Illustrated Life of the Blessed Virgin

MARY'S true greatness consists in having been chosen to be the Mother of God. This sublime privilege, pre-eminently her own and shared by no other creature, elevates her to an eminence more exalted than has ever been granted tQ any other created being. It raises her up near to the Godhead, and constitutes her the channel of many blessings in the Old Law and in the New. Yet, not of course with regard to her own person, but in relation to her divine Son. Mary is the wonder of wonders, a new creation, a peculiar spirit world. What man is in the order of nature, what Jesus Christ is in the order of glory, such is Mary in the order of grace. She is the crown, the high and middle point of the order of salvation. Mother of God! St. Peter Damian, in his eloquent sermon on the birth of the Blessed Virgin, thus gives expression to his exalted conception of the dignity of Mary's motherhood: "In what words may mortal man be permitted to pronounce the praises of her who herself brought forth that Divine Word who lives for all eternity? Where can tongue be found holy and pure enough to eulogize her who bore the Author of all created things, whom the elements praise and obey with fear and trembling? If we wish to extol a martyr's heroism, to recount his acts of virtue, to describe his devotion to his Saviour's cause and honor, facts which belong to the province of human experience supply us with words and circumstances. But when we undertake to write the glories of the Blessed Virgin, we enter upon new, unknown ground-on a subject transcending all human effort. We fail to find words suitable to portray her sublime mysteries and prerogatives. "What power of intellect is able to explain the mystery of the Creator's coming forth from His own creature? "In the virginal womb of the humble maiden is conceived the Eternal, He whom the whole universe cannot contain. In the arms of an earthly mother, the Infinite lies a helpless babe. Yet He it is who, equal to the Father, supplies existence to all creation, who by His omnipotence and authority stills the storms at sea, supplies to the mighty rivers their inexhaustible sources of water, and yet is content to be nourished with the scanty sustenance that His lowly Mother can supply. No human discourse can be found worthy and competent to describe the glories of her from whom the Redeemer between God and man was pleased to assume His sacred body and blood." All the great and glorious deeds performed in God's honor and to man's benefit cannot be compared with what Mary has done for us.