Category: 28.viii.22 XII post Pentecost

O my Jesus, Thou dost pardon penitent sinners, and Thou dost not refuse to give them in this world everything in Holy Communion, and in the next world everything in eternal glory. Where, then, is a heart to be found so amiable and so compassionate as Thine, O my dearest Saviour?

She is like the merchant’s ship, she bringeth her bread from afar (Prov. xxxi. 14). Mary was this fortunate ship that brought us Jesus Christ from Heaven, Who is the Living Bread that comes down from Heaven to give us eternal life, as He Himself says: I am the living bread, which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever (Jo. vi. 51, 52). And hence Richard of St. Laurence says that “in the sea of this world all will be lost who are not received into this ship; that is to say, all who are not protected by Mary”; and therefore he adds: “As often as we see ourselves in danger of perishing in the midst of the temptations and contending passions of this life, let us have recourse to Mary, and cry out quickly: O Lady, save us, we perish!

“As the splendour of the sun exceeds that of all the stars united,” says St. Basil of Seleucia, “so does Mary’s glory surpass that of all the Blessed in Heaven.” The greatest glory of the Blessed is, after the vision of God, the presence of Heaven’s most beautiful Queen.

St. Bernard say that “as a man and a woman co-operated in our ruin, so it was proper that another man and another woman should co-operate in our Redemption, and these two were Jesus and His Mother Mary.” “There is no doubt,” says the Saint, “that Jesus Christ alone was more than sufficient to redeem us; but it was more becoming that both sexes should co-operate in the reparation of an evil in causing which both had shared.”

Let us consider how exalted was the throne to which our Lady was raised in Heaven. “If the mind of man,” says St. Bernard, “can never comprehend the immense glory prepared by God in Heaven for those who love Him, as St. Paul assures us, who then can ever comprehend the glory God prepared for His beloved Mother!”

This proposition — that all we receive from our Lord comes through Mary — does not exactly please a certain modern writer,* who, although in other respects he speaks of true and false devotion with much learning and piety, yet when he treats of devotion towards the Divine Mother, seems to grudge her that glory which was given her without scruple by a St. Germanus, a St. Anselm, a St. John Damascene, a St. Bonaventure, a St. Antoninus, a St. Bernardine, the Venerable Abbot of Celles, and so many other learned men, who had no difficulty in affirming that the intercession of Mary is not only useful but necessary.

Let us consider how Jesus Christ came forth from Heaven to meet His Mother. On first meeting her, and to console her, He said: Arise! Make haste, my love, my dove, my beautiful one, and come, for winter is now past (Cant. ii. 10, 11). Come, My dearest Mother, My pure and beautiful dove! Leave the valley of tears in which for My love, thou hast suffered so much! Thou shalt be crowned.

That it is not only lawful but useful to invoke and pray to the Saints, and more especially to the Queen of Saints, the most holy and ever blessed Virgin Mary, in order that they may obtain us Divine grace, is an Article of Faith, and has been defined by General Councils, against heretics who condemned it as injurious to Jesus Christ, Who is our only Mediator. But if a Jeremias after his death prayed for Jerusalem (2 Mach. xv. 14); if the Ancients of the Apocalypse presented the prayers of the Saints to God (Apoc. v. 8); if a St. Peter promises his disciples that after his death He will be mindful of them (2 Pet. i. 15); if a holy Stephen prays for his persecutors (Acts vii. 59); if a St. Paul prays for his companions (Acts xxvii. 24; Eph. ii. 16; Phil. i. 4; Col. i. 3); if, in fine, the Saints can pray for us, why cannot we beseech the Saints to intercede for us?

It would seem that, on the day of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin into Heaven, the holy Church should invite us to mourn rather than rejoice, since our dear Mother has quitted this world and left us deprived of her sweet presence. But no: the holy Church rightly invites us to rejoice, for Mary is going to possess a kingdom and to be crowned Queen of Heaven. Let us therefore rejoice in the glorious triumph of our Mother.