The Annunciation

Today’s Meditations on Christian Dogma is called “The Annunciation.” It was submitted by Sister Mary Claire and her little sister Kathy from Camp Littlemore Farm, and comes from their very old book, Meditations on Christian Dogma by Father James Bellord, first published in the 19th century. Sister Mary Claire received the book as a gift from an elderly nun friend in County Kilkenny, Ireland, and she treasures it dearly.

The Annunciation

I. “The angel Gabriel was sent from God . . . to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph . . . and the name of the Virgin was Mary” (Luke ii. 26, 27). Five hundred years before, the same archangel had foretold this event to the prophet Daniel, and that holy man fell prostrate before him. A few weeks before, he had appeared to Zachary in the temple, and struck him deaf and dumb in punishment of his incredulity. Now, for the first time, an angel of God bows before one of the fallen race, and speaks to her as the servant of a king might salute a powerful princess. The angel’s message was to ask the consent and co-operation of the lowly Virgin in the great mystery of divine power and mercy. In her case, as in all others, God took account of human liberty, and made the divine operations dependent on her free consent. She had full power of choice; she deliberated, and at length acceded to that which God proposed to her. No scene so momentous had occurred since Eve consented to the tempter in Eden. And, until Our Lord first spoke, no word so meritorious, so full of promise of joy to men was pronounced by any human being: “Be it done to me according to Thy word” (Luke i. 38). God asks your consent to some designs of His grace. He wishes to do much in you. Strive to be faithful, obedient, generous in your consent, as was the Holy Virgin.

II. Consider the details of that sublime scene. The messenger of God approaches Mary in the Eden of her sinlessness and union with God. He proposes to her the greatest honour ever conferred on a child of Adam, to be the Mother of the divine Messias. It was a higher dignity than that which the tempter proposed to Eve, “You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Gen. iii. 5). Mary, with the true intuition of faith, believes the word of God, but she asks assurance as to the mode of its accomplishment. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, she had renounced the lower and natural order of life, and had adopted a preternatural idea as her rule. She, first of all the children of Eve, originated the state of perpetual virginity, a germ which, in the kingdom of her Son, was to bear such beautiful fruit, which was to be one of the most fertile, beneficial, divine details of the Church. The Incarnation of the Son of God had to wait for its accomplishment until a virgin should fit herself to be its instrument, by renouncing the natural order, which seemed necessary for that mystery, and embracing the supernatural order in the spirit of sacrifice and faith. She was ready to forego the glory that every Jewish maiden aspired to, rather than be unfaithful to the divine inspiration which had dictated her vow. She chose the tree of supernatural life, and therefore she merited its fruit, the motherhood of Jesus Christ. The ways of the world often seem more profitable than the ways of God. Have faith, and make the sacrifice, and God will turn all things to your advantage. Natural methods, if discordant with God’s will, must end in failure.

III. The Angel assured Mary of God’s power to do what is naturally impossible; and at once she gives herself up to do His will: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord” (Luke i. 38). How different she is from Eve in her undoubting faith, her prompt obedience, her preference for the higher course, the absence of self-consciousness, the depreciation of herself in spite of her great dignity. Therefore the Holy Ghost speaks words of benediction to her by the angel and St. Elizabeth, and reverses the malediction pronounced on Eve. The tree of life was now substituted for the tree of knowledge, the supernatural was introduced into the current natural life, the angel with the flaming sword was withdrawn from the entrance of the Eden of grace. Eve had led up to the fall; the second Eve now opened the way to Redemption, and accomplished the prophecy of crushing the serpent’s head. Always hold to the supernatural. As reason transcends mere physical power, so does the supernatural surpass the efficiency of the natural.

The Espousals

 

 

Today’s Meditations on Christian Dogma is called “The Espousals.” It was submitted by Sister Mary Claire and her little sister Kathy from Camp Littlemore Farm, and comes from their very old book, Meditations on Christian Dogmaby Father James Bellord, first published in the 19th century. Sister Mary Claire received the book as a gift from an elderly nun friend in County Kilkenny, Ireland, and she treasures it dearly.

The Espousals

I. “A virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David” (Luke ii. 27). The time arrived when, in the ordinary course, the Blessed Virgin had to leave the shelter of the temple and go forth into the world; the time was also at hand appointed for the appearance of the Son of God in human nature. God had prepared in advance not only a mother for the Messias, but also a faithful servant, who should be the representative of the Eternal Father on earth, in watching over, and providing for, and ruling the Child and His Mother. This was Joseph, a just man; he was the eldest male representative of the house of David, the rightful inheritor of the throne and of all the royal prerogatives; he was in some degree related to the Blessed Virgin, who was also descended from David by another line. To noble descent he united lowliness of position; he was a poor artisan working for his daily bread in an obscure village; a representative at once of the mighty and the humble.

Divine Providence, ruling all things sweetly, arranged that the Holy Virgin should be given in marriage to this just man, who would subordinate himself to the designs of heaven, and respect the vow of perpetual virginity made by his spouse. He was the “faithful and wise servant, whom his Lord hath set over His family, to give them meat in season” (Matt. xxiv. 45). Admire the wonderful fidelity of this holy man. Strive like him to be faithful to whatever trust has been laid on you by Divine Providence.

II. This marriage was necessary for the accomplishment of the designs of God. The Messias was to be Son of David. Our Lord derived His physical descent from him through the Blessed Virgin; but as women were not reckoned in legal genealogy, it was through the lawful spouse of His Mother that Christ inherited His royal succession to David. Therefore the Evangelists give us in the Gospels the two lines of Our Lord’s descent.

Another reason for this marriage was to maintain till the proper time the secret for Our Lord’s divine personality; for according to the divine decree, “when the Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence He is” (John vii. 27). On account of men’s perversity, the facts had to be concealed from them for awhile, lest the enemies of Christ should have seized the opportunity of blaspheming against His uncomprehended sanctity, and His Mother’s good fame.

The Virgin and her Child also required a man’s protection during the long years of the Divine Infancy, and the perils of the journey to Bethlehem, and the exile in a foreign land. God appointed no angel to this office, nor an earthly prince at the head of a devoted army, but He made the humble silent carpenter to be “master of His house and ruler over all His possessions” (Ps. cv. 21). How great was the dignity of Joseph! It places him above all the other servants of God. Pay him due veneration for the position which he held, and the virtue he exercised in his duties.

III. This marriage was also necessary for us. It constituted the Holy Family, making it complete in all its members; it sanctified the domestic life, and gave us a model that we needed. The bulk of mankind pass the larger and more important part of their existence in the family state. Hitherto there had been no great ideal manifested of that condition. Kings, priests, martyrs, warriors, legislators had their heroic models; but no one had arisen who was great enough to illustrate the lowly virtues of every-day life without a diminution of his own dignity, till the Son of God became a member of the household of Nazareth.

Our Blessed Lady became the model not only of virgins but of matrons. She confirmed and increased the honour in which the Jews had held maternity; and she inaugurated the holy state of virginity, which even the chosen nation had been unable to appreciate. Praise those three holy personages for thus instituting the Christian family. It affords an opportunity for the highest sanctity and the noblest service of God.

The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Today’s Meditations on Christian Dogma is called “The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.” It was submitted by Sister Mary Claire and her little sister Kathy from Camp Littlemore Farm, and comes from their very old book, Meditations on Christian Dogma by Father James Bellord, first published in the 19th century. Sister Mary Claire received the book as a gift from an elderly nun friend in County Kilkenny, Ireland, and she treasures it dearly.

The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

I. The law of Moses allowed men and women to make a vow and dedicate themselves, for a time or for life, to the service of God. So did Anna lend her son Samuel to the Lord to be employed about the Tabernacle. The Blessed Virgin also was presented in the temple by another Anne, her mother, in pursuance of a vow. At the age of three she was offered, and till her fifteenth year she remained in the quarters set apart for the widows and young maidens, “who departed not from the temple, by fastings and prayers serving night and day” (Luke ii. 37). The traditions of the Eastern Churches record that this child of grace was, as a special privilege, allowed to pray in the Holy of Holies, where no other but the High Priest once in the year could enter. Those Churches from the earliest times kept up the memory of these events in the Feast of the Entry of Mary into the Temple; the Western Church celebrates it as the Presentation. Holy Scripture says: “After her shall virgins be brought to the King… they shall be brought into the temple of the King” (Ps. xliv. 15, 16). In imitation of the Blessed Virgin, hundreds of thousands of other virgins have sought a refuge from the world near the tabernacle of God, and dedicated their whole lives to the practice of austere virtue, and the service of God and man. How blessed is the Church in the holy example given by Our Lady, and in the inspiration and strength from the Holy Ghost which have enabled so many to follow in her footsteps! Thank God for the abundant benefits resulting from this devotedness.

II. The presentation of this blessed child in the temple was an act of admirable devotion on the part of SS. Joachim and Anne. They sacrificed that which was most precious to them in the world, the brightness of their home, and the comfort of their declining years. It was an act of generosity to God which cost them many pangs of heart. On the part of the child, consider the ardour with which she abandoned her father’s house for the house of God, and consecrated her virginity and her life to His service. “How lovely are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord…. Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house” (Ps. lxxxiii. 2, 3, 5). As she prayed there, she thought of the past glories of the first temple erected by Solomon, of the Ark of the Covenant and the presence of God, of the greater glories yet to come which the prophets had foretold; and by her fervent desires she hastened the accomplishment of those promises, little knowing the great part she was to have in them. The presentation to God of His predestined daughter was an offering more pleasing than that of Samuel. She was indeed a lamb without blemish, more worthy of His acceptance than all the sacrifices of preceding centuries. Offer God what you have. Your heart indeed is far from spotless; but if it be contrite and humbled, God in His goodness will not despise it.

III. God had appointed this as the fitting preparation of the Blessed Virgin for the great duties that were before her. “In silence and in hope shall your strength be” (Isa. xxx. 15). Samuel had been prepared in the tabernacle for his work in Israel. St. John the Baptist was in retirement, in the desert, fasting and praying for thirty years, in preparation for his brief ministry on the banks of the Jordan. The Mother of the Lord needed in like manner to be withdrawn from the contaminations and distractions of a world that was not worthy of her. She belonged entirely to the Lord, and was not to be engaged in any other service. She had to exercise herself in daily communion with God, in view of her further union with the Word of God as her Son. She had to perfect herself and advance from step to step in sanctification, till she attained the degree which was worthy of the Divine Maternity. So have all the works of God to be prepared. Retirement from the world, self-abnegation and prayer, are the great sources of spiritual strength and efficiency. 

The Nativity of The Blessed Virgin

 

Today’s Meditations on Christian Dogma is called “The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin.” It was submitted by Sister Mary Claire and her little sister Kathy from Camp Littlemore Farm, and comes from their very old book, Meditations on Christian Dogma by Father James Bellord, first published in the 19th century. Sister Mary Claire received the book as a gift from an elderly nun friend in County Kilkenny, Ireland, and she treasures it dearly.

I. “Who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in array?” (Cant. vi. 9). The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin was indeed like the dawn, caused by the sun, and announcing the approach of day. Mary appeared, the early reflection, by her grace and sinlessness, of the first beams of the Sun of justice. That dawn was eagerly looked for during the long night of the old dispensation, continually promised and prefigured. Our Lady is compared to the moon, fair and beautiful, a subordinate luminary, with no light of its own, but shining with a reflected brightness. She is also “the woman clothed with the sun” (Apoc. xii. 1), bright with the sun’s brightness, with the glory of Jesus Christ, because she is the image of His virtues, and has her dignity from Him. She is terrible to the hosts of hell, as being the only one over whom they had never prevailed, and as the Mother of their Conqueror. As in every other case, the splendour of this work of God was shrouded in humility. Except the parents of Mary perhaps, none knew the greatness of this child of promise. The day which gave joy to the unseen world passed without notice in the sphere where it occurred. She herself did not suspect, till the angel announced it, the designs that God had had for her. Consider how God regarded the day of Mary’s birth; consider what it was to God the Son who was to be born of her; consider its importance to the world and to you.

II. The day of birth is not usually celebrated by Religion. It is, for the most part, the coming of a child of Adam into an inheritance of sin and sorrow; it is the first stage of a course which will be marked by offences against God, and perhaps may end in eternal loss. The birthday on which the Church congratulates her saints, is the day on which they cast off “the body of this death” and commence their life in heaven. With the Scripture she says, better is “the day of death than the day of one’s birth” (Eccles. vii. 2). Not till that day can it be declared by God that His work is wholly good.

With Jesus it was different: the day of His birth is a day of universal joy. Of this fulness of His some have received. The blessedness of His sinless divine birth overflowed upon two others who were connected with Him; and the Church celebrates, besides Christmas Day, the nativities of the Precursor and of the Mother of Jesus. You do not share in that rare privilege; but you have received the grace of a spiritual nativity in Baptism, and it lies with you to make yourself worthy of the further birth to eternal life on the day of your death.

III. Birth is accounted noble when it has been preceded by a line of distinguished ancestors. The Blessed Virgin was of the most noble and splendid descent known to history. She was of the chosen nation, of the royal tribe of Judah, of the house and family of David. Through Abraham, Noah and the patriarchs, the line is carried back unbroken to the first parents, who proceeded from the hand of God. But not for this is the Nativity of Mary honourable. She conferred on her ancestors more glory than she received from them. Their chief title of nobility was that a daughter of their line was to be Mother of the Redeemer of the world. On this account it was that Providence segregated the Jewish nation from all others, and guarded so carefully the direct line of descent, and saved its origin from being lost in the universal obscurity. Our Lady not only ennobled her own family and nation, but all her sex and all humanity. Her influence gave to women, under the Jewish and Christian dispensations, a position of dignity such as was unknown elsewhere; and that position declines wherever the religious honour due to Christ’s Mother is neglected. Unite yourself with those who “all blessed her with one voice saying: Thou art the glory of Jerusalem, thou art the joy of Israel, thou art the honour of our people” (Judith xv. 10).

The Graces and Merits of Mary

Today’s Meditations on Christian Dogma is called “The Graces and Merits of Mary.” It was submitted by Sister Mary Claire and her little sister Kathy from Camp Littlemore Farm, and comes from their treasured old book, Meditations on Christian Dogma by Father James Bellord, first published in the 19th century. Sister Mary Claire received the book as a gift from an elderly nun friend in County Kilkenny, Ireland, and she treasures it dearly.

I. Exemption from original sin carries with it a great many other privileges, for that sin involves a great many consequences. It causes a deterioration in soul and body, intellect, will, and every other faculty; it introduces into us ignorance, concupiscence, malice, and a propensity to every kind of evil. Even when we recover grace, many of the effects of sin still remain. The holiest of men is not exempt from weaknesses; and the greatest labour of his life is the unceasing struggle against his own semi-dormant passions. He attains success only through countless failures; and, at the best, he is but a restored and buttressed ruin. During this life, peril is never absent, victory never secure.

The singular grace of God placed the Blessed Virgin on an altogether higher level. She was exempt from every one of the miseries and sad liabilities of sin from the very first. The last stage of the greatest saint’s life is far inferior to Mary’s first stage in grace. She began her ascent where the greatest saints left off; according to the prophet, “The mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of the mountains” (Isa. ii. 2). All these exceeding graces, Mary’s union with God, God’s love for her, were only in proportion to the high office to which she was called; they were all required in preparation for the unexampled dignity of the Divine Maternity.

The magnificence of God as exhibited in the universe which He has prepared for our habitation exceeds all our calculations, and all our wonderful powers of investigation, and expression, and imagination even. Much more magnificent is the bounty of God in the supernatural order, and especially in that one being who is superior to all the other works of His hand. It is not only due to the Blessed Virgin, it is due to God that you should pay homage to such an exhibition of His infinite power and holiness.

II. The graces of God need to be supplemented by our action. We have to accept them, make use of them, correspond to them in proportion to their greatness, and so make them efficient. This the Blessed Virgin did with the greatest fidelity and perfection beyond all other creatures. Her life is not to be considered as inactive and inglorious because so little is recorded of her. It was an interior life, and was most truly “hidden with Christ in God” (Col. iii. 3). The value of our service of God depends not so much on the opportunities of external action, but on the dispositions of our souls and their attachment to God.

The life-work of Our Lady was of necessity carried on in obscurity, but it was of a higher kind, and it contributed more to the advantage of mankind and the glory of God than all the labours of the Apostles. She was continually in the presence of God; she learned from Him during the intimate communications of the thirty years; she practised every virtue in a sublime degree; she suffered a life-long martyrdom; she advanced daily with giant steps in the path of holiness. Her fidelity was more, if possible, than her graces. As Our Lord said, she was more blessed in hearing His word and keeping it, than even in the privilege of being His Mother according to the flesh.

Learn hence to be faithful to your graces. Be sure that mediocre talents and obscure position do not preclude you from the greatest merit and reward.

III. Mary’s graces received, and fidelity rendered, are the measure of her supernatural glory, and of the position which she holds in heaven and in the Church. Of all men and all angels, none received such high favours from God, none was brought into such close relations with the Divinity, none was so faithful to grace, none loved God so intensely. In proportion to this she has received “good measure, and pressed down, and shaken together, and running over” (Luke vi. 38). So she holds the highest place in heaven, and is nearest of all to her Divine Son. So she is Queen of earth and heaven, Queen of angels and of men. So too is her power great to intercede for us. Your veneration for her, your confidence in her prayers, your imitation of her virtues, your praise of God on her account, ought to be in due proportion to her graces, merits and favor with God.

The Immaculate Conception - Part II

I. Science teaches us that, where there is an apparent gap in the chain of life, there must be some being which fills it. There was one important deficiency; there was no example of a simple human being who was sinless and full of grace. The only two who were so created hastened promptly to disembarrass themselves of the great privilege at the mere word of the tempter. The completeness of God’s work in Creation and Redemption required that there should be an example of what His grace was able to effect in human nature, a being that we could look up to as the ideal of simple creatures in the class below the Divine Man. Many had risen to great holiness by repentance for their sins, others by innocence which they never lost; Jeremias and John the Baptist had further been purified from sin before their birth. Still, in one remote corner of human life Satan had found a stronghold; all were, in the first moments of existence, subject to him by original sin. It was necessary in one case to drive him from that last retreat, and exhibit one being absolutely free from sin and full of all human perfection. For the glory of God, the Blessed Virgin was preserved from even the indeliberate inherited stain of sin; she was conceived immaculate. Honour her as the delight of the Almighty, the highest of His works, the fullest manifestation of His power and holiness, the example of perfect human life among mere creatures.

II. “There shall no evil come to thee, nor shall the scourge come near thy dwelling” (Ps. xc. 10). The dignity of the Son of God required that His Mother should be conceived immaculate. Sin is infinitely hateful to Jesus Christ; it is the direct contrary of God; its action on Him was death-dealing; there could be no possible fellowship between Christ and Belial. It is inconceivable that the Holy One of God could have been born of an ordinary sinful mother, that He could have assumed to His Divinity flesh and blood which had been infected with the horrible putrefaction of sin, that He could have dwelt in a tabernacle which had not been reserved for Him alone, but had been the dwelling-place of the abomination of desolation. The holiness which becometh the actual House of God should be something more than the patched-up sanctity which overlies a foundation of original corruption. Therefore He “set His tabernacle in the sun” (Ps. xviii. 6); in a place of brilliant purity. He prepared it for Himself in advance; not merely for a few days or years, but from the commencement of its existence. Learn hence how holy must be your soul if you would have Jesus to dwell in it. The smallest stain in it is loathsome to Him, and impedes the operation of His grace.

III. “Fear not: thou shalt not die; for this law is not made for thee, but for all others” (Esth. xv. 12, 13). These are the accents of generosity and love. Jesus could not begrudge His Mother the highest gift of His grace, and bestow less on her than on His Precursor, Jeremias, and Adam and Eve. He could not cast His Mother to be the prey of the wolves of sin. God the Father had predestined her, the Holy Ghost had sanctified her as His spouse; God the Son could not but bestow this special grace upon His Mother. The magnificent generosity of God, who rewards eternally a cup of cold water given to a disciple, gave of necessity an immense grace to the Mother who gave Him the Precious Blood. How could He leave her a moment without supernatural life, who consented to give Him natural life? She gave herself entirely to Jesus, to co-operate in His work of Redemption, and thereby she merited to receive the first and greatest share in its fruits. The Immaculate Conception was a gift worthy of God; to withhold it would be an economy unworthy of a man and a son. Learn hence that if you be faithful to Jesus, He will grudge you nothing that is in His power to grant, and in your capacity to receive. Thank Him for encouraging you by His generosity to His Mother; rejoice at the high privilege that she was worthy to receive.

The Immaculate Conception - Part I

I. Adam and Eve came into existence immaculate, in the state of grace. This was to have been the birthright of humanity; but Adam, at the suggestion of Satan, chose the lower state of the mere natural existence, and so lost the power of transmitting what He had rejected. Thenceforth all men are born defective, deprived of supernatural life; and in that fallen state they resemble Satan in his inaptitude for God and propension towards evil. This privation of grace and the higher life is the state of original sin. From this the Blessed Virgin was preserved. She was antecedently liable to it, as being descended by ordinary generation from Adam. She was saved by the Redemption, as we are, but in a better way, by prevention, and not by cure. No act of hers nor of her parents, but the intervention of the merits of her Divine Son, saved her from the torrent which was about to descend upon her. She came into life then, like Adam and Eve, adorned with sanctifying grace, living with the supernatural life, possessing God with her. This is her Immaculate Conception. Our Lady can say, and she alone: “I am clean and without sin; I am unspotted and there is no iniquity in me” (Job xxxiii. 9). Admire here the great goodness of God, the great power of the merits of Jesus, who is “wonderful in His saints” (Ps. lxvii. 36), and most of all in His Mother.

II. Holy Scripture, in the most significant way, associates the woman with her Child in the triumph over Satan. At the moment of the fall God foretold a second struggle of a man and a woman, which was to retrieve the first struggle with the serpent. A second Adam was to take up that part of the task in which the first Adam had failed, and introduce the strain of supernatural life into the race. As Eve furnished the occasion for the sin of Adam, her sex was to be rehabilitated by the action of another woman, who was to furnish the material body and blood to the Victim of the redeeming sacrifice. Christ reversed the destructive act of Adam, Mary reversed the co-operation of Eve in it. The woman shares in the enmity of her Child against the serpent and has a part in the crushing of his head. The enmity of Satan was not directed only against the Saviour, but “the dragon was angry against the woman”; “and he persecuted the woman who brought forth the Man-child” (Apoc. xii. 17, 13). Thus strangely does God associate the creature with the work of the Creator, one of the redeemed ones with the Redeemer. No one may put asunder the woman and her Child thus joined together by God. Christianity requires both the worship of Jesus and the veneration of His Mother. We need both His merits and her intercession.

III. The triumph over Satan is triumph over sin. Union with Jesus in that triumph is similarity to Him in sinlessness. This, even more than the material relationship, was the bond between Him who possessed the Divine Nature, and the Mother who was only human. It would not have reversed the disgrace of Eve if Mary had not been made equal to her as at first, but only equal to Eve in her fallen state. The triumph of Our Lord would not have been absolutely stainless, if it could be said that He was the Son of one who had formerly been under the dominion of Satan and sin. The devil would have some compensation in defeat, if he could impugn the character of the Mother of his Conqueror. But God foretold that the serpent could do no more than “lie in wait for her heel”; and St. John further tells us how the woman escaped unharmed from all the snares of the dragon, through the protecting power of God (Apoc. xii.). The Blessed Mother of God is, then, an impregnable bulwark against the power of hell, and is distinguished by her successful enmity against Satan, and his unchanging hate towards her. This indicates not only her dignity but her office. She is our natural protector. If we be on her side we shall be on the side of Jesus.