It is indeed to be remembered that it is we who give a human nature to the Word. God could have created, so as to unite it to His Son, a humanity fully established in the perfection of its organism, as was Adam on the day of his creation. Christ would have been truly man because nothing that constitutes the essence of man would have been lacking to Him; but in not joining Himself directly to us by a human birth, He would not have been, properly speaking, of our race.
God did not will to act thus. What was the design of Infinite Wisdom? That the Word should take from us the humanity to which He was to be united. Christ would thereby be truly "the Son of man "; He would be a member of our race:
As you know, God is by His nature infinitely generous; it is of the essence of goodness to diffuse itself:
But beyond this natural communication of Infinite Goodness, there is another, arising from God's
From us He asks this human nature. It is as if the Eternal Father were saying to us: Give Me your nature for My Son, and I, in return, will give to this nature, and, through it, to every man of good will, a participation in My Divinity.
For God thus communicates Himself to Christ only in order to give Himself, through Christ, to us all; God's plan is that Christ should receive the Divinity in its fulness and that we should draw, in our turn, from this fulness:
Such is this communication of God's goodness to the world:
But who is it, out of all others, that God will ask to be a mother to this humanity to which He wills to unite Himself so closely, in order to make of it the instrument of His graces to the world?
We have already named her whom all generations declare blessed: the human genealogy of Jesus ends with Mary, the Virgin of Nazareth. From her, and through her from us, the Word asked a human nature, and Mary gave it to Him; this is why we shall henceforward see her inseparable from Jesus and from His mysteries. Wherever Jesus is found, we shall see her: He is her Son as much as He is the Son of God.
However, if Jesus everywhere remains the Son of Mary, it is above all in the mysteries of His Childhood and Hidden Life that He is revealed under this aspect; if Mary everywhere occupies a unique place, it is in these mysteries that her position as His Mother is most actively manifested outwardly and her divine Maternity shines forth most brightly. This incomparable dignity is the source of all the other privileges of the Virgin.
Those who do not know the Blessed Virgin, those who do not truly love the Mother of Jesus, run the risk of not profitably understanding the mysteries of Christ's Humanity. Christ is the Son of man as well as the Son of God; these two characters are essential to Him. If He is the Son of God by an eternal ineffable generation, He became Son of man by being born of Mary in time.
Let us then contemplate this Virgin at the side of her Son; in return she will obtain for us the power of entering more deeply into the comprehension of these mysteries to which she is so closely united.
I
In order that the exchange which God willed to contract with humanity should be possible, it was necessary that humanity should consent to it.
Let us transport ourselves to Nazareth. The fulness of times has come. God decreed, says St. Paul, to send His Son into the world in causing Him to be born of a woman. The Angel Gabriel, God's messenger, brings to the young Maiden the heavenly proposals. A sublime dialogue takes place whereon hangs the deliverance of the human race. The Angel first salutes the Maiden declaring her, in the name of God, "full of grace":
In this solemn moment, the exchange is concluded. When Mary pronounces her
When the Church sings, in the
Let us next salute Our Lady, and thank her for having given Jesus to us. It is to her consent that we owe Him:
Mary refers to the Lord the glory of the marvels wrought in her. She sings within her heart a canticle full of love and gratitude. With her cousin Elisabeth, she lets the innermost feelings of her heart overflow; she sings the
Mary was at Bethlehem, for the enrolment ordered by Caesar, when, says St. Luke, "her days were accomplished, that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn (Lk 2:6-7). "Who is this Child? He is Mary's Son, since he has just been born of her:
But she saw in this Child, a child like other children, the Very Son of God. Mary's soul was full of immense faith, which went far beyond the faith of all the just of the Old Testament; and therefore in her Son she saw her God.
This faith translated itself outwardly in an act of adoration. As soon as she looked upon Jesus, the Maiden-Mother adored Him with an intensity we cannot conceive.
To this intense faith, this deep adoration, were added the transports of an incommensurable love, a love both human and supernatural.
God is love, and so that we may have some idea of this love, He gives a share of it to mothers. The heart of a mother with her unwearying tenderness, the constancy of her solicitude, the inexhaustible delicacy of her affection is a truly divine creation, although God has placed in her only a spark of His love for us. Yet, however imperfectly a mother's heart reflects the divine love towards us, God gives us our mothers to take His place in some manner with us. He places them at our side, from our cradles, to guide us, guard us, especially in our earliest years when we have so much need of tenderness.
Hence imagine with what predilection the Holy Trinity fashioned the heart of the Blessed Virgin chosen to be the Mother of the Incarnate Word. God delighted in pouring forth love in her heart, in forming it expressly to love a God-Man.
In Mary's heart were perfectly harmonised the adoration of a creature towards her God, and the love of a mother for her only Son.
The supernatural love of Our Lady is not less wonderful. As you know, a soul's love for God is measured by its degree of grace. What is it that, in us, hinders the development of grace and love? Our sins, our deliberate faults, our voluntary infidelities, our attachment to creatures. Each deliberate fault narrows the heart, and strengthens egotism. But Our Lady's soul is of perfect purity; unstained by sin, untouched by any shadow of a fault, she is full of grace:
What must have been the joy of the soul of Jesus to feel Himself loved to such an extent by His Mother! After the incomprehensible joy arising for Him from the Beatific Vision and from the look of infinite complacency wherewith the Heavenly Father contemplated Him, nothing can have rejoiced Him so much as the love of His Mother. He found in it a more abundant compensation for the indifference of those who would not receive Him. He found in the heart of this young Virgin a fire of undying love that He Himself further enkindled by His divine glances and the inward grace of His Spirit.
Jesus gave Himself to Mary in such an ineffable manner, and Mary corresponded so fully that after the union of the Divine Persons in the Trinity, and the hypostatic union of the Incarnation, we cannot conceive one greater nor deeper.
Let us draw near to Mary with a humble but entire confidence. If her Son is the Saviour of the world, she enters too deeply into His mission not to share the love that He bears to sinners. "O Mother of our Redeemer," let us sing to her with the Church, "thou didst bear thy Creator whilst remaining a Virgin, succour this fallen race which thy Son came to save in taking from us a human nature":
