The Communion of Mary, Pt. 1, Ch. 16

The Communion of Mary

Part 1, Chapter 16

The remarkable purity of Mary.

Purity is so proper to Jesus Christ that it is essential and eternal to Him. He is purity, both in eternity and in time. In heaven, He is purity with His Father, and on earth He is a divine combination of purity, either on the part of His Father, from whom He receives divinity, or on the part of His Mother, from whom He draws a flesh completely pure and immaculate.

Jesus, the Son of God, having four kinds of births, the divine in heaven, the human on earth, a third glorious birth in the tomb, and finally a miraculous fourth birth in the Eucharist, Jesus Christ wants to repose everywhere in a bosom radiant with purity. In the bosom of His heavenly Father, everything is purity; in the new sepulcher hewn in the rock there is neither corruption nor decay; He is buried there in a white shroud; in the bosom of Mary prepared by the Holy Spirit, Jesus reposed there as in a sanctuary of purity.

The Dormition of Mary (Spoleto)

In order to make this sanctuary spotless, the Father worked a miracle in the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the Son works a marvel within His right in the Incarnation, making Mary Virgin and Mother, pure and fruitful all at once, daughter of God and His Mother, His creature and the one who nurses Him; finally the Holy Spirit sanctifies her by His holiness in order to make of her His temple.

Because the God that Mary conceived in her chaste womb as her Son by the Incarnation is the same God that she receives in her heart by Communion, Mary had to have the same purity when she received Communion. We can affirm even more that she had more degrees of purity when she received Communion than when she conceived Jesus, her divine Son.

All the mysteries which have been worked in Mary either in her womb, or in her sight, being all mysteries of purity, they have printed a stamp of purity in her soul, in her heart, and in her body. The Incarnation gave her the source of them; Calvary, where she was washed in the blood which streamed from the wounds of her divine Jesus attached to the cross, added a new lustre to her purity; finally the descent of the Holy Spirit on her on the day of Pentecost raised her to the fullness of purity. As Mary faithfully preserved all these virtues, as she has always grown in new graces, she therefore had more purity in Holy Communion than in the mystery of the Incarnation.

The Son of God Himself has a holiness in the Eucharist which He didn’t have in the other mysteries. In the Incarnation He is clothed with a body made in the likeness of sinful flesh, as St. Paul the Apostle says. This flesh was, therefore, mortal: since mortality is the effect of sin, He thus had something of sin. In the circumcision He was marked with the seal of sin; on the Cross he was victim of sin, and as such obliged to bear the pains and humiliations of it. It’s also under these characteristics of mortal and victim of sin that He wanted to be born in a stable, and to repose in a manger; it is under these characteristics of mortal and victim of sin that He wanted to die on a cross, which was the punishment of criminals. In these two states of mortal and victim of sin, He had no concern for the holiness of the place of His birth or of the infamy of the punishment which was reserved for Him.

But, since, by His resurrection, He is stripped of mortality, and because He is invested with a flesh immortal and glorious, throwing off the characteristic of victim of sin, and having fully satisfied the justice of His Father, He demands and He wants the holiest dwellings in Heaven and on earth. In Heaven, the eternal Father is His place by right; on earth, He builds Himself a throne in the Holy Eucharist. That’s why He wants the hearts of those who participate in His divine banquet to be holy. It’s in view of this that He instituted all the sacraments in order to purify and make holy those who want to participate in this bread of Angels.

The Blessed Virgin had then new motives for holiness by the use that she made of the Eucharist. In the Incarnation, she looked at her Son on the Cross covered with mortality, and regarded Him as the victim of sin. But, in the Eucharist, she looks at Him as a victim of praise, completely clothed with immortality and light; it seems then that Jesus addresses these words of the Book of the Apocalypse to His tender Mother: You are holy, but sanctify yourself still by new degrees of holiness, since I want to make of your bosom a new throne, where I will remain by the Communion that you make of My body.

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