Mary's Example
"For a sermon of the Blessed Virgin to please me and to do me any good, I must see her real life, not her imagined life. I am sure that her real life was very simple. They show her to us as unapproachable, but they should present her as imitable, bringing out her virtues, saying that she lived by faith just like ourselves, giving proofs of this from the Gospel, where we read; "And they did not understand the words which he spoke to them." And that no less mysterious statement,"His father and mother marveled at what was said about him." This admiration presupposes a certain surprise..." Saint Therese of the Child Jesus
Mary's Humility
"For a sermon of the Blessed Virgin to please me and to do me any good, I must see her real life, not her imagined life. I am sure that her real life was very simple. They show her to us as unapproachable, but they should present her as imitable, bringing out her virtues, saying that she lived by faith just like ourselves, giving proofs of this from the Gospel, where we read; "And they did not understand the words which he spoke to them." And that no less mysterious statement,"His father and mother marveled at what was said about him." This admiration presupposes a certain surprise..." Saint Therese of the Child Jesus
Mary's Humility
"There is one created being who knew the gift of God, who lost no particle of it, a creature so pure and luminous that she seemed light itself- speculum justitiae. A being whose life was so simple, so lost in God, that there is but little to say of it. Virgo Fidelis, the faithful virgin "who kept all these things in her heart." She was so lowly, so hidden in the sight of God..... that the Blessed Trinity took pleasure in her, "because he has regarded the humility of his handmaid, for behold henceforth all generation shall call me blessed..."
Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity
"It is the queen who gives the king most trouble in this chess-game and all the other pieces support her. There is no queen who can beat this King as well as humility can; for humility brought Him down from heaven into the Virgin's womb, and with humility we can draw him into our souls by a single hair. Be sure that He will give most to him who has most already, and least to him who has least."
St. Teresa of Jesus
Mary's Fiat
"It is a striking thing that our Lord would be so much pleased at whatever service is done to His Mother... It is well that we should remember here how our Lady the Virgin, with her great wisdom, submitted in this way, how when she asked the angel, "How shall this be done?" he answered, "The Holy Spirit shall upon thee." Thereupon she was no longer concerned to argue about it; having great faith and wisdom she at once recognized that, in view of the twofold intervention, there was neither any necessity for further knowledge on her part nor room for doubt.
St. Teresa of Jesus
Mary, Mother of God
"The mystery of the Incarnation has revealed to us how valuable man is to God, how intimately God wants to be united to man. This mystery draws the attention of our minds to the eternal birth of the Son from the Father as the deepest reason for this mystery of love. In the celebration of the three Holy Masses at Christmas, the birth from the Father is first celebrated, secondly from the Holy Virgin Mary, thirdly God's birth in ourselves. This is not done without significance and this threefold mystery must be understood as a revelation of one eternal Love. It should be ever Christmas in us and we should remember that threefold birth as phases of one great process of love. Mary is the daughter of God the Father, Mother of God the Son, and spouse of the Holy Spirit. In her this threefold birth has been realized. We should learn from her how to realize it in
ourselves."
Saint Titus Brandsma
Mary's Giving
"The Gospel clearly delineates Mary's giving. At His birth, instead of being born in a home, the Child was born in a street, thus from the outset belonging to everyone, and the mother did not refuse this giving. It was she who showed Jesus to the shepherds who came in haste, and to the wise strangers coming from afar. When she presented him in the temple, the prophetic words only confirmed what she already knew, her Son did not belong to her. Now she was told that her giving of him to the world would be at a price of a sword transpiercing her own heart. When after the three day's loss, she found Jesus in the temple, she accepted in silence of adoring love her Son's reply, a reply that shed yet another ray of light on his exclusive belonging to the work of God. Jesus belongs to everyone, and if her maternal heart must be torn to pieces to accomplish this giving, our Lady remains faithful."
Cardinal Anastasio Ballistrero, OCD
"The Gospel clearly delineates Mary's giving. At His birth, instead of being born in a home, the Child was born in a street, thus from the outset belonging to everyone, and the mother did not refuse this giving. It was she who showed Jesus to the shepherds who came in haste, and to the wise strangers coming from afar. When she presented him in the temple, the prophetic words only confirmed what she already knew, her Son did not belong to her. Now she was told that her giving of him to the world would be at a price of a sword transpiercing her own heart. When after the three day's loss, she found Jesus in the temple, she accepted in silence of adoring love her Son's reply, a reply that shed yet another ray of light on his exclusive belonging to the work of God. Jesus belongs to everyone, and if her maternal heart must be torn to pieces to accomplish this giving, our Lady remains faithful."
Cardinal Anastasio Ballistrero, OCD
Mary's Self-Emptying
"Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother." It was there that the spiritual motherhood of Mary was confirmed by her Son with his dying breath. She gazed on that cross which is the fountainhead of all understanding; "the living and painful synthesis in which all contradictions are taken up" (de Lubac). What Mary offered there was not her own body and blood but the body and blood of her Son which meant so much more to her than her own self. This was the supreme occasion of Mary's self-emptying, kenosis, when he who was her life was taken away. But in that great act of abnegation , the Church began to live and grow. There is an indispensable need for a similar kenosis in the lives of all whose who would live in Christ... It underlies the theological virtues; it is the basis of the evangelical way of life, and it is the starting point of prayer, penance and Christ-like service... More than any other human being, Mary exemplified it perfectly as she stood near the cross of his Son .. for, she too, like the Father in heaven, so loved the world as to give up her only Son for its salvation.
Gabriel Barry, OCD
THE POOL OF GOD
There was nothing in the Virgin' soul that belonged to the Virgin. No word, no thought, no image, no intent. She was a pure, transparent pool reflecting God, only God. She held His burnished day, she held His night of planet-glow or shade inscrutable. God was her sky and she who mirrored Him became firmament.
When I so much as turn my thoughts toward her, my spirit is enisled in her repose. And when I gaze into her selfless depths an anguish in me grows. To hold such blueness and to hold such fire I pray to hollow out my earth and be filled with these waters of transparency. I think man could die of this desire seeing himself dry earth or stubborn sod. Oh, to become a pure pool like the Virgin, water that lost the semblances of water, and was a sky like God.
Miriam of the Holy Spirit, OCD
MARY IN CHURCH DOCUMENTS (LUMEN GENTIUM)
I. Introduction
52. Wishing in His supreme goodness and wisdom to effect the redemption of the world, "when the fullness of time came, God sent His Son, born of a woman ... that we might receive the adoption of sons".283 "He for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary".1* This divine mystery of salvation is revealed to us and continued in the Church, which the Lord established as His body. Joined to Christ the Head and in the unity of fellowship with all His saints, the faithful must in the first place reverence the memory "of the glorious ever Virgin Mary, Mother of our God and Lord Jesus Christ".2* FULL ARTICLE
I. Introduction
52. Wishing in His supreme goodness and wisdom to effect the redemption of the world, "when the fullness of time came, God sent His Son, born of a woman ... that we might receive the adoption of sons".283 "He for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary".1* This divine mystery of salvation is revealed to us and continued in the Church, which the Lord established as His body. Joined to Christ the Head and in the unity of fellowship with all His saints, the faithful must in the first place reverence the memory "of the glorious ever Virgin Mary, Mother of our God and Lord Jesus Christ".2* FULL ARTICLE
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