great
revealed truth that she was conceived in the womb of her mother, St. Anne,
without original sin.
Since the fall of Adam all mankind, his descendants, are conceived and
born in sin. "Behold," says the inspired writer in the Psalm Miserere --
"Behold, I was conceived in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive
me." That sin which belongs to every one of us, and is ours from the first
moment of our existence, is the sin of unbelief and disobedience, by which
Adam lost Paradise. We, as the children of Adam, are heirs to the consequences
of his sin, and have forfeited in him that spiritual robe of grace and
holiness which he had given him by his Creator at the time that he was
made. In this state of forfeiture and disinheritance we are all of us conceived
and born; and the ordinary way by which we are taken out of it is the Sacrament
of Baptism.
But Mary never was in this state; she was by the eternal decree of God
exempted from it. From eternity, God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
decreed to create the race of man, and, foreseeing the fall of Adam, decreed
to redeem the whole race by the Son's taking flesh and suffering on the
Cross. In that same incomprehensible, eternal instant, in which the Son
of God was born of the Father, was also the decree passed of man's redemption
through Him. He who was born from Eternity was born by an eternal decree
to save us in Time, and to redeem the whole race; and Mary's redemption
was determined in that special manner which we call the Immaculate Conception.
It was decreed, not that she should be cleansed from sin, but that she
should, from the first moment of her being, be preserved from sin; so that
the Evil One never had any part in her. Therefore she was a child of Adam
and Eve as if they had never fallen; she did not share with them their
sin; she inherited the gifts and graces (and more than those) which Adam
and Eve possessed in Paradise. This is her prerogative, and the foundation
of all those salutary truths which are revealed to us concerning her. Let
us say then with all holy souls, Virgin most pure, conceived without original
sin, Mary, pray for us.
VIRGO PRAEDICANDA
MARY is the Virgo Praedicanda, that is, the Virgin who is to be proclaimed,
to be heralded; literally, to be preached.
We are accustomed to preach abroad that which is wonderful, strange,
rare, novel, important. Thus, when our Lord was coming, St. John the Baptist
preached Him; then, the Apostles went into the wide world, and preached
Christ. What is the highest, the rarest, the choicest prerogative of Mary?
It is that she was without sin. When a woman in the crowd cried out to
our Lord, "Blessed is the womb that bare Thee! " He answered, "More blessed
are they who hear the word of God and keep it." Those words were fulfilled
in Mary. She was filled with grace in order to be the Mother of God. But
it was a higher gift than her maternity to be thus sanctified and thus
pure. Our Lord indeed would not have become her Son unless He had first
sanctified her; but still, the greater blessedness was to have that perfect
sanctification. This then is why she is the Virgo Praedicanda; she is deserving
to be preached abroad because she never committed any sin, even the least;
because sin had no part in her; because, through the fullness of God's
grace, she never thought a thought, or spoke a word, or did an action,
which was displeasing, which was not most pleasing, to Almighty God; because
in her was displayed the greatest triumph over the enemy of souls. Wherefore,
when all seemed lost, in order to show what He could do for us all by dying
for us; in order to show what human nature, His work, was capable of becoming;
to show how utterly He could bring to naught the utmost efforts, the most
concentrated malice of the foe, and reverse all the consequences of the
Fall, our Lord began, even before His coming, to do His most wonderful
act of redemption, in the person of her who was to be His Mother. By the
merit of that Blood which was to be shed, He interposed to hinder her incurring
the sin of Adam, before He had made on the Cross atonement for it. And
therefore it is that we preach her who is the subject of this wonderful
grace.
But she was the Virgo Praedicanda for another reason. When, why, what
things do we preach? We preach what is not known, that it may become known.
And hence the Apostles are said in Scripture to "preach Christ." To whom?
To those who knew Him not -- to the heathen world. Not to those who knew
Him, but to those who did not know Him. Preaching is a gradual work: first
one lesson, then another. Thus were the heathen brought into the Church
gradually. And in like manner, the preaching of Mary to the children of
the Church, and the devotion paid to her by them, has grown, grown gradually,
with successive ages. Not so much preached about her in early times as
in later. First she was preached as the Virgin of Virgins -- then as the
Mother of God -- then as glorious in her Assumption -- then as the Advocate
of sinners -- then as Immaculate in her Conception. And this last ha, been
the special preaching of the present century; and thus that which was earliest
in her own history is the latest in the Church's recognition of her.
MATER ADMIRABILIS
WHEN Mary, the Virgo Praedicanda, the Virgin who is to be proclaimed
aloud, is called by the title of Admirabilis, it is thereby suggested to
us what the effecy is of the preaching of her as Immaculate in her Conception.
The Holy Church proclaims, preaches her, as conceived without original
sin; and those who hear, the children of Holy Church, wonder, marvel, are
astonished and overcome by the preaching. It is so great a prerogative.
Even created excellence is fearful to think of when it is so high as
Mary's. As to the great Creator, when Moses desired to see His glory, He
Himself says about Himself, "Thou canst not see My face, for man shall
not see Me and live"; and St. Paul says, "Our God is a consuming fire."
And when St. John, holy as he was, saw only the Human Nature of our Lord,
as He is in Heaven, "he fell at His feet as dead." And so as regards the
appearance of angels. The holy Daniel, when St. Gabriel appeared to him,
"fainted away, and lay in a consternation, with his face close to the ground."
When this great archangel came to Zacharias, the father of St. John the
Baptist, he too "was troubled, and fear fell upon him." But it was otherwise
with Mary when the same St. Gabriel came to her. She was overcome indeed,
and troubled at his words, because, humble as she was in her own opinion
of herself,he addressed her as "Full of grace," and "Blessed among women";
but she was able to bear the sight of him.
Hence we learn two things: first, how great a holiness was Mary's, seeing
she could endure the presence of an angel whose brightness smote the holy
prophet Daniel even to fainting and almost to death; and secondly, since
she is so much holier than that angel, and we so much less holy than Daniel,
what great reason we have to call her the Virgo Admirabilis, the Wonderful,
the Awful Virgin, when we think of her ineffable purity!
There are those who are so thoughtless, so blind, so grovelling as to
think that Mary is not as much shocked at wilful sin as her Divine Son
is, and that we can make her our friend and advocate, though we go to her
without contrition at heart, without even the wish for true repentance
and resolution to amend. As if Mary could hate sin less, and love sinners
more, than our Lord does! No: she feels a sympathy for those only who wish
to leave their sins; else, how should she be without sin herself? No: if
even to the best of us she is, in the words of Scripture, "fair as the
moon, bright as the sun, and terrible as an army set in array," what is
she to the impenitent sinner?
DOMUS AUREA
WHY is she called a House? And why is she called Golden? Gold is the
most beautiful, the most valuable, of all metals. Silver, copper, and steel
may in the r way be made good to the eye, but nothing is so rich, so splendid,
as gold. We have few opportunities of seeing it in any quantity; but anyone
who has seen a large number of bright gold coins knows how magnificent
is the look of gold. Hence it is that in Scripture the Holy City is, by
a figure of speech, called Golden. "The City," says St. John, "was pure
gold, as it were transparent glass." He means of course to give us a notion
of the wondrous beautifulness of heaven, by comparing it with what is the
most beautiful of all the substances which we see on earth.
Therefore it is that Mary too is called golden; because her graces,
her virtues, her innocence, her purity, are of that transcendent brilliancy
and dazzling perfection, so costly, so exquisite, that the angels cannot,
so to say, keep their eyes off her any more than we could help gazing upon
any great work of gold.
But observe further, she is a golden house, or, I will rather say, a
golden palace. Let us imagine we saw a whole palace or large church all
made of gold, from the foundations to the roof; such, in regard to the
number, the variety, the extent of her spiritual excellencies, is Mary.
But why called a house or palace? And whose palace? She is the house
and the palace of the Great King, of God Himself. Our Lord, the Co-equal
Son of God, once dwelt in her. He was her Guest; nay, more than a guest,
for a guest comes into a house as well as leaves it. But our Lord was actually
born in this holy house. He took His flesh and His blood from this house,
from the flesh, from the veins of Mary. Rightly then was she made to be
of pure gold, because she was to give of that gold to form the body of
the Son of God. She was golden in her conception, golden in her birth.
She went through the fire of her suffering like gold in the furnace, and
when she ascended on high, she was, in the words of our hymn,
Above all the Angels in glory untold,
Standing next to the King in a vesture of gold.
MATER AMABILIS
WHY is she "Amabilis" thus specially? It is because she was without
sin. Sin is something odious in its very nature, and grace is something
bright, beautiful, attractive.
However, it may be said that sinlessness was not enough to make others
love her, or to make her dear to others, and that for two reasons: first,
because we cannot like anyone that is not like ourselves, and we are sinners;
and next, because her being holy would not make her pleasant and winning,
because holy persons whom we fall in with, are not always agreeable, and
we cannot like them, however we may revere them and look up to them.
Now as to the first of these two questions, we may grant that bad men
do not, cannot like good men; but our Blessed Virgin Mary is called Amabilis,
or lovable, as being such to the children of the Church, not to those outside
of it, who know nothing about her; and no child of Holy Church but has
some remains of God's grace in his soul which makes him sufficiently like
her, however greatly wanting he may be, to allow of his being able to love
her. So we may let this question pass.
But as to the second question, viz., How are we sure that our Lady,
when she was on earth, attracted people round her, and made them love her
merely because she was holy? -- considering that holy people sometimes
have not that gift of drawing others to them.
To explain this point we must recollect that there is a vast difference
between the state of a soul such as that of the Blessed Virgin, which has
never sinned, and a soul, however holy, which has once had upon it Adam's
sin; for, even after baptism and repentance, it suffers necessarily from
the spiritual wounds which are the consequence of that sin. Holy men, indeed,
never commit mortal sin; nay, sometimes have never committed even one mortal
sin in the whole course of their lives. But Mary's holiness went beyond
this. She never committed even a venial sin, and this special privilege
is not known to belong to anyone but Mary.
Now, whatever want of amiableness, sweetness, attractiveness, really
exists in holy men arises from the remains of sin in them, or again from
the want of a holiness powerful enough to overcome the defects of nature,
whether of soul or body; but, as to Mary, her holiness was such, that if
we saw her, and heard her, we should not be able to tell to those who asked
us anything about her except simply that she was angelic and heavenly.
Of course her face was most beautiful; but we should not be able to
recollect whether it was beautiful or not; we should not recollect any
of her features, because it was her beautiful sinless soul, which looked
through her eyes, and spoke through her mouth, and was heard in her voice,
and compassed her all about; when she was still, or when she walked, whether
she smiled, or was sad, her sinless soul, this it was which would draw
all those to her who had any grace in them, any remains of grace, any love
of holy things. There was a divine music in all she said and did -- in
her mien, her air, her deportment, that charmed every true heart that came
near her. Her innocence, her humility and modesty, her simplicity, sincerity,
and truthfulness, her unselfishness, her unaffected interest in every one
who came to her, her purity -- it was these qualities which made her so
lovable; and were we to see her now, neither our first thought nor our
second thought would be what she could do for us with her Son (though she
can do so much), but our first thought would be, "Oh, how beautiful!" and
our second thought would be, "Oh, what ugly hateful creatures are we!"
ROSA MYSTICA
How did Mary become the Rosa Mystica, the choice, delicate, perfect
flower of God's spiritual creation? It was by being born, nurtured and
sheltered in the mystical garden or Paradise of God. Scripture makes use
of the figure of a garden, when it would speak of heaven and its blessed
inhabitants. A garden is a spot of ground set apart for trees and plants,
all good, all various, for things that are sweet to the taste or fragrant
in scent, or beautiful to look upon, or useful for nourishment; and accordingly
in its spiritual sense it means the home of blessed spirits and holy souls
dwelling there together, souls with both the flowers and the fruits upon
them, which by the careful husbandry of God they have come to bear, flowers
and fruits of grace, flowers more beautiful and more fragrant than those
of any garden, fruits more delicious and exquisite than can be matured
by earthly husbandman.
All that God has made speaks of its Maker; the mountains speak of His
eternity; the sun of His immensity, and the winds of His Almightiness.
In like manner flowers and fruits speak of His sanctity, His love, and
His providence; and such as are flowers and fruits, such must be the place
where they are found. That is to say, since they are found in a garden,
therefore a garden has also excellences which speak of God, because it
is their home. For instance, it would be out of place if we found beautiful
flowers on the mountain-crag, or rich fruit in the sandy desert. As then
by flowers and fruits are meant, in a mystical sense, the gifts and graces
of the Holy Ghost, so by a garden is meant mystically a place of spiritual
repose, stillness, peace, refreshment and delight.
Thus our first parents were placed in "a garden of pleasure" shaded
by trees, "fair to behold and pleasant to eat of," with the Tree of Life
in the midst, and a river to water the ground. Thus our Lord, speaking
from the Cross to the penitent robber, calls the blessed place, the heaven
to which He was taking him, "paradise," or a garden of pleasure. Therefore
St. John, in the Apocalypse, speaks of heaven, the palace of God, as a
garden or paradise, in which was the Tree of Life giving forth its fruits
every month.
Such was the garden in which the Mystical Rose, the Immaculate Mary,
was sheltered and nursed to be the Mother of the All Holy God, from her
birth to her espousals to St. Joseph, a term of thirteen years. For three
years of it she was in the arms of her holy mother, St. Anne, and then
for ten years she lived in the temple of God. In those blessed gardens,
as they may be called, she lived by herself, continually visited by the
dew of God's grace, and growing up a more and more heavenly flower, till
at the end of that period she was meet for the inhabitation in her of the
Most Holy. This was the outcome of the Immaculate Conception. Excepting
her, the fairest rose in the paradise of God has had upon it blight, and
has had the risk of canker-worm and locust. All but Mary; she from the
first was perfect in her sweetness and her beautifulness, and at length
when the angel Gabriel had to come to her he found her "full of grace,"
which had, from her good use of it, accumulated in her from the first moment
of her being.
MARY is the most beautiful flower that ever was seen in the spiritual
world. It is by the power of God's grace that from this barren and desolate
earth there have ever sprung up at all flowers of holiness and glory. And
Mary is the Queen of them. She is the Queen of spiritual flowers; and therefore
she is called the Rose, for the rose is fitly called of all flowers the
most beautiful.
But moreover, she is the Mystical, or hidden rose; for mystical means
hidden. How is she now "hidden" from us more than are other saints? What
means this singular appellation, which we apply to her specially? The answer
to this question introduces us to a third reason for believing in the reunion
of her sacred body to her soul, and its assumption into heaven soon after
her death, instead of its lingering in the grave until the General Resurrection
at the last day.
It is this: -- if her body was not taken into heaven, where is it? how
comes it that it is hidden from us? why do we not hear of her tomb as being
here or there? why are not pilgrimages made to it? why are not relics producible
of her, as of the saints in general? Is it not even a natural instinct
which makes us reverent towards the places where our dead are buried? We
bury our great men honourably. St. Peter speaks of the sepulchre of David
as known in his day, though he had died many hundred years before. When
our Lord's body was taken down from the Cross, He was placed in an honourable
tomb. Such too had been the honour already paid to St. John Baptist, his
tomb being spoken of by St. Mark as generally known. Christians from the
earliest times went from other countries to Jerusalem to see the holy places.
And, when the time of persecution was over, they paid still more attention
to the bodies of the Saints, as of St. Stephen, St. Mark, St. Barnabas,
St. Peter, St. Paul, and other Apostles and Martyrs. These were transported
to great cities, and portions of them sent to this place or that. Thus,
from the first to this day it has been a great feature and characteristic
of the Church to be most tender and reverent towards the bodies of the
Saints. Now, if there was anyone who more than all would be preciously
taken care of, it would be our Lady. Why then do we hear nothing of the
Blessed Virgin's body and its separate relics? Why is she thus the hidden
Rose? Is it conceivable that they who had been so reverent and careful
of the bodies of the Saints and Martyrs should neglect her -- her who was
the Queen of Martyrs and the Queen of Saints, who was the very Mother of
our Lord? It is impossible. Why then is she thus the hidden Rose? Plainly
because that sacred body is in heaven, not on earth.
VIRGO VENERANDA
WE use the word "Venerable" generally of what is old. That is because
only what is old has commonly those qualities which excite reverence or
veneration.
It is a great history, a great character, a maturity of virtue, goodness,
experience, that excite our reverence, and these commonly cannot belong
to the young.
But this is not true when we are considering Saints. A short life with
them is a long one. Thus Holy Scripture says, "Venerable age is not that
of long time, nor counted by the number of years, but it is the understanding
of a man that is grey hairs, and a spotless life is old age. The just man,
if he be cut short by death, shall be at rest; being made perfect in a
short time, he fulfilled a long time."
Nay, there is a heathen writer, who knew nothing of Saints, who lays
it down that even to children, to all children, a great reverence should
be paid, and that on the ground of their being as yet innocent. And this
is a feeling very widely felt and expressed in all countries; so much so
that the sight of those who have not sinned (that is, who are not yet old
enough to have fallen into mortal sin) has, on the very score of that innocent,
smiling youthfulness, often disturbed and turned the plunderer or the assassin
in the midst of his guilty doings, filled him with a sudden fear, and brought
him, if not to repentance, at least to change of purpose.
And, to pass from the thought of the lowest to the Highest, what shall
we say of the Eternal God (if we may safely speak of Him at all) but that
He, because He is eternal, is ever young, without a beginning, and therefore
without change, and, in the fullness and perfection of His incomprehensible
attributes, now just what He was a million years ago? He is truly called
in Scripture the "Ancient of Days," and is therefore infinitely venerable;
yet He needs not old age to make Him venerable; He has really nothing of
those human attendants on venerableness which the sacred writers are obliged
figuratively to ascribe to Him, in order to make us feel that profound
abasement and reverential awe which we ought to entertain at the thought
of Him.
And so of the great Mother of God, as far as a creature can be like
the Creator; her ineffable purity and utter freedom from any shadow of
sin, her Immaculate Conception, her ever-virginity -- these here prerogatives
(in spite of her extreme youth at the time when Gabriel came to her) are
such as to lead us to exclaim in the prophetic words of Scripture, both
with awe and with exaltation, "Thou art the glory of Jerusalem and the
joy of Israel; thou art the honour of our people; therefore hath the hand
of the Lord strengthened thee, and therefore art thou blessed for ever."
SANCTA MARIA
GOD alone can claim the attribute of holiness. Hence we say in the Hymn,
"Tu solus sanctus," "Thou only art holy." By holiness we mean the absence
of whatever sullies, dims, and degrades a rational nature; all that is
most opposite and contrary to sin and guilt.
We say that God alone is holy, though in truth all His high attributes
are possessed by Him in that fullness, that it may be truly said that He
alone has them. Thus, as to goodness, our Lord said to the young man, "None
is good but God alone." He too alone is Power, He alone is Wisdom, He alone
is Providence, Love, Mercy, Justice, Truth. This is true; but holiness
is singled out as His special prerogative, because it marks more than His
other attributes, not only His superiority over all His creatures, but
emphatically His separation from them. Hence we read in the Book of Job,
"Can man be justified compared with God, or he that is born of a woman
appear clean? Behold, even the moon doth not shine, and the stars are not
pure, in His sight." "Behold, among His saints none is unchangeable, and
the Heavens are not pure in His sight."
This we must receive and understand in the first place; but secondly
we know too, that, in His mercy, He has communicated in various measures
His great attributes to His rational creatures, and, first of all, as being
most necessary, holiness. Thus Adam, from the time of his creation, was
gifted, over and above his nature as man, with the grace of God, to unite
him to God, and to make him holy. Grace is therefore called holy grace;
and, as being holy, it is the connecting principle between God and man.
Adam in Paradise might have had knowledge, and skill, and many virtues;
but these gifts did not unite him to his Creator. It was holiness that
united him, for it is said by St. Paul, "Without holiness no man shall
see God."
And so again, when man fell and lost this holy grace, he had various
gifts still adhering to him; he might be, in a certain measure, true, merciful,
loving, and just; but these virtues did not unite him to God. What he needed
was holiness; and therefore the first act of God's goodness to us in the
Gospel is to take us out of our unholy state by means of the sacrament
of Baptism, and by the grace then given us to re-open the communications,
so long closed, between the soul and heaven.
We see then the force of our Lady's title, when we call her "Holy Mary."
When God would prepare a human mother for His Son, this was why He began
by giving her an immaculate conception He began, not by giving her the
gift of love, or truthfulness, or gentleness, or devotion, though according
to the occasion she had them all. But He began His great work before she
was born; before she could think, speak, or act, by making her holy, and
thereby, while on earth, a citizen of heaven. "Tota pulchra es, Maria!"
Nothing of the deformity of sin was ever hers. Thus she differs from all
saints. There have been great missionaries, confessors, bishops, doctors,
pastors. They have done great works and have taken with them numberless
converts or penitents to heaven. They have suffered much, and have a superabundance
of merits to show. But Mary in this way resembles her Divine Son, viz.,
that, as He, being God, is separate by holiness from all creatures, so
she is separate from all saints and angels, as being "full of grace."
REGINA ANGELORUM
THIS great title may be fitly connected with the Maternity of Mary,
that is, with the coming upon her of the Holy Ghost at Nazareth after the
Angel Gabriel's annunciation to her, and with the consequent birth of our
Lord at Bethlehem. She, as the Mother of our Lord, comes nearer to Him
than any angel; nearer even than the Seraphim who surround Him, and cry
continually, "Holy, Holy, Holy."
The two Archangels who have a special office in the Gospel are St. Michael
and St. Gabriel -- and they both of them are associated in the history
of the Incarnation with Mary: St. Gabriel, when the Holy Ghost came down
upon her; and St. Michael, when the Divine Child was born.
St. Gabriel hailed her as "Full of grace," and as "Blessed among women,"
and announced to her that the Holy Ghost would come down upon her, and
that she would bear a Son who would be the Son of the Highest.
Of St. Michael's ministry to her, on the birth of that Divine Son, we
learn in the Apocalypse, written by the Apostle St. John. We know our Lord
came to set up he Kingdom of Heaven among men; and hardly was He born when
He was assaulted by the powers of the world who wished to destroy Him.
Herod sought to take His life, but he was defeated by St. Joseph's carrying
His Mother and Him off into Egypt. But St. John in the Apocalypse tells
us that Michael and his angels were the real guardians of Mother and Child,
then and on other occasions.
First, St. John saw in vision "a great sign in heaven" (meaning by "heaven"
the Church, or Kingdom of God), "a woman clothed with the sun, and with
the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars"; and
when she was about to be delivered of her Child there appeared "a great
red dragon," that is, the evil spirit, ready "to devour her son" when He
should be born. The Son was preserved by His own Divine power, but next
the evil spirit persecuted her; St. Michael, however, and his angels came
to the rescue and prevailed against him.
"There was a great battle," says the sacred writer; "Michael and his
angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels; and
that great dragon was cast out, the old serpent, who is called the devil."
Now, as then, the Blessed Mother of God has hosts of angels who do her
service; and she is their Queen.
SPECULUM JUSTITIAE
HERE first we must consider what is meant by justice, for the word as
used by the Church has not that sense which it bears in ordinary English.
By "justice" is not meant the virtue of fairness, equity, uprightness in
our dealings; but it is a word denoting all virtues at once, a perfect,
virtuous state of soul -- righteousness, or moral perfection; so that it
answers very nearly to what is meant by sanctity. Therefore when our Lady
is called the "Mirror of Justice," it is meant to say that she is the Mirror
of sanctity, holiness, supernatural goodness.
Next, what is meant by calling her a mirror? A mirror is a surface which
reflects, as still water, polished steel, or a looking-glass. What did
Mary reflect? She reflected our Lord -- but He is infinite Sanctity. She
then, as far as a creature could, reflected His Divine sanctity, and therefore
she is the Mirror of Sanctity, or, as the Litany says, of Justice.
Do we ask how she came to reflect His Sanctity? -- it was by living
with Him. We see every day how like people get to each other who live with
those they love. When they live with those whom they don't love, as, for
instance, he me members of a family who quarrel with each other, then the
longer they live together the more unlike each other
they become; but when they love each other, as husband and wife, parents
and children, brothers with brothers or sisters, friends with friends,
then in course of time they get surprisingly like each other. All of us
perceive this; we are, witnesses to it with our own eyes and ears; in the
expression of their features, in their voice, in their walk, in their language,
even in their handwriting, they become like each other -- and so with regard
to their minds, as in their opinions, their tastes, their pursuits. And
again doubtless in the state of their souls, which we do not see, whether
for good or for bad.
Now, consider that Mary loved her Divine Son with an unutterable love;
and consider too she had Him all to herself for thirty years. Do we not
see that, as she was full of grace before she conceived Him in her womb,
she must have had a vast incomprehensible sanctity when she had lived close
to God for thirty years? -- a sanctity of an angelical order, reflecting
back the attributes of God with a fullness and exactness of which no saint
upon earth, or hermit, or holy virgin, can even remind us. Truly then she
is the Speculum Justitiae, the Mirror of Divine Perfection.
SEDES SAPIENTIAE
MARY has this title in her Litany, because the Son of God, who is also
called in Scripture the Word and Wisdom of God, once dwelt in her, and
then, after His birth of her, was carried in her arms and seated in her
lap in His first years. Thus, being as it were, the human throne of Him
who reigns in heaven, she is called the Seat of Wisdom. In the poet's words:-
His throne, thy bosom blest,
O Mother undefiled,
That Throne, if aught beneath the skies,
Beseems the sinless Child.
But the possession of her Son lasted beyond His infancy -- He was under
her rule, as St. Luke tells us, and lived with her in her house, till He
went forth to preach -- that is, for at least a whole thirty years. And
this brings us to a reflection about her, cognate to that which was suggested
to us yesterday by the title of "Mirror of Justice." For if such close
and continued intimacy with her Son created in her a sanctity inconceivably
great, must not also the knowledge which she gained during those many years
from His conversation of present, past, and future, have been so large,
and so profound, and so diversified, and so thorough, that, though she
was a poor woman without human advantages, she must in her knowledge of
creation, of the universe, and of history, have excelled the greatest of
philosophers, and in her theological knowledge the greatest of theologians,
and in her prophetic discernment the most favoured of prophets?
What was the grand theme of conversation between her and her Son but
the nature, the attributes, the providence, and the works of Almighty God?
Would not our Lord be ever glorifying the Father who sent Him? Would He
not unfold to her the solemn eternal decrees, and the purposes and will
of God? Would He not from time to time enlighten her in all those points
of doctrine which have been first discussed and then settled in the Church
from the time of the Apostles till now, and all that shall be till the
end -- nay, these, and far more than these? All that is obscure, all that
is fragmentary in revelation, would, so far as the knowledge is possible
to man, be brought out to her in clearness and simplicity by Him who is
the Light of the World.
And so of the events which are to come. God spoke to the Prophets: we
have His communications to them in Scripture. But He spoke to them in figure
and parable. There was one, viz., Moses, to whom He vouchsafed to speak
face to face. "If there be among you a prophet of the Lord," God says,
"I will appear to him in a vision, and I will speak to him in a dream.
But it is not so with my servant Moses. . . For I will speak to him mouth
to mouth, and plainly, and not by riddles and figures doth he see the Lord."
This was the great privilege of the inspired Lawgiver of the Jews; but
how much was it below
that of Mary! Moses had the privilege only now and then, from time to
time; but Mary for thirty continuous years saw and heard Him, being all
through that time face to face with Him, and being able to ask Him any
question which she wished explained, and knowing that the answers she received
were from the Eternal God, who neither deceives nor can be deceived.
JANUA COELI
MARY is called the Gate of Heaven because it was through her that our
Lord passed from heaven to earth. The Prophet Ezechiel, prophesying of
Mary, says, "The gate shall be closed, it shall not be opened, and no man
shall pass through it, since the Lord God of Israel has entered through
it -- and it shall be closed for the Prince, the Prince Himself shall sit
in it."
Now this is fulfilled, not only in our Lord having taken flesh from
her, and being her Son, but moreover, in that she had a place in the economy
of Redemption; it is fulfilled in her spirit and will, as well as in her
body. Eve had a part in the fall of man, though it was Adam who was our
representative, and whose sin made us sinners. It was Eve who began, and
who tempted Adam. Scripture says: "The woman saw that the tree was good
to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold; and she took of
the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave to her husband, and he did eat."
It was fitting then in God's mercy that, as the woman began the destruction
of the world, so woman should also begin its recovery, and that, as Eve
opened the way for the fatal deed of the first Adam, so Mary should open
the way for the great achievement of the second Adam, even our Lord Jesus
Christ, who came to save the world by dying on the Cross for it. Hence
Mary is called by the holy Fathers a second and a better Eve, as having
taken that firs; step in the salvation of mankind which Eve took in its
ruin.
How, and when, did Mary take part, and the initial part, in the world's
restoration? It was when the Angel Gabriel came to her to announce to her
the great dignity which was to be her portion. St. Paul bids us "present
our bodies to God as a reasonable service." We must not only pray with
our lips, and fast, and do outward penance, and be chaste in our bodies;
but we must be obedient, and pure in our minds. And so, as regards the
Blessed Virgin, it was God's will that she should undertake willingly and
with full understanding to be the Mother of our Lord, and not to be a mere
passive instrument whose maternity would have no merit and no reward. The
higher our gifts, the heavier our duties. It was no light lot to be so
intimately near to the Redeemer of men, as she experienced afterwards when
she suffered with Him. Therefore, weighing well the Angel's words before
giving her answer to them-first she asked whether so great an office would
be a forfeiture of that Virginity which she had vowed. When the Angel told
her no, then, with the full consent of a full heart, full of God's love
to her and her own lowliness, she said, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord,
be it done unto me according to thy word." It was by this consent I hat
she became the Gate of Heaven.
MATER CREATORIS
THIS is a title which, of all others, we should have thought it impossible
for any creature to possess. At first sight we might be tempted to say
that it throws into confusion our primary ideas of the Creator and the
creature, the Eternal and the temporal, the Self-subsisting and the dependent;
and yet on further consideration we shall see that we cannot refuse the
title to Mary without denying the Divine Incarnation -- that is, the great
and fundamental truth of revelation, that God became man.
And this was seen from the first age of the Church. Christians were
accustomed from the first to call the Blessed Virgin "The Mother of God,"
because they saw that it was impossible to deny her that title without
denying St. John's words, "The Word" (that is, God the Son) "was made flesh."
And in no long time it was found necessary to proclaim this truth by
the voice of an Ecumenical Council of the Church. For, in consequence of
the dislike which men have of a mystery, the error sprang up that our Lord
was not really God, but a man, differing from us in this merely -- that
God dwelt in Him, as God dwells in all good men, only in a higher measure;
as the Holy Spirit dwelt in Angels and Prophets, as in a sort of Temple;
or again. as our Lord now dwells in the Tabernacle in church. And then
the bishops and faithful people found there was no other way of hindering
this false, bad view being taught but by declaring distinctly, and making
it a point of faith, that Mary was the Mother, not of man only, but of
God. And since that time the title of Mary, as Mother of God. has become
what is called a dogma, or article of faith, in the Church.
But this leads us to a larger view of the subject. Is this title as
given to Mary more wonderful than the doctrine that God, without ceasing
to be God, should become man? Is it more mysterious that Mary should be
Mother of God, than that God should be man? Yet the latter, as I have said,
is the elementary truth of revelation, witnessed by Prophets, Evangelists,
and Apostles all through Scripture. And what can be more consoling and
joyful than the wonderful promises which follow from this truth, that Mary
is the Mother of God? -- the great wonder, namely, that we become the brethren
of our God; that, if we live well, and die in the grace of God, we shall
all of us hereafter be taken up by our Incarnate God to that place where
angels dwell; that our bodies shall be raised from the dust, and be taken
to Heaven; that we shall be really united to God; that we shall be partakers
of the Divine nature; that each of us, soul and body, shall be plunged
into the abyss of glory which surrounds the Almighty; that we shall see
Him, and share His blessedness, according to the text, "Whosoever shall
do the will of My Father that is in Heaven, the same is My brother, and
sister, and mother."
MATER CHRISTI
EACH of the titles of Mary has its own special meaning and drift, and
may be made the subject of a distinct meditation. She is invoked by us
as the Mother of Christ. What is the force of thus addressing her? It is
to bring before us that she it is who from the first was prophesied of,
and associated with the hopes and prayers of all holy men, of all true
worshippers of God, of all who "looked for the redemption of Israel" in
every age before that redemption came.
Our Lord was called the Christ, or the Messias, by the Jewish prophets
and the Jewish people. The two words Christ and Messias mean the same.
They mean in English the "Anointed." In the old time there were three great
ministries or offices by means of which God spoke to His chosen people,
the Israelites, or, as they were afterwards called, the Jews, viz., that
of Priest, that of King, and that of Prophet. Those who were chosen by
God for one or other of these offices were solemnly anointed with oil --
oil signifying the grace of God, which was given to them for the due performance
of their high duties. But our Lord was all three, a Priest, a Prophet,
and a King -- a Priest. because He offered Himself as a sacrifice for our
sins; a Prophet, because He revealed to us the Holy Law of God: and a King,
because He rules over us. Thus He is the one true Christ.
It was in expectation of this great Messias that the chosen people,
the Jews, or Israelites, or Hebrews (for these are different names for
the same people), looked out from age to age. He was to come to set all
things right. And next to this great question which occupied their minds,
namely, When was He to come, was the question, Who was to be His Mother?
It had been told them from the first, not that He should come from heaven,
but that He should be born of a woman. At the time of the fall of Adam,
God had said that the seed of the Woman should bruise the Serpent's head.
Who, then, was to be that Woman thus significantly pointed out to the fallen
race of Adam? At the end of many Centuries it was further revealed to the
Jews that the great Messias or Christ, the seed of the Woman, should be
born of their race, and of one particular tribe of the twelve tribes into
which that race was divided. From that time every woman of that tribe hoped
to have the great privilege of herself being the Mother of the Messias,
or Christ; for it stood to reason, since He was so great, the Mother must
be great, and good, and blessed too. Hence it was, among o her reasons,
that they thought so highly of the marriage state, because, not knowing
the mystery of the miraculous conception of the Christ when He was actually
to come, they thought that the marriage rite was the ordinance necessary
for His coming.
Hence it was, if Mary had been as other women, she would have longed
for marriage, as opening on her the prospect of bearing the great King.
But she was too humble nd too pure for such thoughts. She had been inspired
to choose that better way of serving God which had not been made known
to the Jews -- the state of Virginity. She preferred to be His Spouse to
being His Mother. Accordingly, when the Angel Gabriel announced to her
her high destiny, she shrank from it till she was assured that it would
not oblige her to revoke her purpose of a virgin life devoted to her God.
Thus was it that she became the Mother of the Christ, not in that way
which pious women for so many ages had expected Him, but, declining the
grace of such maternity, she gained it by means of a higher grace. And
this is the full meaning of St. Elizabeth's words, when the Blessed Virgin
came to visit her, which we use in the Hail Mary: "Blessed art thou among
women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb." And therefore it is that
in the Devotion called the "Crown of Twelve Stars" we give praise to God
the Holy Ghost, through whom she was both Virgin and Mother.
MATER SALVATORIS
HERE again, as in our reflections of yesterday, we must understand what
is meant by calling our Lord a Saviour, in order to understand why it is
used to form one of I he titles given to Mary in her Litany.
The special name by which our Lord was known before His coming was,
as we found yesterday, that of Messias, or Christ. Thus He was known to
the Jews. But when He actually showed Himself on earth, He was known by
three new titles, the Son of God, the Son of Man, and the Saviour; the
first expressive of His Divine Nature, the second of His Human, the third
of His Personal Office. Thus the Angel who appeared to Mary called Him
the Son of God; the Angel who appeared to Joseph called Him Jesus, which
means in English Saviour; and so the Angels, too, called Him a Saviour
when they appeared to the shepherds. But He Himself specially calls Himself
the Son of Man.
Not Angels only call Him Saviour, but those two greatest of the Apostles,
St. Peter and St. Paul, in their first preachings. St. Peter says He is
"a Prince and a Saviour," and St. Paul says, "a Saviour, Jesus." And both
Angels and Apostles tell us why He is so called -- because He has rescued
us from the power of the evil spirit, and rom the guilt and misery of our
sins. Thus the Angel says to Joseph, "Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for
He shall save His people from their sins"; and St. Peter, "God has exalted
Him to be Prince and Saviour, to give repentance to Israel, and remission
of sins." And He says Himself, "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save
that which is lost."
Now let us consider how this affects our thoughts of Mary. To rescue
slaves from the power of the Enemy implies a conflict. Our Lord, because
He was a Saviour. was a warrior. He could not deliver the captives without
a fight, nor without personal suffering. Now, who are they who especially
hate wars? A heathen poet answers: "Wars," he says, "are hated by Mothers."
Mothers are just those who especially suffer in a war. They may glory in
the honour gained by their children; but still such glorying does not wipe
out one particle of the long pain, the anxiety, the suspense, the desolation,
and the anguish which the mother of a soldier feels. So it was with Mary.
For thirty years she was blessed with the continual presence of her Son
-- nay, she had Him in subjection. But the time came when that war called
for Him for which He had come upon earth. Certainly He came, not simply
to be the Son of Mary, but to be the Saviour of Man, and therefore at length
He parted from her. She knew then what it was to be the mother of a soldier.
He left her side; she saw Him no longer; she tried in vain to get near
Him. He had for years lived in her embrace, and after that, at least in
her dwelling -- but now, in His own words, "The Son of Man had not where
to lay His head." And then, when years had run out, she heard of His arrest,
His mock trial, and His passion. At last she got near Him -- when and where?
-- on the way to Calvary: and when He had been lifted upon the Cross. And
at length she held Him again in her arms; yes -- when He was dead. True,
He lose from the dead; but still she did not thereby gain Him, for He ascended
on high, and she did not at once follow Him. No, she remained on earth
many years -- in the care, indeed, of His dearest Apostle, St. John. But
what was even the holiest of men compared with her own Son, and Him the
Son of God? O Holy Mary, Mother of our Saviour, in this meditation we have
now suddenly passed from the Joyful Mysteries to the Sorrowful, from Gabriel's
Annunciation to thee, to the Seven Dolours. That, then, will be the next
series of Meditation, which we make about
REGINA MARTYRUM
WHY is she so called? -- she who never had any blow, or wound, or other
injury to her consecrated person. How can she be exalted over those whose
bodies suffered the most ruthless violences and the keenest torments for
our Lord's sake? She is, indeed, Queen of all Saints, of those who "walk
with Christ in white, for they are worthy"; but how of those "who were
slain for the Word of God, and for the testimony which they held"?
To answer this question, it must be recollected that the pains of the
soul may be as fierce as those of the body. Bad men who are now in hell,
and the elect of God who are in purgatory, are suffering only in their
souls, for their bodies are still in the dust; yet how severe is that suffering!
And perhaps most people who have lived long can bear witness in their own
persons to a sharpness of distress which was like a sword cutting them,
to a weight and force of sorrow which seemed to throw them down, though
bodily pain there was none.
What an overwhelming horror it must have been for the Blessed Mary to
witness the Passion and the Crucifixion of her Son! Her anguish was, as
Holy Simeon had announced to her, at the time of that Son's Presentation
in the Temple, a sword piercing her soul. If our Lord Himself could not
bear the prospect of what was before Him, and was covered in the thought
of it with a bloody sweat, His soul thus acting upon His body, does not
this show how great mental pain can be? and would it have been wonderful
though Mary's head and heart had given way as she stood under His Cross?
Thus is she most truly the Queen of Martyrs.
VAS INSIGNE DEVOTIONS
To BE devout is to be devoted. We know what is meant by a devoted wife
or daughter. It is one whose thoughts centre in the person so deeply loved,
so tenderly cherished. She follows him about with her eyes; she is ever
seeking some means of serving him; and, if her services are very small
in their character, that only shows how intimate they are, and how incessant.
And especially if the object of her love be weak, or in pain, or near to
die, still more intensely does she live in his life, and know nothing but
him.
This intense devotion towards our Lord, forgetting self in love for
Him, is instanced in St. Paul, who says, "I know nothing but Jesus Christ
and Him crucified." And again, "I live, [yet] now not I, but Christ liveth
in me; and [the life] that I now live in the flesh, I live in the faith
of the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself for me."
But great as was St. Paul's devotion to our Lord, much greater was that
of the Blessed Virgin; because she was His Mother, and because she had
Him and all His sufferings actually before her eyes, and because she had
the long intimacy of thirty years with Him, and because she was from her
special sanctity so ineffably near to Him in spirit. When, then, He was
mocked, bruised, scourged, and nailed to the Cross, she felt as keenly
as if every indignity and torture inflicted on Him was struck at herself.
She could have cried out in agony at every pang of His.
This is called her compassion, or her suffering with her Son, and it
arose from this that she was the "Vas insigne devotionis."
VAS HONORABILE
ST. PAUL calls elect souls vessels of honour: of honour, because they
are elect or chosen; and vessels, because, through the love of God, they
are filled with God's heavenly and holy grace. How much more then is Mary
a vessel of honour by reason of her having within her, not only the grace
of God, but the very Son of God, formed as regards His flesh and blood
out of her!
But this title "honorabile," as applied to Mary, admits of a further
and special meaning. She was a martyr without the rude dishonour which
accompanied the sufferings of Martyrs. The martyrs were seized, haled about,
thrust into prison with the vilest criminals, and assailed with the most
blasphemous words and foulest speeches which Satan could inspire. Nay,
such was the unutterable trial also of the holy women, young ladies, the
spouses of Christ, whom the heathen seized, tortured, and put to death.
Above all, our Lord Himself, whose sanctity was greater than any created
excellence or vessel of grace -- even He, as we know well, was buffeted,
stripped, scourged, mocked, dragged about, and then stretched, nailed,
lifted up on a high cross, to the gaze of a brutal multitude.
But He, who bore the sinner's shame for sinners, spared His Mother,
who was sinless, this supreme indignity. Not in the body, but in the soul,
she suffered. True, in His Agony she was agonised; in His Passion she suffered
a fellow-passion; she was crucified with Him; the spear that pierced His
breast pierced through her spirit. Yet there were not visible signs of
this intimate martyrdom; she stood up, still, collected, motionless, solitary,
under the Cross of her Son, surrounded by Angels, and shrouded in her virginal
sanctity from the notice of all who were taking part in His Crucifixion.
VAS SPIRITUALE
Let all those who are in trouble take this comfort to themselves, if
they are trying to lead a spiritual life. If they call on God, He will
answer them. Though they have no earthly friend, they have Him, who, as
He felt for His Mother when He was on the Cross, now that He is in His
glory feels for the lowest and feeblest of His people.
To BF spiritual is to live in the world of spirits -- as St. Paul says,
"Our conversation is in Heaven." To be spiritually-minded is to see by
faith all those good and holy beings who actually surround us, though we
see them not with our bodily eyes; to see them by faith as vividly as we
see the things of earth -- the green country, the blue sky, and the brilliant
sunshine. Hence it is that, when saintly souls are favoured with heavenly
visions, these visions are but the extraordinary continuations and the
crown, by a divine intuition, of objects which, by the ordinary operation
of grace, are ever before their minds. These visions consoled and strengthened
the Blessed Virgin in all her sorrows. The Angels who were around her understood
her, and she understood them, with a directness which is not to be expected
in their intercourse with us who have inherited from Adam the taint of
sin. Doubtless; but still let us never forget that as she in her sorrows
was comforted by Angels, so it is our privilege in the many trials of life
to be comforted, in our degree, by the same heavenly messengers of the
Most High; nay, by Almighty God Himself, the third Person of the Holy Trinity,
who has taken on Himself the office of being our Paraclete, or Present
Help.
CONSOLATRIX AFFLICTORUM
ST. PAUL says that his Lord comforted him in all his tribulation, that
he also might be able to comfort them who are in distress, by the encouragement
which he received from God. This is the secret of true consolation: those
are able to comfort others who in their own case have been much tried,
and have felt the need of consolation, and have received it. So of our
Lord Himself it is said: "In that He Himself hath suffered and been tempted,
He is able to succour those also that are tempted."
And this too is why the Blessed Virgin is the comforter of the afflicted.
We all know how special a mother's consolation is, and we are allowed to
call Mary our mother from the time that our Lord from the Cross established
the relation of mother and son between her and St. John. And she especially
can console us because she suffered more than mothers in general. Women,
at least delicate women, are commonly shielded from rude experience of
the highways of the world; but she, after our Lord's Ascension, was sent
out into foreign lands almost as the Apostles were, a sheep among wolves.
In spite of all St. John's care of her, which was as great as was St. Joseph's
in her younger days, she, more than all the saints of God, was a stranger
and a pilgrim upon earth, in proportion to her greater love of Him who
had been on earth, and had gone away. As, when our Lord was an Infant,
she had to flee across the desert to the heathen Egypt, so, when He had
ascended on high, she had to go on shipboard to the heathen Ephesus, where
she lived and died.
O ye who are in the midst of rude neighbours, or scoffing companions,
or of wicked acquaintance, or of spiteful enemies, and are helpless, invoke
the aid of Mary by the memory of her own sufferings among the heathen Greeks
and the heathen Egyptians.
VIRGO PRUDENTISSIMA
IT may not appear at first sight how the virtue of prudence is connected
with the trials and sorrows of our Lady's life; yet there is a point of
view from which we are reminded of her prudence by those trials. It must
be recollected that she is not only the great instance of the contemplative
life, but also of the practical; and the practical life is at once a life
of penance and of prudence, if it is to be well discharged. Now Mary was
as full of external work and hard service as any Sister of Charity at this
day. Of course her duties varied according to the seasons of her life,
as a young maiden, as a wife, as a mother, and as a widow; but still her
life was full of duties day by day and hour by hour. As a stranger in Egypt,
she had duties towards the poor heathen among whom she was thrown. As a
dweller in Nazareth, she had her duties towards her kinsfolk and neighbours.
She had her duties, though unrecorded, during those years in which our
Lord was preaching and proclaiming His Kingdom. After He had left this
earth, she had her duties towards the Apostles, and especially towards
the Evangelists. She had duties towards the Martyrs, and to the Confessors
in prison; to the sick, to the ignorant, and to the poor. Afterwards, she
had to seek with St. John another and a heathen country. where her happy
death took place. But before that death, how much must she have suffered
in her life amid an idolatrous population ! Doubtless the Angels screened
her eyes from the worst crimes there committed. Still, she was full of
duties there -- and in consequence she was full of merit. All her acts
were perfect, all were the best that could be done. Now, always to be awake,
guarded, fervent, so as to be able to act not only without sin, but in
the best possible way, in the varying circumstances of each day, denotes
a life of untiring mindfulness. But of such a life, Prudence is the presiding
virtue. It is, then, through the pains and sorrows of her earthly pilgrimage
that we are able to invoke her as the Virgo prudentissima.
TURRIS EBURNEA
A TOWER is a fabric which rises higher and more conspicuous than other
objects in its neighbourhood. Thus, when we say a man "towers" over his
fellows, we mean to signify that they look small in comparison of him.
This quality of greatness is instanced in the Blessed Virgin. Though
she suffered more keen and intimate anguish at our Lord's Passion and Crucifixion
than any of the Apostles by reason of her being His Mother, yet consider
how much more noble she was amid her deep distress than they were. When
our Lord underwent His agony, they slept for sorrow. They could not wrestle
with their deep disappointment and despondency; they could not master it;
it confused, numbed, and overcame their senses. And soon after, when St.
Peter was asked by bystanders whether he was not one of our Lord's disciples,
he denied it.
Nor was he alone in this cowardice. The Apostles, one and all, forsook
our Lord and fled, though St. John returned. Nay, still further, they even
lost faith in Him, and thought all the great expectations which He had
raised in them had ended in a failure. How different this even from the
brave conduct of St. Mary Magdalen! and still more from that of the Virgin
Mother! It is expressly noted of her that she stood by the Cross. She did
not grovel in the dust, but stood upright to receive the blows, the stabs,
which the long Passion of her Son inflicted upon her every moment.
In this magnanimity and generosity in suffering she is, as compared
with the Apostles, fitly imaged as a Tower. But towers, it may be said,
are huge, rough, heavy, obtrusive, graceless structures, for the purposes
of war, not of peace; with nothing of the beautifulness, refinement and
finish which are conspicuous in Mary. It is true: therefore she is called
the Tower of Ivory, to suggest to us, by the brightness, purity, and exquisiteness
of that material, how transcendent is the loveliness and the gentleness
of the Mother of God.
SANCTA DEI GENITRIX
As soon as we apprehend by faith the great fundamental truth that Mary
is the Mother of God, other wonderful truths follow in its train; and one
of these is that she was exempt from the ordinary lot of mortals, which
is not only to die, but to become earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust
to dust. Die she must, and die she did, as her Divine Son died, for He
was man; but various reasons have approved themselves to holy writers why,
although her body was for a while separated from her soul, and consigned
to the tomb, yet it did not remain there, but was speedily united to her
soul again, and raised by our Lord to a new and eternal life of heavenly
glory.
that our Lord would have granted any such privilege to anyone else without
also granting it to His own Mother.
We are told by St. Matthew that after our Lord's death upon the Cross
"the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints that had slept"
-- that is, slept the sleep of death -- "arose, and coming out of the tombs
after His Resurrection, came into the Holy City, and appeared to many."
St. Matthew says, "many bodies of the Saints"
And the most obvious reason for so concluding is this -- that other
servants of God have been raised from the grave by the power of God, and
it is not to be supposed -- that is. the holy Prophets, Priests, and Kings
of former times -- rose again in anticipation of the last day.
Can we suppose that Abraham, or David, or Isaias, or Ezechias, should
have been thus favoured, and not God's own Mother? Had she not a claim
on the love of her Son to have what any others had? Was she not nearer
to Him than the greatest of the Saints before her? And is it conceivable
that the law of the grave should admit of relaxation in their case, and
not in hers? Therefore we confidently say that our Lord, having preserved
her from sin and the consequences of sin by His Passion, lost no time in
pouring out the full merits of that Passion upon her body as well as her
soul.
MATER INTEMERATA MATER INTEMERATA
ANOTHER consideration which has led devout minds to believe in the Assumption
of our Lady into heaven after her death, without waiting for the general
resurrection at the last day, is furnished by the doctrine of her Immaculate
Conception.
By her Immaculate Conception is meant, that not only did she never commit
any sin whatever, even venial, in thoughts, word, or deed, but further
than this, that the guilt of Adam, or what is called original sin, never
was her guilt, as it is the guilt attaching to all other descendants of
Adam.
By her Assumption is meant that not only her soul, but her body also,
was taken up to heaven upon her death, so that there was no long period
of her sleeping in the grave, as is the case with others, even great Saints,
who wait for the last day for the resurrection of their bodies.
One reason for believing in our Lady's Assumption is that her Divine
Son loved her too much to let her body remain in the grave. A second reason
-- that now before us -- is this, that she was not only dear to our Lord
as a mother is dear to a son, but also that she was so transcendently holy,
so full, so overflowing with grace. Adam and Eve were created upright and
sinless, and had a large measure of God's grace bestowed upon them; and,
in consequence, their bodies would never have crumbled into dust had they
not sinned; upon which it was said to them, "Dust thou art, and unto dust
thou shalt return." If Eve, the beautiful daughter of God, never would
have become dust and ashes unless she had sinned, shall we not say that
Mary, having never sinned, retained the gift which Eve by sinning lost?
What had Mary done to forfeit the privilege given to our first parents
in the beginning? Was her comeliness to be turned into corruption, and
her fine gold to become dim, without reason assigned? Impossible. Therefore
we believe that, though she died for a short hour, as did our Lord Himself,
yet, like Him, and by His Almighty power, she was raised again from the
grave.
TURRIS DAVIDICA
A TOWER in its simplest idea is a fabric for defence against enemies.
David, King of Israel, built for this purpose a notable tower; and as he
is a figure or type of our Lord, so is his tower a figure denoting our
Lord's Virgin Mother.
She is called the Tower of David because she had so signally fulfilled
the office of defending her Divine Son from the assaults of His foes. It
is customary with those who are not Catholics to fancy that the honours
we pay to her interfere with the supreme worship which we pay to Him; that
in Catholic teaching she eclipses Him. But this is the very reverse of
the truth.
For if Mary's glory is so very great, how cannot His be greater still
who is the Lord and God of Mary? He is infinitely above His Mother; and
all that grace which filled her is but the overflowings and superfluities
of His incomprehensible Sanctity. And history teaches us the same lesson.
Look at the Protestant countries which threw off all devotion to her three
centuries ago, under. the notion that to put her from their thoughts would
be exalting the praises of her Son. Has that consequence really followed
from their profane conduct towards her? Just the reverse -- the countries,
Germany, Switzerland, England, which so acted, have in great measure ceased
to worship Him, and have given up their belief in His Divinity; while the
catholic Church, wherever she is to be found, adores Chris, as I rue God
and true Man, as firmly as ever she did; and strange indeed would it be
if it ever happened otherwise. Thus Mary is the "Tower of David."
VIRGO POTENS
THIS great universe, which we see by day and by night, or what is called
the natural world, is ruled by fixed laws, which the Creator has imposed
upon it, and by those wonderful laws is made secure against any substantial
injury or loss. One portion of it may conflict with another, and there
may be changes in it internally, but, viewed as a whole, it is adapted
to stand for ever. Hence the Psalmist says, "He has established the world,
which shall not be moved."
Such is the world of nature; but there is another and still more wonderful
world. There is a power which avails to alter and subdue this visible world,
and to suspend and counteract its laws; that is, the world of Angels and
Saints, of Holy Church and her children; and the weapon by which they master
its laws is the power of prayer.
By prayer all this may be done, which naturally is impossible. Noe prayed,
and God said that there never again should be a flood to drown the race
of man. Moses prayed, and ten grievous plagues fell upon the land of Egypt.
Josue prayed, and the sun stood still. Samuel prayed, and thunder and rain
came in wheat harvest. Elias prayed, and brought down fire from heaven.
Eliseus prayed, and the dead came to life. Ezechias prayed, and the vast
army of the As Syrians was smitten and perished.
This is why the Blessed Virgin is called powerful -- nay, sometimes,
All-powerful, because she ha,, more than anyone else, more than all Angels
and Saints, this great, prevailing gift of prayer. No one has access to
the Almighty as His Mother has; none has merit such as hers. Her Son will
deny her nothing that she asks; and herein lies her power. While she defends
the Church, neither height nor depth, neither men nor evil spiris, neither
great monarchs, nor craft of man, nor popular violence, can avail to harm
us; for human life is short, but Mary reigns above, a Queen for ever.
AUXILIUM CHRISTIANORUM
OUR glorious Queen, since her Assumption on high, has been the minister
of numberless services to the elect people of God upon earth, and to His
Holy Church. This title of "Help of Christians" relates to those services
of which the Divine Office, while recording and referring to the occasion
on which it was given her, recounts five, connecting them more or less
with the Rosary.
The first was on the first institution of the Devotion of the Rosary
by St. Dominic, when, with the aid of the Blessed Virgin, he succeeded
in arresting and overthrowing the formidable heresy of the Albigenses in
the south of France.
The second was the great victory gained by the Christian fleet over
the powerful Turkish Sultan in answer to the intercession of Pope St. Pius
V, and the prayers of the Associations of the Rosary all over the Christian
world; in lasting memory of which wonderful mercy Pope Pius introduced
her title "Auxilium Christianorum" into her Litany; and Pope Gregory XIII,
who followed him, dedicated the first Sunday in October, the day of the
victory, to Our Lady of the Rosary.
The third was, in the words of the Divine Office, "the glorious victory
won at Vienna, under the guardianship of the Blessed Virgin, over the most
savage Sultan of the Turks, who was trampling on the necks of the Christians;
in perpetual memory of which benefit Pope Innocent XI dedicated the Sunday
in the Octave of her Nativity as the feast of her august Name."
The fourth instance of her aid was the victory over the innumerable
force of the same Turks in Hungary on the Feast of St. Mary ad Nives, in
answer to the solemn supplication of the Con fraternities of the Rosary,
on occasion of which Popes Clement XI and Benedict XIII gave fresh honour
and privilege to the Devotion of the Rosary.
And the fifth was her restoration of the Pope's temporal power. at the
beginning of this century, after Napoleon the First, Emperor of the French,
had taken it from the Holy See; on which occasion Pope Pius VII set apart
May 24th. the day of this mercy, as the Feast of the Help of Christians,
for a perpetual thanksgiving.
VIRGO FIDELIS
THIS is one of the titles of the Blessed Virgin, which is especially
hers from the time of her Assumption and glorious Coronation at the right
hand of her Divine Son. How it belongs to her will be plain by considering
some of those other instances in which faithfulness is spoken of m Holy
Scripture.
The word faithfulness means loyalty to a superior, or exactness in fulfilling
an engagement. In the latter sense it is applied even to Almighty God Himself
who, in His great love for us, has vouchsafed to limit His own power in
action by His word of promise and His covenant with His creatures. He has
given His word that, if we will take Him for our portion and put ourselves
into His hands, He will guide us through all trials and temptations, and
bring us safe to heaven. And to encourage and inspirit us, He reminds us,
in various passages of Scripture, that He is the faithful God, the faithful
Creator.
And so, His true saints and servants have the special title of "Faithful,"
as being true to Him as He is to them: as being simply obedient to His
will, zealous for His honour, observant of the sacred interests which He
has committed to their keeping. Thus Abraham is called the Faithful; Moses
is declared to be faithful in all his house; David, on this account, is
called the "man after God's own heart"; St. Paul returns thanks that "God
accounted him faithful"; and, at the last day, God will say to all those
who have well employed their talents, "Well done, good and faithful servant."
Mary, in like manner, is pre-eminently faithful to her Lord and Son.
Let no one for an instant suppose that she is not supremely zealous for
His honour, or, as those who are not Catholics fancy, that to exalt her
is to be unfaithful to Him. Her true servants are still more truly His.
Well as she rewards her friends, she would deem him no friend, but a traitor,
who preferred her to Him. As He is zealous for her honour, so is she for
His. He is the Fount of grace, and all her gifts are from His goodness.
O Mary, teach us ever to worship thy Son as the One Creator, and to be
devout to Thee as the most highly favoured of creatures.
STELLA MATUTINA-AVE MARIS STELLA
WHAT is the nearest approach in the way of symbols, in this world of
sight and sense, to represent to us the glories of that higher world which
is beyond our bodily perceptions? What are the truest tokens and promises
here, poor though they may be, what one day we hope to see hereafter, as
being beautiful and rare? Whatever they may be, surely the Blessed Mother
of God may claim them as her own. And so it is; two of them are ascribed
to her as her titles, in her Litany -- the stars above, and flowers below.
She is at once the Rosa Mystic a and the Stella Matutina.
And of these two, both of them well suited to her, the Morning Star
becomes her best, and that for three reasons.
First, the rose belongs to this earth, but the star is placed in high
heaven. Mary now has no part in this nether world. No change, no violence
from fire, waler, earth, or air, affects the stars above; and they show
themselves, ever bright and marvellous, in all regions of this globe, and
to all the tribes of men.
And next, the rose has but a short life; its decay is as sure as it
was graceful and fragrant in its noon. But Mary, like the stars, abides
for ever, as lustrous now as she was on the day of her Assumption; as pure
and perfect, when her Son comes in judgment, as she is now.
Lastly, it is Mary's prerogative to be the Morning Star, which heralds
in the sun. She does not shine for herself, or from herself, but she is
the reflection of her and our Redeemer, and she glorifies Him. When she
appears in the darkness, we know that He is close at hand. He is Alpha
and Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. Behold He
comes quickly, and His reward is with Him, to render to everyone according
to his works. "Surely I come quickly. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus."
TRULY art thou a star, O Mary! Our Lord indeed Himself, Jesus Christ,
He is the truest and chiefest Star, the bright and morning Star, as St.
John calls Him; that Star which was foretold from the beginning as destined
to rise out of Israel, and which was displayed in figure by the star which
appeared to the wise men in the East. But if the wise and learned and they
who teach men in justice shall shine as stars for ever and ever; if the
angels of the Churches are called stars in the Hand of Christ; if He honoured
the apostles even in the days of their flesh by a title, calling them lights
of the world; if even those angels who fell from heaven are called by the
beloved disciple stars; if lastly all the saints in bliss are called stars,
in. that they are like stars differing from stars in glory; therefore most
assuredly, without any derogation from the honour of our Lord, is Mary
His Mother called the Star of theSea, and the more so because even on her
head she wears a crown of twelve stars. Jesus is the Light of the world,
illuminating every man who cometh into it, opening our eyes with the gift
of faith, making souls luminous by His Almighty grace; and Mary is the
Star, shining with the light of Jesus, fair as the moon, and special as
the sun, the star of the heavens, which it is good to look upon, the star
of the sea, which is welcome to the tempest-tossed, at whose smile the
evil spirit flies, the passions are hushed, and peace is poured upon the
soul.
Hail then, Star of the Sea, we joy in the recollection of thee. Pray
for us ever at the throne of Grace; plead our cause, pray with us, present
our prayers to thy Son and Lord -- now and in the hour of death, Mary be
thou our help.
Source:
This text is part of the Internet
Modern History Sourcebook. The Sourcebook is a collection of public
domain and copy-permitted texts for introductory level classes in modern
European and World history.
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(c)Paul Halsall April 1998
