A theologian of the eminence of Father Garrigou-Lagrange does not himself need to be introduced to the public. This present work of his would, however, seem to invite a few words of explanation.

It is not a devotional book in the ordinary sense of the term: it is too openly theological for that. On the other hand, it is no mere theological treatise: the author’s aim has been to inflame hearts no less than to enlighten minds. The result is a work which demands more intellectual application than many others on Our Lady. But, by way of compensation, it touches the will at a deeper and more spiritual level than would a work of less rich content. The author’s insistence—a fully justified one— on the doctrinal side of his subject has, of course, left little room for mere literary ornament. But this lack, if lack it be, will not turn away any reader who is sincerely desirous to know Our Lady better.

As for the translation itself, though care has been taken not to attribute to Father Garrigou-Lagrange anything he did not write, it has not been possible always to translate the original with literal fidelity. Theologians who wish to use the book for strictly scientific purposes would be well advised to compare passages they intend to quote with the original. The translator will be glad to supply it, if necessary, as far as possible.

HOLY GHOST MISSIONARY COLLEGE,

KIMMAGE, Corpus Christi, MAY 27TH, 1948.

This book is intended to be an exposition of the principal theses of Mariology in their bearing on our interior life. While writing it I have noticed more than once how often it has happened that a theologian admitted some prerogative of Our Lady in his earlier years under the influence of piety and admiration of her dignity A second period then followed when the doctrinal difficulties came home to him more forcefully and he was much more reserved in his judgement. Finally there was the third period, when, having had time to study the question in its positive and speculative aspects, he returned to his first position, not now because of his sentiment of piety and admiration, but because his more profound understanding of Tradition and theology revealed to him that the measure of the things of God—and in a special way those things of God which affect Mary—is more overflowing than is commonly understood. If the masterpieces of human art contain unsuspected treasures, the same must be said, with even more reason, of God’s masterpieces in the orders of nature and grace, especially when they bear an immediate relation to the Hypostatic Order, which is constituted by the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word. I have endeavoured to show how these three periods may be found exemplified in the process of St Thomas’ teaching on the Immaculate Conception.

These periods bear a striking analogy to three others in the affective order. It has often been noticed that a soul’s first affective stage may be one of sense-perceptible devotion, for example to the Sacred Heart or the Blessed Virgin. This is followed by a stage of aridity. Then comes the final stage of perfect spiritual devotion, overflowing on the sensibility. May the Good God help the readers of this book who wish to learn of the greatness of the Mother of God and men to understand in what this spiritual progress consists.

The doctrines proposed in this book are not personal ones: it has been my aim to give what is most commonly held by theologians—especially those of the Thomistic school—and to explain the various points in the light of St. Thomas’s principles.1 Lastly every effort has been made to avoid merely metaphorical expressions. There are sometimes too many of them in books on Our Lady. A bibliography is given with each question treated.

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1. For the positive part of the book, I have made extensive use of Fr Merkelbach’s Mariologia. Although I have differed from him in some matters, his book seems to me worthy of the highest praise in its speculative parts as well, both as regards the order of the questions and the accuracy of his theological arguments.

Translator’s Preface

Author’s Preface

PART I. The Divine Maternity and the Plenitude of Grace

CHAPTER 1: The Divine Maternity: Its Eminent Dignity

Article 1. The Predestination of Mary: Mary’s predestination to the Divine Maternity preceded her predestination to the fulness of glory and grace

Article 2.  Other reasons for asserting the preeminence of the Divine Maternity

CHAPTER 2: Mary’s First Plenitude of Grace

Article 1. The different plenitudes of grace

Article 2. The privilege of the Immaculate Conception

Article 3. Was Mary exempt from every fault, even venial?

Article 4. The perfection of Mary’s first grace

Article 5.  The consequence of Mary’s plenitude of grace

CHAPTER 3: Mary’s Plenitude of Grace at and after the Incarnation

Article 1. Mary’s spiritual progress up to the Annunciation

Article 2. Mary’s wonderful increase in grace at the Annunciation

Article 3. The Visitation and the Magnificat

Article 4. Mary’s perpetual virginity

Article 5. The principal mysteries which contributed to Mary’s increase in grace after the Incarnation

Article 6.  Mary’s intellectual endowments and her principal virtues

CHAPTER 4: The Final Plenitude of Mary’s Grace

Article 1. Mary’s fulness of grace at the moment of death

Article 2. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin

Article 3.  The final plenitude of grace in heaven

PART II. Mary, Mother of all men: Her Universal Mediation and our Interior Life

Introduction to Part II

CHAPTER 1: The Mother of the Redeemer and of All Men

Article 1. The Mother of the Saviour associated with His redemptive work

Article 2. Mother of all men

CHAPTER 2: Mary’s Universal Mediation during Her Earthly Existence

Article 1. Mary’s universal mediation in general

Article 2. Mary’s merits for us

Article 3 The sufferings of Mary as Co-Redemptrix

CHAPTER 3: Mary’s Universal Mediation in Heaven

Article 1. Mary’s power of intercession

Article 2. Mary and the distribution of grace

Article 3 The universality of Mary’s mediation and its definability

CHAPTER 4: Mother of Mercy

Article 1. Greatness and power of this maternity

Article 2 Principal manifestations of mercy

CHAPTER 5: Mary’s Universal Queenship

Article 1. Her Queenship in general

Article 2 Special aspects of Mary’s Queenship

CHAPTER 6: True Devotion to Our Lady

Article 1. The cult of hyperdulia and the benefits it confers

Article 2. The Rosary: a school of contemplation

Article 3. Consecration to Mary

Article 4. Mystical union with Mary

Article 5.  The Consecration of the Human Race to Mary for the Peace of the World

CHAPTER 7: The Predestination of St Joseph and His Eminent Sanctity

A Collection of Classic Artwork

Favorite Prayers to Our Lady

Hail Mary

Magnificat

Favorite Prayers to Our Lady 

CHAPTER 1. The Divine Maternity: Its Eminent Dignity

Article 1. The Predestination of Mary: Mary’s predestination to the Divine Maternity preceded her predestination to the fulness of glory and grace

Article 2.  Other reasons for asserting the preeminence of the Divine Maternity

THE two truths which stand out like mountain peaks in the chain of revelation concerning Our Blessed Lady, and around which cluster all other truths we hold about her, are her divine maternity and her fullness of grace, both of which are affirmed in the Gospels and in the Councils of the Church. To grasp their importance it will be well to compare them, asking which of the two comes first, and gives, as it were, the true Pisgah view of all Mariology. In that spirit have theologians enquired which was the greater of Mary’s prerogatives, her divine maternity (her motherhood of God) or her fullness of grace.

The Problem Stated

There have been theologians1 who have declared Mary’s fullness of grace her greatest prerogative. The words spoken to Jesus by a certain woman as He passed in the midst of the people, and His answer, have led them to adopt this position: “Blessed is the womb that bore Thee, and the paps that gave thee suck. But He said: Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it.” (Luke 11: 27-28). On their view the Saviour’s answer implies that the fullness of grace and of charity which was the principle of Mary’s supernatural and meritorious acts was superior to her divine maternity a privilege in itself of the corporeal order only.

According to many other theologians2 the reason given just now is not conclusive. Their arguments are many. They say that the woman in question did not speak precisely of the divine maternity: she thought of Jesus less as God than as a prophet whose words were heard eagerly, who was admired and acclaimed, and she was thinking therefore of a natural motherhood according to flesh and blood: “Blessed is the womb that bore thee and the paps that gave thee suck.” She did not speak of the divine maternity as of something which included a supernatural and meritorious consent to the mystery of the redemptive Incarnation. That was why Our Blessed Lord answered as He did: “Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it.” For it was precisely by hearing the word of God and believing in it that Mary became Mother of the Saviour. She said her fiat generously and with perfect conformity of will to God’s good pleasure and all it involved for her, and she kept the divine words in her heart from the time of the Annunciation onwards. Elisabeth, for her part, expressed this when she said: “Blessed art thou that hast believed, because those things be shall accomplished which were spoken to thee by the Lord” (Luke 1:45). What a contrast with Zachary who was struck dumb for not having believed the words of the Angel Gabriel: “And behold thou shalt be dumb … because thou hast not believed my words.” (Luke 1:20).

Nothing said so far, therefore, is sufficient to solve the problem: which was the greater, the divine maternity as realized in Mary or her fullness of grace and charity?

We must search deeper for a solution. To make the terms of the problem still more precise, it should be noted that the maternity proper to a creature endowed with reason is not the maternity according to flesh and blood which is found in the animal kingdom, but something which demands by its very nature a free consent given by the light of right reason to an act which is under the control of the will and is subject to the moral laws governing the married state: failing this, the maternity of a rational being is simply vicious. But the maternity of Mary was more than rational. It was divine. Hence her consent needed to be not free only, but supernatural and meritorious: and the intention of divine providence was that in default of this consent the mystery of the redemptive Incarnation would not have taken place—she gave her consent, St. Thomas says, in the name of mankind (IIIa, q. 30, a. 2).

Hence the maternity we are discussing is not one which is merely of flesh and blood, but one which by its nature included a supernatural consent to the mystery of the redemptive Incarnation which was about to be realized, and to all the suffering it involved according to the messianic prophecies—especially those of Isaias—all of which Mary knew so well. There can, in consequence, be no question of any divine maternity for Mary except a worthy one: in the designs of God she was to be a worthy Mother of the Redeemer, united perfectly in will to her Son. Tradition supports this by saying that her conceiving was twofold, in body and in soul: in body, for Jesus is flesh of her flesh, the flame of His human life having been lit in the womb of the Virgin by the most pure operation of the Holy Ghost: in soul, for Mary’s express consent was needed before the Word assumed our nature in her.

To the problem so stated the great majority of theologians answer that tradition teaches that the divine maternity defined in the Council of Ephesus, is higher than the fullness of grace, and that Mary’s most glorious title is that of Mother of God. The reasons for their answer are as follows. We ask the reader’s special attention for the first few pages. Once they have been grasped the rest follows quite naturally.

Article 1

The Predestination of Mary

Let us examine first the primary object in the predestination of Mary, and the sense in which it was absolutely gratuitous.

Mary’s predestination to the divine maternity preceded her predestination to the fullness of glory and grace.

This proposition may appear a little too profound for a beginning. In reality it is quite easy to understand. Most people admit it, at least implicitly. Besides it throws a flood of light on all that follows.

Pius IX affirmed it in effect in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus, by which he defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, when he said that God the Father predestined Jesus to natural divine sonship—so superior to adoptive sonship—and Mary to be Mother of God, in one and the same divine decree. The eternal predestination of Jesus included not only the Incarnation itself as object but also all the circumstances of time and place in which it would be realized, and especially the one expressed by the Nicene Creed in the words: “Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine.”3 By the same eternal decree, therefore, Jesus was predestined to be Son of the Most High and Mary to be Mother of God.4 It follows that as Christ was predestined to natural divine son-ship before (in signo priori) being predestined to the summit of glory and to the fullness of grace (the germ of glory) so also the Blessed Virgin Mary was predestined first to the divine maternity, and in consequence to a very high degree of heavenly glory and to the fullness of grace, in order that she might be fully worthy of her mission as Mother of the Saviour. This second predestination was all the more necessary seeing that, as His Mother, she was called to closest association with Jesus, by perfect conformity of her will with His, in His redemptive work. Such, in substance, is the teaching of Pius IX in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus.5

Thus, just as in Jesus the dignity of Son of God, or Word made flesh, surpasses that of the plenitude of created grace, charity, and glory, which He received in His sacred soul as a result of the hypostatic union of two natures in Him by the Incarnation, so also in Mary the dignity of Mother of God surpasses that of the plenitude of grace and charity, and even that of the plenitude of glory which she received through her unique predestination to the divine maternity

It is the teaching of St. Thomas and many other theologians when treating of the motive of the Incarnation (for the redemption of mankind) that Mary’s predestination to be Mother of the Redeemer depended on the divine foreknowledge and permission of Adam’s sin. As St. Thomas explains (IIIa, q. 1, a. 3, ad 3), that sin was permitted in view of a greater good, namely that through the redemptive Incarnation “where sin abounded, grace (might) more abound” (Rom. 5:20).6 Just as God wills the human body for the sake of the human soul, and yet, since He wills that the soul give life to the body, does not create a soul till there is a body ready to receive it, so also God allowed in view of the greater good of the redemptive Incarnation that there should be a sin to be atoned for, and He willed the redemptive Incarnation for the sake of the regeneration of souls: thus in the actually existing order of divine providence there would have been no Incarnation had there been no sin. And in this order everything is subordinated to Christ and His Holy Mother, so that it is true to say with St. Paul (1 Cor. 3:23): “All things are yours … And you are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.”7 Thus the greatness of Christ and of His Mother are in no way lessened by their dependence on Adam’s sin.

Mary was therefore predestined first to the divine maternity. This dignity appears all the greater if we recall that Mary, who was able to merit glory was not able to merit the Incarnation nor the divine maternity, for the Incarnation and the divine maternity lie outside the sphere of merit of the just, which has as outer limit the beatific vision.8

There is also another conclusive reason: the principle or beginning of merit cannot itself be merited. Since original sin, the Incarnation is the principle of all the graces and merits of the just; it cannot therefore be itself merited. Neither, then, could Mary merit her divine maternity de condigno nor de congruo proprie, for that would have been to merit the Incarnation.9

As St. Thomas very accurately indicates, what Mary could merit by the first fullness of grace which she received gratuitously in view of the foreseen merits of her Son, was an increase of charity and that higher degree of purity and holiness which was becoming in the Mother of God.10 Or, as he says elsewhere: “Mary did not merit the Incarnation (nor the divine maternity) but, granted that the Incarnation had been decreed, she merited (merito congrui, not condigni) that it should come to pass through her, since it was becoming that the Mother of God should be most pure and perfect.”11 That is to say, she merited the degree of sanctity which it was becoming for the Mother of God to have, a degree which no other virgin had in fact merited, or could merit, since none other had received nor was entitled to receive the initial fullness of grace and charity which was the principle of Mary’s merits.

This first reason for the eminent dignity of the Mother of God, based on her gratuitous predestination to that glorious title, is clear beyond question. It contains three truths which are, as it were, stars of first magnitude in the heavens of theology: 1st—that by one and the same decree the Father predestined Jesus for natural divine sonship and Mary for the divine maternity; 2nd—that Mary was predestined for the divine maternity before being predestined to the glory and the grace which the Father prepared for her that she might be the worthy Mother of His Son; 3rd—that though Mary merited Heaven de condigno she could not merit12 the Incarnation, nor the divine maternity, since these lie outside the sphere and purpose of human supernatural merit which does not extend beyond gaining eternal beatitude.

Many theologians have considered the argument just given as conclusive. It implies the arguments we shall expose in the following article, which really are but its developments, much as the history of a predestined soul is the unfolding of what was implied in its predestination.13

The Gratuitousness of the Predestination of Mary.

A few additional remarks about the uniqueness of Mary’s predestination will make its gratuitousness all the more apparent.

Among men Jesus is the first of the predestined, since His predestination is the model and cause of ours. As St. Thomas shows (IIIa, q. 24, a. 3 and 4), He merited for us all the effects which follow on our predestination. But the man Jesus was predestined, as we have said, to natural divine sonship, even before being predestined to glory and grace. Hence, His first or primary predestination is none other than the decree of the Incarnation. This eternal decree covers not only the Incarnation taken in the abstract—its mere substance—but also all circumstances of time and place in which it was to be put into execution, including the fact that Jesus was to be conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary “espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David.” (Luke 1:27). Mary’s predestination to the divine maternity being thus included in Jesus’s predestination to natural divine sonship, it follows that it precedes her predestination to glory, since Jesus is the first of those so predestined. A striking confirmation of the thesis of the preceding pages!14

It is no less clear that Mary’s predestination, like that of Jesus, was gratuitous. Jesus did not merit His predestination to natural divine sonship for the reason that His merits presuppose His Person, which is that of the Son of God by nature. Being therefore the principle of all His merits, His Divine Sonship could not itself be merited: else it would be cause and effect at the same time and under the same respect.15

In the same way Mary’s predestination to the divine maternity is gratuitous or independent of her merits, for we have seen that to merit it would involve meriting the Incarnation itself, which is the principle of all the merits of mankind since the Fall. That is the reason for Mary’s words in the Magnificat: “My soul doth magnify the Lord…. Because He hath regarded the humility (the lowly condition) of His handmaid.” Her predestination to glory and grace is clearly gratuitous also, since it is a result or morally necessary consequence of her predestination to be Mother of God. This does not however involve a denial that she merited Heaven. On the contrary, we affirm that she was predestined to gain Heaven by her merits.16 For the whole question of Mary’s predestination cf. Dict. Théol. Cath., article Marie, col. 2358.17

The sequence or order of the divine plan is therefore clear: 

1st—God willed to manifest His goodness; 

2nd—He willed Christ and His glory as Redeemer—in which will the permission of original sin for the sake of the greater good is included; 

3rd—He willed Our Blessed Lady as Mother of the Redeemer; 

4th—In consequence He willed her glory; 

5th—He willed the grace and merits by which she would attain to glory; 

6th—He willed the glory and grace of all the other elect.

The predestination of Mary appears now in all its sublimity. We can understand why the Church extends to her the application of the words of the Book of Proverbs, 8:22-35: “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His ways, before He made anything from the beginning. I was set up from eternity, and of old before the earth was made … when He prepared the Heavens I was present … when He balanced the foundations of the earth, I was with Him forming all things: and was delighted every day, playing before Him at all times; playing in the world, and my delights were to be with the children of men … He that shall fmd me shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord.”

Mary had been promised as the woman who would triumph over the serpent (Gen. 3:15), as the Virgin who would bear Emmanuel (Is. 7:14); she had been prefigured by the ark of alliance, the house of gold, the tower of ivory. All those testimonies show that she was predestined first of all to be Mother of God. And the precise reason why the fullness of glory and grace was given her was to make her the worthy Mother of God—“to make her fit to be mother of Christ, as St. Thomas expresses it (IIIa, q. 27, a. 5, ad 2), This doctrine appeared to him so certain that we find him saying in the same article (corp. art): “The Blessed Virgin Mary came nearer than any other person to the humanity of Christ, since it was from her that He received His human nature. And that is why Mary received from Christ a plenitude of grace which surpassed that of all the saints.”

Pius IX speaks in the same sense at the beginning of the Bull Ineffabilis Deus: “From the beginning and before all ages God selected and prepared for His only Son the Mother from whom, having taken flesh, He would be born in the blessed fullness of time; He loved her by herself more than all creatures, and with such a love as to find His delight in a singular way in her. That is why, drawing from the treasures of His divinity, He endowed her, more than all the angels and saints, with such an abundance of heavenly gifts that she was always completely free from sin, and that, all beautiful and perfect, she appeared in such a plenitude of innocence and holiness that, except God’s, no greater than hers can be conceived, and that no mind but the mind of God can measure it.”18

Article 2

Other Reasons for Asserting The Pre-eminence of the Divine Maternity

We have seen that by the decree of the Incarnation ex Maria Virgine the Blessed Virgin was predestined first of all to the divine maternity and by way of consequence to glory and grace. There are still other reasons, which we shall now bring forward, which show that the divine maternity surpassed the plenitude of grace.

The Value of a Dignity of the Hypostatic Order

Since the value or worth of a relation depends on the term which it regards and which specifies it—as, for example, the dignity of the beatific knowledge and love of the elect depends on their object, which is the divine essence known intuitively—the dignity of the divine maternity is to be measured by considering the term to which it is immediately referred. Now this term is of the hypostatic order, and therefore surpasses the whole order of grace and glory.

By her divine maternity Mary is related really to the Word made flesh. The relation so set up has the uncreated Person of the Incarnate Word as its term, for Mary is the Mother of Jesus, who is God. It is not precisely the humanity of Jesus which is the term of the relation, but rather Jesus Himself in Person: it is He and not His humanity that is Son of Mary19 Hence Mary, reaching, as Cajetan says, even to the frontiers of the Divinity,20 belongs terminally to the hypostatic order, to the order of the personal union of the Humanity of Jesus to the Uncreated Word. This truth follows also from the very definition of the divine maternity as formulated in the Council of Ephesus.21

But the order of the hypostatic union surpasses wonderfully that of grace and glory just as this latter surpasses that of nature—of human nature and of angelic nature, created or possible. The three orders distinguished by Pascal in his Pensées, that of bodies, that of spirits with their powers sometimes amounting to genius, and that of supernatural charity, are separated by an immeasurable distance from each other. The same is true of the hypostatic order and that of glory and grace, considering the latter even as found in the greatest saints. “The earth and its kingdoms, the firmament and all its stars, are not worth a single thought: all spirits taken together (and all their natural powers) are not worth the least movement of charity, for it belongs to another and an entirely supernatural order.” Similarly, all the acts of charity of the greatest saints, men or angels, and their heavenly glory, are far below the personal or hypostatic union of the Humanity of Jesus to the Word. The divine maternity which is terminated by the uncreated Person of the Word made flesh surpasses therefore immeasurably, because of its term, the grace and glory of all the elect, and even the plenitude of grace and glory received by Mary herself.

St. Thomas says (Ia, q. 25, a. 6, ad 4): “The Humanity of Christ since it is united to God, the beatitude of the elect since it is the possession of God, the Blessed Virgin Mary since she is the Mother of God—all these have a certain infinite dignity from their relation to God Himself, and under that respect there can be nothing more perfect than them since there can be nothing more perfect than God.” St. Bonaventure supports this when he says: “God could make a greater world, but He cannot make a more perfect mother than the Mother of God.” (Speculum, c. 8).

As Fr. E. Hugon, O.P, says: “The divine maternity is by its nature higher than adoptive sonship. This latter produces only a spiritual and mystic relationship, whereas the maternity of the Blessed Virgin establishes a relationship of nature, a relationship of consanguinity with Jesus Christ and one of affinity with the entire Trinity Besides, adoptive sonship does not impose, as it were, such obligations on God: for the divine maternity imposed on Jesus those obligations of justice which ordinary children contract naturally in regard to their parents, and it confers on Mary that dominion and power over Him which are the natural right accompanying the dignity of motherhood.”22

By way of corollary it may be mentioned that the divine maternity surpasses all the gratiae gratis datae or charismata, such as the gift of prophecy, knowledge of the secrets of hearts, the gift of miracles or of tongues, for all these graces are in some way exterior and lower in dignity than sanctifying grace (cf, Ia IIae, q. 3, a. 5). It should be noted also that the divine maternity cannot be lost, whereas grace can be lost on earth.

The eminent dignity of the divine maternity has been set in striking relief by Bossuet in his sermon on the Conception of the Blessed Virgin (towards the end of the first point): “God so loved the world, said Our Saviour, as to give His only begotten Son (John 3:16) … (But) the ineffable love which He had for you, O Mary, made Him conceive many other designs in your regard, He ordained that He should belong to you in the same quality in which He belonged to Himself: and in order to establish an eternal union with you He made you the Mother of His only Son and Himself the Father of yours. O prodigy! O abyss of charity! what mind does not find itself lost to consider the incomprehensible regard He had for you; you come so near to Him, through this Son common to you both, this inviolable bond of your sacred alliance, this pledge of your mutual love which you have given so lovingly to each other, the Father giving Him in His impassible divinity, and you giving Him in the mortal flesh in which He was obedient.”

God the Father communicated to His Son the divine nature. Mary gave Him a human nature, subject to pain and death, in which to redeem us. But Mary’s Son is the only-begotten of the Father, and in that consists the whole grandeur of her maternity.

The Reason why so many Graces were Conferred on Mary

The eminent dignity of the divine maternity is revealed in a new light if we consider that it is the reason why the fullness of grace was given to Mary, that it is the measure and end of that fullness, and that it is superior to it.

The reason why Mary was given a fullness of grace from the first instant was that she might be enabled to conceive the Man-God in holiness, by uttering her fiat with the utmost generosity on the day of the Annunciation in spite of the sufferings which she knew had been foretold of the Messiah; it was given her, too, that she might bring forth her child while remaining a virgin, that she might surround Him with the most motherly and most holy devotion; it was given her, finally, that she might unite herself to Him in closest conformity of will, as only a most holy mother can, during His hidden life, His apostolic life, and His suffering life—that she might utter her second fiat most heroically at the foot of the Cross, with Him, by Him, and in Him.

As Fr. Hugon has so well put it: “The divine maternity postulates intimate friendship with God. Since a mother is bound both by a law of nature and an express precept to love her son, and he to love her, Mary and Jesus love each other mutually; and since the maternity in question here is supernatural the love must be of the same order. But this means that it is a sanctifying love, since by the fact that God loves a soul He makes it lovable and sanctifies it.”23 There is thus the most complete conformity between the will of Mary and her Son’s oblation which was, as it were, the soul of the sacrifice of the Cross.

It is clear that it was for the reason we have given and for none other that Mary was given an initial plenitude of grace followed by a consummated plenitude in glory. The same reason or end was the measure of her grace and glory: therefore it surpassed them. Admittedly it is not possible to deduce from the divine maternity each and every one of the privileges received by Mary,24 but all derive ultimately from it. If, finally, she was predestined from all eternity to the highest degree of glory after Jesus, the reason is that she was predestined first of all to be His most worthy mother, and to retain that title during eternity after having enjoyed it in time. The saints who contemplate in Heaven the sublime degree of glory, so far surpassing that of the angels, in which Mary is enthroned, know that the reason why she was predestined to it is that she might be and might remain for eternity the most worthy Mother of God: Mater Creatoris, Mater Salvatoris, Virgo Dei Genetrix.

Such was the teaching of St. Albert the Great on more than one occasion.25 The poets have sung it in their verses. We refer in a note to one of their most recent tributes.26

The Motive of the Cult of Hyperdulia

A last consideration, which will be found in the works of many theologians, can be adduced in favor of our thesis.

It is because she is Mother of God rather than because she is full of grace that Mary is entitled to the cult of hyperdulia, a cult superior to that due to the saints highest in grace and glory. In other words, hyperdulia is due to Mary not because she is the greatest of the saints but because of her divine maternity. It would not have been her due had she been raised to her present degree of glory without having been predestined to be Mother of God. This is the express teaching of St. Thomas.27

In the Litanies of the Blessed Virgin the first title of glory mentioned is the Sancta Dei Genetrix. All the others follow as something which pertains to Mary as Mother of God: Sancta Virgo Virginum, Mater divinae gratiae, Mater purissima, Mater castissima, Mater inviolata, Mater intemerata, Mater amabalis, Mater admirabilis, Mater boni consilii, etc.

Consequences of the Principles thus far Outlined

It follows from what has been said thus far that, simpliciter loquendo, purely and simply the divine maternity even considered in isolation, is superior to the plenitude of grace, consummated no less than initial. The ultimate reason for this assertion is that by its term the divine maternity belongs to a higher order, that of the hypostatic union.28

Thus the rational soul which, considered even in isolation, pertains to the order of substance, is superior to its faculties of intellect and will: it is their end, for they proceed from it as accidents and properties in order that it may have the power of knowing and willing. In a somewhat similar way, the divine maternity considered in isolation from Mary’s other dignities, is the end and reason of her fullness of grace, and is therefore higher than it.

It is now clear why Mary was predestined first to be Mother of God before being predestined to the highest degree of glory after Jesus. The dignity of a relation is to be judged more by its term than by anything else; but the divine maternity is something relative to the Person of the Word made Flesh. In much the same way the mother of a king is nearer to him than the most able of his lawyers.

However, under a certain respect—secundum quid, as theologians say—sanctifying grace and the beatific vision are more perfect than the divine maternity. As regards sanctifying grace, it makes its bearer holy in the formal sense of the term, whereas the divine maternity, being only a relation to the Word made flesh, does not sanctify in that way.29 The beatific vision, for its part, unites the intellects of the elect to the divine essence without the intermediary of the Sacred Humanity.30

It is evident that the hypostatic union of the two natures in Christ, considered absolutely, surpasses the beatific vision, even though the latter includes a perfection in the order of knowledge not found in the former. In a similar way, and with all due reservations, the divine maternity, if considered absolutely or simpliciter, surpasses the plenitude of grace and glory, even though this latter is more perfect in a secondary way, or secundum quid. For the divine maternity, being but a real relation to the Incarnate Word, is not enough of itself to sanctify Mary But it called out for, or demanded, the fullness of grace which was granted her to raise her to the level of her singular mission. She could not have been predestined to be any other kind of mother to the Saviour than a worthy one.31 Everything follows from that certain truth. All Mariology is dominated by it just as all Christology is dominated by the truth that Jesus is the Son of God.32

Since Mary pertains by the term of her maternity to the hypostatic order, it follows that she is higher than the angels; higher also than the priesthood, which participates in that of Christ.33 Of course, not having the priestly character, Mary could not consecrate as does the priest at the altar. But none the less, her dignity is higher than that of the priest and of the bishop, since it is of the hypostatic order. The Victim offered on the Cross, and whom the priest offers on the altar, was given us by Mary. The Principal Offerer of our Masses was given us by her. She was more closely associated with Him at the foot of the Cross than anyone else—more than even the stigmatics and the martyrs. Thus, had Mary received the priestly ordination (but it did not form part of her mission), she would have received something less than what is implied in her title of Mother of God. As St. Albert the Great so well expressed it: “The Blessed Virgin was not called by God to be a minister, but a consort and a helper, in accordance with the words ‘Let us make him a help like unto himself” (Mariale, 42 and 165). Mary was chosen to be not the minister of the Saviour but His associate and helper in the work of redemption.

The divine maternity is therefore, as is commonly taught, the foundation, source, and root of all Mary’s graces and privileges, both those that preceded it as preparation, and those that accompanied it or followed from it as its consequence. It was by way of preparation for the divine maternity that Mary was the Immaculate Conception, preserved from the stain of original sin by the future merits of her Son. He redeemed her as perfectly as was possible; not by healing her, but by preserving her from the original stain before it touched her soul for even an instant. It was because of her maternity that Mary received the initial fullness of grace which ceased not to increase till it reached its consummated plenitude. And because of the same maternity she was exempt from all personal fault, even venial—and from all imperfection, for she never failed in promptitude to obey the divine inspirations even when they came to her by way of simple counsels.34 The dignity of Mary surpasses therefore that of all the saints combined.

Recall, too, that Mary had a mother’s authority over the Word of God made flesh. She contributed therefore to His knowledge: not, of course, to His beatific or infused knowledge, but to the progressive formation of His acquired knowledge, which knowledge lit up the acquired prudence in accordance with which He performed acts proportioned to His age during His infancy and hidden life. In this way the Word made flesh was subject to Mary in most profound sentiments of respect and love. How, then, could we fail to have the same sentiments in regard to the Mother of Our God?

In one of the most beautiful books written about Mary, the Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, St. Grignon de Montfort says (ch. 1, a. 1): “God made Man found liberty in being enclosed in her womb; He showed His power by allowing Himself to be carried by her, young maiden though she was; He found glory, and His Father found glory too, in hiding His splendor from all creatures of earth, so as to reveal them to Mary alone; He glorified His majesty and His independence by depending on the Virgin in His conception, His birth, His presentation in the temple, His hidden life of thirty years—and even up to the time of His death, for she was present then, and He offered one only sacrifice in union with her, and was immolated to the eternal Father with her consent as once Isaac was immolated to the divine will by the consent of Abraham…. It is she who nourished and supported Him, who brought Him up and then sacrificed Him for us…. Finally, Our Lord remains as much the Son of Mary in Heaven as He was on earth.”

Such is the first reason for the cult of hyperdulia which we owe her. It explains why the voice of tradition, and especially the Council of Ephesus and Constantinople, insisted, before everything else concerning Mary, on the fact that she was the Mother of God, thereby affirming afresh against Nestorianism that Jesus was God.

To conclude this chapter we should note that many christians find it so evident that Mary’s greatest title is that of Mother of God, and that all her other titles follow from and are explained by it, that they do not understand why time should be devoted to proving the point. It is quite clear to them that had we, for our part, been in a position to do so, we should have given our mother every gift at our disposal. That is why St. Thomas is content to state quite simply (IIIa, q. 27, a. 5, corp. et ad 2): “To be the worthy Mother of God, Mary needed to receive fullness of grace.” Bossuet repeats this in his sermon on the Compassion of the Blessed Virgin (1st point, end): “Since God disposes things with wonderful aptness, it was necessary that He should imprint on the heart of the Blessed Virgin a love going far beyond nature even to the last reaches of grace, so that she might have for her Son sentiments worthy of a Mother of God and of a Man-God.”

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Footnotes Chapter 1

1. Gabriel Biel in IIIum Sent. dist. IV, a. 3, dub III, p. 2, Brescia 1574, p. 67 sq. and some others who have followed him more or less closely. Thus, Vasquez, in IIIam, disp. XXIII, c. II and disp. C, c, II, attributes greater dignity to sanctifying grace than to the divine maternity. For this opinion cf. Dictionnaire de la Théologie Catholique, art. Marie by E. Dublanchy S.M., col. 2356 sqq.

2. Among the Thomists special mention must be made of Contenson, Gotti, Hugon and Merkelbach.

Father Merkelbach quotes the following in his Mariologia, 1939, p. 68, as having all admitted more or less explicitly that her divine maternity is the greatest of Mary’s titles: St. Epiphanius, St. Ambrose, St. Sophronius, St. Germanus of Constantinople, St. John Damascene, Andrew of Crete, St. Peter Damien, Eadmer, Peter of Celles, St. Bernard, St. Albert the Great, St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas, Denis the Carthusian, St. Bernardine of Siena, St. Alphonsus, and all Thomists in general as, for example, Gonet, Contenson, Gotti, Hugon. Besides, Leo XIII says in his encyclical Quamquam pluries of August 15, 1889: “Certe Matris Dei tam in excelso est dignitas, ut nihil fieri majus queat.” Cf. Marie in Dictionnaire de la Th. Cath., cols. 2349-2359.

3. The words “natus ex Maria Virgine” are in the creed used in the West from at least the second century.

4. The words of Ineffabilis Deus are: “Ineffabilis Deus ab initio et ante saecula Unigenito Filio Suo, matrem ex qua caro factus in beata temporum plenitudine nasceretur, elegit, atque ordinavit tantoque prae creatures universis est prosecutes amore, ut in illa una sibi propensissima voluntate complacuerit … Ipsissima verba, quibus divinae scripturae de increata Sapientia loquuntur, ejusque sempiternas origines repraesentant, consuevit (Ecclesia), tum in ecclesiasticis officiis, tum in sacrosancta liturgia adhibere, et ad illius Virginis primordia transferre, quae uno eodemque decreto cum divinae sapientiae Incarnation fuerunt praestituta.”

The gratuitous predestination of Christ is the exemplary cause of ours, for He merited for us all the effects of our predestination, as St. Thomas explains (IIIa, q. 24, a. 4). But Mary’s predestination to the divine maternity has this altogether peculiar to it, that it is one with Christ’s predestination to natural divine sonship, that is to say, with the decree of the Incarnation. This follows clearly from the text of Pius IX.

5. The same doctrine is found very beautifully expressed in the collect of the Votive Mass of the Holy Rosary (Dominican Missal): Omnipotens et misericors Deus, qui ab aeterno Unigenitum tibi coaequalem atque consubstantialem Filium secundum carnem praedestinasti in Spiritu sanctificationis D. N. J. C, et sanctissimam Virginem Mariam tibi acceptissimam in matrem eidem a saeculo praeelegisti.”

In predestining Christ to natural divine sonship, the Father loved, therefore, and selected (dilexit, elegit et praedestinavit) Mary from all eternity as His Mother, to whom, in consequence, He willed to give fullness of glory and grace. As Pius IX says in Ineffabilis Deus: “Et quidem decebat omnino ut perfectissimae sanctitatis splendoribus semper ornata fulgeret.”

St. Thomas says: “Post Christum habuit Maria maximam plenitudinem gratiae, quae ad hoc est electa, ut esset mater Dei” (in Ep. ad Rom., VIII, lect. 5; p. 118 in Marietti edition).

Mary’s predestination to the divine maternity involves her predestination to glory and grace as an immediate consequence, for that maternity is so intimate a relationship with God as to demand a participation in the divine nature. No one thinks of the Mother of God as without grace (cf. Hugon, De Virgine Maria Deipara, 1926, p. 734). The divine maternity implies also both confirmation in grace and impeccability for there must be mutual and perpetual love between Mother and Son: God owes it to Himself to preserve His Mother from every fault that would separate her from Him (cf. Hugon, ib., p. 736).

6. Pius IX says the same in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus: “Ineffabilis Deus… cum ab omni aetemitate praeviderit luctuosissimam humani generis ruinam ex Adami transgressione derivandum, atque in mysterio a saeculis abscondito primum suae bonitatis opus decrevit per Verbi incarnationem sacramento occultiore complere, ut quod in primo Adam casuram erat, in secundo felicius erigeretur, ab initio et ante saecula Unigenito Filio suo matrem ex qua … nasceretur elegit atque ordinavit … et ante saecula Unigenito Filio suo matrem ex qua … nasceretur elegit atque ordinavit …”

7. This point has been explained at length in Le Sauveur et son amour pour nous, 1933, pp. 129-136, and in Angelicum, 1930 and 1939: “Motivum incarnations fuit motivum misericordiae Causae ad invicem sunt causae.” The sin to be atoned for comes first in the order of material causes. The redemptive Incarnation comes first in the order of final causes, and precedes in the divine intention the actual application of the redemption to souls.

8. Cf. St. Thomas IIIa, q. 2, a. II: “Neque opera cujuscumque hominis potuerant esse meritoria hujus unions (hypostaticae) ex condigno. Primo quidem quia opera meritoria hominis proprie ordinantur ad beatitudinem, quae est virtutis praemium et consistit in plena Dei fruition. Unio autem incarnationis, cum sit in esse personali, transcendit unionem beatae mentis ad Deum, quae est per actum fruentis, et ideo non potest cadere sub merito.”

9. Ibid.: “Secundo, quia gratia non potest cadere sub merito, quae est merendi principium. Unde multo minus incarnatio cadit sub merito, quae est principium gratiae, secundum illud Joannis, I, 17, ‘gratia et veritas per Jesum Christum facta est.’” Mary could merit the Incarnation neither de condigno nor de congruo proprie. Even the second kind of merit must be excluded for it is based on charity which the just have through the merits of the Redeemer. In other words, the eminent cause of our merits cannot itself be merited.

10. IIIa, q. 2, a. II, ad 3: “Beata Virgo dicitur meruisse portare Dominum omnium, non quia meruit ipsum incamari; sed quia meruit ex gratia sibi data illum puritatis et sanctitatis gradum, ut congrue posset esse mater Dei.”

11. Ill Sent., d. IV, q. 3, a. I, ad 6: “Beata Virgo non meruit incarnationem sed praesupposita incarnation, meruit quod per eam fieret, non merito condigni, sed merito congrui, in quantum decebat quod Mater Dei esset purissima et perfectissima.”

12. Not even merito de congruo proprie, for that would be based on Mary’s charity which for its part depended on Jesus” merits, the source of all human merits. But the Blessed Virgin was able to obtain the advent of the promised Saviour by her prayers, the value of which is termed meritum de congruo improprie (which is based not on God’s justice but on His infinite mercy).

13. Cf. Vie Intérieure de la Très Sainte Vierge, a collection of writings of M. Olier, Rome, 1866, vol. I, ch. I: Mary’s predestination to the august dignity of Mother of the Incarnate Word: in decreeing the Incarnation of His Son, God the Father took The Blessed Virgin as His spouse, pp. 53-60. Consequences: wonderful abundance of light and love poured into the soul of Mary at the moment of her conception, pp. 101 sqq. The glory she gives to God from the time of her conception, pp. 106-115. Ch. III: Mary’s presentation and life in the Temple. She enhanced the value of the service offered by the Synagogue by herself adoring Jesus in the Temple under all the figures of the Old Testament; she offered Him under the figure of the immolated victims, pp. 136-143. Mary called on the Messiah in the name of Jews and Gentiles, p. 148, Ch. V: Accomplishment of the mystery of the Incarnation. The Holy Ghost fills Mary with a fullness of His gifts which made her actually worthy of the divine maternity, pp. 203 sqq. The inexpressible love of Mary for the Word incarnate in her, and of the Word for Mary, pp. 250 sqq. At the moment of the Incarnation, the Word espouses the Church in the person of Mary, to whom, on that account, He gives the fullness of His gifts, p. 253. Explanation of the Magnificat, pp. 294-313. Ch. VIII: The birth of Christ; Mary is spiritually the Mother of all Christians, pp. 327-345. Ch. IX: The presentation of Jesus in the Temple by Mary, pp, 363 sqq. Ch. X: The union between Jesus and Mary, pp. 405-434.

14. Suarez is in agreement with the Thomists in this matter: cf. in IIIam, De Mysteriis Christi, disp. I, sect. 3, n. 3: “Dicitur B. Virginem, nostro modo intelligendi, prius secundum rationem praedestinatam esse et electam ut esset Mater Dei, quam ad tantam gratiam et gloriam…. Ideo enim B. Virgo praedestinata est ad tantam gratiam et gloriam, quia electa est in Matrem Dei … ut esset ita disposita sicut Matrem Dei decebat.” (cf. also ib. disp. X, sect, VIII.)

15. Cf. St. Thomas ilia, q. 2, a. II: “In Christo omnis operatio subsecuta est unionem (cum Verbo); ergo nulla ejus operatio potuit esse meritoria unionis.” (Item IIIa, q. 24, a, I and 2.)

16. The divergence of Molinist teaching from that of the disciples of St. Augustine and St. Thomas in this matter of predestination is well known. The two great Doctors mentioned (cf. St. Thomas, Ia, q. 23, a. 5) teach that the predestination of the elect cannot depend on their foreseen merits, since their merits are the effect of their predestination, That was the point of St. Paul’s question, “What hast thou that thou hast not received (1 Cor. 4:7). The ultimate reason why one person is better than another is that God loves him more. No one perseveres in grace rather than to fall into sin except for the reason that God gives him the grace to persevere. For that reason we ought daily to pray for the grace of final perseverance, the grace of graces, the grace of the elect.

But even if the Molinists differ from the Thomists in their general theory of predestination, it would appear, as Father Merkelbach notes in his Mariologia, p. an, that they should make an exception of Mary. For she, having been predestined gratuitously to the dignity of Mother of God, her predestination to glory— which was a consequence of her first predestination—must also have been gratuitous. God could not have allowed His Mother to be lost and therefore must have willed efficaciously to lead her to salvation and to stir up in her the merits which would earn heaven for her.

17. Vasquez was the first to affirm that Mary was predestined to the divine maternity because of her foreseen merits. This opinion has been commonly rejected both in his own and in subsequent times.

18. The original Latin text will be found on pp. 7 and 54.

19. Cf. St. Thomas IIIa, q. 35, a. 4: “Concipi et nasci personae attribuitur secundum naturam illam in qua concipitur et nascitur. Cum igitur in ipso principio con-ceptionis fuerit humana natura assumpta a divina persona, consequens est quod vere possit dici Deum esse conceptum et natum de virgine… Consequens est quod B. Virgo vere dicatur Mater Dei.” To deny that Mary is Mother of God it would be necessary first of all to assert that Jesus had been a mere man before becoming Son of God, or, with Nestorius, to deny that He had a divine personality.

20. Cf. Cajet. in IIa, IIae, q. 103, a. 4, ad 2: “Ad fines Deitatis B. V. Maria propria actione attigit, dum Deum concepit, peperit, genuit et lacte proprio pavit.” Of all creatures Mary had the closest “affinity” to God.

21. Cf. Denzinger, Enchiridion, no. 113: “Si quis non confitetur Deum esse veraciter Emmanuel, et propterea Dei genitricem sanctam virginem (peperit enim secundum carnem factum Dei Verbum), A.S.” (Item nos. 218, 290.)

22. Marie, Pleine de Grâce, 5th edition, 1926, p, 63. This book I consider one of the best written on the Blessed Virgin.

23. Father E. Hugon, O.P. De B. Virgine Maria Deipara (Tractatus Theologici), 1926, p. 735.

24. For example, we cannot deduce from it the privilege of the Assumption, except by taking into consideration the further point that the Mother of God was associated intimately with Jesus’s complete victory over Satan, sin and death. At the same time, it is clear that the reason for this intimate association is the divine maternity. This is much the same as to say that the second property of the circle cannot be deduced from the definition alone, but follows from it taken in conjunction with its first property.

25. Mariale qq. 140 and 141: “Magis est esse matrem Dei per naturam, quam esse filium (Dei) per adoptionem”—”Quidquid claudit alterum in se plus est eligendum quam illud quod non claudit alterum in se. Sed esse matrem Dei per naturam claudit in se filium Dei adoptivum.” Suarez says similarly in Illam P., disp. I, sect. 2, no. 4: “Comparatur haec dignitas Matris Dei ad alias gratias creatas tamquam prima forma ad suas proprietates; et e converso aliae gratiae comparantur ad ipsam sicut dispositiones ad formam. Est ergo haec dignitas matris, excellentior, sicut forma perfectior est proprietatibus et dispositionibus.” (Item Bossuet, cf. infra p. 29.)

26. Paul Claudel has written very beautifully on the subject in his Corona benignitatis anni Dei, Hymn to the Sacred Heart, 15th ed., p. 64.

Three months after the Angel’s message—at the end of June,

The Woman who is bright as the sun and fair as the moon

Feels the Heart of her Infant throb beneath hers.

In the womb of the Virgin Immaculate a new world begins,

The Child who is older than time enters time for our sins,

And with human breathing the First Mover stirs.

Mary, heavy with child conceived by the Holy Ghost,

Is far from the sight of men with her heavenly Host,

Like the dove of the Canticle in the crannied wall.

She moves not, she speaks not a word, she adores—no more;

Her life is within, her God is within to adore,

Her work and her son, her child, her all.

The world is at peace, the temple of Janus is shut,

The sceptre of David is gone and the prophets are mute,

Lo! darker than Hades, a dawn without light.

For Satan holds sway and the world gives him incense and gold,

But into his kingdom God comes like a thief, and behold

A daughter of Eve puts the serpent to flight.

The promised Messiah is come, for whom the world prays,

Men know not the good tidings yet, but, far from their gaze,

The Mother is circled by Cherubim bright.

27. IIIa, q. 25, a. 5: “Cum Beata Virgo sit pura creatura rationalis, non debetur ei adoratio latriae, sed solum veneratio duliae, eminentius tamen quam caeteris creaturis, in quantum ipsa est Mater Dei. Et ideo dicitur quod debetur ei non qualiscumque dulia, sed hyperdulia.”

ad I: Matri regis debetur quidam honor consimilis (honori qui debetur regi), ratione cujusdam excellentiae.”

ad 2: “Honor matris refertur ad filium.”

St. Bonaventure speaks in the same sense in III Sent., d. 9, q. 3, a. 1. The Sacred Congregation of Rites said also (June 1st, 1884): “Reginae et dominae angelorum, in quantum est mater Dei … debetur … non qualiscumque dulia, sed hyperdulia.”

28. In this assertion we differ, as do many theologians, from Suarez (in IIIam S. Thomae, t. II, disp. I, sect. 2, no. 6 sq.) and the Salamanticenses (Cursus Theologians, tr. XIII, disp. II, 27; tr. XIX, disp. IV, 117 sq.).

The reasons for our position are those so well exposed by E. Dublanchy in the Diet. Thiol. Cath., art. Marie, cols. 2357-2365. As we read there, Suarez held that were the divine maternity to exist without grace and adoptive childhood by grace, it would be much inferior to the latter. On the other hand, if the divine maternity be understood as including everything that is associated with it in the present order of providence, it is certainly higher than adoptive childhood. Suarez” distinction has been approved and adopted by Novatus, Vega and the Salamanticenses.

However, as Father Dublanchy says (ibid. col. 2357): “The greater number of theologians, basing themselves on the principle that the divine maternity pertains to the hypostatic order and that whatever pertains to that order surpasses all gifts of grace, continued to hold both in the seventeenth and the succeeding centuries that the divine maternity surpassed—in dignity, at least—adoptive childhood by grace, even if it be considered, per impossible, as separated from grace.”

29. That is a point of difference between the divine maternity and the uncreated grace of union, which is nothing other than the Person of the Word sanctifying the Sacred Humanity. The grace of union confers an inner, substantial, uncreated sanctity, which is higher than the accidental and created sanctity conferred by the accident of sanctifying grace.

30. These theological arguments for the superiority of the divine maternity over the fullness of grace are ably exposed by Father Merkelbach, O.P., in his Mariologia, 1939, pp. 64-70 (against Basquez, Van Noort, and others). Father Hugon, O.P., Tractatus Theologici, de B. V. Maria Deipara, 1926, p. 736, may also be consulted.

31. The maternity of a rational creature must be worthy or else irrational; an unworthy mother fails in the duties imposed on her by the natural law. Rational maternity of its very nature far surpasses the maternity of an irrational creature, even though this latter is not without nobility as for example in the mother-hen who gathers her chicks under her wings and sacrifices herself to protect them from the hawk.

32. cf. Dict. Théol. Cath., art. Marie by E. Dublanchy col. 2365: “The dignity of the divine maternity since it appertains to the hypostatic order, surpasses all other created dignities, even when considered in its isolation, and not excluding the dignity of divine adoption by grace and the Christian priesthood.”

Father E, Hugon, O.P., in his book Marie, pleine de grâce, fifth edition, 1926, p. 213, remarks very pertinently: “The divine maternity calls for holiness and all its effects. It calls for participation in the divine being and the divine friendship. It implies a special inhabitation of the Blessed Trinity. It confers a sovereign power of impetration. It guarantees impeccability. It confers an inalienable right to the eternal heritage and even to dominion over all things. It belongs to the hypostatic order, which is higher than that of grace and glory. Habitual grace can be lost, but not the divine maternity. Mary’s other graces are only a consequence of her maternity. By it, Mary is the eldest daughter (l’ainée) in all creation.”

33. Mary contributes by her maternity to the realisation of the mystery of the Incarnation by giving the Word His human nature, which is more than to make Him really present in the Blessed Eucharist. Besides, the priest may have the priestly character without grace and without God’s friendship; the plenitude of grace is, however, inseparable from Mary, because of her special predestination. It is possible to think of an unworthy priest, but not of an unworthy Mother of God. From Mary’s maternity, there follow the privileges of her preservation from original sin, and from every personal sin (even venial) and from every imperfection.

34. Thus we see that an imperfection, which is a failing in promptitude to follow a divine counsel, is something different from a venial sin. The shade of difference is not easy to detect in ordinary human lives, but it appears quite clear in the light of the perfect holiness of Mary.

CHAPTER 2. Mary’s First Plenitude of Grace

Article 1. The different plenitudes of grace

Article 2. The privilege of the Immaculate Conception

Article 3. Was Mary exempt from every fault, even venial?

Article 4. The perfection of Mary’s first grace

Article 5.  The consequence of Mary’s plenitude of grace

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“Hail, full of Grace” (Luke 1:28.)

HAVING seen the nobility of Mary’s title, Mother of God, it is now appropriate to examine the meaning and implications of the words spoken to her by the Angel Gabriel on the day of the Annunciation: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: Blessed art thou among women.” (Luke 1:28). As a help to understanding these words spoken in God’s name we shall consider: 1st—the different plenitudes of grace; 2nd—the privilege of the Immaculate Conception; 3rd—the sublimity of Mary’s first grace.

Article 1

The Different Plenitudes of Grace

According to the usage of Holy Scripture, which becomes more and more explicit in the New Testament, it is grace in the strict sense of the term which is implied in the term “fullness of grace”—that is to say, grace which is really distinct from nature, both human and angelic, grace which is a free gift of God surpassing the natural powers and exigencies of all nature, created or creatable.1 Habitual or sanctifying grace makes us participate in the very nature, in the inner life of God, according to the words of St. Peter (2 Peter 1:4): “By whom he hath given us most great and precious promises: that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature.” By grace we have become adopted children of God, heirs and co-heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:17); by grace we are “born of God.” (John 1:13). It prepares us to receive eternal life as a heritage and as a reward of the merits of which it is itself the principle. It is even the germ of eternal life, the semen gloriae as Tradition terms it, since by it we are disposed in advance for the face to face vision and the beatific love of God.

Habitual grace is received into the very essence of the soul as a supernatural graft which elevates and deifies its vitality. From it there flows into the faculties the infused virtues, theological and moral, and the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, all of which supernatural organism constitutes a sort of second nature of such a kind as to enable us to perform con-naturally the supernatural and meritorious acts of the infused virtues and the seven gifts. We have, too, by habitual grace the Blessed Trinity dwelling within us as in a temple where They are known and loved, even as it were experimentally. And at times we do know Them in this quasi-experimental fashion when by a special grace They make Themselves known to us as the life of our life, for “… you have received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry Abba (Father).” (Rom. 8:15). Then does the Holy Ghost inspire us with filial love, and in that sense “… the spirit himself giveth testimony to our spirit, that we are the sons of God.” (Rom. 8:16).

While habitual grace makes us thus children of God, actual or transitory grace first of all disposes us for adoptive childhood, and subsequently makes us act, through the infused virtues and gifts working separately or both together, in a manner becoming God’s children. This new life of grace, virtues and gifts, is none other than eternal life begun on earth, since habitual grace and charity will outlive the passage of time.

Grace—call it, if you will, a participation in the divine nature—was no less gratuitous for the angels than for us. As St. Augustine says (De Civ. Dei, XII, c. 9): “God created them, at the same instant forming their nature and endowing them with grace.” When creating the angels God conferred grace on them, to which grace their nature, richly endowed though it was, could lay no claim. The angels, and man also, could have been created in a purely natural condition, lacking the divine graft whence issues a new life.

The grace intended in the words “Hail, full of grace” addressed to Our Lady is therefore something higher than nature or the exigencies of nature, created or merely possible. It is a participation in the divine nature or in the inner life of God, which makes the soul to enter into the kingdom of God, a kingdom far surpassing all the kingdoms of nature—mineral, vegetable, animal, human, and even angelic. So elevated is grace that St. Thomas could say: “The good of the grace of one soul is greater than the good of the nature of the whole universe.”2 The least degree of grace in the soul of a newly baptised child is worth more than all created natures, including those that are angelic. Being a participation in the inner life of God, grace is something greater than all miracles and exterior signs of divine revelation or of the sanctity of God’s favored servants. And it is of this grace, germ and promise of glory, that the angel spoke when he said to Mary: “Hail, full of grace.” Gazing at Mary’s soul, he saw that, though he himself was in the possession of the beatific vision, Mary’s grace and charity far surpassed his for she possessed them in the degree required to become at that instant the Mother of God.

Mary, of course, had received from the Most High natural gifts of body and soul in wonderful perfection. Judged even from the natural level, the soul of Jesus united in itself all that there is of beauty and nobility in the souls of the great poets and artists, of men of genius and of men of generosity. In an analogous way the soul of Mary was a divine masterpiece because of the natural perfection of her intelligence and will and sensibility There is no shadow of doubt that she was more gifted than anyone who has ever struck us as remarkable for penetration and sureness of mind, for strength of will, for equilibrium or harmony of higher and lower faculties. Since she had been preserved from original sin and its baneful effects, concupiscence and darkness of understanding, her body did not weigh down her mind but rather served it. When forming the body of a saint, God has in mind the soul which is to vivify it: when forming Mary’s body He had in mind the Body and the infinitely holy Soul of the Word made flesh. As St. Albert the Great loves to recall, the Fathers of the Church say that Mary, viewed even naturally, had the grace of Rebecca, the beauty of Rachel, and the gentle majesty of Esther. They add that her chaste beauty never held the gaze for its own sake alone, but always lifted souls up to God.

The more perfect these gifts of nature in Mary, the more elevated they make her grace appear, for it surpasses them immeasurably.

When speaking of fullness of grace it is well to note that it exists in three different degrees in Our Lord, in Mary, and in the just. St. Thomas explains this a number of times.3

There is, first of all, the absolute fullness of grace which is peculiar to Jesus, the Saviour of mankind. Taking into consideration only the ordinary power of God, there can be no greater grace than this. It is the eminent and inexhaustible source of all the grace which all men have received since the Fall, or will receive till the end of time. It is the source also of the beatitude of the elect, for Jesus has merited all the effects of our predestination.4

There is, in the second place, the fullness of superabundance which is Mary’s special privilege, and which is so named since it is like a spiritual river which has poured of its abundance upon the souls of men for almost two thousand years.

There is finally the fullness of sufficiency which is common to all the just and which makes them capable of performing those meritorious acts—they normally become more perfect in the course of years—which lead them to eternal life.

These three fullnesses have been well compared to an inexhaustible spring, to the stream or river which flows from it, and to the different canals fed by the river, which irrigate and make fertile the whole region they traverse—that is to say, the whole Church, universal in time and space. The river of grace proceeds from God through the Saviour, as we read “Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just: let the earth be opened, and bud forth a saviour.” (Is. 14:8). And then finally it rises once more to God, the Ocean of peace, in the form of merits, prayers, and sacrifices.

To continue the image: the fullness of the spring has not increased; that of the river, on the contrary, which flows from it has increased. Or, to speak in plain terms, the absolute fullness of Our Saviour knew no increase, for it was sovereignly perfect from the first instant of His conception by reason of the personal union with the Word. For, from the first instant, the lumen gloriae and the beatific vision were communicated to Jesus’s soul, so that the second Council of Constantinople could say (Denz. 224) that Christ did not grow more perfect by reason of His meritorious acts: “Ex profectu operum non melioratus est.” Mary’s fullness of grace, however, did not cease to increase up to the time of her death. For that reason theologians usually speak of, 1st—her initial fullness or plenitude; 2nd—the fullness of her second sanctification at the instant of the conception of the Saviour; 3rd—the final fullness (at the instant of her entry into glory), its extent, and its superabundance.5

Article 2

The Privilege of the Immaculate Conception

The initial fullness of grace in Mary presents two aspects. One is negative, at least in its formulation: her preservation from original sin. The other is positive: her conception, absolutely pure and holy by reason of the perfection of her initial sanctifying grace in which were rooted the infused virtues and the gifts of the Holy Ghost.

The Dogmatic Definition

The definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, made by Pius IX on December 8th, 1854, reads as follows: “We declare, announce, and define that the doctrine which states that the Blessed Virgin Mary was preserved, in the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of God Omnipotent and because of the merits of Jesus Christ the Saviour of the human race, free from all stain of original sin, is revealed by God and must therefore be believed firmly and with constancy by all the faithful” (Denz. 1641).

This definition contains three especially important points: 1st—It affirms that the Blessed Virgin was preserved from all stain of original sin from the first instant of her conception. The conception meant is that known as passive or consummated—that in which her soul was created and united to her body—for it is then only that one can speak of a human person, whereas the definition bears on a privilege granted to the person of Mary The definition states also that the Immaculate Conception is a special privilege and an altogether singular grace, the work of divine omnipotence.

What are we to understand by original sin from which Mary has been preserved? The Church has not defined its intrinsic nature, but she has taught us something about it by telling us its effects: the divine hatred or malediction, a stain on the soul, a state of non-justice or spiritual death, servitude under the empire of Satan, subjection to the law of concupiscence, subjection to suffering and to bodily death in so far as they are the penalty of the common sin.6 These effects presuppose the loss of the sanctifying grace which, along with integrity of nature, Adam had received for us and for himself, and which he lost by sin, also for us and for himself.7

It follows therefore that Mary was not preserved free from every stain of original sin otherwise than by receiving sanctifying grace into her soul from the first instant of her conception. Thus she was conceived in that state of justice and holiness which is the effect of the divine friendship as opposed to the divine malediction, and in consequence she was withdrawn from the slavery of the devil and subjection to the law of concupiscence. She was withdrawn too from subjection to the law of suffering and death, considered as penalties of the sin  of our nature,8 even though both Jesus and Mary knew suffering and death in so far as they are consequences of our nature (in carne passibili) and endured them for our salvation.

2nd—It is affirmed in the definition, as it was already affirmed in 1661 by Alexander VIII (Denz. 1100) that it was through the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, that Mary was preserved from original sin. Hence the opinion held by some 13th-century theologians—that Mary was immaculate in the sense of not needing to be redeemed, and that her first grace was independent of the future merits of her Son—may no longer be admitted. According to the Bull Ineffabilis Deus, Mary was redeemed by the merits of her Son in a most perfect way, by a redemption which did not free her from a stain already contracted, but which preserved her from contracting one. Even in human affairs we look on one as more a saviour if he wards off a blow than if he merely heals the wound it inflicts.

The idea of a preservative redemption reminds us that Mary, being a child of Adam and proceeding from him by way of natural generation, should have incurred the hereditary taint, and would have incurred it in fact had not God decided from all eternity to grant her the unique privilege of an immaculate conception in dependence on the future merits of her Son.

The liturgy had already made this point in the prayer proper to the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, which was approved by Sixtus IV (1476): “Thou hast preserved her (Mary) from all stain through the foreseen death of this same Son.” The Blessed Virgin was preserved from original sin by the future death of her Son, that is to say, by the merits of Christ dying for us on the Cross.

It is therefore clear that Mary’s preservation from original sin differs essentially from that of the Saviour. Jesus was not redeemed by the merits of another, not even by His own. He was preserved from original sin and from all sin for two reasons: first because of the personal or hypostatic union of His humanity to the Word in the very instant in which His sacred soul was created, since it could not be that sin should ever be attributed to the Word made flesh; secondly, since His conception was virginal and due to the operation of the Holy Ghost, so that Jesus did not descend from Adam by way of natural generation.9 These two reasons are peculiar to Jesus alone.

3rd—The definition proposes the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception as revealed, that is, as contained at least implicitly in the deposit of Revelation—in Scripture and Tradition, or in one at least of those two sources.

The Testimony of the Scriptures

The Bull Ineffabilis Deus quotes two texts of Scripture, Genesis 3:15, and Luke 1:28, 42.

The privilege of the Immaculate Conception is revealed as it were implicitly or confusedly in the book of Genesis in the words spoken by God to the serpent, and thereby to Satan (Gen. 3:15): “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.” The pronoun we translate as “she” in “she shall crush thy head” is masculine in the Hebrew text, and stands for the posterity or seed of the woman; this is true also of the Septuagint and the Syraic versions. The Vulgate however has the feminine pronoun “ipsa,” referring the prophecy directly to the woman herself. However there is no essential difference of  meaning between the two readings since the woman is to be associated with the victory of Him Who will be the great representative of her posterity in their conflict with Satan throughout the ages.

Taken by themselves these words are certainly not sufficient to prove that the Immaculate Conception is revealed. But the Fathers of the Church, in their comparison of Eve and Mary have seen in them an allusion to it, and it is on that account that the text is cited by Pius IX.

To the naturalist exegete the text means no more than the instinctive revulsion man experiences towards the serpent. But to the Jewish and Christian tradition it means much more. The Christian tradition sees in that promise—it has been termed the protoevangelium—the first sketch of the Messiah and His victory over the spirit of evil. For Jesus is pre-eminently the posterity of the woman in conflict with the posterity of the serpent. But if Jesus is termed the posterity of the woman, that is not because of His remote connection with Eve, who was able to pass on to her descendants only a fallen and wounded nature, deprived of the divine life. Rather is it because of His connection with Mary, in whose womb He took a stainless humanity. As Fr. F X. le Bachelet says, in col. 118 of the article referred to already, “We do not find in Eve the principle of that enmity which God will put between the race of the woman and the race of the serpent; for Eve, like Adam, is herself fallen a victim to the serpent. It is only between Mary, Mother of the Redeemer, that enmity ultimately exists. Hence the person of Mary is included, though in a veiled manner, in the protoevangelium, and the Vulgate reading “ipsa” (she) expresses something really implied in the sacred text, since the victory of the Redeemer is morally, but really, the victory of His Mother.”

For that reason early Christianity never ceased to contrast Eve who shared in Adam’s sin by yielding to the serpent’s suggestion with Mary who shared in the redemptive work of Christ by believing the words of the angel on the morning of the Annunciation.10

The promise of Genesis speaks of a victory that will be complete: “She shall crush thy head.” And since the victory over Satan will be complete, so also the victory over sin which makes the soul slave and the devil master. But as Pius IX teaches in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus, the victory over Satan would not be complete if Mary had not been preserved from original sin by the merits of her Son: “De ipso (serpente) plenissime triumphans, illius caput immaculato pede (Maria) contrivit.”

The Immaculate Conception is contained therefore in the promise of Genesis as the oak is contained in the acorn. A person who had never seen an oak could never guess the value of the acorn, nor its final stage of development. But we who have seen the oak know for what the acorn is destined, and that it does not yield an elm nor a poplar. The same law of evolution obtains in the order of progressive divine revelation.

The Bull Ineffabilis quotes also the salutation addressed by the angel to Mary (Luke 1:28): “Hail, full of grace … blessed are thou among woman,” as well as the similar words uttered by St. Elisabeth under divine inspiration (Luke 1:42). Pius IX does not state that these words are sufficient by themselves to prove that the Immaculate Conception is revealed; for that, the exegetic tradition of the Fathers must be invoked.

This tradition becomes explicit with St. Ephrem the Syrian (d. 373).11 Among the Greeks it is found on the morrow of the Council of Ephesus (431), especially in the teaching of two bishop-opponents of Nestorious, St. Proclus who was a successor of St. John Chrysostom in the chair of Constantinople (431-446) and Theodore, bishop of Ancyra. Later we find it in the teaching of St. Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem (634-638), Andrew of Crete (d. 740), St. John Damascene (d. towards the middle of the 8th century). These different testimonies will be found at length in the article Marie of the Dict. Apol., cols. 223-231.

Understood in the light of this exegetic tradition, the words of the angel to Mary “Hail, full of grace”—that is “Hail, thou art fully pleasing to God and loved by Him”—are not limited temporally in their application in such a way as to exclude even the initial period of Mary’s life. On the contrary, the Blessed Virgin would not have received complete fullness of grace had her soul been even for an instant in the condition of spiritual death which follows on original sin, had she been even for an instant deprived of grace, turned away from God, a daughter of wrath, in slavery to the devil. St. Proclus says that she was “formed from stainless clay.”12 Theodore of Ancyra says that “the Son of the Most High came forth from the Most High.”13 St. John Damascene writes that Mary is the holy daughter of Joachim and Anne “who has escaped the burning darts of the evil one,”14 that she is a new paradise “to which the serpent has no stealthy access,”15 that she is exempt from the debt of death which is one of the consequences of original sin,16 and that she must therefore be exempt from the common fall.

If Mary had contracted original sin her fullness of grace would have been diminished in this sense that it would not have extended to the whole of her life. Thus, Our Holy Mother the Church, reading the words of the angelic salutation in the light of Tradition and with the assistance of the Holy Ghost, saw revealed implicitly in it the privilege of the Immaculate Conception. The privilege is revealed in the text not as an effect is in a cause which could exist without it, but as a part is in a whole; the part is actually contained in the whole at least by way of implicit statement.

The Testimony of Tradition

Tradition itself affirms the truth of the Immaculate Conception more and more explicitly in the course of time. St. Justin17, St. Irenaeus,18 Tertullian,19 contrast Eve, the cause of death, and Mary, the cause of life and salvation. This antithesis is constantly on the lips of the Fathers20 and is found also in the most solemn documents of the Church’s magisterium, especially in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus. It is presented as perfect and without restriction; thus, Mary must always have been greater than Eve, and most particularly at the first moment of her life. The Fathers often say that Mary is stainless, that she has always been blessed by God in honour of her Son, that she is intemerata, intacta, impolluta, intaminata, illibata, altogether without spot.

Comparing Mary and Eve, St. Ephrem says: “Both were at first simple and innocent, but thereafter Eve became cause of death and Mary cause of life.”21 Speaking to Our Blessed Lord, he continues: “You Lord and Your Mother are the only two who are perfectly beautiful under every respect. In You there is no fault, and in Your Mother there is no stain. All other children of God are far from such beauty.”22

In much the same way St. Ambrose says of Mary that she is free from every stain of sin “per gratiam ab omni integra labe peccati.”23 St. Augustine’s comment is well known: “The honour of the Lord does not permit that the question of sin be raised in connected with the Blessed Virgin Mary.”24 If however the question be put to the saints “Are you sinless? he affirms that they will answer with the Apostle St. John (1 John, 1:8): “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” There are two other texts which seem to show that St. Augustine meant his words to be understood in the sense of the Immaculate Conception,25 Many other texts of the Fathers will be found in the works of Passaglia,26 Palmieri27 and Le Bachelet.28

It should not be forgotten that the Feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary has been celebrated in the Church, especially in the Greek Church, since the 7th and 8th centuries. The same Feast is found in Sicily in the 9th, in Ireland in the loth, and almost everywhere in Europe in the 12th century.

The Lateran Council, held in the year 649 (Denz., 256) calls Mary “Immaculate.” In 1476 and 1483 Pope Sixtus IV speaks favorably of the privilege in connection with the Feast of the Conception of Mary (Denz., 734 sqq.). The Council of Trent (Denz., 792) declares, when speaking of original sin which infects all men, that it does not intend to include the Blessed and Immaculate Virgin Mary. In 1567 Baius is condemned for having taught the contrary (Denz., 1073). In 1661 Alexander VII affirmed the privilege, saying that almost all Catholics held it, though it had not yet been defined (Denz., 1100). Finally, on December 8th, 1854, we have the promulgation of the solemn definition (Denz., 1641).

It must be admitted that in the 12th and 13th centuries certain great doctors, as, for example, St. Bernard,29 St. Anselm,30 Peter Lombard,31 Hugh of St. Victor,32 St. Albert the Great,33 St. Bonaventure34 and St. Thomas Aquinas appear to have been disinclined to admit the privilege. But this was because they did not consider the precise instant of Mary’s animation, or of the creation of her soul, and also because they did not distinguish, with the help of the idea of preservative redemption, between the debt to contract the hereditary stain and its actual contraction. In other words, they did not always distinguish sufficiently between “debebat contrahere” and “contraxit peccatum.” We shall see later that there were three stages in St. Thomas’s doctrine and that though he appears to deny the Immaculate Conception in the second, he admits it in the first, and probably in the third also.

Theological Reasons for Admitting the Immaculate Conception

The principal argument ex convenientia, or from becomingness, for the Immaculate Conception, is an elaboration of the one which St. Thomas (IIIa, q. 27, a. 1) and others give for Mary’s sanctification in her mother’s womb before birth. “It is reasonable to believe that she who gave birth to the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, received greater privileges of grace than all others. … We find however that to some the privilege of sanctification in their mother’s womb has been granted, as for example to Jeremias … and John the Baptist…. Hence it is reasonable to believe that the Blessed Virgin was sanctified before birth.” In a. 5 of the same question we read also: “The nearer one approaches to the source of all grace the more grace one receives; but Mary came nearest of all to Christ, Who is the principle of grace.”35

But this argument ex convenientia needs to be expanded before it will prove the Immaculate Conception.

It is Scotus’s glory (Thomists should consider it a point of honour to admit that their adversary was right in this matter) to have shown the supreme becomingness of this privilege in answer to the following difficulty which St. Thomas and many other theologians put forward: Christ is the universal Redeemer of all men without exception (Rom. 3:23; 5:12, 19; Gal. 3:22; 2 Cor. 5:14; 1 Tim. 2:16); but if Mary did not contract original sin she would not have been redeemed; hence, since she was redeemed, she must have contracted original sin.

Duns Scotus answers this objection36 by referring to the idea of a redemption which is preservative, not liberative. He shows how reasonable this idea is, and in some places at least does not link it up with his peculiar doctrine concerning the motive of the Incarnation, so that it can be admitted independently of what one thinks about the second matter.

This is his line of argument.

It is becoming that a perfect Redeemer should make use of a sovereign mode of redemption, at least in regard to the person of His Mother who was to be associated more closely with Him than anyone else in the work of salvation. But the sovereign mode of redemption is not that which liberates from a stain already contracted, but that which preserves from all stain, just as he who wards off a blow from another saves him more than if he were simply to heal a wound that has been inflicted. Hence it was most becoming that the perfect Redeemer should, by His merits, preserve His Mother from original sin and all actual sin. This argument can be found in embryo in Eadmer.37

The Bull Ineffabilis gives this argument, in a somewhat different form, along with others. For example, it states that the honor and dishonor alike of parents affect their children, and that it was not becoming that the perfect Redeemer should have a mother who was conceived in sin. Also, just as the Word proceeds eternally from a most holy Father, it was becoming that He should be born on earth of a mother to whom the splendor of sanctity had never been lacking. Finally, in order that Mary should be able to repair the effects of Eve’s fall, overcome the wiles of the devil, and give supernatural life to all, with, by, and in Christ, it was becoming that she herself should never have been in a fallen condition, a slave to sin and the devil.

If it be objected that Christ alone is immaculate, it is easy to answer: Christ alone is immaculate of Himself, and by the double title of His Hypostatic Union and His virginal conception; Mary is immaculate through the merits of her Son.

The consequences of the Immaculate Conception have been developed by the great spiritual writers. Mary has been preserved from the two baneful fruits of original sin, concupiscence and darkness of understanding.

Since the definition of the Immaculate Conception we are obliged to hold that concupiscence has been not only bound, or restrained, in Mary from the time she was in her mother’s womb, but even that she was never in any sense its subject. There could be no disordered movement of her sensitive nature, no escape of her sensibility from the previous control of reason and will. Her sensibility was always fully subject to her rational powers, and thereby to God’s Will, as obtained in the state of original innocence. Thus Mary is virgin of virgins, most pure, “inviolata, intemerata,” tower of ivory, most pure mirror of God,

Similarly, Mary was never subject to error or illusion. Her judgment was always enlightened and correct. If she did not understand a thing fully she suspended her judgment upon it, and thus avoided the precipitation which might have been the cause of error. She is, as the Litanies say, the Seat of Wisdom, the Queen of Doctors, the Virgin most prudent, the Mother of good counsel. All theologians realise that nature spoke more eloquently to her of the Creator than to the greatest poets. She had, too, an eminent and wonderfully simple knowledge of what the Scriptures said of the Messiah, the Incarnation, and the Redemption. Thus she was fully exempt from concupiscence and error.

But why did the Immaculate Conception not make Mary immune from pain and death since they too were consequences of original sin?

It should be noted that the pain and death which Jesus and Mary knew were not consequences of original sin as they are for us. For Jesus and Mary they were consequences of but human nature, which, of itself, and like the animal nature in general, is subject to pain and death of the body: it was only because of a special privilege that Adam had been exempt from them in the state of innocence. As for Jesus, He was conceived virginally in passible flesh in order to redeem us by dying, and when the time came He accepted suffering and death, its consummation, freely for love of us. Mary, for her part, accepted suffering and death voluntarily in imitation of Him and to unite herself to Him; she was one with Him in His expiation and in His work of redemption.

There is one wonderful thing, one delight of contemplates, which we should not overlook. It is that the privilege of the Immaculate Conception and the fullness of grace did not withdraw Mary from pain, but rather made her all the more sensitive to suffer from contact with sin, the greatest of evils. Precisely because she was so pure, precisely because her heart was consumed by the love of God, Mary suffered pains to which our imperfection makes us insensible. We suffer if our self-love is wounded, or our pride, or our susceptibilities. Mary, however, suffered from sin, and that in the measure of her love of God Whom sin offends, and her love of Her Son Whom sin crucifies; she suffered in the measure of her love of us, whom sin wounds and kills. Thus the Immaculate Conception increased Mary’s sufferings and disposed her to bear them heroically. Not one of them did she squander. All passed through her hands in union with those of her Son, thus to be offered up for our salvation.

St. Thomas and the Immaculate Conception

As certain commentators have suggested, three periods may be distinguished in St. Thomas’s teaching.

In the first—that of 1253-1254, the beginning of his theological career—he supports the privilege, probably because of the liturgical tradition which favored it, as well as because of his pious admiration for the perfect holiness of the Mother of God. It is in this period that he wrote (I Sent., d. 44, q. I, a. 3, ad 3): “Purity is increased by withdrawing from its opposite: hence there can be a creature than whom no more pure is possible in creation, if it be free from all contagion of sin: and such was the purity of the Blessed Virgin who was immune from original and actual sin.” This text states therefore that Mary was so pure as to be exempt from all original and actual sin.

During the second period St. Thomas, seeing better the difficulties in the question—for the theologians of his time held that Mary was immaculate independently of Christ’s merits—hesitated, and refused to commit himself. He, of course, held that all men without exception are redeemed by one Saviour. (Rom. 3:23; 5:12, 19; Gal. 3:22; 2 Cor. 5:14; 1 Tim. 2:6). Hence we find him proposing the question thus in IIIa, q. 27, a. 2: Was the Blessed Virgin sanctified in the conception of her body before its animation? for, according to him and many other theologians, the conception of the body was to be distinguished from the animation, or creation of the soul. This latter (called today the consummated passive conception) was thought to be about a month later in time than the initial conception.

The holy doctor mentions certain arguments at the beginning of the article which favor the Immaculate Conception—even taking conception to be that which precedes animation. He then answers them as follows: “There are two reasons why the sanctification of the Blessed Virgin cannot have taken place before her animation: 1st—the sanctification in question is cleansing from original sin … but the guilt of sin can be removed only by grace (which has as object the soul itself) … 2nd—if the Blessed Virgin had been sanctified before animation she would have have incurred the stain of original sin and would therefore never have stood in need of redemption by Christ. … But this may not be admitted, since Christ is Head of all men. (1 Tim. 2:6).”

Even had he written after the definition of 1854 St. Thomas could have said that Mary was not sanctified before animation. However, he goes further than that here, for he adds at the end of the article: “Hence it follows that the sanctification of the Blessed Virgin took place after her animation.” Nor does he distinguish, as he does in many other contexts, between posteriority in nature and posteriority in time. In the answer to the second objection he even states that the Blessed Virgin “contracted original sin.”38 However, it must be recognised that the whole point of his argument is to show that Mary incurred the debt of original sin since she descended from Adam by way of natural generation. Unfortunately he did not distinguish sufficiently the debt from actually incurring the stain.

Regarding the question of the exact moment at which Mary was sanctified in the womb of her mother, St. Thomas does not make any definite pronouncement. He states that it followed close on animation— cito post are his words in Quodl. VI, a. 7. But he believes that nothing more precise can be said: “the time of her sanctification is unknown” (IIIa, q. 27, a. 2, ad 3).

St. Thomas does not consider in the Summa if Mary was sanctified in the very instant of animation. St. Bonaventure had put himself that question and had answered it in the negative. It is possible that St. Thomas’s silence was inspired by the reserved attitude of the Roman Church which, unlike so many other Churches, did not celebrate the Feast of the Conception (cf. ibid., ad 3). This is the explanation proposed by Fr. N. del Prado, O.P., in Santo Tomas y la Immaculada, Vergara, 1909, by Fr. Mandonnet, O.P., Dict. Théol. Cath., art. Frères Prêcheurs, col. 899, and by Fr. Hugon, O.P, Tractatus Dogmatici, t. II, ed. 5, 1927, p. 749. For these authors the thought of the holy doctor in this second period of his professional career was that expressed long afterwards by Gregory XV in his letters of July 4th, 1622: “Spiritus Sanctus nondum tanti mysterii arcanum Ecclesiae suae patefecit.”

The texts we have considered so far do not therefore imply any contradiction of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. They could even be retained if the idea of preservative redemption were introduced. There is however one text which cannot be so easily explained away. In III Sent, dist. III, q. 1, a. 1, ad 2am qm, we read: “Nor (did it happen) even in the instant of infusion of the soul, namely, by grace being then given her so as to preserve her from incurring the original fault. Christ alone among men has the privilege of not needing redemption.” Frs. del Prado and Hugon explain this text as follows: The meaning of St. Thomas’s words may be that the Blessed Virgin was not preserved from original sin in such a way as not to incur its debt, as that would mean not to stand in need of redemption. However, one could have expected to find in the text itself the explicit distinction between the debt and the fact of incurring the stain.

In the final period of his career, when writing the Exposito super salutatione angelica—which is certainly authentic39—in 1272 or 1273, St. Thomas expressed himself thus: “For she (the Blessed Virgin) was most pure in the matter of fault (quantum ad culpam) and incurred neither original nor mortal nor venial sin.” Cf. J. F. Rossi, CM., S. Thomae Aquinatis Expositio salutationis angelicae, Introductio et textus. Divus Thomas (Pl.), 1931, pp. 445-479.40 In this critical edition of the Commentary on the Ave Maria, it is stated, pp. 11-15, that the passage quoted just now is found in sixteen manuscripts out of nineteen consulted by the author, who concludes that it is authentic. He gives photographs of the principal manuscripts in an appendix. Let us hope that the same conscientious work will be performed on the other opuscula of St. Thomas!41

In spite of the objection raised by Fr. P. Synave42 the text appears to be authentic. If it is, then St. Thomas returned towards the end of his life—moved, we may believe, by his love of the Mother of God—to the position he had adopted when he affirmed the Immaculate Conception in his Commentary on the Sentences. Nor is the text we are considering the only indication of such a return.43

Such an evolution of doctrine is not rare among theologians. At first they propose a thesis which they accept from tradition without seeing all its difficulties. Later reflection leads them to adopt a more reserved attitude. Finally they return to their first position, realising that God is more bounteous in His gifts than we can understand and that we should not set limits to Him without good reason. In the case of St. Thomas, we have seen that the reasons he invoked against the privilege are not conclusive, and that they even support it when considered in the light of the idea of preservative redemption.44

Article 3

Was Mary Exempt from Every Fault, Even Venial?

The Council of Trent45 has defined that “after his justification a man cannot avoid, during the whole course of his life, every venial sin, without a special privilege such as the Church recognises was conferred on the Blessed Virgin.” The soul in the state of grace can therefore avoid any venial sin considered separately, but cannot avoid all venial sins taken together by keeping itself always free from them. Mary however avoided all sin, even the least grave. St. Augustine affirms that “for the honour of her Son Who came to remit the sins of the world, Mary is never included when there is question of sin.”46 The Fathers and theologians consider, to judge from their manner of speaking, that she is free even from every voluntary imperfection, for, according to them, she never failed in promptness to obey a divine inspiration given by way of counsel. Though a minor lack of generosity is not a venial sin, but simply a lesser good, or an imperfection, not even so slight a shortcoming was found in Mary. She never elicited an imperfect (remissus) act of charity, that is to say, one that fell short in intensity of the degree in which she possessed the virtue.

St. Thomas gives the reason for this special privilege when he says: “God prepares and disposes those whom He has chosen for a special purpose in such a way as to make them capable of performing that for which He selected them.”47 In that God differs from men, who sometimes choose incapable or mediocre candidates for important posts. “Thus,” continues St. Thomas, “St. Paul says of the Apostles (2 Cor. 3:6), “It is God Who has made us fit ministers of the new testament, not in the letter, but in the spirit.” But the Blessed Virgin was divinely chosen to be the Mother of God (that is to say, she was predestined from all eternity for the divine maternity). Hence, it cannot be doubted that God fitted her by grace for her mission, according to the words spoken her by the angel (Luke 1:30): “Thou hast found grace with God. Thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus.” But Mary would not have been a worthy Mother of God had she ever sinned, for the honor and dishonor of parents is reflected on the children according to the words of the Book of Proverbs: “The glory of children are their fathers.” Besides, Mary had a special affinity to Jesus, from Whom she took flesh, but “What concord hath Christ with Belial?” (2 Cor. 6:15). Finally, the Son of God, Who is Divine Wisdom, inhabited Mary in a very special manner, not in her soul only but in her womb also; and it is said (Wisdom 1:4): “Wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sins.” Hence it must be said without any reservation that the Blessed Virgin committed no sin, mortal or venial, so that the words of the Canticle of Canticles are fully verified in her regard (Cant. 4:7): “Thou art all fair, my love, and there is not a spot in thee.’”

Mary had therefore impeccantia (the term is parallel to inerrantia) or freedom from sin, and even impeccability. Her title to these endowments is not however the same as her Son’s. In her case it was a matter of preservation from every sin through a special privilege.48 This privilege includes first of all a very high degree of habitual grace and charity, which gives the soul a strong inclination to the act of love of God and withdraws it from sin. It includes also confirmation in grace, which when granted to a saint is had normally through an increase of charity, especially that proper to the state of transforming union, and an increase of actual efficacious graces which preserve the soul de facto from sin and move it to ever more meritorious acts. Thus Mary enjoyed a special assistance of Divine Providence. This assistance—more effective than even that which belonged to the state of innocence—preserved all her faculties from faults, and kept her soul in a state of the most complete generosity. Just as confirmation in grace is an effect of the predestination of the saints, so this preservative assistance granted to Mary was an effect of her peculiar predestination. Far from diminishing her liberty or free will, the effect of this preservation from sin was to confer on her full liberty in the order of moral goodness, with no inclination to evil (just as her mind never tended to error). Hence her liberty, following the example of that of Jesus, was a faithful and most pure image of God’s liberty, which is at once sovereign and incapable of sin.

If human masterpieces of art, in architecture, painting and music, and if the precision instruments produced by human skill all reach such perfection, what must not be the perfection of God’s masterpieces? And among these, if the works of the natural order are so perfect—the majesty of the ocean and the high mountains, the structure of the eye and ear, the human mind and the mind of the angels—how perfect must not the works of the supernatural order be, among which so remarkable a place is held by the soul of Mary which was adorned with every choice gift from the first moment of her existence?

NOTE

The distinction between imperfection and venial sin

The problem49 has been taken from its proper context by the casuists. It is one which concerns interior souls, advanced in the spiritual life, and careful to avoid every more or less venial sin. Those who consider the problem in relation to less advanced souls run the risk of taking for imperfection what is really a venial sin.

At one time the problem was closely associated with another one: is it possible to commit no more than a simple imperfection by resisting a religious vocation? The answer ordinarily given to this question is that though the religious vocation does not oblige under pain of sin, sin is always involved in rejecting it for the reason that religion is a way of life that embraces the whole of life, and the other ways of life, being less safe than it, are never chosen in preference to it except through some inordinate attachment to the things of this world, as is seen in the example of the rich man in the Gospel. Thus, the rejection of a vocation involves an inordinate attachment (which is forbidden by divine precept) and not only a lack of generosity.

To see the problem of an imperfection as distinct from a venial sin in its proper perspective, it must be viewed in its relation to very generous souls, and still more in relation to the impeccability of Christ and the sinlessness of Mary. Here we may ask: Was there any voluntary imperfection in the lives of Jesus and Mary? The question is obviously a most delicate one.

The answer usually given to this problem is that there was never any imperfection, however slightly voluntary, in the lives of Jesus and Mary, for they never failed in their prompt obedience to every divine inspiration given by way of counsel. But if there had been any lack of promptitude, it would have been a mere lack of generosity, not a moral disorder in the strict sense of the term, as is an inordinate attachment to the things of this world.

As regards interior souls, it may be said that as long as they have not taken the vow of always doing the most perfect thing, they are not bound under pain of venial sin to act always with the maximum of generosity possible to them at any given instant.50 It is becoming, however, that those more advanced should, without binding themselves by vow, promise the Blessed Virgin always to do what will appear to them evidently the most perfect in any given circumstance.

Article 4

The Perfection of Mary’s First Grace

The habitual grace which the Blessed Virgin received at the instant of the creation of her holy soul was a fullness or plenitude to which the words of the angel on the Annunciation day might have been applied: “Hail, full of grace.” This is what Pius IX affirms when he defines the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. He even says that, from the first instant, Mary “was loved by God more than all creatures. (prae creaturis universis), that He found most extreme pleasure in her, and that He loaded her in a wonderful way with His graces, more than all the angels and saints.”51 Many texts might be quoted from tradition to the same effect.52

St. Thomas explains the reason of this plenitude of grace when he says53: “The nearer one approaches to a principle (of truth and life) the more one participates in its effects. That is why St. Denis affirms (De caelestia hierarchia) that the angels, who are nearer to God than man is, participate more in His favors. But Christ is the principle of the life of grace; as God He is its principal cause and as Man (having first His humanity is, as it were, an instrument always united to the Divinity: ‘Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ’ (John 1:17). The Blessed Virgin Mary, being nearer to Christ than any other human being, since it is from her that He received His humanity, receives from Him therefore a fullness of grace, surpassing that of all other creatures.”

It is true that St. John the Baptist and Jeremias were sanctified, according to the testimony of Sacred Scripture, in their mother’s womb, without, however, being preserved from original sin. But Mary received grace from the very first instant in a degree far excelling theirs, and received as well the privilege of being preserved from every fault—even venial—a privilege we find accorded to no other saint.54

In his Expositio super salutatione angelica St. Thomas describes Mary’s plenitude of grace (and his words are applicable to the initial plenitude) in terms of which the following is a summary:

Though the angels do not manifest special respect for men, being their superiors by nature and living in holy intimacy with God, yet the Archangel Gabriel when saluting Mary, showed himself full of veneration for her. He understood that she was far above him through her fullness of grace, her intimacy with God, and her perfect purity.

(a) She had received fullness of grace under three respects. First, so as to avoid every sin, however slight, and to practice all the virtues in an eminent degree. Secondly, so as to overflow from her soul upon her body and prepare her to receive the Incarnate Son of God. Thirdly so as to overflow upon all men55 and to aid them in the practice of all the virtues.

(b) Further, she surpassed the angels in her holy familiarity with the Most High. On that account, Gabriel saluted her saying: “The Lord is with thee.” It was as if he said: “You are more intimate with God than I. He is about to become your Son, whereas I am but His servant.” In truth, Mary, as Mother of God, is more intimate with the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, than are the angels.

(c) Finally, she surpassed the angels in purity, even though they are pure spirits, for she was both pure in herself and the source of purity to others. Not only was she exempt from original sin56 and from all mortal and venial sin, but she escaped the curse due to sin, namely, “In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children … into dust thou shalt return” (Gen. 3:16, 19). She will conceive the Son of God without loss to her virginity, she will bear Him in holy recollection, she will bring Him forth in joy, she will be preserved from the corruption of the tomb and will be associated by her Assumption with the Ascension of the Saviour.

Already she is blessed among women, for she alone, with and through her Son, will lift the curse which descended on the human race, and will bring us blessings by opening the gates of Heaven. That is why she is called the Star of the Sea, guiding Christians to the harbour of eternity.

Elisabeth will say to her: “Blessed is the fruit of thy womb.” Whereas the sinner looks for that which he cannot find in the object of his sinful desires, the just finds everything in what he desires holily From this point of view, the fruit of the womb of Mary will be thrice blessed.

(a) Eve desired the forbidden fruit, so as to have the knowledge of good and evil, and thereby to become independent and free from the yoke of obedience. She was deceived by the lying promise “You will be as God,” for far from becoming like God, she was turned away from Him. Mary, on the contrary, found all things in the blessed fruit of her womb. In Him she found God, and she will lead us to find God in Him.

(b) By yielding to the temptation, Eve sought joy and found sadness. Mary, on the contrary, found joy and salvation for herself and us in her Divine Son.

(c) Finally, the fruit sought by Eve had beauty only for the senses, whereas the fruit of Mary’s womb is the splendor, the eternal and spiritual glory of the Father. Mary is blessed herself, and still more blessed in her Son, Who has brought all men blessing and salvation.

The preceding is a synopsis of what St. Thomas has to say of Mary’s fullness of grace in his commentary on the Hail Mary. He has in mind most of all the fullness of the Annunciation day. But what he says is applicable also to her initial fullness, just as what is said of the stream is applicable also to its source.

Mary’s Initial Grace compared with that of the Saints

It has been asked if Mary’s initial grace was greater than the final grace of the greatest of angels and men, or even than the final grace of all angels and men taken together. The question is usually understood not of the final and consummated grace of Heaven, but of the grace which is final in the sense that it immediately preceded entry into glory.57

As for the first part of the question, theologians commonly hold that Mary’s initial grace was greater than the final grace of the highest of angels and men. This is the teaching, for example, of St. John Damascene,58 Suarez,59 Justin of Miechow, O.P.,60 Contenson,61 St. Alphonsus,62 Fathers Terrien,63 Godts, Hugon, Merkelbach, etc. Today, all textbooks of Mariology are unanimous in considering this teaching certain. It can even be found expressed by Pius IX in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus in the passage we have quoted already. The principal argument in favor of this teaching is arrived at from a consideration of the divine maternity, which is the reason for all the privileges conferred on Mary. There are two ways of outlining it: from the point of view of the end to which Mary’s initial grace was ordained, and from the point of view of the divine love which was its cause.

Mary’s initial grace was given her as a worthy preparation for the divine motherhood—to prepare her to be a worthy Mother of the Saviour, said St. Thomas (IIIa, q. 27, a. 5, ad 2). But even the consummated grace of the other saints is not a worthy preparation for the divine maternity, for it pertains to the hypostatic order. Hence the first grace of Mary surpasses the consummated grace of the other saints. Pious authors express this truth by taking in an accommodated sense the words of Psalm 86: “The foundations thereof are in the holy mountains.” They say that the summit of the perfection of the other saints is not as yet the beginning of the perfection of Mary.

The same conclusion is reached by considering the uncreated love of God for the Blessed Virgin. Since grace is the effect of the active love of God which makes us pleasing in His eyes as adoptive children, the more a person is loved by God the more grace he receives. But Mary since she was to be the Mother of God, was more loved by Him in the first instant of her being than any angel or saint. Hence she received from the first instant a greater gift of grace than any of them, however favored.

Was Mary’s First Grace higher than the Final Grace of all the Angels and Saints taken together?

A number of theologians, both ancient and modern, have answered this question in the negative.64 However, the affirmative answer, which is given by Ch. Véga, Contenson, St. Alphonsus, Godts, Monsabré, Billot, Sinibaldi, Hugon, L. Janssens, Merkelbach and others, is at least probable.

For it there is, first of all, the argument from authority. Pius IX favors it in his Bull Ineffabilis Deus, when he says: “Deus ab initio … unigenito filio suo Matrem … elegit atque ordinavit, tantoque prae creaturis universis est prosecutus amore, ut in illa una sibi propensissima voluntate complacuerit. Quapropter illam longe ante omnes angelicos Spiritus, cunctosque Sanctos coelestium omnium charismatum copia de thesauro Divinitatis deprompta ita mirifice cumulavit, ut … eam innocentiae et sanctitatis plenitudinem prae se ferret, et qua major sub Deo nullatenus intelligitur, et quam praeter Deum nemo assequi cogitando potest.” (This text is translated on page 14.) Taken in their obvious sense all these expressions, especially the “cunctos sanctos,” mean that Mary’s grace surpassed that of all the saints together from the first instant mentioned in the text. If Pius IX wished to say that Mary’s grace surpassed that of each angel and saint individually he would have said “longe ante quemlibet sanctum et angelicum” rather than “longe ante omnes angelicos Spiritus cunctosque sanctos.” Nor would he have said that God loved Mary above all creatures, “prae creaturis universis,” and that He took greater delight in her alone, “ut in illa una sibi propensissima voluntate complacuerit.” It cannot be contended that in all this there is no question of the first instant of Mary’s existence since Pius IX goes on to say, immediately after the passage just quoted, “Decebat omnino ut beatissima Virgo Maria perfectissimae sanctitatis splendoribus semper ornata fulgeret.”

A little further on in the same Bull, we are told that, according to the Fathers, Mary is higher by grace than the Cherubim, the Seraphim, and the whole Heavenly Host (omni exercitu angelorum)—that is to say, all united. Though it is universally admitted that these words refer to Mary in Heaven, it must yet be recalled that one’s degree of heavenly glory is proportionate to the preceding grace or charity at the hour of death. And in the case of Mary, this latter was proportionate to her dignity as Mother of God, a dignity for which she had been prepared from the very first instant of existence.

To the argument from the authority of the Bull Ineffabilis, two theological reasons can be added. They are based on the divine maternity, considered as the end towards which Mary’s first grace was ordained and on the uncreated love which was its cause. As a help to grasping them, it is necessary to remark that even though grace is a quality and not a quantified thing, there are many to whom it is not at once evident that if Mary’s first grace surpassed that of the highest of the saints, it must also surpass that of all angels and saints united. They say, for example, that though the eagle’s vision is more acute than that of the most keen-sighted man, it does not follow that an eagle sees more than all men taken together. Of course, in this example an element of quantity—that is, of extension and distance—enters in, which is not found in the case of Mary’s grace, so that it is really irrelevant. But, at the same time, it may be well to clarify the question still more.

1st—Since Mary’s first grace prepared her to be the worthy Mother of God, it must have been proportionate, at least remotely, to the divine maternity. But the final consummated grace of all the saints together is not proportionate to the divine maternity, since it belongs to an inferior order. Hence the final consummated grace of all the saints united is less than the first grace received by Mary.

This argument—even though not admitted by all theologians—seems to be quite conclusive. The objection has been raised that Mary’s first grace was not a proximate preparation for the divine maternity and hence was not necessarily of a different order from the grace of all the saints. To this it may be answered that, though not a proximate preparation, Mary’s first grace was a worthy and proportionate preparation, according to the teaching of St. Thomas (IIIa, q. 27, a. 5, ad 2): “The first perfection of grace (was) as it were dispositive, making the Blessed Virgin worthy to become the Mother of Christ.” But the consummated grace of all the saints united is not proportionate to the divine maternity, which is of the hypostatic order. The argument therefore retains its force.

2nd—The person who is more loved by God than all creatures united receives grace surpassing theirs, for grace is the effect of uncreated love and is proportionate to it. As St. Thomas says (Ia, q. 20, a. 4): “God loves one more than another by the fact that He wills him a higher good, for the divine will is the cause of the good that is in creatures.” But God has loved Mary from all eternity more than all creatures united, as being she whom He was to prepare from the first instant of her conception to be the worthy Mother of the Saviour. In the words of Bossuet: “He always loved Mary as His Mother, and considered her as such from the moment she was conceived.”65

This does not, of course, exclude the possibility that Mary advanced in holiness, or grew in grace. For grace, being a participation in the divine nature, can always increase though still remaining finite; Mary’s final fullness of grace is limited, while yet being so full as to overflow on all souls.

To these two arguments, taken from the divine maternity, another may be added, which will become increasingly evident as we speak of Mary’s universal mediation. It is that Mary could obtain by her merits and prayers—even on earth, and from the time when she could first merit and pray—more than all the saints together, for they obtain nothing except through her universal mediation. Mary is, as it were, the aqueduct which brings us grace; in the mystical body she is, as it were, the neck which joins the members with the Head. In short, from the time she could merit and pray, Mary could obtain more without the saints than they could without her. But merit corresponds in degree to charity and sanctifying grace. Hence Mary received from the beginning of her life a degree of grace superior to that which the saints and angels united had attained to before their entry into Heaven.

There are other indirect confirmations, or more or less close analogies. For example, a precious stone—a diamond—is worth more than a number of other stones united; a saint like the Curé of Ars could do more by his prayers and merits than all his parishioners together; a founder of an order like St. Benedict surpasses all his first companions by the grace he has received, for without him they could not have made the foundation whereas, had they failed him, he could have enlisted others to take their place; the intellect of an archangel surpasses that of all inferior angels united; the intellectual worth of St. Thomas is greater than that of all his contemporaries; the power of a king is greater, not only than that of his prime minister, but also that of his ministers combined.

Early theologians did not examine the question of the degree of Mary’s first grace, but that is probably because its solution appeared evident to them. They taught, for example, at the end of the treatises on grace and charity that whereas a ten-franc piece is worth no more than ten one-franc pieces, the charity signified by the ten talents of the parable is worth more than ten charities of one talent.66 That is why the devil tries to keep souls called to high sanctity by their priestly and religious vocation at the level of mediocrity. He wishes to prevent the growth of their charity, knowing that one man of great charity will do much more than many whose charity is at a lower, lukewarm level.67 Thus Mary, in virtue of the first grace which disposed her for the divine maternity, was worth more in God’s eyes than all the apostles, martyrs, confessors, and virgins united, more than all men and all angels created from the beginning.

The thought of the marvellous instruments which human skill can produce is a reminder of what the Divine Artist can do in this soul of His special choice, in her of whom it is said “Elegit eam Deus et praeelegit eam,” in her who the liturgy tells us was raised above all the angelic choirs. The first grace she received was already a worthy preparation for her divine maternity and her exceptional glory which is inferior only to that of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Nor should we forget that she suffered proportionately as He did, for she was called to be a victim with Him so as to be victorious with and by Him.

These reasons permit us to get some glimpse of the dignity and elevation of Mary’s first grace.

One more point before concluding. The classics in the literature of every country mean much more to us when we take them up in mature age, than they did when we first read them at the age of fifteen or twenty years; and the same is true of the works of the great theologians, of St. Augustine and St. Thomas. Must there not, then, be beauties hidden as yet from our eyes in God’s masterpieces, in those composed immediately by Himself, and especially in that masterpiece of nature and grace, the soul of Mary, God’s Mother? This thought alone is enough to make one begin by affirming the richness of her initial grace. Perhaps the next thing will be, to wonder if the affirmation has not been too hasty, if a probability has not been made into a certainty. But last of all, there will come a return to the first position; not now because it is beautiful, but because careful study has shown that it is true; not because it has a merely theoretical becomingness but because its becomingness acted as a motive in determining the choice that God actually made of it.

Article 5

The Consequence of Mary’s Plenitude of Grace

From the instant of her conception, Mary’s initial plenitude of grace included the infused virtues and the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, which are the different parts or functions of the spiritual organism. Even from before St. Thomas’s time, habitual grace was called “the grace of the virtues and the gifts” because of its connection with them; for the infused virtues, theological and moral, flow from grace (in a degree proportioned to its perfection) as its properties, just as the faculties flow from the substance of the soul.68 The gifts flow from it also (in a similar proportionate degree) as infused permanent dispositions which make the soul docile to the inspirations of the Holy Ghost, somewhat as the sails of a boat make it docile to a favorable wind.69

Furthermore, the infused virtues and the gifts are linked up with charity which makes their acts meritorious,70 and they keep pace with it in their growth as do the five fingers of the hand with one another.71 It may well happen that the gifts of wisdom, understanding and knowledge, which are both speculative and practical, will manifest themselves in one saint more in their practical and in another more in their speculative roles. But normally all seven exist in every soul in the state of grace in a degree proportionate to its charity—the charity itself being proportionate to the sanctifying grace of the soul.

From these principles, which are commonly accepted in treatises on the virtues in general and the gifts, it is usually deduced that Mary had the infused theological and moral virtues and the gifts from the first instant of her conception, and that they flowed from and were proportionate to her initial fullness of grace. Mary-destined even then to be Mother of God and men—could not have been less perfect than Eve was at her creation. Even if she did not receive in her body the privileges of impassibility and immortality she must have had in her soul all that pertained spiritually to the state of original justice—all, and more, even, since her initial fullness of grace surpassed the grace of all the saints together. Her virtues in their initial state must, therefore, have surpassed the heroic virtues of the greatest saints.72 Her faith, lit up by the gifts of wisdom, understanding and knowledge, was unshakably firm and most penetrating. Her hope was unconquerable, proof against presumption and despair alike. Her charity was most ardent. In fine, her initial holiness, which surpassed that of God’s greatest servants, was born with her, and did not cease to grow all through life.

The only difficulty in this matter is that of the exercise of the infused virtues, already so perfect, and the gifts. Their exercise demands the use of reason and of free will. We must, therefore, ask if Mary had the use of her rational faculties from the first instant.

All theologians admit that the holy soul of Christ had the use of intellect and will from the beginning.73 They admit too that He had the beatific vision, or the immediate vision of the divine Essence,74 a doctrine which the Holy Office declared on June 6th, 1918, to be certain. Jesus is the Head in the order of grace, and therefore He enjoyed from the first instant, as a consequence of the personal union of His humanity to the Word, the glory He was to give to the elect. He had also infused knowledge similar to that of the angels, but in a much more perfect degree than it has been found in some of the saints—in those, for example, who had the gift of understanding and speaking languages they had never learned.75 Theologians teach that these two knowledges—the beatific and the infused—were perfect in Jesus from the beginning. It was only the knowledge which He acquired by experience and reflection which developed. Jesus, the sovereign priest, judge, and king of the universe, offered Himself for us, says St. Pau1,76 from the moment of His entry into the world and knew everything in the past, present and future, that could be submitted to His judgement.77

Though there is little serious difference of opinion among theologians regarding Jesus” knowledge, the problem of Mary’s knowledge is much disputed. It would appear that there is no reason to assert that she had the beatific vision here on earth, especially from the first instant of her conception.78 But many theologians hold that she had per se infused knowledge from the beginning, at least from time to time—though some contend that she had it in a permanent way. On this view she would have had the use of her intellect and of her free will in her mother’s womb—on certain occasions at least—and would, in consequence, have had the use of the infused virtues and the gifts which she possessed in so high a degree. One can hardly deny this view except by asserting that Mary’s intellect, will and infused virtues remained as it were asleep, as they do in other children, and did not wake up till she attained the ordinary age of the use of reason.

For our part, we may say, first of all, that it is at least very probable, according to the teaching of the majority of theologians, that Mary had the use of her free will through her infused knowledge from the first instant of her conception, at least in a passing manner. Such is the teaching of St. Vincent Ferrer,79 St. Bernardine of Sienna,80 St. Francis de Sales,81 St. Alphonsus,82 Suarez,83 Vega,84 Contenson,85 Justin de Miéchow,86 and most modern theologians.87 Fr. Terrien goes so far as to say that he found only two opponents of the doctrine: Gerson and Muratori.88

The following are the reasons that can be adduced in favor of the privilege:

1st—It is not becoming to hold that Mary, Queen of patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and all the saints, lacked a privilege granted to St. John the Baptist.89 We read of him in Luke 1:41 and 44, while he was still in the womb: “When Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the infant leaped in her womb,” and Elisabeth herself said: “For as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.” St. Irenaeus, St. Ambrose, St. Leo the Great, and St. Gregory the Great have noted that the joy of St. John the Baptist before his birth was not merely of the sense order, but was elicited by the coming of the Saviour, Whose precursor he was.90 Thus Catejan notes that this joy, being a spiritual order, presupposes the use of reason and will, and at the time there could be no question of acquired but only of infused knowledge (Comment. in IIIa P., q. 27, a. 6). The church too sings in her liturgy, in the hymn for Vespers of St. John the Baptist “Senseras Regem thalamo manentem … Suae regenerationis cognovit auctorem: You have recognised your kind and the author of your regeneration.” If, therefore, St. John the Baptist had the use of reason and will before birth, because of his vocation as precursor of Christ, the same privilege can hardly be denied to Christ’s mother.

2nd—Since Mary received grace and the infused virtues and the gifts in the first instant in a degree higher than that of the final grace of the saints, she must have been sanctified in the way proper to adults, that is, by disposing her through actual grace for habitual grace, and by using this latter as a principle of merit from the moment she received it; in other words, she offered herself to God as her Son did on His entry into the world. “Then I said: Behold I come to do thy will, O God” (Heb. 10:9). Mary did not, of course, know then that she would be one day the Mother of God, but none the less she would accept all that the Lord asked and would yet ask of her.

3rd—Mary’s initial fullness of grace, virtues, and gifts which surpassed already the final fullness of all the saints, could not have remained inactive at the beginning of her life. Such inactivity would appear opposed to the sweet and generous dispositions of Divine Providence in favor of the Mother of the Saviour. But unless she had the use of her free will through infused knowledge, the virtues and gifts which she possessed in so high a degree would have remained inactive for a considerable part of her life (that is, the beginning).

Almost all present-day theologians admit that it is at least very probable that, in her mother’s womb, Mary had the use of her free will through infused knowledge—transitorily, at any rate. They admit too that she had the use of this infused knowledge on certain occasions, such as the Incarnation, the Passion, the Resurrection, the Ascension; also that she had the use of it for the purpose of acquiring a more perfect knowledge of the divine perfections and of the mystery of the Blessed Trinity. There is all the more reason for admitting that Mary had this privilege when we recall that infused knowledge was given to the apostles on the first Pentecost when they received the gift of tongues, and that the great St. Teresa, after arriving at the Seventh Mansion, had frequent intellectual visions of the Trinity such as can only be explained by infused ideas. Even those theologians who are most conservative in their views do not hesitate to admit this much of Mary91 It is in fact the least that may be attributed to the Mother of God who enjoyed the visit of the Archangel Gabriel, who was on terms of saintly familiarity with the Incarnate Word, who was constantly enlightened by Him during the hidden life, who must have received special revelations during and after the Passion, and who received on the day of Pentecost the light of the Holy Ghost in more abundant measure than the apostles themselves.

Was Mary’s Use of Reason and Free Will in her Mother’s Womb only Transitory and Interrupted?

According to St. Francis de Sales,92 St. Alphonsus,93 and theologians of the standing of Sauve,94 Terrien95 and Hugon,96 Mary’s use of her privilege was uninterrupted. Fr. Merkelbach and other theologians assert that there is no convincing argument in proof of that thesis.97 It is our opinion that though it cannot be demonstrated with certainty that Mary enjoyed the uninterrupted use of reason and free will in her mother’s womb, it is seriously probable and difficult to disprove that she had it. For if it be conceded that she had it in the first instant, it follows that she would become less perfect when deprived of it. But it does not appear becoming that so holy a creature should fall in any way without guilt on her part, all the more so since her dignity demanded that she should progress continuously and that her merit should be unbroken.98

It has been objected that St. Thomas regards the privilege as peculiar to Christ.99 Certain it is that Christ’s permanent exercise of reason and will belongs to Him alone as a strict right and consequence of the beatific vision. Mary cannot lay any such claim to the privilege. But it appears altogether becoming that the future Mother of God should have been granted it as a special and most appropriate favor. Besides, St. Thomas’s words may be explained by the fact that the Immaculate Conception had not been defined in his time and, in consequence, prominence had not been given to the motives we have adduced for admitting the privilege in Mary’s case.100 Today, however, after the Bull Ineffabilis, we realise that Mary was favored from the first instant more than all the saints united. Besides, as we have said, almost all theologians admit that she had the privilege at least transitorily from the first instant. If so, it is hard to see why it should ever have been withdrawn, interrupting her merit and progress, and leaving the initial plenitude, as it were, unproductive and sterile—all of which is opposed to the sweet and strong way in which Providence cared for Mary.

Such was the initial fullness of grace which accompanied the Immaculate Conception, and such were its first consequences. More and more can we see the implications of the angelic salutation: “Hail, full of grace.”

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Footnotes Chapter 2

1. “Full of grace,” especially if the original Greek word be considered, means “made agreeable in God’s eyes” or “well-beloved of God’. But a soul is made agreeable in God’s eyes by habitual grace, or gratia gratum faciens, which is itself an effect of the active and uncreated love of God which selects the soul as His adopted child.

2. Ia IIae, q, 24, a. 3, ad 2.

3. See particularly his Comm. in Joannem, c. 1, lect. x.

4. IIIa, q. 24, a. 4.

5. Cf. IIIa, q. 27, a. 5, ad 2.

6. Cf. Second Council of Orange, Denz. 174, 175. Council of Trent, Denz. 788, 789.

7. Council of Trent, Denz. 789: “Si quis Adae praevaricationem sibi soli et non eius propagini asserit nocuisse, acceptam a Deo sanctitatem et justitiam quam perdidit, sibi soli et non nobis etiam perdidisse; aut inquinatum ilium per inobedientiae peccatum mortem et poenas corporis tantum in omne genus humanum transfudisse, non autem peccatum quod est mors animae, A.S.” Sin is the death of the soul since it deprives it of sanctifying grace which is the supernatural life of the soul, and the germ of eternal life.

8. This aspect of the dogmatic definition is very well explained by Fr. X. M. le Bachelet, S.J., in the Dictionnaire Apologétique, art. Marie, section Immaculée Conception, vol. III, col. 220 sqq.

9. As St. Augustine puts it, De Genesi ad litteram, bk. X, chs. 19 and 20: Jesus was in Adam “non secundum seminalem rationem” but only “secundum corpulentem substantiam.”

10. For the interpretation of the prophecy of Genesis cf. Terrien, La Mère de Dieu et la Mère des Homines, vol. III, bk. I, ch. 2, pp. 26-49. The Mary-Eve antithesis is brought out by SS. Justin, Irenaeus, Cyril of Jerusalem, Ephrem, Epiphanius, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, John Chrysostom, etc. Cf. Diet. Apol. article already quoted, col. 119.

11. Cf, Diet. Theol, art. Ephrem, col. 192.

12. Orat. VI: P. G., LXV, 733; cf. 751 sqq., 756.

13. Hom. VI, in Sanctam Mariam Del genetricem, 11-12; P. G, LXXVII, 1426 sqq.

14. Hom. I in Nat., 7; P. G, XCVI, 672.

15. Hom. II in dormit., 2, col. 725.

16. Hom. II in dormit., 3, col. 728.

17. Dial. cum Tryphone, 100; P. G., VII, 858 sqq., 1175.

18. Adv. Haereses, III, xxii, 3, 4; P. G, VII, 858 sqq., 1175.

19. De came Christi, XVII; P. L., II, 782.

20. For example, SS. Cyril of Jerusalem, Ephrem, Epiphanius, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, John Chrysostom, etc.

21. Op. Syriaca, Roman edit., t. II, p. 327.

22. Cf. G. Bickell, Carmina Nisibena, Leipzig, 1866, pp. 28-29. Bickell concludes from this and similar passages that St. Ephrem is a witness to the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.

23. In Ps. CXVIII, 22, 30; P. L., II, 782.

24. De natura et gratia, XXXVI, 42; P. L., XLIV, 267.

25. Contra Julianum pelagianum, V, xv, 57; P. L., XLIV, 815; Opus imperf contra Julianum, IV, cxxii; P. L., XLV, 1418.

26. De immaculatae Deiparae conceptu.

27. Thesis 88.

28. Dict. Apol., art. Marie, Immac. Concept,, col. 210-275.

29. Epist. ad canonicos Lugdunenses.

30. De conception virginali.

31. In III Sent., dist. 3.

32. Super Missus est.

33. Item Super Missus est.

34. In III Sent., dist. 3, q. 27.

35. IIIa, q. 27, a. 5.

36. In III Sent., dist. III, q. 1 (Edit. Quaracchi); edit. Vives, XIV, 159; and Reportata, l. III, dist. III, q. 1, edit. Vives, XXIII, 261.

37. Tractatus de Conceptione sanctae Mariae; P. L., CLIX, 301-318. Eadmer, a disciple of St. Anselm, began in the twelfth century to synthesize the elements of the Greek tradition.

38. On the basis of these texts many commentators hold that St. Thomas denied the Immaculate Conception. This is the opinion of Fr. Le Bachelet, Dict. Théol, art. Immaculée Conception, cols. 1050-1054.

39. Cf. Mandonnet: S. Th. Aq. opuscula omnia, Parisiis 1927, t. I, Introduction, pp. xix-xxii.

40. Off-print, Piacenza, Collegio Alberoni, 1931. Monografie del Collegio Alberoni.

41. The objection was raised in the Bulletin Thomiste of July-December 1932 (p. 579) that we read in the same opusculum a little earlier: “Ipsa (Virgo) omne peccatum vitavit magis quam alius sanctus, praeter Christum. Peccatum enim aut est originale, et de isto fuit mundata in utero; aut mortale aut veniale, et de istis libera fuit. Sed Christus excellit Beatam Virginem in hoc quod sine originali conceptus et natus fuit. Beata autem Virgo in originali concepta sed non nata.” Does this text contradict the other one which occurs a few lines later? It is highly improbable that St. Thomas would contradict himself in the space of a few lines. The difficulty vanishes if one recalls that on St. Thomas’s view the conception of the body and the beginning of the evolution of the embryo preceded by a month at least the animation (or consummated passive conception) before which the person did not exist since there was as yet no rational soul.

42. Bulletin Thomiste, loc. cit.

43. In the Compendium Theologiae, written at Naples in 1272-1273, and interrupted by his death, St. Thomas wrote (ch. 224): “Nec solum a peccato actuali immunis fuit (B. Maria Virgo) sed etiam ab originali, speciali privilegio mundata. … Est ergo tenendum quod cum peccato originali concepta fuit, sed ab eo, quodam speciali modo, purgata fuit.” But he could not have spoken here of a special privilege if he meant merely that Mary had been purified in the womb of her mother after animation as were Jeremias and John the Baptist. In other places too St. Thomas declares Mary immune from original sin: Epis. ad Galat., iii, 16, lect. 6, “excipitur purissima et omni laude dignissima;” similarly in Exposit. in Orat. Domini, petitio Va, “Plena gratia, in qua nullum peccatum fuit;” in Psalm 18:6, “Quae nullam habuit obscuritatem peccati.”

44. Recently, Fr. J. M. Voste, O.P., in his Commentarius in IIIam P. Summae theol. S. Thomae (in q. 27, a. 2), 2nd edit., Rome, 1940, has accepted Fr. Rossi’s thesis that St. Thomas returned at the end of his career to the position he had adopted at the beginning. This view is at least seriously probable.

45. Sess. VI, Can. 23; Denz. 833.

46. De natura et gratia, ch. xxxvi.

47. IIIa, q. 27, a. 4.

48. Our Blessed Lord has absolute impeccability under three titles: by reason of His Divine Personality; by reason of the beatific vision which He had in a permanent way since His conception; by reason of the absolute and inalienable fullness of grace and charity the fervour of which could not diminish. Besides, He always received efficacious grace.

49. I have treated it at length in L’Amour de Dieu et la Croix de Jésus, t. I, pp. 360-390.

50. Strictly speaking, a counsel obliges only when one would offend against a precept by not obeying it. (Cf. IIa IIae, q. 124, a. 3, ad 1.)

51. Ineffabilis Deus … ab initio et ante saecula unigenito filio suo Matrem, ex quo caro factus in beata temporum plenitudine nasceretur elegit atque ordinavit, tantoque prae creaturis universis est prosecutus amore, ut in ilia una sibi propensissima voluntate complacuerit. Quapropter Mam longe ante omnes angelicos Spiritus, cunctosque Sanctos caelestium omnium charismatum copia de the-sauro Divinitatis deprompta ita mirifice cumulavit ut ipsa an omni prorsus peccati labe semper libera ac tota pulchra et perfecta eam innocentiae et sanctitatis plenitudinem prae se ferret, qua maior sub Deo nullatenus intelligitur, et quam praeter Deum nemo assequi cogitando potest.

52. Cf. Terrien, La Mère de Dieu, t. II, l. VII, pp. 191-234; De la Broise, S.J., La Sainte Vierge, chs. II and XII; Diet, Apol. art, Marie, cols. 207 sqq.

53. IIIa, q. 27, a. 5.

54. Cf. Ibid., a. 6, ad 1.

55. Theologians commonly hold that Mary merited for us with a merit of becomingness (de congruo) all that Christ merited in strict justice (de condigno).

56. This is the text we have quoted on p. 48.

57. Theologians commonly teach that the consummated grace of Mary in Heaven is higher than that of angels and saints combined; also that the final grace of Mary at the moment of death, and even her grace at the moment of the Incarnation, grace of all the saints at the term of their earthly lives. The question under discussion here is whether or not the same may be said of Mary’s initial fullness of grace. We know, of course, that the degree of glory of the saints in Heaven corresponds to the degree of grace and charity which they had before entry there.

58. Orat. de Nativitate Virginis P. G, XCVI, 648 sqq.

59. De mysteriis vitae Christi, disp. IV, sect, I.

60. Collat. super litanias B. Mariae Virginis, col. 134.

61. Theol. mentis et cordis, l. X, diss. VI, c. I.

62. Glorie di Maria, IIe P., disc. 2.

63. La Mère de Dieu, t. I.

64. Théophile Raynaud, Terrien, and Lépicier, admit it only in regard to Mary’s fmal grace. Others, like Valentia, admit it for the grace of her second sanctification at the time of the Incarnation. However, most theologians join St. Alphonsus in admitting it for her initial grace. Among these three opinions, the first two are certain; the third, as Fr. Merkelbach shows in his Mariologia, 1939, pp. 178-181, is at least very probable.

65. Cf. E. Dublanchy, Dict. Théol. Cath., art. Marie, col. 2367: “The teaching of Pius IX in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus resumes the argument upon which theological tradition has always relied: God’s love of special predilection for Mary more than all other creatures, a love such that He made her alone the object of His greatest satisfaction, and gave her that which was dearest to Him, His own Son. And since it is the teaching of St. Thomas (Ia, q. 20, a. 3) that the good which God produces in creatures is proportioned to the love He has for them, it may be concluded with certainty that Mary, loved by God more than all creatures, has been the recipient of divine favors greater than those given to all creatures, taken even collectively.

66. Cf. Salamanticenses, De caritate, disp. V, dub. III, par. 7, nos. 76, 80, 85, 93, 117.

67. Attention must be drawn to the nature of the order of pure immaterial quality to which sanctifying grace belongs. The reason why the vision of the eagle is not better than that of all men united, even though it is better than that of the most keen-sighted man, is that quantity or distance in space intervenes; all men, situated at different places on the globe, can obviously see more than one eagle, even if perched on the highest mountain. But quantity does not enter at all into the order of pure quality.

68. Cf. Ia, IIae, qq. 62, 63 (a. 3), 110, aa. 3 and 4; IIIa, q. 7, a. 2.

69. Ia IIae, q. 66, a. 2.

70. Ibid., a. 5 and q. 65.

71. Ia IIae, q. 66, a. 2.

72. Cf. H. B. Merkelbach, Mariologia, 1939, pp. 184-194.

73. Cf. IIIa, q. 34, aa. 2 and 3.

74. Ibid., a. 4 and q. 9, a. 2.

75. IIIa, q. 9, a. 3.

76. Heb. 10:5-9: “Wherefore when he cometh into the world he saith … Behold I come … Sacrifice and oblation (of the Old Law) thou wouldst not … Behold I come to do thy will.”

77. In Jesus’ infused knowledge we distinguish the knowledge which is infused per se from that which is infused per accidens. Knowledge is infused per se if it deals with an object about which, from the very nature of the object, knowledge cannot be acquired; such infused knowledge can be used without the help of imagery even in the womb. Knowledge is infused per accidens when the object with which it deals is of such a kind that it could be known by acquired knowledge; this knowledge is used with the help of imagery. An example of knowledge which is infused per accidens is knowledge of a language; for such knowledge can be acquired in the ordinary way by study.

78. Ch. Véga is the only theologian who has held that Mary had the beatific vision, excluding faith and merit of eternal life, from the first instant. It cannot be established with certainty that she had it in a passing way before death. Cf. Merkelbach, Mariologia, pp. 197 sqq. This latter opinion is at most very probable. It is suggested by the fact that St. Paul enjoyed the privilege for some few instants.

79. Manuscript. Tolos., 346.

80. Sermon IV de B.M.V., a. I, c. II, t. IV, p. 86.

81. Sermon 38 for the Feast of the Purification.

82. Glorie de Maria, IIe P., II discors., 2 punt.

83. De mysteriis vitae Christi, disp. IV, sect. 7 and 8.

84. Theologia Mariana, no. 956.

85. Lib. X, diss. 6, cap. 1.

86. Collat. 93 super litan. B. V.

87. Cf. Tractatus dogmatici by Fr. Hugon, O.P., t. II, p. 756; Mariologia by Fr. Merkelbach, O.P., pp. 197 sqq.; La Mère de Dieu by Fr. Terrien, S.J., t. II, p. 27; cf. also the article Marie in the Dict. Apol. where Fr. d’Ales quotes Fr. de la Broise to the same effect.

88. Cf. Terrien, ibid.

89. St. Thomas (IIIa, q. 27, a. 6) cites Jeremias and John the Baptist as having been sanctified before birth. However, the sacred text does not state that Jeremias had the use of reason and of free will in the womb, whereas of St. John the Baptist we read (Luke 1:44): “The infant in my womb leaped for joy.”

90. St. Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. III, 16; P. G., VIII, 923: “John who was still in his mother’s womb, recognizing the Saviour Who was in Mary’s womb, saluted Him;” St. Ambrose, in Luke I, II, c. xxxiv; P. L., LIV, 232: “He who thus leaped for joy had the use of reason;” St. Leo, Sermo XXXI in Nativ. Domini, c. iv; P. L., LIV, 232: “The precursor of Christ received the prophetic spirit in the womb of his mother, and before his birth manifested his joy in the presence of the Mother of God”; St. Gregory, Moral, l. III, c. 4; P. L., LXXV, 603: “He was filled with the prophetic spirit in the womb of his mother.”

91. Cf. H.-B. Merkelbach, O.P., Mariologia, 1939, p. 200: “Cognitionem infusam transeuntem Mariae fuisse communicatam conveniens erat in quibusdam specialibus adjunctis, v.g. in primo instanti conceptionis et sanctificationis, aut dum huiusmodi cognitio hic et nunc opportuna aut decens videbatur ad pleniorem intelligentiam cuiusdam mysterii, aut ad interpretationem cuiusdam loci Scripturae; et si prophetis videatur aliquando concessa, aut etiam sanctis, quo altius in contemplando assurgerent, sicut testantur auctores mystici, non est tale privilegium B. Virgini denegandum.”

92. hoc. cit.

93. hoc cit.

94. Jésus Intime, t. III, p. 262.

95. La Mère de Dieu, t. II, ch. I.

96. Tractatus Dogmatici, 1927, t. II, p. 759; also Marie Pleine de Grâce, 5th edit., 1926, pp. 24-32.

97. Mariologia, pp. 199, 201.

98. This is the argument of Fr. Hugon, loc. cit.

99. IIIa, q. 27, a. 3: “… non habuit usum liberi arbitrii in ventre matris existens: hoc enim est speciale privilegium Christi….

100. Cf. Hugon, locis citatis.

CHAPTER 3. Mary’s Plenitude of Grace at and after the Incarnation

Article 1. Mary’s spiritual progress up to the Annunciation

Article 2. Mary’s wonderful increase in grace at the Annunciation

Article 3. The Visitation and the Magnificat

Article 4. Mary’s perpetual virginity

Article 5. The principal mysteries which contributed to Mary’s increase in grace after the Incarnation

Article 6.  Mary’s intellectual endowments and her principal virtues

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IN this chapter we shall speak of Mary’s spiritual progress up to the Annunciation, of the increase of grace at that instant, of her perpetual virginity, of her growth in charity on certain important occasions which followed—notably on Calvary; finally we shall speak of Mary’s wisdom, of her principal virtues and charismatic gifts.

Article 1. Mary’s Spiritual Progress Up to the Annunciation

The method which we have adopted in this book is first to treat principles, bringing out their force and their sublimity, and then to apply them to the Mother of God. Hence we begin this article by recalling that spiritual progress is, most of all, progress in charity, the virtue which inspires, animates, and renders meritorious the other virtues. All the other infused virtues are connected with charity, and grow to the rhythm of its growth, just as the five fingers of a child’s hands grow proportionately1

In the sections that follow we shall see why and how charity developed in Mary, and examine the stages of its growth.

The Rapidity of the Growth of Charity in Mary

Why is it that charity grew in Mary up to the time of her death? First of all, because such growth is in accordance both with the nature of the charity which is tending to eternity and with the divine precept: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength”—a precept which is so worded as to denote progress. This divine precept, which takes precedence over all other precepts and counsels, obliges all christians to tend towards the perfection of charity and the other virtues in the manner appropriate to their condition of life—some in the married state, others in the priestly or the religious state. Not all are obliged to the practice of the three evangelical counsels. But all are obliged to strive to acquire their spirit, which is one of detachment from self and the things of this world in view of closer union with God.

Of Our Blessed Lord alone can it be said that He never grew in grace or charity, for He alone received the complete fullness of them both at His conception in consequence of the hypostatic union. Thus, the Second Council of Constantinople declares that Jesus did not develop spiritually through progress in good works,2 even though He followed the normal sequence in performing the acts of virtue peculiar to each period of life. Mary, however, was continually growing in grace all through her life. What was still more, her growth was an accelerated one, in accordance with the principle formulated by St. Thomas à propos the text: “… comforting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching.” (Heb. 10:25). In his commentary in loc, he writes: “It may be asked why we should thus always progress in faith and love. The reason is that a natural (or connatural) movement always becomes more rapid the nearer it approaches its term (the end which attracts it). With violent or unnatural movement, it is quite different.” [Today we remark that the downward movement of a falling body is uniformly accelerated while the upward movement of one thrown into the air is uniformly slowed down.] “But,” continues St. Thomas, “grace perfects the soul and makes it tend to the good in a natural way (like a second nature); it follows then, that those who are in the state of grace should grow more in charity according as they come nearer to their final end (and are more strongly attracted by it). That is why it is said in the Epistle to the Hebrews: ‘Not forsaking our assembly … but comforting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching’—that is to say, the end of your journey approaching. We read elsewhere: ‘The night is passed, and the day is at hand.’ (Rom. 13:12). ‘But the path of the just, as a shining light, goeth forwards and increaseth even to perfect day.’” (Prov. 4:18).3

St. Thomas wrote this at a time when the law of universal gravitation was not yet known, and the rate of acceleration of falling bodies had not been calculated accurately. Nevertheless, his genius enabled him to find in the little that had been observed a symbol of the accelerated progress of the saints who gravitate towards the Sun of justice and the Source of all good. His point is, therefore, that the intensity of the life of the saints increases, that they move more promptly and generously towards God, the nearer they come to Him. That is the law of universal attraction in the spiritual life. Just as bodies attract one another in proportion to their mass and in inverse proportion to the square of their distances, so souls are attracted to God in proportion to their holiness and their nearness to Him. The trajectory of the spiritual motion of the saints is towards a zenith from which it does not descend. There is no twilight for them. Age weakens only their bodily powers. Their progress in love is even more rapid in their last years. They advance, not with a regular, but with an ever hastening step, in spite of the weight of years, and their “youth shall be renewed like the eagle’s.” (Ps. 102:5).

Mary’s progress was the most continuous of all. It encountered no obstacle, was not halted nor delayed by attachment to self or to the things of this world. It was the most rapid of all, because the rate at which it commenced was determined by Mary’s fullness of grace and therefore surpassed that of all the saints. Thus there was in Mary (especially if, as is probable, her infused knowledge gave her the use of reason and will during her hours of sleep) a wonderful increase in the love of God of which the accelerated motion of bodies under the force of gravitation is but a distant image.

Modern physical science tells us that the velocity of a falling body increases uniformly. This is an image of the growth of charity in a soul which allows nothing to hold it back, and which moves faster towards God according as increasing nearness to Him increases His attraction. Such a soul usually makes each sacramental or spiritual communion more fervently, and in consequence more fruitfully, than the preceding one. The movement of a stone thrown in the air, which grows uniformly slower and finally falls back, is a symbol of the lukewarm soul, especially if through a growing attachment to venial sin its communions become less fervent.

The principles outlined in this article show what must have been Mary’s spiritual progress from the time of her Immaculate Conception, especially if she had, as is probable, the uninterrupted use of reason and will in her mother’s womb and afterwards.4 Besides, since it appears that Mary’s initial fullness of grace surpassed that of all the saints, her subsequent progress cannot but exceed our powers of description.5 Nothing held her back, neither the consequences of original sin, nor any venial sin, neither negligence, nor distraction, nor imperfection. She was like a soul which, having taken the vow always to do the most perfect thing, proved completely faithful to it.

Saint Anne must have been struck by the unique holiness of her child. But she could not have suspected the Immaculate Conception nor the future divine maternity. Her child was much more loved by God than she thought. In a somewhat similar way, each soul in the state of grace is more loved by God than it thinks. To know fully how much it is loved, it would need to understand grace, and the glory of which grace is the germ, just as to know the full value of the acorn it is necessary to have seen a fully developed oak tree. The greatest things often lie concealed in the most insignificant, as in a mustard seed, or in the tiny trickle which is the beginning of a mighty river.

Mary’s Progress by Merit and Prayer

If Mary’s charity grew uninterruptedly in accordance with the great law of love, we may ask what were the sources of its growth. They were merit, prayer, and a certain spiritual communion with God who was present in Mary’s soul from the first moment of her existence.

It must be recalled first of all that it is not precisely in extension that charity grows, for even the least degree of charity extends to God and to all men without exception—though it is true that we can and do extend the field of our active goodwill. Charity grows most of all in intensity. It takes ever deeper root in the will, or, to lay metaphor aside, it makes the will determined to avoid both evil and that which is less good and to tend generously to God. The growth of charity is not quantitative—as is that of a heap which grows by having more added to it—but qualitative, as is the growth of knowledge which, even if no fresh conclusions are drawn, can become more penetrating, more profound, more unified, more certain. Charity grows by tending to love God above all things, more perfectly, more purely, and more firmly, and our neighbour as ourselves, so that all may be united in glorifying God in time and in eternity. This growth brings the formal object and motive of charity into fuller relief than it usually is at the beginning of a spiritual life. At first, we love God more for what He has given and for what we hope He will yet give, and less for His own sake. But gradually we come to realise that the Giver is greater and more lovable than the gift, and that He deserves to be loved for the sake of His own Infinite Goodness.

In our case, a number of different influences contribute to the growth of charity—merit, prayer, the sacraments. We shall now consider the first of these in relation to Mary.

A meritorious act, proceeding from charity or from a virtue inspired by it, establishes a right to a supernatural reward, and first of all to the reward of an increase of habitual grace and charity itself. The increase of grace and charity is not caused directly by the meritorious act, for grace and charity are not acquired but rather infused habits. God alone can produce them, for they participate in the depths of His life; He alone can increase them. That is why St. Paul says: “I have planted (by preaching and baptism), Apollo watered, but God gave the increase” (1 Cor. 3:6); and again: “He will … increase the growth of the fruits of your justice.” (2 Cor. 9:10).

But though our acts do not directly increase charity, they contribute in two ways to its growth: morally, by meriting it; physically, by disposing for it. Meritorious acts confer on the soul the right to receive from God an increase of charity so as to love Him more purely and more firmly. Besides, they dispose the soul for this increase by opening out in some way, or by unfolding, its higher faculties, enabling the divine life to enter them, to elevate them, and to purify them.

It often happens that our meritorious acts remain imperfect—remiss, as theologians put it—that is to say, below the level or degree in which the virtue of charity exists in us. Oftentimes, though we have a charity of three talents, we act as if we had one of but two, It is as when an intelligent man is careless and does not apply himself seriously to what he is doing. Remiss acts are meritorious. But St. Thomas and the older generation of theologians teach that they do not obtain for the soul at once the increase of charity which they merit, precisely because they do not dispose it to receive it.6 A person who, having three talents of charity, acts as if he had only two, is obviously not preparing or disposing himself to have his charity increased to four talents. He will receive the increase he merits only when he disposes himself for it by a more generous or more intense act of charity or of one of the virtues which it controls.

These few principles throw a flood of light on what has been said about Mary’s progress by way of merit. She never performed a remiss or imperfect meritorious act, for that would have been a moral imperfection, a lack of generosity in God’s service such as theologians declare she was never guilty of. Hence her meritorious acts were rewarded at once by the increase of charity which they merited.

But there is something more. Theologians tell us that God is more glorified by a single act of charity of ten talents, than by ten acts of one talent. Similarly, one devout soul gives more glory to God than many who are lukewarm. In the spiritual order especially, quality means more than quantity. Hence, Mary’s merits grew continuously in perfection. Her most pure heart dilated, and her capacity for the divine increased, as is described in Psalms 118:32: “I have run the way of thy commandments, when thou didst enlarge my heart.” Whereas we often forget that we are journeying towards eternity and treat this world as if it were to last for ever, Mary never withdrew her eyes from the goal of her life, God Himself, and never wasted a moment of the time He gave her. Each instant of her life on earth entered into the single instant of eternity through her accumulating ever richer merits. She saw the present not along the horizontal line of time which ends in a future on earth, but along the vertical line which ends in an eternity that never passes.

Another thing to be noted is that, according to the teaching of St. Thomas, no deliberate act really performed in the course of a lifetime is ever indifferent. For an act which is indifferent in itself, such as to take a walk or to teach mathematics, becomes good or bad in performance because of the end to which it is directed, and a reasonable being is obliged always to act for a reasonable or good end, and not simply for self-gratification or for some other disordered purpose.7 From this it follows that every deliberate act of a person in the state of grace which is not a sin is morally good; in consequence, it is virtually ordained to God, the final end of the just, and is meritorious. “Every act of those who have charity is either meritorious or de-meritorious” (De Malo, a. 5, ad 17). This is an additional reason for saying that all Mary’s deliberate acts were good and meritorious. And we may add that none of the acts she performed during her waking hours were indeliberate or machine-like, but all were under the control of her intellect and her grace-directed will.

When we meditate on the outstanding occasions in Mary’s life, it is especially in the light of the preceding principles that we should do so. And since, just now, we are concerned with those which preceded the Incarnation, let us turn to her Presentation in the Temple, when she was as yet a child, or to her participation in the great feasts of Israel, or to her reading of the Messianic prophecies—those particularly of Isaias—which increased so wonderfully her faith, her hope, her love of God, and her longing for the advent of the Messiah. How much she must have penetrated the depth of meaning in Isaias’ words: “For a child is born to us, and a son is given to us, and the government is upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of peace.” (Is. 9:6). Though she was still so young, Mary’s vivid faith must have grasped better than even Isaias did the meaning of the words “God the Mighty.” She understood already that the plenitude of the divine power would be in that Child, that the Messiah would be an eternal and immortal King, always the Father of His people.8

The life of grace increases not by merit only but by prayer as well, which has its own peculiar efficacy (of impetration). For that reason, we pray every day to grow in the grace of God, saying: “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name; Thy Kingdom come (more and more in us); Thy Will be done (may Your precepts be better observed by us).” Similarly, the Church makes us pray on the 13th Sunday after Pentecost: “Grant us, O Lord, an increase of faith, hope and charity.”

After justification, one can therefore grow in grace both by the way of merit—which is based on the divine justice, and gives a right to a reward—and by the way of prayer—which relies on the divine mercy Prayer is efficacious in the degree in which it is humble, confident, persevering, and desirous of an increase of virtue rather than of temporal favors: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be given to you.” And it can happen that the soul in the state of grace will receive at once, in answer to fervent prayer, more than it merits. In other words, a person may, on occasion, receive an increase of grace through the impetratory power of a prayer which exceeds that due to prayer’s meritorious value.9

Mary’s prayer was most efficacious from her very childhood, not only because of its meritorious value, but also because of its wonderful impetratory value, proportionate to her humility, her confidence, and her perseverance in a continually growing generosity. Through it she grew continuously in the pure and strong love of God. She obtained also all the actual efficacious graces which cannot be merited strictly, such as those which incline to new meritorious acts, or the special inspiration which is the principle of infused contemplation. This must certainly have happened when she repeated in her prayer the words of the Book of Wisdom 7:7: “Wherefore I wished, and understanding was given me: and I called upon God, and the spirit of wisdom came upon me: and I preferred her before kingdoms and thrones, and esteemed riches nothing in comparison with her … for all gold in comparison of her, is as a little sand, and silver in respect of her shall be counted as clay.” In this way, the Lord came to her to nourish her with Himself, and each day gave Himself more fully to her by prompting her to give herself more fully to Him.

More appropriately than anyone else except Jesus, she said with the psalmist: “One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life; that I may see the delight of the Lord… (Ps. 26:4). Day after day brought her a fuller understanding of the infinite goodness of God to those who seek Him and to those who find Him. Even before the institution of the Blessed Eucharist, Mary enjoyed, therefore, that spiritual communion which consists in the simple and intimate prayer of the soul in the unitive stage when it enjoys God present within it as in a spiritual temple: “O taste and see that the Lord is sweet.” (Ps. 33:9).

The psalmist expresses his thirst for God in burning words: “As the hart panteth after the fountains of waters; so my soul panteth after thee, O God. My soul hath thirsted after the strong living God.” (Ps. 41:2). What must have been Mary’s thirst for God from the moment of the Immaculate Conception up to the day of the Incarnation!

St. Thomas tells us that Mary’s progress in charity was not such that she merited the Incarnation, for the Incarnation is the principle of all merit since the sin of Adam, and could not itself be merited by one who was redeemed. Nevertheless, her progress merited for her gradually (as a result of the first grace which came from the future merits of her Son) that eminent degree of charity, humility, and purity which made her, on the Annunciation day, the worthy mother of the Saviour.10

Neither did she merit the divine maternity; that would have been equivalently to merit the Incarnation. She did, however, merit the degree of charity which was the proximate disposition for being made Mother of God. This proximate disposition must have been an unimaginable summit of holiness, since even the remote disposition—Mary’s first fullness of grace—surpassed the united holinesses of all the saints.

Finally, we may add that Mary’s years in the temple accelerated her growth in the grace of the virtues and the gifts in a way with which the growth of the most generous of souls is quite unworthy to be compared.

It is, of course, possible to exaggerate Mary’s growth in grace and to attribute to her a perfection which belongs only to her Son. But even if we are careful to confine ourselves to what were really her prerogatives, we are utterly incapable of forming a worthy idea of the elevation of her beginning and her progress in the spiritual life. The most we can do is to attain to some small measure of understanding of so sublime a mystery.

NOTE

When in our lives do the less fervent or remiss acts of charity obtain the increase of charity due to them?

According to St. Thomas,* every act of charity of the “wayfarer” is meritorious, meriting an increase of this virtue and disposing the soul, at least in a remote manner, to receive it; but only fervent acts dispose one proximately, i.e. acts at least equal in intensity to the degree of the infused virtue from which they proceed. Therefore only fervent acts obtain immediately the increase of charity that they merit.

When do the less fervent acts obtain it?

One might think that it is as soon as a fervent meritorious act is made. However, there is a difficulty, for whereas this act certainly obtains the increase due to it and to which it disposes one proximately, it is not certain that it obtains at the same time the increase due to the less fervent meritorious acts which have preceded it and which has not yet been given.

One way by which these arrears can be obtained is by fervent acts of charity which are themselves meritorious, and which also dispose one to receive already in the present life not only what they merit themselves but even more than they merit.

This is the case with the fervent act of charity by which one prepares oneself for a good communion, which confers “ex opere operato” an increase of charity corresponding to the actual fervent disposition and to the “arrears”. This must be quite frequent with good priests and good christians, especially at the more fervent communions which they make on certain feast-days or on the First Friday of the month. More so must this take place when, with good dispositions, one receives Holy Communion as Viaticum, or with Extreme Unction, which, effacing the remains of sin (reliquiae peccati), produces an increase of charity in proportion to the fervour with which it is received; it can therefore produce also the “arrears” merited but not yet obtained.

One’s “arrears” may be obtained also by a fervent prayer for an increase of charity; for this prayer is at once meritorious, inasmuch as inspired by charity, and impetratory; and on this latter score it obtains more than it merits and can dispose one proximately to receive the “arrears” already merited but not obtained.

Finally, it remains probable that the soul which may not have obtained its “arrears” during this life by any of the means we have mentioned, can dispose itself proximately to receive them by its fervent acts in Purgatory, acts which, however, are no longer meritorious. It is certain that these souls in Purgatory, as their purification advances, make more and more fervent acts (non-meritorious), which attain at least to the degree of intensity of the infused virtue from which they proceed. These acts do not merit an increase of this virtue, but it is probable that they dispose one actually to receive the “arrears” already merited “in via” and not yet obtained. Thus a soul which entered Purgatory with a charity of five talents, could leave it with a charity of seven, the degree of glory corresponding always to the degree of merit.

And if this is true, it would appear to be true especially with regard to the final act by which the soul disposes itself (in genere causae materialis) to receive the light of glory, an act which is produced (in genere causae efficientis et formalis) under the influence of this light at the exact moment of its infusion, just as the last act which immediately disposes one for justification proceeds from charity at the exact moment of its infusion. Thus the “arrears” would be obtained at least at the last moment, on one’s entry into glory.*

Article 2. Mary’s Wonderful Increase in Grace at the Annunciation

As St. Thomas explains,11 it was becoming that the mystery of the Incarnation should be announced to the Blessed Virgin so as to instruct her in its meaning and that she might give her consent to it. Thereby she conceived the Word spiritually, as the Fathers say before conceiving Him physically And St. Thomas adds that her supernatural and meritorious consent was given in the name of the whole human race which stood in need of the promised Redeemer.

It was becoming also that the Annunciation should have been made by an angel, coming as ambassador of the Most High. A rebellious angel had caused the Fall; a holy angel, the highest of the archangels, announces the Redemption.12 Becoming, as well, that Mary should have been enlightened before St. Joseph about the mystery, for by her predestination she was greater than he. Becoming, in the last place, that the Annunciation should have taken the form of a corporeal vision accompanied by an intellectual illumination, for the corporeal vision is, in itself, more certain and reliable than the imaginative one, and the grace of the intellectual illumination revealed with certainty the meaning of the words spoken.13 Joy and confidence succeeded reverential fear and astonishment as the angel spoke: “Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God. Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High…. The Holy Ghost shall come uponthee and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” And the angel adds, both as sign and as explanation of what is to come to pass: “And behold thy cousin Elisabeth, she also hath conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month with her that is called barren. Because no word shall be impossible with God.”

And Mary consented, saying, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word.”

Bossuet tells us in his Elevations on the Mysteries, 12th Week, 6th Elevation, that Mary manifested principally three virtues in her consent: virginity, by her noble resolution to renounce the joys of the senses for ever; perfect humility in regard to God who so favored her; and faith, by conceiving the Son of God in her soul before she conceived Him in her body—which is why Elisabeth saluted her: “And blessed art thou that hast believed, because these things shall be accomplished that were spoken to thee by the Lord.” She manifested also confidence in God and courage, for she was not ignorant of the messianic prophecies—those especially of Isaias—which foretold the great sufferings of the Messiah in which she was called to share.

Many interior souls are struck most by Mary’s total self-forgetfullness at the Annunciation, and see in it the highest humility. She thought only of God’s will, of all that the Incarnation would do for His glory and for our salvation. And God, Who is the greatness of little ones, regarded her humility, and made her faith, her confidence, and her generosity all they were called to be by her participation in our redemption. There are men who think that their greatness consists in their genius and their gifts of nature. Mary, the greatest of creatures, turned her gaze from herself, and sought her greatness in God. Deus humilium celsitudo, God, who art the greatness of the humble, reveal to us the greatness of Mary, the loftiness of her charity.14

St. Thomas tells us15 that Mary’s fullness of grace increased notably at the Incarnation, through the presence of the Word of God made flesh. If she had not been already confirmed in grace, she would have been so from that moment.

The Reason for Mary’s Increase in Grace and Charity at the Incarnation

Three reasons have been given for Mary’s increase in the divine life at the Incarnation: the finality or purpose, of her grace; the cause of her grace; the mutual love of Jesus and His Mother.

In the first place, an increase in grace and charity was most becoming as a proximate and immediate preparation for the dignity of the divine motherhood. It is a general principle that the proximate preparation (ultimate disposition) for any perfection is proportionate to it. But the divine maternity is superior by its term—which is of the hypostatic order—to every other dignity of nature or of grace. Hence, Mary must have received as proximate preparation for it a special increase of her fullness of grace. This special increase made her proximately worthy to be the Mother of God and to take her unique place in regard to the Word made flesh.

In the second place, the Son of God owed it to Himself to enrich Mary with a still greater grace when He became present in her by the Incarnation. For by His Divinity He is principal cause of grace, and by His Humanity He is its meritorious and instrumental cause. But Mary was, of all creatures, the one who entered into closest contact with Him in His Humanity since He took flesh in her womb. Hence, it was appropriate that she should have received a notable increase of grace at the Incarnation. Receiving the Word into her womb, she must have experienced all— and more than all—the benefits of a fervent sacramental communion. Jesus gives Himself to us in the Blessed Eucharist under the appearances of bread; He gave Himself to Mary in His true form, and by an immediate contact which produced, ex opere operato, an increase in her participation in the divine life more bounteous than even that produced by the greatest of the sacraments.

There is one remarkable point of dissimilarity between Jesus’ gift of Himself to Mary and His gift of Himself to us in Holy Communion. He gives Himself to us that we may live by Him. But, though He nourished Mary’s soul and gave Himself to her by the Incarnation, in His human nature, He lived by her and received from her the nourishment which His sacred Body required.

In the third and last place, the mutual love of Jesus and Mary demanded an increase of Mary’s fullness of grace. As we have said, grace is an effect of God’s active love for His creature. But if the Word made Flesh loves all the men for whom He is prepared to shed His blood, if He loves in a special way the elect and among them in a still more special way the apostles and the saints, His love for Mary, who was to be the most closely associated with Him in His work for souls, is the greatest of all. But Jesus is God. Hence His love for her produces grace in her soul—such an abundance of grace as to be capable of overflowing on souls. He is man too, and as man has merited all the effects of our predestination.16 Hence, in His love for her, He communicated to her the effects of her special predestination, most particularly that increase of charity which brought her nearer to the final fullness that was to be hers in glory. We must remember too that Mary was never in the slightest degree unresponsive to Jesus’ love for her; on the contrary, her maternal love for Jesus answered most fully to Jesus’ love for her. On that account it was possible for Him to give Himself to her much more fully than to any of the great saints. To form some idea of Mary’s maternal love for Jesus, we have only to think of the heroic love and of the immense sacrifices of which mothers are capable for their children in their hour of trial and suffering. Think too of how loving Mary’s pure virgin heart was; and of how she loved her Son as her God; and of how her love was supernatural as well as natural, growing continuously in intensity Such thoughts will enable you to glimpse Mary’s love in a distant way.

Speaking of the time when the Body of the Saviour was formed in Mary’s virginal womb, Fr Hugon says:17 “She must have made uninterrupted progress in grace during those nine months—ex opere operato, as it were—through her permanent contact with the Author of holiness. If her plenitude of grace is incomprehensible at the time of the Incarnation, what must it have been at the Nativity…. Each time she fed him at her virginal breast, she was nourished with grace…. When she held Him in her arms and gave Him the kisses of a virgin-mother, she received from Him the kiss of the divinity, which made her still purer and holier.” These words are but an echo of the liturgy18 Even when physical contact with Jesus in her womb had ceased, Mary’s charity and motherly love continued to grow, and this up to the hour of her death. In her case, grace perfected nature in a degree which will remain for ever beyond the powers of the human tongue to express.

Article 3. The Visitation and the “Magnificat”

1. The Visitation

After the Annunciation the Blessed Virgin went to visit her cousin, St. Elisabeth. As soon as Elisabeth heard Mary’s salutation, the child she bore leaped in her womb for joy, and she was filled with the Holy Ghost. And she cried out: “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. For behold, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed art thou that hast believed, because those things shall be accomplished that were spoken to thee by the Lord.” In the light of divine revelation Elisabeth understands that the Fruit of Mary’s womb is beginning to bless men through His mother. She knows that it is the Lord Himself who comes to her. The Son of God comes, through His mother, to His precursor; and the precursor, through his mother, recognized the Son of God.

St. Luke gives the canticle of the Magnificat in the verses which follow. The context, the authority of the great majority of the best manuscripts, and the unanimous voice of the oldest and most learned Fathers (Irenaeus, Origen, Tertullian, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, etc.) all point to Mary as its author.

What strikes one most of all in the Magnificat is its simplicity and its dignity. In substance it is a song of thanksgiving, which recalls that God is the greatness of the humble, that He lifts them up even while He casts down the pride of the mighty. Bossuet sums up well what the Fathers say about the Magnificat in his Elevations on the Mysteries, 14th week, 5th Elevation. We shall follow him in the next few pages.19

2. God has done great things in Mary

“My soul doth glorify the Lord.” Mary leaves self, as it were, to glorify God alone and to find in Him all her joy She is in perfect peace, for no one can take from her Him of whom she sings.

“My spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.” What Mary cannot find in herself she finds in God, who is the Supreme Treasure. She rejoices “because He hath rewarded the humility of His handmaid.” She does not think herself capable of attracting His gaze, for she is nothing. But He, in His goodness, has turned towards her, and now she has a sure ground for confidence— the Divine mercy. No longer does she fear to recognise all she has received freely from Him: rather is that a debt of gratitude to be paid. “For behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed”—a prophecy which is still fulfilled after two thousand years with each “Hail Mary” that men say.

And now she sees that her joy will be the joy of all men of good will: “He that is mighty hath done great things to me; and holy is His name. And His mercy is from generation unto generation, to them that fear Him.” He who is mighty has performed in her the greatest work of His might—the redemptive Incarnation: He has given a Saviour to the world through her, while yet leaving her virginity intact.

The Most High is holy, is Holiness. This is all the more evident to us who believe that the Son of God, who is also the Son of Mary, has bestowed mercy, grace and holiness on men of so many different times and nations who feared God with that childlike fear which is the beginning of wisdom, and accepted the yoke of His commandments by grace.

3. God raises up the humble and through them triumphs over the pride of the mighty

To explain these wonderful effects Mary appeals to the Divine Power: “He hath showed might in His arm; He hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart. He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble.” God did all she mentions when He sent His only Son to confound the proud by the preaching of His gospel, and to make use of the weakness of the apostles, confessors and virgins, to bring the strength of a proud paganism to naught. His sublime mysteries He has hidden from the wise and revealed to little ones. (Matt. 11:25). Mary is herself an example of what God does by the little ones. He raised her above all because she looked on herself as the least of all. The Son of God chose for His dwelling not the rich palaces of kings but the poverty of Bethlehem, and He manifested His power by the very weakness in which He came to exalt the little ones.

“He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich He hath sent empty away.” Jesus in His turn will say: “Blessed are ye that hunger now, for you shall be filled…. Woe to you that are filled, for you shall hunger.” (Luke 6:21, 25). In Bossuet’s words, it is when the soul sees the glory of the world in ruins and God alone great that it finds peace.

The Magnificat concludes as it began, with thanksgiving: “He hath received Israel His servant, being mindful of His mercy: As He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed for ever.” We should make our own the words of St. Ambrose: “Let Mary’s soul be in us to glorify the Lord; let her spirit be in us that we may rejoice in God our Saviour.”20 May His Kingdom come in us through the accomplishment of His will.

Article 4. Mary’s Perpetual Virginity

The Church teaches three truths concerning Mary’s virginity: that she was a virgin in conceiving Our Saviour, that she was a virgin in giving Him birth, and that she remained a virgin her whole life through. The first two truths were defended against the Cerinthians and the Ebionites towards the end of the 1st century; against Celsus, who was refuted by Origen; in the 16th century against the Socinians, whom Paul IV and Clement VIII condemned; and recently against the rationalists—Strauss, Renan, and the Pseudo-Herzog in particular.21 The second truth was attacked by Jovinian, who was condemned in 390. The third truth was denied by Helvidius and defended by St. Jerome.22

The Virginal Conception

Mary’s virginity in the conception of her Son was foretold by Isaias (Is. 7:14): “A virgin shall conceive, and bear a son.” The virginal conception is clearly the literal sense of this text; otherwise, as St. Justin pointed out to Tryphon,23 there would be no question of a sign, as Isaias had promised. Gabriel also gave testimony to the virginal conception at the Annunciation: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee.” The message given by the angel to St. Joseph is to the same effect: “Joseph, son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary, thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost” (Matt. 1:20). And St. Luke says of Jesus: “… being (as it was supposed) the son of Joseph.” (Luke 3:23).

Tradition confirms that the conception of Christ was virginal, as can be learned from the testimonies of St. Ignatius the Martyr, Aristides, St. Justin, Tertullian, St. Irenaeus. All the creeds teach that the Son of God made flesh “was conceived by the Virgin Mary, by the operation of the Holy Ghost.”24 It was defined by the Lateran Council under Pope Martin I in 64925 and it was reaffirmed by Paul IV against the Socinians.26

The arguments which show the appropriateness of the virginal conception are exposed by St. Thomas27: 1—It is appropriate that He who is the natural Son of God should have no father on earth, but only in Heaven; 2—The Word, conceived eternally in the most complete purity, should be conceived virginally when being made flesh; 3—That the human nature of the Saviour be exempt from original sin it was appropriate that it should not be formed by the ordinary process of human generation, but virginally; 4—By being born of a virgin Christ showed that His members should be born by the Spirit of His virginal and spiritual spouse, the Church.

The Virginal Birth

St. Ambrose bears witness to the virginal birth when commenting on the text of Isaias: “A virgin shall conceive, and bear a son;” she will be a virgin, he says, in giving birth as well as in conceiving.28 The same had been said earlier by St. Ignatius the Martyr,29 Aristides,30 Clement of Alexandria.31 It was defined by the Lateran Council.32

St. Thomas gives the following arguments to show the appropriateness of the virginal birth: 1—The Word, who is conceived and who proceeds eternally from the Father without any corruption of His substance, should, if He becomes flesh, be born of a virgin mother without detriment to her virginity; 2—He who came to remove all corruption should not by His birth destroy the virginity of her who bore Him; 3—He who commands us to honor our parents should not Himself diminish by His birth the glory of His holy mother.

The Perpetual Virginity of Mary after the Saviour’s Birth

The Lateran Council affirmed this point of doctrine in 649, as did Paul IV later against the Socinians.33

Among the Greek Fathers two deserve special mention as having explicitly taught it: Origen34 and St. Gregory the Wonderworker.35 The expression semper virgo—”always a virgin”—is common in the 4th century, especially in the works of St. Athanasius and Didymus the Blind.36 It was also used by the 2nd Council of Constantinople.37 The Latin Fathers are represented by Saints Ambrose,38 Augustine,39 and Jerome.40 St. Ephrem voices the mind of the Syriac Church.41

St. Thomas’s arguments to show the appropriateness of the perpetual virginity are as follows (IIIa, q. 28, a. 3): 1—Helvidius’s error is opposed to the dignity of Christ Himself, for just as He is the only Son in eternity of the Father so also He ought to be the only Son in time of the Virgin; 2—It is opposed also to the dignity of the Holy Ghost who sanctified once and for ever the virginal womb of Mary; 3—It is opposed to the dignity and holiness of the Mother of God as it would imply that she was dissatisfied with having borne such a Son; 4—Finally St. Joseph would have been guilty of the greatest presumption had he violated the virginity of her whom he knew, by the angel, to have conceived of the Holy Ghost.42

St. Thomas explains also (IIIa, q. 28, a. 4) the commonly accepted teaching that the Blessed Virgin had taken a vow of perpetual virginity. Her words to the angel prove the point: “How shall this be done, because I know not man?” Tradition is summed up in the phrase of St. Augustine’s: “Virgo es, sancta es, votum vovisti.”43

Article 5. The Principal Mysteries which Contributed to Mary’s Increase in Grace after the Incarnation

These mysteries are those especially which the Rosary proposes for our consideration.

The Nativity

Mary grew in humility, poverty and love of God by giving birth to her Son in a stable. His cradle was but a manger. But, by contrast, there were the angels there to sing “Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will.” Those words were sweet to the ears of the shepherds and of St. Joseph, and still more sweet to the ears of Mary. They were the beginning of a Gloria which the Church does not cease to sing at Mass while this world endures, and the liturgy of eternity has not yet replaced that of time.

It is said of Mary that she kept all these words, pondering them in her heart. Though her joy at the birth of her Son was intense, she treasured it up in silence. St. Elisabeth alone received her confidences. God’s greatest actions defy human expression. What could Mary say to equal what she had experienced?

The Presentation in the Temple

Mary said her Fiat in peace and holy joy on the day of the Annunciation. There was sorrow too in her heart at the thought of the sufferings which Isaias had foretold would befall her Son. Still more light is thrown for her on the mystery of the Redemption when the holy old man Simeon speaks of the Child Jesus as the “Salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples: A light to the revelation of the Gentiles.” Mary remains silent in wonder and thanksgiving. Simeon continues: “This child is set for the fall, and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted.” Jesus, come for the salvation of all, will be the occasion of the fall of many, He will be a stumbling block (Is. 8:14) for many of the Jews, who, refusing to recognise Him as the Messiah, will fall into infidelity and thence to eternal ruin. (Rom. 9:32; 1 Cor. 1:3). Jesus Himself will say later: “Blessed is he that shall not be scandalised in me.” (Matt. 11:6).

Turning then to Mary herself, Simeon addressed to her the prophetic words: “And thy own soul a sword shall pierce, that out of many hearts thoughts may be revealed.” Mary will have a share in the Saviour’s trials. His sufferings will be hers. Her very heart will be pierced by a sword of sorrow.

Had the Son of Man not come thus on earth we should never have known the full malice of pride’s revolt against truth. The hidden thoughts of hypocrisy  and false zeal were revealed when the Pharisees cried out for the crucifixion of Him Who is Holiness.

Jesus’ fullness of grace had two apparently contradictory effects: the most perfect peace of soul; the will to offer Himself as a redemptive victim. Mary’s grace produced two similarly contrasting effects: the pure joys of the days of the Annunciation and the Nativity; the desire to be united most generously to the sufferings of her Son for our salvation. Thus, presenting Him in the temple, she already offers Him for us. Joy and sorrow are wedded in the heart of the Mother of God who is already the Mother of all who will believe in her Son.

The Flight into Egypt

St. Matthew tells us how, after the Magi had come to adore, an angel appeared to Joseph in his sleep saying: “Arise, and take the Child and his mother, and fly into Egypt; and be there until I shall tell thee. For it will come to pass that Herod will seek the Child to destroy him.” True to the angel’s prophecy, Herod ordered the massacre of all the children of two years and under, in and around Bethlehem.

It is Jesus whom this king fears. He fears where there is no reason to fear, and despises God’s anger which he should hold in dread. Mary and Joseph are called to share in Jesus’ sufferings. “Before, they had lived in peace and earned their bread without anxiety by the labour of their hands. But as soon as Jesus is given to them their tranquil calm is broken … they must share in His Cross.”44 The Holy Innocents share also in the Cross. Their massacre shows us that they were predestined from all eternity for the glory of martyrdom.

When Herod has died, an angel appears again to Joseph to tell him that the time has come to go to Nazareth in Galilee.

The Hidden Life of Nazareth

Mary grew continuously in grace and charity as she carried the Infant in her arms, fed Him, embraced Him and was caressed by Him, heard His first words, guided His first steps.

“Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and grace with God and men.” Arrived at the age of twelve years, He accompanied Mary and Joseph to Jerusalem for the Pasch. When the day of departure came, He remained in the city unknown to His parents. It was only after three days that they found Him in the midst of the doctors. And He said to them: “How is it that you sought me: did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?” But Mary and Joseph “understood not the word that he spoke to them.”

Mary accepted in faith what she could not as yet understand. The depth and the extent of the Mystery of the Redemption will be revealed to her only gradually. She is glad to have found Jesus again. But in her joy sounds many an overtone of sadnesses yet to come.

Bossuet has some remarkable reflections on the hidden life, which lasted up to the time of Jesus’ public ministry.45

“There are some who feel ashamed for Jesus’ sake that He should have endured the wearisomeness of so long a retirement. They experience much the same feelings in regard to Mary, and try to enliven her period at Nazareth by attributing continual miracles to her. Rather let us pay heed to the words of the gospel: “Mary kept all these words in her heart.” Was not that a task worthy of her? And if the mysteries of His infancy were so rich a subject for her meditation, what of the mysteries that succeeded them? Mary meditated on Jesus … she remained in perpetual contemplation, her heart melting, as it were, in love and longing. What then shall we say to those who invented so many pretty fables about Our Lady? What, if not that humble and perfect contemplation did not seem enough in their eyes? But if it was enough for thirty years of Mary’s—and of Jesus’—life, it was enough for the other years too. The silence of the Scriptures about Mary is more eloquent than all discourses. Learn, O man, in the midst of your restless activity, to be satisfied to think of Jesus, to listen to Him within, to hear again His words. … Of what are you complaining, human pride, when you say you count for little in this world? Did Jesus count for much there? Or Mary? They were the wonder of the world, the sight that ravished God and angels. And what did they do? What name did they bear? Men wish to bear an honored name, to take part in brilliant movements. They do not know Jesus and Mary. … You say you have nothing to do. The salvation of souls is in your hands—in part, at least! Do you not know enemies whom you could help to reconcile, quarrels you could mend? Are there not souls in misery you could save from blasphemy and despair? And even if you have nothing of all that, have you not the work of your own salvation, which is for every soul the true work of God?”

Reflecting on the hidden life of Nazareth and on Mary’s spiritual progress in its silence, and reflecting by way of contrast on what the world terms progress, we are forced to conclude: men never talked more of progress than since they began to neglect its most important form, spiritual progress. And what has been the result? That the baser forms of progress, sought for their own sake, have brought pleasure, idleness and unemployment in their train, and prepared the way for a moral decline towards materialism, atheism—and even barbarism, as the recent world wars prove. In Mary, on the contrary, we find the ever more perfect realization of the gospel words: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind.” The further she advances the more she loves God with all her heart, for the more she sees the opposition to Jesus growing in the course of His ministry up to the consummation of the mystery of the Redemption.

The Cause of Mary’s Dolors on Calvary and the intensity of her Love of God and of her Son and of Souls

What was the profound cause of Mary’s sorrows on Calvary? Every christian soul for whom practice has made the Stations of the Cross familiar will answer: the cause of Mary’s sorrows, as of those of Jesus, was sin. Happy the souls for whom that answer is a vital truth, who experience true sorrow at the thought of their own sins—a sorrow that only grace can produce in them.

We understand but little of the sorrows of Mary, for little grieves us except what wounds our bodies, our self-love, our vanity, or our pride. We suffer too from men’s ingratitude, from the afflictions of our family or our native land. But sin grieves us but little. We have but little sorrow for our faults considered as offenses against God. In theory, we admit that sin is the greatest of evils since it affects the soul itself and its faculties, and since it is the cause of the disorders which we deplore in society; it is only too evidently the cause of the enmity between classes and nations. But in spite of that we do not experience any great sorrow for the faults whereby we contribute more or less ourselves to the general disorder. Our superficiality and our inconstancy prevent us from seeing what an evil sin is; precisely because it strikes so deep it cannot be known by those who look only at the surface. In its manner of ravaging souls and society, sin is like one of those diseases which affect vital but hidden organs, and which the sufferer is ignorant of even while they near a crisis.

To experience salutary grief, grief for sin, it is necessary truly to love God whom sin offends and sinners whom it destroys. The saints suffered from sin in the degree in which they loved God and souls. St. Catherine of Siena recognized souls in the state of mortal sin by the insupportable odor which they exhaled. But to know just how far grief for sin can go, one must turn to the heart of Mary. Her grief sprang from an unequalled love for God, for Jesus crucified, and for souls—a love which surpassed that of the greatest saints, and even of all the saints united, a love which had never ceased to grow, a love which had never been restrained by the slightest fault or imperfection. If such was Mary’s love, what must her grief have been! Unlike us who are so superficial, she saw with piercing clarity what it was that caused the loss of so many souls” the concupiscence of the flesh, the concupiscence of the eyes, the pride of life. All sins combined to add to her grief; all revolts against God, all outbursts of sacrilegious rage, such as that which reached its paroxysm in the cry “Crucify Him” and in utter hatred of Him who is the Light Divine and the Author of Salvation.

Mary’s grief was deep as was her love, both natural and supernatural, of her Son. She loved Him with a virginal love, most pure and tender; loved Him as her only Son, miraculously conceived, and as her God.

To understand Mary’s dolours, one would need to have received, as did the stigmatics, the impression of the wounds of the Saviour; one would need to have relived with the mystics His physical and moral sufferings, and to have shared with Him the hours of His Passion and Death. We shall try once more to speak of this matter when considering Mary as Mediatrix and Co-Redemptrix, and the reparation which she offered with, and by, and in her Son.

Mary’s love in her dolours was meritorious for us and for her also. By her sufferings she grew in charity as well as in faith, and hope, and religion; she grew in fact in all the virtues—those of humility, and meekness, and supernatural courage suggesting themselves especially to the mind. Her virtue in suffering was heroic in the highest degree. Thereby she became Queen of Martyrs.

On the hill of Calvary, grace and charity overflowed from the Heart of Jesus to the heart of His mother. He it was who sustained her, just as it was she who sustained St. John. Jesus offered up her martyrdom as well as His own, and she offered herself with her Son, who was more dear to her than her own life. If the least of the acts of Nazareth increased Mary’s charity, what must have been the effect of her participation in the Cross of Jesus!

Pentecost

The glorious resurrection of Our Saviour and His different apparitions all marked new stages in Mary’s spiritual growth. She saw in them the realization of so many of Jesus’ prophecies. She saw in them too His victory over death, a sign of Good Friday’s victory over Satan.

The mystery of the Ascension raised Mary’s thoughts still higher heavenwards. The evening of that day, when she withdrew to the Supper-room with the Apostles (Acts 1:14) she must have felt, as they too did, how empty the world was without Jesus. The difficulty of converting the pagan world loomed up in all its magnitude. The presence of Our Lady helped the Apostles to face it. In union with Jesus she merited, de congruo, the graces they were about to receive in this room where the Blessed Eucharist had been instituted,  where they had been ordained priests, and where the Master had appeared to them after His Resurrection.

The day of Pentecost comes. The Holy Ghost descends on Mary and on the Apostles in the form of tongues of fire, to give the final enlightenment concerning the mysteries of man’s salvation, and to impart the strength needed for the immense and arduous task that awaited its accomplishment. On that day, the Apostles were confirmed in grace. St. Peter went forth to manifest by his preaching that he had received fullness of knowledge of the mystery of Jesus Christ, Saviour and Author of newness of life. One and all, from being fearful the apostles became courageous, rejoicing to suffer for the name of Jesus. How marvellous must not Mary’s progress have been—she who was to be on earth, as it were, the heart of the infant Church!

Now that Jesus has ascended to Heaven no one will participate as she in His love for His Father and for souls. By her prayer, her contemplation, her ceaseless generosity, she will, in some way, sustain the souls of the Twelve, following them as a mother in the labours and difficulties of their apostolate, right up to the crown of martyrdom. They are her sons. The Church will later call her Queen of Apostles.

Even now she cares for them and makes their work fruitful by a continual oblation of herself in union with the sacrifice of Jesus perpetuated on the altar.

Mary, Model of Devotion to the Eucharist

It is most becoming to insist here a little on what Holy Mass and Holy Communion, received from the hands of St. John, must have meant for Our Blessed Lady.

Why had Mary been committed to St. John on Calvary rather than to the holy women who were also at the foot of the Cross? The reason was that St. John was a priest and had a treasure which they could not give her, the treasure of the Eucharist.

Why among the Apostles was John chosen rather than Peter? One reason is that John alone remained at the Cross, drawn and held there by a strong sweet grace. Another is that he is, as St. Augustine remarks, the model of the contemplative life, of the interior and hidden life which had always been that of Mary and which would be hers till death. Mary’s life will be cast in a very different mould from that of Peter, for she will have no share in ruling the Church. Her vocation will be to contemplate and to love Our Saviour in His sacramental presence, and to obtain by her unceasing prayer the spread of the faith and the salvation of souls. She will be thus in a very real sense the heart of the infant Church, for none other will enter as she into the depths and the strength of the love of Jesus.46

Let us consider her in this hidden life, especially at the hour when John celebrated Holy Mass in her presence. Mary has not the priestly character; she cannot perform the priestly functions. But she has received, in the words of M. Olier, “the plenitude of the priestly spirit”, which is the spirit of Christ the Redeemer. Thus she is able to penetrate deeper than St. John himself into the meaning of the mysteries he celebrates. Besides, her dignity of Mother of God is greater than that of ordained priest; she has given us both the Priest and the Victim of the sacrifice of the Cross and she has offered herself with Him.

Holy Mass was for her, in a degree we can only suspect, the memorial and the continuation of the sacrifice of the Cross. A sword of sorrow had pierced her heart on Calvary, the strength and tenderness of her love for Jesus making her suffer a true martyrdom. She suffered so much that the memory of Calvary could never grow dim, and each Holy Mass was a fresh renewal of all she lived through there. Mary found the same Victim on the altar when John said Mass. She found the same Jesus, really present; not present in image only, but in the substance of His Body with His Soul and Divinity. True, there was no immolation in blood, but there was a sacramental immolation, realised through the separate consecration of the bread and the wine: Jesus’ blood is shed sacramentally on the altar. How expressive is that figure of His death for her who cannot forget, for her who bears always in the depths of her soul the image of her Son, outraged and wounded, for her who hears yet the insults and the blasphemies offered Him. St. John’s Mass, with Mary present at it, was the most striking memorial of the Cross as it is perpetuated in its substance on our altars.

Mary Found in the Sacrifice of the Mass the Point of Contact of the Cults of Heaven and Earth

It is the same Victim who is offered at Holy Mass and who, in Heaven, offers His glorious wounds to the Heavenly Father. The Body of Christ never ceases to be in Heaven, it is true. It does not come down from Heaven, in the strict sense of the terms, on to the altar. But, without being multiplied. It is made really present by the transubstantiation of the substance of the bread and the wine into Itself.

There is the same principal priest, or offerer, in Heaven and on earth also, “always living to make intercession for us.” (Heb. 7:25). The celebrant of the Mass is but a minister who speaks in Jesus’ name. When he says “This is my body” it is Jesus who speaks by him.

It is Jesus who, as God, gives to the words their power of transubstantiation. It is Jesus as Man who, by an act of His holy soul, transmits the divine power and who continues to offer Himself thus for us as principal priest. If the human minister ever happens to be slightly distracted, the principal Offerer is not distracted, and Jesus as Man, continuing to offer Himself sacramentally for us, sees all that we miss—sees all the spiritual influence exercised by each Mass on the faithful present and absent, and on the souls in Purgatory.

Jesus continues to offer Himself in each Mass, the actual offering being made through the hands of His minister. The soul of the sacrifice of our altars is the interior oblation which is always a living reality in His Sacred Heart; through that oblation He applies to us continually the merits and satisfaction of Calvary. The saints have sometimes seen Jesus in the priest’s place at the moment of consecration. Mary knew the full truth better than any of the saints. Better than any of them she knew that the soul of every Mass was the oblation that lived in her Son’s Heart. She understood too that when, this world having reached its term, the last Mass would have been said, Jesus’ interior oblation would continue for ever, not now as supplication but as adoration and thanksgiving—as the eternal cult expressed even now at Mass by the Sanctus in honor of the thrice-holy God.

How did Mary unite herself to the oblation of Jesus, the principal priest She united herself to it, as we shall explain later, as universal Mediatrix and Co-Redemptrix. She continued to unite herself to it as at the foot of the Cross—in a spirit of adoring reparation, in petition and thanksgiving.

Model of victim-souls, she offered up the anguish she suffered at those denials of the divinity of Jesus which prompted St. John to write his fourth Gospel. She offered thanks for the institution of the Blessed Eucharist and for all the benefits of which It is the source. She prayed for the conversion of sinners, for the progress of the good, for the help the Apostles needed in their work and their sufferings.

In all that Mary is our model, teaching us how to become adorers in spirit and in truth.

What shall we say of Mary’s communions? The principal condition for a fervent communion is to hunger for the Eucharist. The saints hungered for It. When Holy Communion was denied St. Catherine of Siena, her desires obtained that a portion of the large Host broke off unknown to the celebrant and was carried miraculously to the saint. But Mary’s hunger for the Eucharist was incomparably greater and more intense than that of the saints. Let us contemplate reverently the strong loving desire which drew Mary to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

Every soul is drawn towards God, for He is the Sovereign Good for whom we have been made. But the consequences of sin—original and actual—and of innumerable imperfections make God appear unattractive in our eyes and weaken our inborn desire for union with Him. Mary’s soul, however, knew nothing of the consequences of sins and imperfections; nothing ever checked the Godwards tendency of her wonderful charity. Forgetting herself, Mary turned firmly towards God, with a firmness that grew daily as did her merits. The Holy Ghost dwelling in her moved her to give herself to God and to be united to Him. Her love of God, like an intense thirst, was accompanied by a sweet suffering which ceased only when she died of love and entered on the union of eternity. Such was her desire of the Eucharist.

Jesus for His part desired most ardently to consummate Mary’s holiness, to communicate to her the overflowing riches of His Sacred Heart. If He could suffer in glory, He would suffer from the resistance we offer to the same desire He has in our regard. But He found no resistance in Mary. And so He was able to communicate Himself to her in the most intimate way possible for two lives to be fused into one on earth: Jesus’ union with Mary was a reflection of the sanctifying union of the Word with the Sacred Humanity an image of the communion of the Three Divine Persons in the one infinite Truth and the one limitless Goodness.

Mary became again the pure living tabernacle of the Lord when she communicated—a tabernacle which knew and loved; one a thousand times more precious than any golden ciborium; a true tower of ivory house of gold, and ark of the alliance.

What were the effects of Mary’s communion? They surpassed anything St. Teresa recounts of transforming union in the Seventh Mansion of the Interior Castle. Transforming union has been compared, in its power to transform the soul in some way into God by knowledge and love, to the union of fire with a piece of iron, or that of light with the air it illumines. Rays of supernatural warmth and light came forth from the soul of Jesus and communicated themselves to Mary’s intellect and will. Mary could not take the credit to herself for the sublime effects they produced in her. Rather did she give praise on their account to Him who was their principle and end: “He that eateth me, the same also shall live by me;” he who eats my flesh lives by me and for me, just as I live by my Father and for my Father.

Each of Mary’s communions surpassed the preceding one in fervour and, producing in her a great increase of charity, disposed her to receive her next communion with still greater fruit. Mary’s soul moved ever more swiftly Godwards the nearer she approached to God; that was her law of spiritual gravitation. She was, as it were, a mirror which reflected back on Jesus the light and warmth which she received from Him; concentrated them also, so as to direct them towards souls.

In everything she was the perfect model of Eucharistic devotion. If we turn to her she will teach us how to adore and to make reparation; she will teach us what should be our desire of the Blessed Eucharist. From here we can learn how to pray at Holy Mass for the great intentions of the Church, and how to thank God for the graces without number He has bestowed on us and on mankind.

Article 6. Mary’s Intellectual Endowments and her Principal Virtues

To understand Mary’s fullness of grace, especially towards the end of her life on earth, it is necessary to examine the perfection of her intellect. We must consider her faith, enlightened by the gifts of Wisdom, Understanding and Knowledge. It will be necessary then to pass on to a consideration of some of her principal virtues, which, through their connection with her charity, were in her soul in a degree proportionate to her fullness of grace. To conclude this section we shall glance briefly at the gratuitous gifts of intellect which she received, particularly those of prophecy and the discernment of spirits.

Mary’s Faith Enlightened by the Gifts

The natural perfection of Mary’s soul resulted in very great powers of penetration in her intellect, as well as moral rectitude in her will and her lower faculties. These natural endowments continued to develop throughout the course of her life.

As regards her faith, it perceived its object in an exceptionally penetrating manner because of the revelation made to her at the Annunciation concerning the mysteries of the Incarnation and the Redemption, and because also of her daily intercourse with the Word made Flesh. Subjectively also her faith was remarkable, being strong, certain and prompt in its assent. In fact, Mary received the virtue of faith in the highest degree in which it was infused into any soul on earth, and the same must be said of her hope also. Jesus, having the beatific vision from the first instant of His conception, had neither faith nor hope: to Him belonged the full light of vision and full undelayed possession.

Hence, the sublimity of Mary’s faith surpasses our understanding. She did not hesitate at the Annunciation but believed at once the very moment the mystery of the redemptive Incarnation was sufficiently proposed to her, so that St. Elisabeth can say soon after: “And blessed art thou that hast believed, because these things shall be accomplished that were spoken to thee by the Lord.” In Bethlehem she sees her Son born in a stable and believes that He is the Creator of the world; she sees all the weakness of His infant body and believes in His omnipotence; when He commences to essay His first words she believes His infinite wisdom; when the Holy Family takes flight from Herod’s anger she believes that Jesus is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, as St. John would later say. At the Circumcision and the Presentation in the Temple her faith in the mystery of the Redemption expands. Her whole life on earth was passed in a dark brightness, the darkness arising not from human error and ignorance but from the very transcendence of the light itself—a darkness which was, in consequence, revealing of the heights of the mysteries contemplated by the blessed in Heaven.

She is at the foot of the Cross on Calvary, though all the Apostles, St. John only excepted, have fled; she stands erect there, firm in her faith that her Son is the Son of God, that He is the Lamb of God who is even then taking away the sins of the world, that though apparently defeated, He is Victor over Satan and sin, and that in three days He will conquer death by His resurrection. Mary’s act of faith on Calvary was the greatest ever elicited on earth, for the hour was unspeakably dark and its object was the most difficult of all—that Jesus had won the greatest of victories by making the most complete of immolations.

Her faith was aided then by the gifts of the Holy Ghost. By the gift of Understanding she read far into the revealed mysteries, far into their inner meaning, their harmony, their appropriateness, their consequences. She was particularly favored in her understanding of the mysteries in which she herself had a part to play, such as the virginal conception of Christ, His Incarnation, and the whole economy of the Redemption. Brought as she had been into close contact with the Three Divine Persons, the mystery of the Blessed Trinity revealed more of its depths to her than to any other mere human being.

By the gift of Wisdom the Holy Ghost enabled her to judge the things of God through a certain connaturality or sympathy which is based on charity47 She knew therefore in an experimental manner how truly the great mysteries answer to our highest aspirations, and how grace continually awakens new desires in us so as to prepare the way for clearer light and more burning love. She relished the mysteries in the measure of her ever-growing charity, her humility, and her purity. In her were verified most strikingly the words “God gives His grace to the humble … Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.” Even on earth the pure have some vision of their Father in Heaven.

By the gift of Knowledge the Holy Ghost taught her to judge temporal things, at times as symbols of eternal and divine things (as, for example, to see the heavens telling the glory of God) or again in their nothingness and frailty so as to appreciate eternal life all the more by contrast.

Special Privileges of Her Intellect

Besides faith and the gifts of the Holy Ghost which all the faithful have as part of their spiritual organism, Mary like many of the saints, had the gratiae gratis datae, or charismata which are given principally for the benefit of others rather than for the benefit of the person who receives them. These charismata are exterior signs having as purpose to confirm revelation or holiness, rather than fresh forms of sanctity. That is why they are distinct from grace, the infused virtues, and the gifts, all of which belong to a higher order.48

Regarding the charismata, theologians usually admit the principle: Mary received all privileges which it was becoming for her to receive, and which were not incompatible with her state, in a higher degree than the saints did. In other words, we cannot conceive of her as being inferior to the saints in the matter of charismata, seeing how much she surpassed them in the matter of holiness.

The principle is not, however, to be taken in a material sense. If, for example, certain saints have lived long months without food, if they have walked on the waters to come to another’s aid, it does not follow that Mary did the same; it is enough if she received grace of a higher order in which such lower graces were contained and surpassed.49 At the same time, in virtue of the principle just now enunciated, we must assert that she had certain charismata, either certainly or very probably.

First of all, she had by a special privilege a knowledge of the Scriptures greater than that of any of the saints, particularly in what concerned the Messiah, the redemptive Incarnation, the Blessed Trinity, the life of grace and of the virtues, and the life of eternity And even though Mary did not receive the commission to share in the official ministry of the Church, she must have enlightened St. John and St. Luke concerning the infancy and the hidden life of Jesus.50

She must have known in a clear and penetrating manner all that was useful about objects of the natural order. Though she need not have known the chemical formula of such things as salt or water, it would still be possible for her to know their natural properties, and still more their higher symbolism. For Mary’s knowledge of natural objects was of the kind which throws light upon the great religious and moral truths, such as the existence of God, His universal Providence extending to the minutest details, the spirituality and immortality of the soul, free will and moral responsibility, the principles and conclusions of the moral law, the relation between nature and grace. She saw clearly the finality of nature, the order of creation, and the subordination of every created cause to the First Cause. She saw that every good thing comes from God, even the free determination of our salutary and meritorious acts; she saw too that no one person would be better than another were he not more loved by God—a principle which is at the root of all humility and thanksgiving.

The knowledge which Mary had while still on earth had limits, especially at the beginning. She did not, for example, understand the full import of what Jesus said about His Father’s business when she found Him in the Temple. But, as has been often said, the limits were limits, not gaps. Hence she was in no sense ignorant, for the limits did not deprive her of the knowledge of anything she should have known at the time. God’s Mother knew at every stage of her life all that it was becoming for her to know.

Nor was she subject to error. She was never precipitate in judging; if she had not sufficient light she suspended her judgement; if she was not sure about a thing she was satisfied to affirm that it was likely or probable. For example, when she thought it likely that Jesus was not in the company of her friends and relatives on the occasion when she lost Him, her belief was a very likely one indeed—though in point of fact it was not true—and in looking on it as likely Mary did not err.

We have seen earlier (Chapter II, art. 5) that it is very probable that she had infused knowledge from the time she was in her mother’s womb. We have seen too that it is equally probable that she was never deprived of it in the course of her life, and that many theologians hold that she had the use of it even during her sleeping hours.

Among Mary’s gratuitous gifts we must include that of prophecy. An example of its exercise can be found in the Magnificat: “For behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.” The realization of this prophecy in the course of ages is as evident as is the meaning of the words themselves. It is more than likely that this was not the only occasion on which Mary used her prophetic gift since prophecy is so common among the saints, as for example St. John Bosco and the Cure of Ars.51

Finally, she had, like so many saints, the gift of discernment of spirits, by which to recognise the spirit of God and to distinguish it from diabolical illusion and natural exaltation. It enabled her also to read the secrets of hearts, especially when someone came to ask counsel of her. Thus her advice was always sound, opportune and practical.

Many theologians hold that Mary had the gift of tongues when she travelled in foreign countries—in Egypt, for example, and also in Ephesus.52 There is still greater reason for believing that she had this gift after the Assumption, for in her apparitions at Lourdes and La Salette and elsewhere she spoke the dialect of the district—the only one understood by those to whom she appeared.

The question has been asked if Mary enjoyed on earth—even for a few instants—the face to face vision of the divine essence as the blessed in Heaven do. On one point theologians are unanimous against Vega and Franciscus Verra: unlike her Divine Son, she had not that vision in a permanent way on earth, for if she had it permanently she would not have had the virtue of faith. But it is more difficult to say whether or not she enjoyed the beatific vision from time to time. It is true that she must have had an intellectual vision of the Trinity higher than that described by St. Teresa in the Seventh Mansion. But the vision of which St. Teresa speaks does not transcend faith, and is therefore immeasurably inferior to that of the blessed.

Some light is thrown on the problem by what we know of St. Paul. St. Augustine and St. Thomas53 teach that it is probable that St. Paul enjoyed the beatific vision momentarily when, in his own words, he was “caught up to the third Heaven … and heard secret words which it is not given to man to utter” (2 Cor. 12:2). The two great doctors both mention that according to the Jews the third Heaven was not merely the higher air, but the spiritual Heaven inhabited by God, where He is seen face to face by the angels—Paradise, as St. Paul says in the same context. Hence they conclude that St. Paul, having been called to be the Doctor of the Gentiles and of grace, was probably favored by a brief moment of the beatific vision, since grace cannot be understood fully without having seen the glory of which it is the beginning. The authority of two such doctors, themselves favored with mystical graces and thus especially competent to speak of such matters, is sufficient to constitute serious probability. It must, however, be admitted that neither Estius nor Cornelius a Lapide accepts such an exegesis of St. Paul’s text. Modern commentators tend to be non-committal.

To return to Our Lady, we agree entirely with Fr Hugon when he states that if it is probable that St. Paul enjoyed the beatific vision momentarily, it is difficult to see why the same should not be said of Our Blessed Lady,54 for her divine maternity, her fullness of grace, and her freedom from every stain disposed her more perfectly than any saint for the beatitude of eternity. Hence, even if it is not certain that she had moments of the beatific vision, it remains very probable.55

This brief survey will suffice to give some idea of the rich intellectual gifts which Mary enjoyed on earth.

Mary’s Principal Virtues

We have spoken already of her faith. A few words may now be said of her hope and her charity, as well as of the cardinal virtues and the virtues of humility and meekness.

Her hope, by which she tended to the possession of God whom she did not as yet fully possess, was a perfect confidence and trust which relied not on self but on the divine mercy and omnipotence. It was therefore sure.56 And its sureness was increased by the gift of Piety. For Piety awakens in us a filial attitude to God, and by it the Holy Ghost “giveth testimony to our spirit that we are the sons of God” (Rom. 8:16) and assures us that we can count on His assistance. It was increased also by the fact that Mary was confirmed in grace and preserved free from every shortcoming—lack of confidence as well as presumption.

Some of the occasions for the exercise of hope in Mary’s life spring at once to the mind. She exercised it when, yet a child, she awaited the coming of the Messiah and the salvation of all peoples; again, when she awaited the time that the secret of the virginal conception would be revealed to St. Joseph; again, when she fled into Egypt; again—and most of all-when on Calvary all seemed lost, but she awaited the victory which her Son had foretold He would win over death. Finally, her confidence, her unshaken hope, sustained the Apostles in their ceaseless labours for the spread of the Gospel and the conversion of the pagan world.

Her charity—her love of God in Himself and of souls for His sake—surpassed even in its beginnings the charity of all the saints combined, for it was of the same degree as her fullness of grace. Mary was always most intimately united to the Father as His best-beloved daughter, to the Son as His Virgin Mother, and to the Holy Ghost in a mystic marriage more perfect than the world had ever known. She was, in a way beyond all power of understanding, a living temple of the Trinity, loved by God more than all creatures, and corresponding perfectly with that love by consecrating herself fully to Him in the instant of her conception, and by living thenceforth in the most complete conformity to His Will.

No disordered passion, no vain fear, no distraction, checked the surge of her love for God. Her love for souls was of the same intensity, she offered her Son and herself unceasingly for souls.

The pages of the Gospel call many occasions to mind when her charity must have burned with a special flame—the Annunciation, the finding of Jesus after the three days’ loss, Calvary…. Well may the Church apply to Mary the words of Ecclesiasticus (Eccl. 24:24): “I am the mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope.”

The moral infused virtues are in all souls in the state of grace in the degree of their charity: prudence in the intellect, to make their judgement right in accordance with God’s law; justice in their will to prompt them to give every one his due; fortitude and temperance in their sensitive nature to bring it into conformity with reason and faith. The acquired virtues—which bear the same names—facilitate the exercise of the corresponding infused virtues.

Mary’s prudence directed all her actions undeviatingly towards her supernatural destiny. All her actions were deliberate and meritorious. Thus the Church calls her the Virgin most prudent. Aided by the gift of Counsel she exercised prudence in a notable manner at the Annunciation when, troubled at the angel’s word, she wondered what his salutation could mean, and again when she asked “How shall this be done, because I know not man?” Nor was her prudence less when, the angel having explained his mission, she accepted God’s will: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word.”

She practiced justice in its highest form—that is to say, justice in regard to God, which is the virtue of religion aided by the gift of Piety—when she consecrated herself to God in the first instant of her being. She practiced it also by her vow of virginity, her presentation of Jesus to His Father in the Temple, and her final offering of Him on the Cross. On Calvary she offered the greatest act of the virtue of religion in union with Jesus, the perfect sacrifice and the holocaust of infinite value.

Justice was always wedded to mercy in Mary. As did her Son, she forgave all the wrongs done to her and showed the greatest compassion for sinners. Then, as now, she was the Mother of Mercy, Our Lady of Perpetual Succour. The words of the psalmist find in her their realisation: “The earth is full of the mercy of God.”

Fortitude, that firmness of soul which can withstand the greatest dangers, the most difficult tasks, and the cruellest afflictions, was found in Mary in a no less eminent degree than the other virtues. At the foot of the Cross she did not flinch nor weaken, but stood courageously, as St. John tells us. Cajetan wrote a special tract, De spasmo Virginis, refuting the idea that Mary fainted on the road to Calvary. In this he was at one with Medina, Toletus, Suarez and with theologians generally, who all agree that Mary did not collapse under her grief. By her courageous bearing of trials Mary merited to be called Queen of Martyrs. She shared more intimately in Jesus’ suffering by her inner union with Him than did all the martyrs by their exterior afflictions. This thought is called to mind by the Church on the Feast of the Compassion of Our Lady and the Feast of the Seven Dolours, particularly in the Stabat Mater:

Fac ut portem Christi mortem,

Passionis fac consortem

Et plagas recolere.
Fac me plagis vulnerari,

Fac me cruce inebriari,

Et cruore Filii

Let me to my latest breath,

In my body bear the death

Of that dying Son of thine.

Wounded with His every wound,

Steep my soul till it hath swoon’d

In His very blood away.

—Fr. Caswall.

Temperance in its different forms, especially in that of perfect virginity appeared in her angelic purity In Mary the soul reigned over the body the higher faculties over the senses. The image of God was reflected in her as in a mirror.

Her humility never had to struggle against the slightest movement of pride or vanity. She recognized that of herself she was nothing and could do nothing in the supernatural order. Therefore she bowed down before the Divine Majesty and before all that there was of God in creation. She placed all her greatness in God alone, realising thus the words of the Missal: Deus humilium celsitudo.

At the Annunciation she speaks of herself as the handmaid of the Lord, and in the Magnificat she thanks the Most High for having regarded her lowliness. On the day of the Purification she submits to a law which did not bind her. Her whole life long, humility was manifested in her bearing, her modesty, her voluntary poverty, in the lowly tasks she performed—and all that, even though she had received graces as no other mere human ever did.

The Liturgy reminds us too of her meekness: Virgo singularis, inter omnes mitis. She uttered no word of reproach against those who crucified Jesus, but in union with Him she forgave them and prayed for them. Here we have meekness at its highest united to consummate fortitude.

Such are, then, the intellectual endowments and the principal virtues with which Mary was adorned. They made her a model of the contemplative life, one characterised by devotion to the Incarnate Word, and, through participation in His redemptive work, one in whom we find the most universal of all hidden apostolates.57

What we have said in this chapter about Mary’s principal virtues and her intellectual endowments shows in a concrete way the general plan of her spiritual progress. It remains to speak in the next chapter of her final fullness of grace at the moment of her death and of her entry into Heaven. We shall, then, have followed the stages of her spiritual life from her Immaculate Conception to her final glorification, a life which in its progress resembles a river rising at a great height and causing the fertility of the regions through which it passes, before it plunges at length into the mighty ocean.

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Footnotes of Chapter 3

1. Ia IIae, q. 65 and q. 66, a. 2.

2. Cf. Denz., 224: “Si quis defendit … Christum … ex profectu operum melioratum … A.S.”

3. Cf. also St. Thomas in l. i de Coelo, ch. viii, lect. 17, end: “Terra (vel corpus grave) velocius movetur quanto magis descendit.” Ia IIae, q. 35, a. 6: “Omnis motus, naturalis intensior est in fine, cum appropinquat ad terminum suae naturae convenientem, quam in principio … quasi natura magis tendat in id quod est sibi conveniens, quam fugiat id quod est sibi repugnans.”

4. We have quoted the authorities who support this view on p. 71. The following are the words of St. Francis de Sales: “How much more probable is it that the mother of the true Solomon had the use of reason in her sleep:” Treatise on the Love of God, L. III, c. 8, à propos the words of the Canticle of Canticles: “I sleep and my heart watcheth.”

5. It is necessary to explain what is meant by the expression “to exceed our powers of description”. It is not a denial of the certain fact that Mary’s grace remained limited. To attribute to her what is peculiar to her Divine Son would be unpardonable exaggeration. We know that her progress in grace could not go beyond certain limits. In other words, we know on the negative side what she could not do; but we do not know on the positive side all she could do, nor the degree of holiness to which she could attain, nor what was her point of departure. This is like our knowledge of the forces of nature: we do not know all they can do, but we do know certain things they cannot do—such as to cause the restoration to life of a dead man. In a similar way, we do not know positively all that the angels are capable of by their natural powers, especially the highest angels; but we know for certain that the least degree of grace is higher than the nature of the highest angel. To know fully the value of the least degree of grace, germ of glory, it would be necessary to have enjoyed the beatific vision momentarily. Much less then can we understand the grace of Mary.

6. Cf. IIa IIae, q. 24, a. 6, ad I.

7. Cf. Ia IIae, q. 18, a. 9.

8. No one can affirm as certain beyond question that Mary did not understand the God the Mighty of the prophecy of Isaias as attributing divinity to the Messiah. The Church, enlightened by the New Testament, understands the term in that sense in the Masses of Christmas. Who then will assert that Mary did not understand as much before the Incarnation? The Messiah is the Anointed of the Lord. In the light of New Testament teaching, we today realize that the anointing is constituted first of all by the grace of union, which is the Word Himself, who communicates substantial and uncreated holiness to the Sacred Humanity. (Cf. IIIa, q. 6, a. 6; q. 22, a. 2, ad 3.)

9. This explains how the just can obtain by prayer graces which cannot be merited, as, for example, the grace of final perseverance, or actual efficacious grace which at the same time preserves from mortal sin and conserves and augments the state of grace. The same can be said of the special inspiration which is the principle, through the gifts of understanding and wisdom, of infused contemplation.

10. Cf. IIIa, q. 2, a, II, ad 3: “Beata Virgo dicitur meruisse portare Dominum omnium, non quia meruit ipsum incarnari, sed quia meruit ex gratia sibi data ilium puritatis et sanctitatis gradum, ut congrue posset esse Mater Dei.”

* IIa IIae, q. 24, a. 6.

* These different explanations, which are quite probable, have been proposed by several commentators on St. Thomas in IIa, IIae, q. 24, a. 6, We have exposed them more at length elsewhere: L’Amour de Dieu et la Croix de Jésus, t. I, pp. 415-422, and Les Trois Ages de la Vie Intérieure, t. 1, p. 180 sqq.

11. IIIa, q. 30, aa. 1, 2, 3, 4.

12. IIIa, q. 30, a. 3.

13. Ib., a. 4.

14. Deus humilium celsitudo is the opening of the Collect of the Mass of St. Francis of Paula, April 2nd, and of the Blessed Martin Porres, November 5th, in the Dominican Missal. St. Albert the Great has some magnificent pages in his Mar-iale about the humility of Mary whom he regarded as his mother and his inspiration.

15. IIIa, q. 27, a. 5, ad 2: “In Beata Virgine fuit triplex perfectio gratiae. Prima quidem quasi dispositiva, per quam reddebatur idonea ad hoc quod esset mater Christi, et haec fuit prima perfectio sanctificationis. Secunda autem perfectio gratiae fuit in Beata Virgine ex praesentia Filii Dei in eius utero incarnati. Tertia autem est perfectio finis, quam habet in gloria.”

16. IIIa, q. 24, a. 4.

17. Marie, pleine de grâce, 5th edit., 1926, p. 46.

18. Cf. Vespers Hymn for the Feast of the Holy Family:

O Lux beata caelitum

Et summa spes mortalium

Jesu, o cui domestica

Arrisit orto caritas:

Maria dives gratia

O sola quae casto potes

Fovere Jesum pectore,

Cum lacte donans oscula.

19. St. Francis de Sales’ two sermons on the Visitation should also be studied. In one place he asks if by “the humility of his handmaid” Mary referred to her lowly condition as a creature or also to her humility. With some of the Fathers—though against many authorities—he answers that it is more probable that she spoke of her humility; for she knew from the angel’s words that she was full of grace, and had, in consequence, the virtue of humility in a high degree. But to God she gave the glory due to her virtue.

20. In Lucam, 1. II, n. 26.

21. Cf. Denzinger, nos. 20, 91, 113, 143 sqq., 201, 214, 255 sqq., 282, 290, 344, 429, 462, 708, 735, 993, 1314, 1462.

22. De perpetua virginitate B. Mariae adversus Helvidium, P. L., XXII, 183-205.

23. Dial. cum Tryphone, LXXXIV; P. G, VI, 673.

24. Denz., 6 sqq.

25. Denz., 256.

26. Denz., 993.27.

27. IIIa, q. 28, a. 1.

28. Epist. XLII ad Siricium Papam, P. L., XVI, 1124: “Non enim concepturam tantum modo virginem, sed et parituram (Isaias) dixit.”

29. Ad Ephes., xv, 1.

30. Ex vita Barlaam et Josaphat, P. G, XCVI, 1121.

31. Strom., VII, xvi; P. G, IX, 529.

32. Denz., 256; item 993.

33. Denz., 256; 993.

34. In Matt., t. X, xvii; P. G, XIII, 876 B; Homil. VII in Luc; P.G., XIII, 1818.

35. Serm. in Nativit. Christi; P. G, X, 391.

36. St. Athanas., Orat. II contra Arianos, LXX; P. G. XXVI, 296; Didymus, De Trinitate, I. xxvii; P. G, XXXIX, 404.

37. Denz., 214, 218.

38. Epist. XLII ad Siricium Papam; P. L., XVI, 1124.

39. Serm. Ill in Natali Domini, n. 1; P. L., XXXVIII, 995.

40. De perpetua virginitate B. Mariae adversus Helvidium.

41. S. Ephrem Syri opera, ed. Rom., 1743, t. II, p. 267.

42. Those mentioned in the New Testament as brothers of the Lord were merely relatives, as tradition has always taught. The Hebrew word corresponding to “brother” signified near relative, and was used to cover cousins, nephews, etc. Cf. Gen. 13:8; 14:6. Cf. A. Durand, Frères du Seigneur in Dict. Apol.

43. Sermo CCCX in Natali Joannis Bapt.; P. L., XXXVIII, 1319.

44. Bossuet, Elevations, 19th Week, 3rd Elevation.

45. Elevations, 20th Week, 9th and 10th Elevations.

46. St. Thomas says, IIIa, q. 8, a. 1, ad 3, speaking of the Mystical Body of Christ: “The head has evident superiority over the members, whereas the heart exercises a hidden influence. That is why the Holy Ghost who vivifies and unifies the Church invisibly is compared to the heart, and Christ, in His visible nature, is compared to the head.” From another point of view, we say that the Holy Ghost is like the soul of the Church, since the invisible soul is whole in the whole body and whole in each of its parts, though exercising its higher functions in the head. Mary’s influence has been well compared to that of the heart, since it remains hidden, and since it is principally of the affective order—the influence of a mother.

47. Cf. IIa IIae, q. 45, a. 2.

48. Cf. Ia IIae, q. III, a. 5.

49. Cf. E. Dublanchy, Dict. de Théol. Cath., article Marie, cols. 2367-2368; 2409-2413.

50. Cajetan remarks in his commentary on the IIIa, q. 27, a. 5: “Posset tamen dici quod non publica doctrina, sed familiari instructione, quam constat mulieribus non esse prohibitam, B. Virgo aliqua particularia facta explicavit Apostolis.” This she did better and more frequently than Mary Magdalen, who obtained the title Apostolorum apostola through having announced the Resurrection to the Apostles.

51. For this same reason many theologians teach that Mary had, particularly after the Ascension, the gift of miraculous healing and that she used it to lighten the sorrows of the afflicted and to help the unfortunate who had recourse to her or whom she met. She was on earth the consoler of the afflicted in such a manner as to manifest her great sanctity. This was the opinion of St. Albert the Great, St. Antoninus, and Suarez, and is common in most of the present-day manuals of Mariology.

52. Such was the teaching of St. Albert the Great, St. Antoninus, Gerson, Suarez, Cornelius a Lapide. Many modern theologians are of the same opinion.

53. IIa IIae, q. 175, a. 3.

54. Marie, pleine de grâce, 5th edit., 1926, pp. 106 sqq.

55. Cf. E. Dublanchy, Dict. Théol. Cath., article Marie, col. 2410: “Probably conferred on Moses and St. Paul, the favor should be attributed to Mary also on the principle which allows us to attribute to her as Mother of God and Co-Redemptrix or universal Mediatrix every grace conferred on the other saints and in keeping with her dignity.”

56. Cf. IIa, IIae, q. 18, a. 4.

57. For a treatment of Mary’s virtues cf. Justin de Miéchow, O.P.; R. Bernard, O.P., Le Mystère de Marie, Paris, 1933; Rambaud, O.P., Douce Vierge Marie, Lyons, 1939; Journet in Notre Dame des Sept Douleurs; Lallement and Sertillanges in Mater Misericordiae.

CHAPTER 4. The Final Plenitude of Mary’s Grace

Article 1. Mary’s fulness of grace at the moment of death

Article 2. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin

Article 3.  The final plenitude of grace in heaven

THE plan of this chapter will be: to speak first of Mary’s fullness of grace at the time of her death; then to recall the teaching of the Church concerning her Assumption; finally to treat of her fullness of grace as it unfolded itself in Heaven.

Article 1. Mary’s Fullness of Grace at the Moment of Death

Bossuet remarks1 that Mary was left in the world after Jesus to console the Church. This she did by her prayers and ever-increasing merits which were the support of the Apostles in their labours and trials as well as the hidden source of the fecundity of all they did for souls.

We have seen already that in Mary’s case death was not a consequence of original sin, but simply of human nature as such. Man was not made immortal at the beginning otherwise than by a special privilege. The Incarnate Word willed to take passible flesh.2 Mary’s flesh was passible too. Thus the deaths of Jesus and Mary were consequences of the inherent weakness of human nature left to itself and unsustained by any preternatural gift. Jesus, however, mastered death by accepting it for our salvation. Mary united herself to Him in His death, making for us the sacrifice of His life in the most generous martyrdom of heart the world has ever known after that of Our Saviour. And when, later on, the hour of her own death arrived, the sacrifice of her life had been already made. It remained but to renew it in that most perfect form which tradition speaks of as the death of love, a death, that is to say, in which the soul dies not simply in grace or in God’s love, but of a calm and supremely strong love which draws the soul, now ripe for Heaven, away from the body to be united to God in immediate and eternal vision.

Mary’s last moments are described by St. John Damascene3 in the words “She died an extremely peaceful death.” St. Francis de Sales’ chapters in his treatise on the Love of God (ch. 13 and 14) are an eloquent commentary on the words of St. John Damascene:

“The Blessed Virgin, Mother of God, died of love for her Son. … It is impossible to conceive of her death as having been anything except a death of love, which is the most noble of all deaths and the fitting crown of the most noble of all lives. … If the early Christians were said to have but one heart and one soul because of their perfect mutual love, if St. Paul lived no longer for himself but Christ lived in him because of the intense union of his heart with the heart of his Master … how much more true is it that the Blessed Virgin and her Son had but one soul, one heart, and one life … so that her Son lived in her. Mother most loving and most loved that could be … of a love incomparably higher than that of angels and men in the measure in which the titles of only mother and only Son are higher than all names that are united in love.

But if this mother lived by the life of her Son, she died also by His death; for as the life is, so is the death…. Retaining in her memory all the most lovable mysteries of the life and death of her Son, and receiving always the most ardent inspirations which her Son, the Sun of Justice, poured out on men in the noonday ardor of His charity … she was at length consumed by the sacred fire of this charity, as a holocaust of sweetness. And thus she died, her soul ravished and transported in the arms of the love of Jesus….

She died of a most sweet and tranquil love…. The love of God increased every moment in the virginal heart of our glorious Lady, but in a sweet, peaceful, and continuous way, without agitation, nor shocks, nor any violence … like a great river which, finding no obstacles in the level plain, flows along effortlessly.

Just as iron, if not hindered, is drawn strongly but sweetly by the magnet, and the attraction increases according as it is drawn more close to it, so the Blessed Virgin, being in no way hindered in the operation of the love of her Son, united herself to Him in an incomparable union by sweet, peaceful and effortless ecstasies…. So that the death of the Virgin was more peaceful than we can conceive, her Son drawing her gently by the odor of His ointments…. Love had caused Mary the pangs of death on Calvary; it was only just, then, that death should cause her the highest delights of love.”

Bossuet, in his turn, voices the same sentiments in his first sermon for the Feast of the Assumption.

“If to love Jesus and to be loved by Jesus are two things which draw down the divine blessing on souls, what a sea of graces must have inundated the soul of Mary. Who can describe the impetuosity of that mutual love in which all that is tender in nature concurred with all that is efficacious in grace? Jesus never tired of seeing Himself loved by His Mother: Mary never thought she had had enough of the love of her Son. She asked no grace from her Son except that of loving Him, and that fact drew down more graces on her.

Compare, if you can, with her love the holy impatience she experienced to be united to her Son…. St. Paul wished to burst at once the bond of the flesh so as to be with his Master at the right hand of the Father, and how much greater must have been the longing of a maternal heart! The absence of a year was enough to pierce the heart of the mother of Tobias with sorrow, and what must have been the regret of Mary when she felt herself so long separated from a Son she loved so well! When she saw St. Stephen and so many others depart from this world she must well have asked her Son why He wished to leave her the last of all. He had brought her to the foot of the Cross to see Him suffer, and would He delay to allow her to see Him enthroned? If only He would allow her love its way, it would soon withdraw her soul from her body to unite it to Him in whom she lived.

That love was so ardent, so strong, so inflamed, that not a desire for Heaven sprang from it which was not capable of drawing with it Mary’s soul.

Thus, Mary yielded her holy and blessed soul peacefully and without violence into the hands of her Son. Just as the least touch gathers the ripe fruit, so was gathered her blessed soul, to be at once carried to Heaven; thus the divine Virgin died in a movement of the love of God.”

That holy death reveals the final fullness of Mary’s grace, a fullness which corresponded wonderfully to that initial fullness which had not ceased to grow from the moment of the Immaculate Conception. It disposed her for the consummated fullness of Heaven which is always proportionate to the merits acquired at the moment of death.

Article 2. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin

What is meant by the Assumption? The whole Church understands by the term that the Blessed Virgin, soon after her death and glorious resurrection, was taken up body and soul to Heaven to be forever throned above the angels and saints. The term Assumption is used rather than Ascension since, unlike Jesus who ascended to Heaven by His own power, Mary was lifted up by God to the degree of glory for which she had been predestined.

Was the Assumption capable of being perceived by the senses, and if there were witnesses—the Apostles and St. John in particular—had they ocular evidence of it? Certainly there was something of the sense-perceptible order about the Assumption, since it was the taking up of Mary’s body to Heaven. But the term of that taking up, that is, the entry to Heaven and the exaltation of Mary above all the saints, was invisible and inaccessible to the senses.

It can be admitted that did certain witnesses find the tomb of the Mother of God empty after her burial, and did they later witness her resurrection and her being raised up in the skies, they would have been able to presume that she entered Heaven and that Our Blessed Lord had associated her with the glory of His Ascension. But a presumption is not certitude. Mary’s body could have been transported, for all their evidence proved, into a place not visible to human eyes— to the place, for example, in which Jesus’ risen body was between His different apparitions.

But if a presumption is not certitude, how was Our Lady’s entry into Heaven ever known with certainty? For that a divine revelation was required. St. Thomas remarks that there was such a revelation in the case of the Ascension4 made through the intermediary of the angels who said: “Ye men of Galilee, why stand you looking up to Heaven? This Jesus who is taken up from you to Heaven, shall so come, as you have seen him going into Heaven.” (Acts 1:2).

Besides, without a divine revelation, the Assumption would not be capable of being defined a dogma of faith, since the motive of faith is the authority of God in revelation. A private revelation would not however be sufficient. Private revelations—those made to St. Joan of Arc, to St. Bernadette, to the little shepherds of La Salette, are examples of private revelations—could become well known and public in that sense. But they are not public in the sense of being part of the common deposit of revelation and proposed infallibly by the Church to all the faithful. Neither would a revelation of the kind made to St. Margaret Mary be sufficient. For her revelations were private too, and did no more than to draw attention to certain practical consequences of what was already known to be an object of faith— the already accepted truth that the Sacred Heart of Jesus is entitled to adoration or the cult of latria.

Hence, that the Assumption should have been known as certain and capable of being proposed to the whole Church for acceptance, a public revelation must have been made to the Apostles, or at least to one of them— to St. John, for example. Note that this revelation must have been made to an Apostle since the deposit of common and public revelation was completed with the death of the last Apostle. It may have been made explicitly or implicitly. In this latter case its message would have become more explicit in the course of time.

Let us now see what we have to learn from Tradition, and also the theological arguments which have been commonly invoked, at least since the 7th century.

1st—The documents of Tradition show that the privilege was at least implicitly revealed.

It is not possible to prove directly from Sacred Scripture nor from primitive documents that the privilege of the Assumption was revealed explicitly to any of the Apostles, for no text of scripture affirms it explicitly and there is a similar absence of explicit testimony in the primitive documents. But it can be proved indirectly from later documents that there was at least an implicit revelation since there are certain facts, dating from the 7th century, which are explicable in no other way.

From the 7th century, almost the whole Church, east and west, celebrated the Feast of the Assumption. Pope Sergius (687-707) ordered a solemn procession on that day5 Many theologians and liturgists contend that it existed already before the time of St. Gregory the Great (d. 604) and they quote in support of their opinion the Collect of the Mass of the Assumption contained in the Sacramentary known as Gregorian (though it is probably later in date) where we read the words: “Nec tamen mortis nexibus deprimi potuit.”6 St. Gregory of Tours seems to imply that the Feast was celebrated in Gaul in the 6th century7 At any rate, it was certainly celebrated there in the 7th century as is proved by the Missale Gothicum and the Missale Gallicanum vetus, which date from the beginning of that century and contain very beautiful prayers for the Feast. (P L., t. LXXII, col. 245-246.)

In the East the historian Nicephorus Callistus8 recounts that the Emperor Maurice (582-602), contemporary and friend of St. Gregory the Great, ordered the solemn celebration of the Feast on August 15th. The earliest testimony to the traditional faith of the East appears to be that of Saint Modestus, Patriarch of Jerusalem (d. 634), in his Encomium in dormitionem Deiparae (P G, t. LXXXVI, col. 3288 sqq.). His account of the matter is that the Apostles were led to the Blessed Virgin by a divine inspiration and were present at the Assumption. After him, mention must be made of St. Andrew of Crete (d. 720), monk in Jerusalem and later Archbishop of Crete, the author of the homilies In dormitionem Deiparae,9 of St. Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople (d. 733), author of In sanctam Dei Genitricis dormitionem,10 and finally of St. John Damascene (d. 760), author of In dormitionem beatae Mariae Virginis.11

There is no shortage of testimonies from the 8th century on. Those commonly quoted are Notker of St. Gall, Fulbert of Chartres, St. Peter Damien, St. Anselm, Hildebert, Peter Abelard, St. Bernard, Richard of St. Victor, St. Albert the Great, St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas.12 The period between the 7th and the 9th centuries witnessed the development of the liturgy, theology, and preaching of the Assumption. Pope Leo IV instituted the octave of the Feast around the year 847. Authors then and in the succeeding periods regarded the object of the Feast not as a pious belief peculiar to this or that country, but as an integral part of the general tradition which went back in the Church to the earliest times. And not only the authors, but the Church herself voiced the same doctrine: the simple fact that the Church celebrated the Feast universally in East and West, usually on the 15th of August, shows that she considered the privilege of the Assumption to be a certain truth taught by her ordinary magisterium, that is to say, by all the bishops in union with the supreme pastor. For the faith of the Church is manifested in her prayer: Lex orandi, lex credendi. The doctrine of the Assumption has not yet been solemnly defined, but it is commonly asserted that it would be at least temerarious or erroneous to deny it.13 When some few authors proposed to change the Feast of the 15th of August, Benedict XIV answered: Ecclesiam hanc amplexam esse sententiam.14

The attitude of the Church in regard to the doctrine is not therefore simply one of tolerance: she proposes it positively in the liturgy and in preaching both in the East and the West. This universal agreement of the whole Church in celebrating the solemn Feast shows that her ordinary magisterium is at work. But the ordinary magisterium presupposes at least that the doctrine has been implicitly revealed: otherwise, as we have seen, there could be no certainty that Mary had entered Heaven. And we may go further still and assert that it is probable that the revelation made to the Apostles, or to one of them, was even explicit, since otherwise it is hard to explain the universal tradition in the East and the West from the 7th century at the latest, which manifests itself in the celebration of the Feast.15 For if the revelation had been only implicit at the beginning, how could it happen that the different bishops and theologians in the different parts of the Church, both East and West, would agree that it was implicitly revealed? For such agreement much preliminary work and many preliminary councils would be required, of which there is absolutely no record. Neither is there any record of private revelations such as are sometimes made in order to set the Church’s official investigations of the deposit of revelation in motion.

Up to the 6th century this privilege of Mary’s was hidden behind a veil of silence, lest it be misunderstood through an unfortunate confusion with the fables concerning pagan goddesses. The principal contribution of the early centuries of the Church to Mariology was to establish her great title, “Mother of God,” and eventually to define it in the Council of Ephesus.

Thus, we may conclude that everything tends to indicate that the privilege of the Assumption was explicitly revealed to the Apostles, or at least to one of them, and that it was transmitted subsequently by the oral tradition of the Liturgy; otherwise there is no explanation of the universal Feast of the Assumption, found so clearly from the 7th century on, by which time the Assumption itself was already the object of the ordinary magisterium of the Church.

2nd—The theological reasons usually adduced show that the Assumption is at least implicitly revealed.

These theological arguments, as well as the scriptural texts on which they are built, may be considered in two ways: abstractly—from which point of view many of them are mere arguments ex convenientia and are not demonstrative—and in the concrete—that is to say, as expressing concrete facts, the complexity and richness of which is learned from tradition. It is well to note too that even the arguments ex convenientia may be considered from two points of view: either purely theoretically or as being themselves at least implicitly revealed and as having influenced the divine choice.

In this section we shall insist on two arguments which, taken as expressing Tradition, show that the privilege of the Assumption is implicitly revealed.16 As for the eminent dignity of the Mother of God, though this is the root reason of all Mary’s privileges, it is not the proximate cause of her Assumption. Thus it seems to yield only an argument ex convenientia which is not demonstrative.17 The first of these two arguments runs as follows:

Mary received fullness of grace and was blessed by God among women in an exceptional way But this exceptional blessing negatives the divine malediction to bring forth children in pain and to return to dust (Gen. 3:16-19). Mary was therefore preserved through it from corruption in her body: her body would not return to dust but would be resuscitated in an anticipated resurrection. Since the two premisses of this argument are revealed, the conclusion is, according to the teaching of most theologians, capable of being defined.

A thing to be noted in this argument is that the reasoning process in it is not precisely illative, but rather explicative since the divine malediction contains the “into dust thou shalt return” of Genesis not as a cause contains an effect but as a whole contains its parts: “Into dust thou shalt return” is a part of the divine malediction. Thus Mary, blessed among women, and not falling under the malediction, would not suffer the corruption of the tomb. The hour of the resurrection would be anticipated for her, and her glorious resurrection would be followed by the Assumption or elevation of her glorified body to Heaven. It is, then, clear that the privilege of the Assumption is contained implicitly revealed in the plenitude of grace and the exceptional blessing with which Mary was favored.

The second argument is no less cogent. It was put forward by the many fathers of the Vatican Council who asked for the definition of the dogma of the Assumption and was indicated by Pius IX in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus.18 The argument may be formulated thus:

Christ’s perfect victory over Satan included victory over sin and death. But Mary the Mother of God, was most intimately associated with Jesus on Calvary in His victory over Satan. Hence she was associated with Him in His victory over death by her anticipated resurrection and her Assumption.

In this argument, as in the first one, the premisses are both revealed, and the argument itself is explicative rather than illative: it turns on Christ’s perfect victory which is a whole containing as its parts victory over sin and victory over death.

The major premiss is known to be revealed, as the Fathers of the Vatican Council stated, from many texts in the Epistles of St. Paul. Among texts from other books of the New Testament, we may mention a few from St. John’s gospel. Jesus is “the Lamb of God … who taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29); He said of Himself “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33); shortly before His Passion He said “Now is the judgement of the world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself.” (John 12:31-32). The sacrifice of the Cross offered in love, the acceptance of humiliation and a most painful death—these were the victory over Satan and sin. But death is a consequence of sin. Hence, He who had conquered Satan and sin on the Cross would conquer death by His glorious resurrection.

The minor premiss is revealed also—that is, that Mary, Mother of God, was associated as closely as possible on Calvary with Jesus’ perfect victory over Satan. It is announced mysteriously in Genesis in the words addressed to Satan: “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head And though that text alone would not suffice to establish the point, we have in addition Mary’s words at the Annunciation” “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to Thy word …” uttered when she consented to be the Mother of the Redeemer. But she would not have been a worthy mother unless her will were perfectly conformed to the will of Him who was to offer Himself for us. Besides, Simeon told her of the sufferings to be borne: “And thy own soul a sword shall pierce….” Last of all we read in St. John’s gospel: “There stood by the Cross of Jesus, his mother, and his mother’s sister.” She shared in His sufferings, therefore, in the measure of her love for Him: so fully did she share that she is called Co-Redemptrix.19

There is a very intimate connection between compassion and motherhood, for the deepest compassion is that of a mother, and Mary would not have been a worthy mother of the Redeemer had she been lacking in conformity of will with His redemptive oblation.

Since, therefore, Mary was associated very intimately with Jesus in His perfect victory over Satan, it follows that she was associated also with Him in the different parts of His triumph, that is to say, in His victory over sin and over death, sin’s consequence.

It could, perhaps, be objected that it would be enough were Mary associated in His victory over death by her final resurrection on the Last Day. To which the answer can be given that Mary was more closely associated than anyone else with Jesus in His perfect victory— or in the perfection of His victory—over Satan, and that perfect victory included exemption from bodily corruption, and, in consequence, anticipated resurrection and assumption into Heaven. As we read in the Collect of the Mass of the Assumption: “Mortem subiit temporalem, nec tamen mortis nexibus deprimi potuit….” She died; but she was not retained captive by the bonds of death—a privilege accorded to no other saint, for even though the bodies of some saints are miraculously preserved from corruption, they are still in the bonds of death.

These two great theological arguments taken respectively from Mary’s fullness of grace united to her special blessing, and her association with Jesus in His perfect victory, prove that the Assumption is implicitly revealed and capable of definition as an article of faith.

There are other theological arguments too which confirm the same conclusion, at least by way of proof ex convenientia. The love of Jesus for Mary can be appealed to as a reason why she should have been accorded the privilege. The excellent virginity of Mary seems to demand that her body, free from all stain of sin, should be free from the bonds of death, the consequence of sin. The Immaculate Conception calls for it also since death is a consequence of original sin from which Mary was preserved. It may also be added that there are no relics of Our Lady, which is a probable indication of her Assumption, body and soul, into Heaven.

Since the Assumption is contained at least implicitly in Revelation, it can be defined as an article of faith. The opportuneness of its definition is manifest, as Dom Renaudin says.20 For, from the doctrinal point of view, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin along with the Ascension of Our Blessed Lord, crowns our faith in the objective completion of the work of the Redemption, and gives our hope a new guarantee. For their part, the faithful will derive from a solemn definition of the Assumption the advantage of being able to go beyond their adherence to the infallibility of the ordinary magisterium of the Church who has instituted the Feast, and to adhere immediately to the dogma on the authority of God who revealed it, in which dogma they will find an arm against all those errors of our times—whether materialism, rationalism, or liberal Protestantism—which agree in minimising the faith in every possible way rather than to recognise that the gifts of God surpass our ideas of them. From the point of view of heretics and schismatics, the solemn definition will be a help rather than a hindrance, for it will make more manifest the power and goodness of Mary who has been given to men to lead them along the way of salvation. Finally, the just man lives by his faith. Hence he finds in the solemn definition of a revealed truth a form of spiritual nourishment which increases his faith, and strengthens his hope, and makes his charity more fervent.

Article 3. The Final Plenitude of Grace in Heaven

In this article we shall consider Mary’s eternal beatitude: the beatific vision; the love of God and the joy which results from it; her elevation above the choirs of angels; her participation in Christ’s Kingship and the consequences which follow from it.

Mary’s Essential Beatitude

Mary’s essential beatitude surpasses in intensity and extension that conferred on all the other blessed. This doctrine is theologically certain. Heavenly glory or essential beatitude, is proportioned to the degree of grace or charity which precedes entry to Heaven. But Mary’s initial fullness of grace surpassed the fmal grace of the highest saints and angels; and we have seen that it is probable, if not certain, that it surpassed their final graces united. It follows that Mary’s essential beatitude surpasses that of all the saints taken together. In other words, Mary’s beatific vision penetrates more deeply into the divine essence seen face to face than that of all the other blessed—exception being, of course, made for the beatified soul of Jesus.

It is true that the natural intellectual powers of the angels are greater than those of Mary, or even the human powers of Jesus. Nevertheless Mary’s intuitive gaze of the divine essence is more piercing than theirs because of the much more intense lumen gloriae (light of glory) with which she is enriched. The object of the beatific vision being essentially supernatural, greater natural powers confer no greater advantage in knowing it. In much the same way an unlettered Christian can have a greater infused faith and charity than a highly endowed and qualified theologian.

Not only does Mary know more of the essence of God in Heaven, but she knows more too of His wisdom, His love, His power, and she sees better the range of their extent both in the order of possible and of existing realities. Besides, since the blessed in Heaven see more things in God according as their mission is a more universal one, Mary, as Mother of God, Universal Mediatrix, Co-Redemptrix, Queen of Angels, Saints, and the whole universe, sees much more in God, in Verbo, than do the other blessed. Higher than her in glory is only her Divine Son. His human mind reads into the divine essence deeper than hers. He knows certain secrets which are hidden from her, for they pertain to Him only, the Saviour, the High Priest and the Universal King.

Mary comes immediately after Jesus in heavenly glory. That is why the liturgy affirms, on the Feast of the 15th of August, that she has been lifted up above the choirs of angels, and that she is at the right hand of her Son. (Ps. 44:10). According to St. Albert the Great,21 she constituted among the blessed an order apart, higher than the seraphim as they are higher than the cherubim: for the queen is as much higher than the first of her servants as they are higher than the last of their fellows.

Being Mother of God she participates more than anyone else in the glory of her Son. And since the divinity of Jesus is absolutely evident in Heaven, it is clear to the blessed that Mary belongs to the hypostatic order, that she has a special affinity to the divine Persons, and that she shares in a unique way in Jesus’ universal kingship over all creatures. This is the doctrine of so many of the liturgical prayers: Ave Regina Coelorum … Regina Coeli … Salve Regina. It is found also in the Litanies: Queen of Angels … Queen of all saints…. And it is affirmed also in the passage we quoted earlier from the Bull Ineffabilis Deus. It is taught explicitly by St. Germanus of Constantinople,22 St. Modestus,23 St. John Damascene,24 St. Anselm (Orat. I), St. Bernard,25 St. Albert the Great,26 St. Thomas Aquinas,27 and all the doctors.

Mary’s Accidental Beatitude

To Mary’s accidental beatitude contribute her more intimate knowledge of the glorious Humanity of Jesus, the exercise of her universal mediation and of her motherly mercy, and the cult of hyperdulia which she receives as Mother of God. She enjoys also in an eminent way the triple aureola of the martyrs, the confessors, and the virgins, for she suffered more than the martyrs during the Passion of her Son, she instructed the Apostles themselves in a private and intimate way, and she preserved virginity of soul and body in all its perfection. The glory of her body—which is a reflection of that of her soul—is of the same eminent degree.

Under all these respects Mary is raised above all the saints and angels, and it becomes increasingly evident that the reason and root cause of all her privileges is her eminent dignity as Mother of God.

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Footnotes of Chapter 4

1. 2nd Sermon for the Feast of the Assumption.

2. This presupposes the sin of the first man; in fact, it is one of the most convincing reasons for asserting that, in the actual order of Providence, the Word would not have become flesh had not man sinned, for the actual efficacious decree of the Incarnation bears on the Incarnation as it was realised hic et nunc, that is to say, in carne passibili, which even on the admission of the Scotists presupposes Adam's sin.

3. Homiliae duae de dormitione Virginis Mariae. Cf. also St. Brigid of Sweden, Revelations, Bk. VI, c. 62.

4. IIIa, q. 55, a. 2, ad 2.

5. Liber Pontificalis, P. L., t. CXXVIII, c. 898; in Duchesne’s edit., t. I, p. 376.

6. P. L., t. LXXVIII, col. 133.

7. “Dominus susceptum corpus (Virginis) sanctum in nube deferre jussit in paradisum ubi, nunc, resumpta anima, cum electis eius exultans, aeternitatis bonis nullo occasuris fine perfruitur.” (De gloria martyrum, c. iv; P. L., t. LXXI, col. 708.)

8. H. E., l. XVII, c. xxviii; P. G., t. CXLVII, col. 292.

9. P. G., t. XCVII, col. 1053 sqq., 1081 sqq.

10. P. G., t. XCVIII, col. 345 sqq.

11. P. G., t. XCVI, col. 716.

12. Cf. Merkelbach, Mariologia, pp. 277 sqq.

13. The doctrine has been defined since this was written. (Translator’s note.)

14. De Canoniz. Sanct, l. I, c. 42, no. 151.

15. This is the opinion of Dom P. Renaudin, La Doctrine de la Assumption, sa définibilité, Paris, 1913, pp. 119 sqq.; of J. Bellamy, Dict. Théol., art. Assomption, col. 2139 sqq. and many other authors including P. Terrien. Other theologians are satisfied to assert that there was an implicit revelation, though not denying the probability of an explicit one, transmitted orally and by the liturgy.

16. Cf. Merkelbach, op. cit., pp. 279 sqq., and Friethoff, O.P., De Doctrina Assumptions corporalis B. Mariae Virginis rationibus theologicis illustrata, Angelicum, 1938, pp. 13 sqq.

17. Cf. Friethoff, loc. cit.

18. For the Vatican Fathers cf. Conc. Vitac. documentorum collectio, Paderborn, 1872: “Quum juxta Apostolicam doctrinam, Rom. 5:8; 1 Cor., 15: 24, 26, 54, 57; Heb. 2:14-15, aliisque locis traditam, triplici victoria de peccato et de peccatorum fructibus, concupiscentia et morte, veluti ex partibus integrantibus, constituatur ille triumphus, quern de Satana, antiquo serpente, Christus retulit; quumque Gen. 3:15, Deipara exhibeatur singulariter associata Filio suo in suo triumpho; accedente unanimi sanctorum patrum suffragio non dubitamus quin in praefato oraculo eadem beata Virgo triplici ilia victoria praesignificetur illustris, adeoque non secus ac de peccato per immaculatam Conceptionem et de concupiscentia per virginalem Maternitatem, sic etiam de inimica morte singularem triumphum relatura, per acceleratam similitudinem Filii sui resurrectionis, ibidem praenuntiata fuerit.” In the Bull Ineffabilis we read: “… sempiternas contra venenosum serpentum inimicitias exercens, ac de ipso plenissime triumphans and again “… Numquam fuit maledicto obnoxia, ergo concepta immaculata” and victorious in consequence over death too.

19. Cf. Denz. 3034. Pius X wrote in his Encyclical, Ad diem ilium, Feb. 2nd, 1904, quoting Eadmer, the disciple of St. Anselm: “Ex hac autem Mariam inter et Christum communione dolorum et voluntatis “promeruit” illa “ut reparatrix perditi orbis dignissime fieret.” Quoniam universis sanctitate praestat conjunctioneque cum Christo atque a Christo ascita in humanae salutis opus, de congruo, ut aiunt, promeret, nobis, quae Christus de condigno promeruit.” Cf. also Benedict XV in the Apostolic Letter, Inter Sodalicia, March 22nd, 1918: “Ita (B.M.V.) Filium immolavit, ut dici merito queat, ipsam cum Christo humanum genus redemisse” and Pius XI in the Apostolic Letter Explorata res, February 2nd, 1923: “Virgo perdolens redemptionis opus cum Christo participavit.”

The Holy Office approved the invocation of Mary as Co-Redemptrix of the human race on June 26th, 1913, and January 22nd, 1914; cf. Denz. 3034, note.

20. La Doctrine de l’Assomption, sa définibilité, Paris, 1913, pp. 204-217.

21. Mariale, q. 151.

22. Hom. II in Dorm.

23. Enc. in Dorm.

24. Hom. I, II, III, in Dorm.; De Fide orth., IV, 14.

25. He speaks very frequently of Mary as Regina and Domina.

26. Mariale, q. 151.

27. In III Sent., dist. 22, Q. 3, a. 3, q. 3, ad 3.

Having considered the Blessed Virgin as Mother of God, and the fulness of grace which was given her that she might be God’s worthy mother, it remains to speak of her relations with men. Tradition attributes to Mary three titles, Mother of the Redeemer, Mother of all men, and Mediatrix, to express her relations with men as yet on their way to eternity In regard to the blessed she has especially the title, Universal Queen.

Theology teaches us that these titles correspond to those of Christ the Redeemer.1 He performed His redemptive work as Head of the humanity He was to regenerate, as First Mediator Who has the power by His priesthood to sacrifice and to sanctify, and to exercise teaching authority, and finally as Universal King, Who legislates for all men, judges the living and the dead, and governs all creatures not excluding the angels. Mary, in her quality of Mother of the Redeemer, is associated with Jesus in those three roles. She is associated with Him as Head of the Church by being spiritual Mother of all men; she is associated with Him as First Mediator by being a secondary and subordinate mediatrix; and she is associated with Him as Universal King by being Queen of the universe. That is Mary’s triple mission to men which we are about to consider in this part of the book.

We shall speak first of Mary as Mother of the Redeemer and as Mother of all men; then of her universal mediation on earth and in heaven; finally of her universal queenship.

All these titles, but especially that of Mother of God, are the justification of the cult of hyperdulia of which we shall speak in the last place. At no time shall we endeavor to put forward original views, or those of individual authors—nor have we done that in the earlier part of the book—but rather will it be our aim to expose the common teaching of the Church, transmitted by the Fathers and explained by theologians. It is only on such a foundation that one can safely build.

Because of the method we have chosen, a superficial reader may think our treatment of the different questions banal or elementary. But it is well to recall that the most elementary philosophical truths, such as the principles of causality and finality, and the most elementary religious truths, such as those contained in the Our Father, are found to be the most profound and vital when they are examined carefully and put into practice. In the present matter as elsewhere it is necessary to advance from what is known and certain to what is less well known, from what is easy to what is difficult; were one to embark on a premature consideration of more difficult problems, especially if they were presented in the form of dramatic and striking paradoxes, the result might be—as has happened to so many heretics—to end up by denying evident truths and obvious conclusions. The history of theology and philosophy shows that this is no fictitious danger. Finally it should not be forgotten that though in human matters, where truth and falsity, good and evil, are jumbled together, simplicity is superficiality and exposes one to error; in the things of God, where there is but the true and the good, simplicity alone will reveal the greatest heights and the most secret depths.2

1. Cf. Merkelbach, Mariologia, p. 295.

2. For a treatment of the place of Our Lady in the interior life cf. M. V. Bernadot, O.P., Notre Dame dans ma Vie; Morineau, L’Annlée Mariale; Boulenger, O.P., Le Dieu de Marie dans le Saint Rosaire; Marie de Sainte-Thérèse, L’Union Mystique à Marie; Neubert, La Doctrine Mariale du P. Chaminade; all of which are published by La Vie Spirituelle.

CHAPTER 1: The Mother of the Redeemer and of All Men

Article 1. The Mother of the Saviour associated with His redemptive work

Article 2. Mother of all men

CHAPTER 2: Mary’s Universal Mediation during Her Earthly Existence

Article 1. Mary’s universal mediation in general

Article 2. Mary’s merits for us

Article 3 The sufferings of Mary as Co-Redemptrix

CHAPTER 3: Mary’s Universal Mediation in Heaven

Article 1. Mary’s power of intercession

Article 2. Mary and the distribution of grace

Article 3 The universality of Mary’s mediation and its definability

CHAPTER 4: Mother of Mercy

Article 1. Greatness and power of this maternity

Article 2 Principal manifestations of mercy

CHAPTER 5: Mary’s Universal Queenship

Article 1. Her Queenship in general

Article 2 Special aspects of Mary’s Queenship

CHAPTER 6: True Devotion to Our Lady

Article 1. The cult of hyperdulia and the benefits it confers

Article 2. The Rosary: a school of contemplation

Article 3. Consecration to Mary

Article 4. Mystical union with Mary

Article 5.  The Consecration of the Human Race to Mary for the Peace of the World

CHAPTER 7: The Predestination of St Joseph and His Eminent Sanctity

A Collection of Classic Artwork

Favorite Prayers to Our Lady

Hail Mary

Magnificat