The Communion of Mary
Part 1, Chapter 1
Part 1, Chapter 1
Mary, the Mother of God, was obliged to use
the sacraments of the law of grace.
the sacraments of the law of grace.
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The different states through which the Blessed Virgin passed and the titles which she bears made her contract with the three Persons of the Holy Trinity the most intimate and most sacred alliance. That is how, in the Incarnation, she was joined to the Father and the Holy Spirit through the person of the Son, and to the Son through her divine maternity.
The august dignity of Mother of God, which raises her infinitely above men and angels, unites her divinely to her Son. No creature is admitted into this ineffable Society. It is only Jesus and Mary who are included it, who form and compose it. It is a mystery incomprehensible to the human mind, that, in this divine Society, Mary, as mother, is superior to Jesus, her Son, and that Jesus, her Son, acknowledges and respects her as His mother. |
Borghese Chapel (St. Mary Major)
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He gives her a sweet and maternal power over Him; He makes Himself dependent on her in everything, letting her exercise over Him all the rights of her maternity. Admirable submission! Sublime obedience of the Son of God to Mary His mother, whom the Holy Spirit found worthy of His wisdom to reveal to the earth. Et erat subditus illis. And He was subject to them.
But, if the divine maternity raised Mary above Jesus her Son, nature and grace, which are of a lower order, infinitely lower Mary below this divine Son. Nature makes her a creature, grace makes her a Christian or believer. Nature associates her with the rest of the other creatures in order to compose the universe, and subjects her with them to the Son of God as to the principle who gave her being, to the Creator on whom she depends, and to the Sovereign who must lead her.
Grace associates her with Christians to make only one Church, by the faith which makes her a believer. Mary and we make up only one body, only one whole, under one same head, who is Jesus Christ. He is the supreme head of Mary by His dignity of Man-God, her sovereign legislator by His infinite wisdom.
But, if the divine maternity raised Mary above Jesus her Son, nature and grace, which are of a lower order, infinitely lower Mary below this divine Son. Nature makes her a creature, grace makes her a Christian or believer. Nature associates her with the rest of the other creatures in order to compose the universe, and subjects her with them to the Son of God as to the principle who gave her being, to the Creator on whom she depends, and to the Sovereign who must lead her.
Grace associates her with Christians to make only one Church, by the faith which makes her a believer. Mary and we make up only one body, only one whole, under one same head, who is Jesus Christ. He is the supreme head of Mary by His dignity of Man-God, her sovereign legislator by His infinite wisdom.
As head, He is entitled to govern her by His spirit, to animate her by His grace, to lead her by His light. As legislator of the new world to which she belongs, Jesus Christ has full authority to lay down laws and establish ordinances; and Mary, as eldest daughter of grace, owes to Jesus Christ a filial obedience, as to her Father and her head.
Mary, being the first and most worthy disciple of the Church of Jesus Christ, must receive its laws with profound respect and keep them with a fidelity full of reverence. It is, therefore, the position of believer which subjects this holy Virgin to Jesus Christ as to her head in order to receive grace from Him and participate in His influence, and to obey His ordinances and observe His divine institutions, in such a way that what obliged the rest of the faithful obliged the Virgin Mary.
The sacraments of the new law are so holy in their effects, they are so divine in the things which they signify and which they contain, that nature is too weak to establish them, the mind of man too ignorant to form a design of them, and men have too little authority in order to oblige the use of them. In their institution, they depend on an infinite principle. There is only a divine authority which can establish them.
It is Jesus Christ who is the author of them. In the name of the omnipotence which His Father gave Him in heaven and on earth, He established them in His Church. This supreme power extends to all the members of His Church. The Virgin Mary, being a member of this Church, could not be dispensed from a law which is common, nor be dispensed without authorization from a divine institution which obliges all the faithful.
Mary, being the first and most worthy disciple of the Church of Jesus Christ, must receive its laws with profound respect and keep them with a fidelity full of reverence. It is, therefore, the position of believer which subjects this holy Virgin to Jesus Christ as to her head in order to receive grace from Him and participate in His influence, and to obey His ordinances and observe His divine institutions, in such a way that what obliged the rest of the faithful obliged the Virgin Mary.
The sacraments of the new law are so holy in their effects, they are so divine in the things which they signify and which they contain, that nature is too weak to establish them, the mind of man too ignorant to form a design of them, and men have too little authority in order to oblige the use of them. In their institution, they depend on an infinite principle. There is only a divine authority which can establish them.
It is Jesus Christ who is the author of them. In the name of the omnipotence which His Father gave Him in heaven and on earth, He established them in His Church. This supreme power extends to all the members of His Church. The Virgin Mary, being a member of this Church, could not be dispensed from a law which is common, nor be dispensed without authorization from a divine institution which obliges all the faithful.
The Blessed Virgin, therefore, had to use sacraments of the law of grace; because the divine maternity, which raises her in dignity above the angels, does not make her pass into the conditions of their incorporeal nature. The sacraments are not for the angels, but only for men. Jesus Christ, who is the author of them, by a conduct worthy of an infinite wisdom, in perfect harmony with His mercy, proportioned them to the needs and condition of human nature.
Imprisoned under a rough exterior, the soul sees and hears only by physical organs: it thus needed the help of sensible things in order to be raised to the knowledge of and participation in the divine truths. That’s why Jesus Christ, accommodating His mysteries to our nature, communicates His graces and His lights to us under signs and sensible sacraments. Mary, not being a pure intelligence, having a body like we do, in which her soul was enclosed, could then and must then use sacraments like the other children of men.
Imprisoned under a rough exterior, the soul sees and hears only by physical organs: it thus needed the help of sensible things in order to be raised to the knowledge of and participation in the divine truths. That’s why Jesus Christ, accommodating His mysteries to our nature, communicates His graces and His lights to us under signs and sensible sacraments. Mary, not being a pure intelligence, having a body like we do, in which her soul was enclosed, could then and must then use sacraments like the other children of men.
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