Week two: Getting to know Mary - Day 2

Mary as the Virgin and Mother

Prayer to the Holy Spirit 

O Holy Spirit, inspire me. God’s love, engulf me. Holy Mary, my Mother, guide me in the right ways, look at me, and together with Jesus, bless me. Keep me from all evil, from all delusions and all threats. Mary, The Spouse of the Holy Spirit, obtain for me the grace of getting to know you as the Mother of God and my Mother. Amen!

The Word of God 

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel” (Isiah 7:14).

Meditation 

Being both virgin and mother is the most beautiful mystery of Mary. God reveals in His Mother full humanity and womanhood in which she gave birth to the Eternal King. While keeping her virginity, she experienced the joy of being a mother, and therefore, none of the women on earth can match her in dignity. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that “Mary is truly ‘Mother of God’ since she is the mother of the eternal Son of God made man, who is God himself.”8 Called in the Gospels “the mother of Jesus”, Mary is acclaimed by Elizabeth, at the prompting of the Spirit and even before the birth of her son, as “the mother of D 2 127 my Lord.” In fact, the One whom she conceived as man by the Holy Spirit, who truly became her Son according to the flesh, was none other than the Father’s eternal Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity. Hence, the Church confesses that Mary is truly “Mother of God” (Theotokos).9 Out of this fundamental truth that Mary is the Mother of God-Man, which was officially proclaimed by the Council of Ephesus (in 431), come other titles we attribute to Mary: Immaculate, Assumed into heaven, Queen. Yet the great plans of God won’t be fulfilled without the participation of Mary’s free will: “The Father of mercies willed that the incarnation should be preceded by the acceptance of her who was predestined to be the mother of His Son.”10

Mary’s motherhood, which began with her fiat uttered in Nazareth, complements at the feet of the cross, where Mary becomes the mother of all of us after the solemn Jesus declaration: “Here is your mother.” The teaching of the Church explains that “The meaning of this event is accessible only to faith, which understands in it the ‘connection of these mysteries with one another’ in the totality of Christ’s mysteries, from his Incarnation to his Passover.”11 St. Augustin explains the role of Mary simply: “So if our first fall occurred when the woman conceived the serpent’s poison in her heart, small wonder that our salvation was achieved when a woman conceived the flesh of the Almighty in her womb. Each sex had fallen, each was to be restored. It was through a woman that we were cast into destruction, through a woman that salvation was restored to us.”12

The motherhood of the Blessed Virgin Mary extends to the whole Church that, crying out in birth pangs (cf. Rev 12:2), gives birth for eternity to a new offspring redeemed by the Blood of Jesus. Mary is the Mother of God and the Mother of the Church. Her being a virgin and mother restores the virtue of chastity to the right place in the hearts of believers. St. John Henry Newman wrote about it: “O my dear children, young men and young women, what need have you of the intercession of 128 WEEK TWO: GETTING TO KNOW MARY the Virgin-mother, of her help, of her pattern, in this respect! What shall bring you forward in the narrow way, if you live in the world, but the thought and patronage of Mary? What shall seal your senses, what shall tranquillise your heart, when sights and sounds of danger are around you, but Mary? What shall give you patience and endurance, when you are wearied out with the length of the conflict with evil, with the unceasing necessity of precautions, with the irksomeness of observing them, with the tediousness of their repetition, with the strain upon your mind, with your forlorn and cheerless condition, but a loving communion with her! She will comfort you in your discouragements, solace you in your fatigues, raise you after your falls, reward you for your successes. She will show you her Son, your God and your all. When your spirit within you is excited, or relaxed, or depressed, when it loses its balance, when it is restless and wayward, when it is sick of what it has, and hankers after what it has not, when your eye is solicited with evil and your mortal frame trembles under the shadow of the tempter, what will bring you to yourselves, to peace and to health, but the cool breath of the Immaculate and the fragrance of the Rose of Sharon? It is the boast of the Catholic Religion, that it has the gift of making the young heart chaste; and why is this, but that it gives us Jesus Christ for our food, and Mary for our nursing Mother? Fulfil this boast in yourselves; prove to the world that you are following no false teaching, vindicate the glory of your Mother Mary, whom the world blasphemes, in the very face of the world, by the simplicity of your own deportment, and the sanctity of your words and deeds. Go to her for the royal heart of innocence.”13

Prayer by St. Cyril of Alexandria († d. 444) 

Hail, Mary, Mother of God, venerable treasure of the whole universe, lamp that is never extinguished, crown of virginity, D 2 129 support of the true faith, indestructible temple, dwelling of Him whom no place can contain, O Mother and Virgin. Through you, all the holy Gospels call blessed the One who comes in the name of the Lord. Hail, Mother of God. You enclosed under your heart the infinite God whom no space can contain. Through you the Most Holy Trinity is adored and glorified, the priceless cross is venerated throughout the universe. Through you, the heavens rejoice, and the angels and archangels are filled with gladness. Through you, the demons are banished, and the tempter fell from heaven. Through you, the fallen human race is admitted to heaven. Hail, Mother of God. Through you, kings rule, and the only-begotten Son of God has become a star of light to those who were sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death. Amen.

Spiritual reading 

“But how difficult it is for sinners like ourselves to have the permission, the capacity, and the light, to enter into a place so high and so holy, which is guarded not by one of the Cherubim, like the old earthly Paradise, but by the Holy Ghost Himself, who is its absolute master! He Himself has said of it, Hortus conclusus, soror mea sponsa, hortus conclusus, fons signatus; Mary is shut, Mary is sealed. The miserable children of Adam and Eve, driven from the earthly Paradise, cannot enter into this one, except by a particular grace of the Holy Ghost, which they ought to merit.

After we have obtained this illustrious grace by our fidelity, we must remain in the fair interior of Mary with complacency, repose there in peace, lean our weight there in confidence, hide 130 WEEK TWO: GETTING TO KNOW MARY ourselves there with assurance, and lose ourselves there without reserve. Thus, in that virginal bosom, 1, the soul shall be nourished with the milk of grace and maternal mercy; 2, it shall be delivered from its troubles, fears, and scruples; and, 3, it shall be in safety against all its enemies,—the world, the devil, and sin,— who never have an entrance there. It is on this account that Mary says that they who work in her shall not sin: Qui operantur in me, non peccabunt; that is to say, those who dwell in Mary’s spirit shall fall into no considerable fault. Lastly, 4, the soul shall be formed in Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ in it, because her bosom is, as the holy Fathers say, the chamber of the divine Sacraments, where Jesus Christ and all the elect have been formed.” 

St. Louis de Montfort, A Treatise on the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, 263‒264

Homework 

I will thank God for Mary. I will entrust my heart and the whole body to her. With Mary’s help, I will guard the dignity of my humanity. 

Prayer of consecration 

I am all Yours, and all that I have is Yours, O most loving Christ, through Mary, Your most holy Mother. Amen!