The Nativity of The Blessed Virgin

 

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.

The Predestination of Mary

I. “The woman whom the Lord hath prepared for my Master’s Son” (Gen. xxiv. 44). Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the centre of creation; according to St. Paul, “the first-born of all creatures” (Col. i. 15). All things were made by Him, and in His image, and in order to lead up to Him; He is therefore the first conceived in the ideas of God. All that concerns Him is important; every such thing was foreseen and decreed from eternity. Adam, Abraham, David, the prophets, the people of Israel, were great, solely because of Him who was to spring from that stock. St. John the Baptist, who announced Him and prepared the way before His face, was sanctified from his mother’s womb, and declared to be the greatest of men. There was one who stood nearer to the Messias than David, who prepared His way more than St. John, viz., the woman who bore to Him the closest of all possible relations, that of mother. Mary gave Jesus of her very substance; for nine months He lived with her life; her blood flowed in His veins, and passed from her heart to His. None could love Our Lord as His Mother did; He loved none as He did His mother. Wonderful were the privileges of the Magi, the shepherds, the Apostles; vastly more so were those of Mary. She was greater and holier, and therefore more efficaciously predestinated than any other of the human race after her Child. Pay her the homage and love due to her singular and august position.

II. “The Most High hath sanctified His own tabernacle; God is in the midst thereof” (Ps. xlv. 5, 6). Every one of the elect is chosen and predestined by God in Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world (Eph. i. 4). Those who have a special function in the service of God are ordained to it and prepared for it. Our Lord is the first, and He “was predestinated Son of God in power” (Rom. i. 4). Next, standing out beyond all the rest of mankind in the order of God’s predestination, is the Blessed Virgin. No other one of the human race was necessary for the Incarnation. Not one of us would be missed had we not come into existence. But such a mother was necessary in order that the Son of God should be made flesh. The Virgin-Mother is the correlative of God made man. Her relation to Him joins her necessarily with Him in the divine disposition of things. She is predestined in the predestination of her Child. She is therefore a special object of divine care, and is, in an eminent degree, the daughter of the Eternal Father. The Lord was with her in a unique manner, and therefore she was decreed to be full of grace and blessed amongst women (Luke i. 28). Endeavour to correspond to your predestination as the Blessed Virgin did to hers.

III. As a consequence of her eternal predestination, Our Lady was proclaimed by God in figure and prophecy as no other has been except Jesus Christ. God spoke of her to the serpent in Eden: “I will put enmities between thee and the woman . . . she shall crush thy head” (Gen. iii. 15). To Achaz the sign was given: “Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son and His name shall be called Emmanuel” (Isa. vii. 14). Another prophet said: “The Lord hath created a new thing upon the earth: a woman shall compass a man” (Jerem. xxxi. 22). Our Lady was typified by Jael, Judith and Esther, all of whom delivered the people of God from bondage, and were declared “blessed among women.” She was represented in figure by the Ark of the Covenant, which contained the word of God on the tables of stone, and a measure of the bread from heaven given to the Israelites in the desert; also by the propitiatory or mercy-seat on which God rested between the Cherubim. Israel therefore watched for the appearance of the Mother of the Messias as for the first gleam of dawn on the mountain tops heralding the rising sun. The position of the Blessed Virgin is greater still in the hearts of Christians and in the Church, but it is greater beyond all in the divine plan of Redemption. Do not fail in honouring her whom God has so honoured. 

51. THE LOVE OF JESUS CHRIST

I. Love is the last and highest service that man can render. All else leads up to love and ends in it. Faith itself is the basis only; it needs to be made perfect by charity, and to receive its practical and efficient form from charity. Jesus Christ is the image and manifestation of the Divinity; we see God in Him, and we love God in loving Him. As man, Our Lord is deserving of all our love, and He possesses in an eminent degree all those qualities which command human love. 1. He has supreme beauty as human and as divine, on earth and in glory, in His person, His character, His life. “Thou art beautiful above the sons of men” (Ps. xliv. 3). 2. His words made the hearts of men burn within them while He was on earth. “Grace is poured forth in Thy lips” (Ps. xliv. 3). We have these words written in the Gospels, and whispered by Him in our souls. 3. The works of Jesus towards men are full of benevolence, generosity, utility, grandeur. 4. His magnificent gifts are another inducement to love Him. He has given us all that we have, and much more than we are as yet able to appreciate. He has given us Himself with all His infinity. None other has bestowed so much. Consider each of these points separately; see how they show the surpassing goodness of Our Lord, how much He deserves from you in return, and how little you have rendered to Him hitherto.

II. Jesus says to you, “My son, give Me thy heart” (Prov. xxiii. 26). Theologians distinguish four expressions of love, or forms of sentiment which we may feel towards God and Jesus Christ. 1. The love of complacency. By this we take pleasure and delight in Our Lord, rejoicing at His goodness and perfections, at His happiness, greatness and glory, at the adoration and love which He receives from so many. 2. The love of benevolence. This consists in wishing well to another. Our good-will can confer nothing on the infinite Son of God; yet we may wish Him to receive all praise and honour from creatures. We may wish that we had the power to do something for Him; and we may actually promote His accidental glory by making Him known to others, and carrying out His will and His work on earth. 3. The love of esteem. We show this by esteeming Jesus, His doctrine, His service, above our own interests, and pleasures, and possessions; by readiness to sacrifice all these for His sake; by saying with the Apostle: “I esteem all things to be but loss . . . and count them but as dung, that I may gain Christ” (Phil. iii. 8). 4. The love of desire, by which we aspire after the sight of Our Lord and union with Him, “having a desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ” (Phil. i. 23). Declare your affection for your Lord in each of these ways, and consider how you can express it effectively in your actions.

III. The love of Our Lord needs to be carefully cultivated and increased by practice. Being invisible to us, He will disappear from our minds unless we take measures to keep Him always before us. 1. We should choose as subjects for our meditations the life, actions, virtues of Jesus Christ, and the interior sentiments of His Heart. 2. We should carefully keep ourselves free from all sin. Sin is the contradictory of Christ, it drives Him from His abode in our hearts, it obscures the vision of the soul, and prevents us from seeing Him and hearing His voice. 3. We should frequently seek the presence and conversation of Christ in prayer, and especially before the altars where He dwells: above all we should unite ourselves with Him as to body and soul in Holy Communion. 4. When we are unable to devote ourselves to lengthened prayer, we may raise our minds to Our Lord by silent remembrance for a moment, and speak to Him in brief ejaculations of love. It is an aid to this if we keep pictures and images of Him where we can often see them. Inquire of yourself whether you take any means to keep alive the love of Jesus in your heart. Resolve to carry out some practices of devotion with this view.

50. THE ASCENSION

 

I. The day had come for Our Lord to conclude the long series of His mysteries, to return whence He came, and to take His place upon the throne of David for ever, on the right hand of His Father. Henceforth He appears no more on earth till He comes from heaven at the last day as the Judge of mankind. He went forth to His triumph humbly, as usual; He left Jerusalem on foot among His disciples, and thence went up to heaven. But how great was the invisible glory of that day! Millions of souls came forth from their long detention, souls of Jews and Gentiles, who had served God according to their condition and desired His kingdom; the angelic host came forth to meet them, and with this double escort Christ ascended to His Father. We cannot picture to ourselves the jubilation that filled all the unseen universe, the surpassing splendour of the glorified Humanity of Jesus Christ, the delight of the souls redeemed, the confusion of Satan and hell, the glory of the heavenly Father. Therefore is this a day of triumphant joy to the Church on earth. Turn your thoughts away from the miseries and dangers of this life, and be comforted at the thought of what awaits you.

II. The departure of Our Lord was necessary for Him. The full course of human life included His entrance into heaven and the reception of His reward. This completes the parallel between His life and ours, and shows us the whole of our destiny. As God, no reward was possible for Our Lord; He possesses supreme elevation and glory that cannot be increased. But in His Human Nature Jesus merited reward and the highest elevation. 1. He was victor over Satan, sin, and death, over human weakness and misery, which He had passed through unscathed. 2. He was a worker; for, beyond all the rest of men, He had laboured and done good; and thereby He exerted a universal and eternal influence. 3. He was a sufferer, for He endured in body and in mind more than all mankind, since He bore in full and with perfect comprehension of it, the burden of the sins of humanity. So, as man, Jesus holds the first place among His race, which is called the right hand of the Father. These are the three elements of your life here and hereafter—struggle, labour and suffering. They are painful and often discouraging. But you are happy if you receive a larger share than usual of them, for they will bring you into closer association with Christ in the glory which results from them.

III. The departure of Our Lord, although a painful loss, was necessary to the Apostles, the Church, and to us. He says of it: “It is expedient for you that I go; for if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you: but if I go I will send Him to you” (John xvi. 7). The Holy Ghost was to give permanent life and vigour to what Christ had commenced. He also said, “I go to prepare you a place” (John xiv. 2); so that His departure from us now enables us to enter His presence immediately after our death. It was further necessary that He should cease to exist among us in His visible Humanity, in order that He might be present with us everywhere under the form of the Most Holy Eucharist. He also left us in order that we may have the merit of living by faith and not by sight, and that the full enjoyment of Him may be matter of future hopes rather than of present possession. It is further in accordance with the general law of Providence that He should not speak to us and rule us in His own person, but through the ministry of others; and that He should allow the natural energies in human nature to work out their evolution without visible intervention from above. Our Lord’s absence from your sight must not make you think that He has forgotten you; He bears you in His heart as if He were visibly present; He is engaged always on your interests before His Father; and also He is really present with you.