Mary, mother of Jesus

“ But there never has been, and there never will be, a more loving mother than thou, because there never has been, and never will be, a son more amiable and more loving towards his mother than thy Jesus. Oh God! if we had seen the beauty, the majesty of countenance of that divine child, could we have had the courage to sacrifice his life for our salvation? And thou, oh Mary! who art his mother, and a mother so loving, couldst thou offer thy innocent Son for the salvation of men, to a death more painful and more cruel than any criminal had ever endured on this earth? ”

“ If thou hast suffered much upon earth, far greater is the glory that I have prepared for thee in heaven. Come there to sit near me; come to receive the crown that I will give thee as queen of the universe. Now, behold, Mary leaves the earth, and calling to mind the many graces she had there received from her Lord, she looks at it at the same time both with affection and compassion, leaving in it so many poor children, in the midst of so many miseries and dangers. And now Jesus offers her his hand, and the blessed mother rises in the air and passes beyond the clouds and spheres. ”

“ Mary, the young wife, the young mother, going over the hills of Judea to visit her friend, advanced in years, and hopeless as it seemed in sterility. She carries in her womb the infinite weight of the Word, but her step is light like truth, like love. Under the charm of the chaste love of God she greets Elizabeth, who feels at her approach the germ of nature quicken within her breast. "From whence cometh this happiness that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" The children were yet mute, but their mothers prophesy, Elizabeth before John the Baptist, Mary before Jesus Christ. ”

“ Bernard exhorts us to ask through Mary for every grace that we wish from God: “Quæramus gratiam, et per Mariam quæramus;” for she is the mother, and is always graciously heard: “Quia mater est, et frustrari non potest.” Oh great mother of God, pray to Jesus for me. Look upon the miseries of my soul, and have pity on me. Pray, and never cease to pray for me until thou seest me safe in paradise. Oh Mary, thou art my hope; do not abandon me. Holy mother of God, pray for us: “Sancta Dei genitrix, ora pro nobis.” ”

“ If we love God we must love His holy Mother. It is our daily task to love Jesus more and more, and experience tells us that we never advance more rapidly in love of God than when we are accompanied by His Mother. There is no time lost in seeking Jesus if we go at once to Mary. She is the short road to Him, and speedy and full are the answers to the petitions which her hand presents. O Mary most admirable, obtain that we may love thee with all the powers of our soul, with all the tenderness of our heart, and with all our strength. ”

“ The blessed Miriamne, child of Jesus, and emulator of Mary, has passed away, but Christ her Comforter and Savior may be such to each of you, that wills Mary’s example, as the inspiration of all women, can never die. The world has been a battle-ground, and each of you can here see over the whole field of conflict. Shall all pleasures be found under the leadership of Bacchus and Venus, or in Him that is the God of Joy? Shall woman echo the passions of man or the ‘Magnificat’ of Mary? Shall the strength that man seeks be that of the giants, brute force ”

“ He had kept her so much in the background during His ministry, perhaps He will do so still, and it will be to those who need Him most that He will come. No, sweet Mother, the meek and lowly of heart ever attract Him; it is to the heart which desires Him most that He will come. A pure, disinterested desire to have Jesus ever proves to Him an invincible attraction. No one on earth desired to see Jesus as Mary did, and it was to her, as the traditions of the Holy Fathers testify, that He came first—as soon as the Easter Day dawned and "death could no longer be holden of Him." ”

“ Poor mother! great is thy sorrow, yet not as that of another Martyr-Mother, whose story of anguish thou knowest well. It was at the foot of the cross that she bade adieu to her Son; there, too, must thou bravely stand by her side to say farewell to thine. The virtue of the cross will strengthen thee as it strengthened her; and when thy sacrifice is accomplished, thou wilt find a balm for thy wounded heart by uniting it to the broken heart of Jesus on the cross, and of Mary standing in its shade. ”

“ MARY THE MYTHICAL MADONNA.
No woman that ever lived on the face of the earth has been an object of such wonder, admiration, and worship as Mary the mother of Jesus. Around her poetry, painting, and music have raised clouds of ever-shifting colors, splendid as those around the setting sun. Exalted above earth, she has been shown to us as a goddess, yet a goddess of a type wholly new. She is not Venus, not Minerva, not Ceres, nor Vesta. No goddess of classic antiquity or of any other mythology at all resembles that ideal being whom Christian art and poetry present to us in Mary. ”

“ We need not accept the teaching that exalts the mother of Jesus to a place beside or above her divine Son. We need have no sympathy whatever with the dogma that ascribes worship to the Virgin Mary, and teaches that the Son on his throne must be approached by mortals through his more merciful, more gentle-hearted mother. But we need not let these errors concerning Mary obscure the real blessedness of her character. We remember the angel's greeting, "Blessed art thou among women." Hers surely was the highest honor ever conferred upon any woman. ”

“ We do not, however, go so far as believe all in every particular; nor do we mention such to thee. But, as we are informed by those who are worthy of credit, there is in Mary the mother of Jesus an angelic purity of nature allied with the nature of humanity. ”

“ And from this follows another reason why we are so much beloved by Mary: because she knows that we have been purchased by the death of Jesus Christ. If a mother should see a servant redeemed by a beloved son of hers, by twenty years of imprisonment and suffering, for this reason alone how much would she esteem that servant! Mary well knows that her Son came upon earth solely to save us miserable sinners, as he himself declared: “I have come to save what was lost.” ”

“ Mary turns to Jesus, and says to Him: Vinum non habent—'They have no wine;' and He replies: Quid mihi, et tibi est, mulier? Nondum venit hora mea—'Woman, what is there in common between Me and thee? My hour is not yet come.'
This reply at first sight seems harsh, and it surprises us, coming from such a Son and addressed to such a Mother. Is it possible that so respectful a Son should reject with asperity a prayer made with so much reverence and humility by the most loving and the most loved of Mothers? Has the creature no part with her Creator from Whom she receives her being and her life? ”

“ When the Holy Ghost, by the mouth of Elizabeth, said: “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb (Jesus) ”, He testified to the close connexion that lies between the veneration of the Mother and the worship of the Son. It is because Mary is the Mother of God that she is so full of grace, and entitled to the love and veneration of all who love and worship Jesus; and all the honour which we pay to her, returns to her Divine Son. On the other hand, those who despise and depreciate Mary depreciate thereby our Lord Jesus Christ. ”

“ Help us, Mary, with thy continual love that we, the children of thy sorrow, may with thee, the holy martyrs, and all the saints of God, follow thy crucified Son even unto death. Prove thyself a Mother, and after the crosses and sorrows of this life show unto us in heaven, Jesus, the blessed fruit of thy womb. ”

“ She at once closes the door against any praise given to herself: "My soul doth magnify the Lord"—He it is Whom we must praise and make much of—"and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour." Mary understands what it is that is making her so full of joy. It is the presence of Jesus her Saviour. She has Him within her, Who has saved her from the stain of original sin, and Who will save her each moment that she lives from actual sin. ”

“ And here it is of the utmost importance that the reader forget not the key fact, that before the advent of the attractive spirit of chivalry, men’s minds in Christian communities were profoundly penetrated and wondrously incited by a deep and new regard for the Queenly woman Mary, the mother of Jesus! She had been almost rediscovered. By a common consent, Christian pulpits had begun sounding her praises, as the ideal woman; a woman worthy of the veneration and emulation of all. ”

“ Earth has never before seen such a mother. There never can be another like to her, so pure, so holy, like a spotless white lily-flower amongst the dark thorns of earth.
She has no better place this night wherein to lay her new-born Babe.
It is Mary, our Mother Mary.
His Mother and our Mother for ever, evermore.
A grave peaceful man watches over them, calm in the midst of all this scene of poverty.
Nothing can disturb him, nothing daunts him, for his heart belongs to God, to that little Child whose Foster-father he is henceforth. ”

“ To a woman failing in her home duties is attached more reproach than to a neglectful husband and father, because her office is the more sacred, her position the nearer to God. It was a woman who was glorified by the most miraculously close union with God that the universe has ever seen, and by that standard alone should womanhood and motherhood be judged. If it falls short of a faint copy of Mary the mother of Jesus, it is condemned, for the state that has been the most divinely exalted should ever after remain the most humanly perfect. ”

“ As the veneration for Mary increased under the influence of the pagan conceptions of an immaculate mother-queen of heaven, these simple and natural consequences of her marriage could not be tolerated, even allowing for the exceptional conception of Jesus, and the orthodox began to assert that Mary was not only an uncontaminated virgin at the birth of Jesus, but that by miracle she did not lose her virginity by that event. ”

“ Mary shares His joy; she is absorbed by one thought—soon she will look upon His Face—and that thought is so great that there is scarcely room for any other in her heart. And Joseph? Can we imagine him anxious and disturbed and worried? No, it is impossible—he is with Jesus and Mary, he has lived his life close to them for nine months, he has imbibed their spirit. If his joy is not as intense as theirs, his peace is unruffled; he has brought the Mother with her Child to Bethlehem as he was told to do, and he knows that God will take care of His own. ”

“ She knows that she is offering to God the firstfruits—the earnest of what is to come; and she makes her sacrifice whole-heartedly, zealously, lovingly. She said her Fiat at the Incarnation, and she will never take it back. She is His Mother—it is with Blood drawn from her veins that He will one day redeem the world; and she offers to God now, not only the Victim Who is to be the Redeemer, but herself as a co-victim—herself to suffer with Him. "Behold the Handmaid of the Lord"—ready to give Him all that He requires. How perfectly Mary identifies herself with Jesus! ”

“ O Mary, conceived without sin, annihilate me in the depths of the immaculate snow that falls from your every limb. You are the miracle of eternal chastity. Your race has sprung from a very beam of grace, like some wondrous tree unsown by any germ. Your son, Jesus, was born of the breath of God; you yourself were born without defilement of your mother’s womb, and I would believe that this virginity goes back thus from age to age in endless unwittingness of flesh. Oh! to live, to grow up outside the pale of the senses! ”

“ As the earth rejoices when the day dawns, for the dawn is the precursor of the sun, so Mary at her birth gave joy to the whole world, for she was the precursor of the sun of justice, Jesus Christ, who being made her son, came to save us by his death; therefore the Church sings: “Thy nativity, oh virgin mother of God, announced joy to the whole world, for from thee the sun of justice has arisen, who has given [758] us life eternal.” [1922] Thus, when Mary was born, we received our remedy, our consolation, and our salvation; for through Mary we have received the Saviour. ”

“ And when Jesus came with all His court to fetch her immaculate soul, we are told that she said: "Thy will be done; for a long time I have sighed after Thee, my Son and my God; nothing can be more delightful than to join Thee and be where Thou art for ever."
Then the Angels began to sing—all who were present heard them—and while they sang, Mary said her Fiat and died, and her most pure soul began its eternal happiness in the sight of the Beatific Vision. The Eternal Trinity gave it the glory which was its due—the reward of her love so pure, so generous, so constant. ”

“ Mary, then, having been made the mother of all the redeemed, by the merit of her sufferings, and of the offering of her Son; it is just to believe that only by her hand may be given them the milk of those divine graces, which are the fruits of the merits of Jesus Christ, and the means to obtain life eternal. And it is to this that St. Bernard alludes, when he says that God has placed in the hands of Mary the whole price of our redemption. ”

“ Mary is the same now; she is full of compassionating love, pity, and thought for her children; she anticipates their needs and will save them, if possible, from the dangers which threaten them, by telling Jesus. What a comfort it should be to me to remember that I have a Mother in Heaven who is looking out for the difficulties and dangers which threaten me, and doing her best to avert them! How far am I like my Mother in this? Do I, by my tact and forethought and observation, try to smooth away difficulties and avert little unpleasantnesses that I see lying in the path of another? ”