October 11th - The Divine Maternity of Mary
All the extraordinary graces Our Lady received and corresponded to made
her a
unique creature in the universe and in the economy of salvation. The
starting
point of all those graces, however, lies in the fact that she was the
Mother of
Our Lord Jesus Christ, which means, according to Catholic doctrine, that
she is
the Mother of God.
In the work of God everything is nuanced and hierarchical. The
revolutionary
spirit loves to simplify everything. The counter-revolutionary spirit, on
the
contrary, loves the nuances in Creation and in the Catholic Church. When a
counter-revolutionary sees something difficult to understand, something
that
apparently contradicts the rule he knows, he loves that point, because he
knows
that in the work of God and in the Catholic Church nothing is
contradictory.
When something appears to contradict the order we know, it is because
often it
conceals something more beautiful than the rule, which God permits in
order to
reveal to us another order of reality.
The waves that wash the sands of a beach leave a smooth and ****ning mirror
of
wet sand between one wave and the next. A child who admires the beauty and
uniformity of that mirror may be surprised to find an air bubble here and
there
that appears on its glassy surface. He may think it strange, and certainly
he
does not know why it is there. But when the wave recedes, if he goes to
the spot
and quickly digs a bit, he realizes that the bubble marks the spot where a
clam
is living. Something strange in appearance is explained after a proper
investigation, and it opens the mind to another order of reality that is
not
visible at first glance.
What affirmation can appear more absurd to a Cartesian and revolutionary
spirit
than that of the Mother of God? For a person unfamiliar with Catholic
doctrine,
he would think it absurd that God, an eternal and pure spirit, has a
Mother. The
complication intensifies when he realizes that this Mother is a human
being. How
can a finite creature generate Infinity? How can someone set in mutable
time
engender the Eternal? In the affirmation that Our Lady is Mother of God
there
are many apparent contradictions. There is, however, a profound and
superior
harmony beneath the surface for one who seeks to understand.
Why did God make the hypostatic union with the human instead of the
angelic
nature? Would it not have been more perfect to do the latter? No, by
establi****ng His hypostatic union with a less elevated degree in the
hierarchy
of Creation, God did something more wondrous than if He had established it
with
the Angels.
In fact, if He would have chosen to unite Himself with the Angels, He
would have
dignified only the angelic nature. Instead, by uniting with the human
nature, He
dignified all Creation. For since man has a soul, he participates in the
spiritual dignity of the Angels, and since he has body he also
participates in
the material kingdoms - animal, vegetal, and mineral. So, by making the
hypostatic union with the human rather than angelic nature, God dignified
all of
the created universe. The apparent incongruence reveals a more beautiful
and
wise decision of God.
The Second Person of the Divine Trinity decided to become incarnate taking
on
human nature. But He desired to depend on the consent of the one who would
give
Him this nature. Doing this, He placed Our Lady in the most privileged
place in
the created hierarchy, because with her acceptance, the whole universe
would be
glorified. She accepted, and for that reason, she became the universal
Mediatrix
between God and the rest of Creation. She became the necessary link of
alliance
between rational creatures-Angels and men-and God. It is for this reason
that
she is properly called Queen of Angels, Queen of all Men, Queen of the
Universe,
and Queen of Heaven and Earth.
Once a Catholic with progressivist tendencies told me that the only thing
that
mattered to him about Our Lady was that she is Mother of God, nothing
else. I
thought, "Something is wrong here."
It was his progressivist and revolutionary simplification. Without a doubt
Mother of God is the most im****tant title of Our Lady. But since from all
eternity God had the intention to make her Mother of God, she was prepared
as
His masterpiece of Creation. She was, therefore, the most perfect creature
ever
to exist, noble enough to give Him the human nature He received from her.
To
disregard all the other qualities, virtues, and titles of Our Lady is to
simplify things in a wrong way.
A tree is not only its trunk or its roots. It is an ensemble composed of
roots,
trunk, branches, leaves, flowers, and fruit. In Our Lady we should
consider each
one of the different aspects that make up her inestimable personality. The
Catholic spirit venerates Our Lady principally under the title of Mother
of God,
but it also venerates the roots, branches, leaves, flowers, and fruit that
grow
out of this most essential trunk. That is, we should venerate her under
the
countless different invocations she rightly has, each one of which
reflects a
different aspect of her mission, even though all of them flow from her
Divine
Maternity.
An im****tant point that applies especially to us is that since she is the
Mother
of God, she is also the Mother of all men, and, therefore, she is Our
Mother.
One of the most precious graces we can receive regarding devotion to Our
Lady is
when she condescends to establish a relation that is truly maternal with
us.
This can happen in a thousand different ways.
Sometimes she reveals herself as Our Mother when she saves us from a
danger in a
way that becomes unforgettable. Other times, she forgives some
particularly
unpardonable fault, exercising a goodness that only a mother has. Nothing
merited the pardon, nothing should have attenuated its punishment, we
deserved
the wrath of God. However, since she is a mother, she entered with her
sovereign
power and indulged us as only a mother can do. With a tender smile she
wiped
away the bad past, and made it forgotten.
Our Lady concedes such graces in a way that often they remain manifest in
the
soul like a blaze of fire, a fire that comes from Heaven and the Holy
Ghost, not
an earthly fire, and still less the infernal fire. It gives birth in our
souls
to the conviction that we can have recourse to her in any cir***stance,
even the
most indefensible ones, and that she will forgive us again, because she
opens to
us a door of mercy that no one can close.
We who fight for the defense of the Holy Church in the present day crisis
and
for the Reign of Mary as a new Christendom to come, we receive an
unlimited
credit of mercy from Our Lady. It would seem that the passage of the
Apocalypse
could be applied to the mercy of Our Lady for us:
"I have given before thee an open door, which no man can shut: because
thou
hast a little strength, and hast kept My word, and hast not denied My
name"
(Apoc 3:8).
I think that it is more than legitimate to apply these words to the
relations of
the Immaculate Heart of Mary with us.
Taken from:
http://www.traditioninaction.org/SOD/j109sdMaternity_1-1.htm
Saint Quote:
[It] is not enough to pray, Thy kingdom come, but to work, so that the
Kingdom
of God will exist among us today.
--Blessed Ursula Ledochowska
Bible Quote:
He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities;
upon
Him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with His stripes we are
healed.
(Isaiah 53:5)
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Salutation from the Raccolta
I salute thee, holy Angel who didst comfort my Jesus in His agony, and
with thee
I praise the Most Holy Trinity for having chosen thee from among all the
holy
Angels to comfort and strengthen Him Who is the comfort and strength of
all that
are in affliction. By the honor thou didst enjoy and by the obedience,
humility
and love wherewith thou didst assist the sacred Humanity of Jesus, my
Saviour,
when He was fainting for very sorrow at seeing the sins of the world and
especially my sins, I beseech thee to obtain for me perfect sorrow for my
sins;
deign to strengthen me in the afflictions that now overwhelm me, and in
all the
other trials, to which I shall be exposed henceforth and, in particular,
when I
find myself in my final agony. Amen.
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