The Communion of Mary: Pt. 1, Ch. 17

The Communion of Mary

Part 1, Chapter 17

The most ardent love of Mary.

There are three things in Mary which have always advanced: nature, grace and charity. Nature made her the daughter of Joachim and Anne, grace made her holy, and charity made her loving. These three states advanced equally in her: as she advanced in age, she increased in grace and charity. All these privileges were granted to her only in order to dispose her worthily for the Incarnation, which had to make her the Mother of God. This mystery being, said St. Paul, the great mystery of love and piety, it should be carried out only in a womb completely inflamed with charity.

The Nativity (Spoleto)

The Holy Spirit, who is the principle of charity, only descended on Mary in order to pour this charity in her heart with such an abundance that she is in harmony with the infinite grandeur and piety of this mystery of love. The flames of this love, however, are also divinely increased in Mary in order to dispose her for the reception of the Holy Eucharist.

It is an indisputable truth that since the Incarnation the Blessed Virgin was capable of increasing in charity. Mary, being a traveler on this earth, could then, by her faithful correspondence to the graces of the Lord, always advance and unceasingly make progress in the ways of charity, like other just people, since she hadn’t yet arrived at the limit of charity, which is the possession of God in the bosom of His glory.

As she acted according to the full extent of the actual grace which was in her by each action, Mary merited to increase in graces once as much as she had degrees of love. The life of the Blessed Virgin was like that of the just which is similar to light, which, from first point of its dawn, always advances, by continual progress, into new lights, until they’ve arrived at their noon, which is their fullness. What immense treasures of merit did she not acquire by all the care she rendered to Jesus Christ as His Mother, and by her participation in all the mysteries of her divine Son.

The Blessed Virgin brought to Communion all the flames of love with which her heart had been inflamed by the Mystery of the Incarnation; all the divine ardors which she had conceived at the foot of the Cross and on the holy mountain of Sion. O God, what infernos, what flames of love devoured her heart. When Mary received Communion, however, there were in her new motives of love which her heart had not experienced in the Incarnation.

Everything in Jesus Christ is infinitely lovable; it is love which accomplishes everything in Him, through Him, and for Him. He is lovable in the different states through which He has passed. He wanted to be a mortal man in order to live with us; He wanted to die on the Cross in order to give us life; He is immortal in Heaven in order to bring us there into His glory; He is on our altars, in order to become there our divine food and in order to give us there sort of a holy instruction about the goodness of Heaven. Oh! How lovable is Jesus!

What numerous and powerful motives for Mary to love her divine Son even more! Also, no heart ever approached the Eucharistic table with more love than Mary. She had in her heart more love than all angels, all martyrs, all confessors, and all virgins, in a word, than all the inhabitants of Heaven combined. The flesh of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, being the same flesh of Mary, according to the expression of St. Augustine, she loved this divine flesh with a completely maternal love. What Mary did there surpassed in love all the Seraphim and all the Saints.

Incommunicable love: As it was only Mary who received Communion with the title of Mother of God, She is also the only one, the only creature who can say to Jesus Christ dwelling in the Eucharist: O my sweet Jesus, I love You with all the Saints with a love of thanks as Your daughter and Your servant; but I love You, O my sweet Jesus, with a maternal love as my Son, because You have been formed from my blood; but I love You with a completely new love in the Eucharist, because, in returning into my bosom by Communion, from my Son that You are by the Incarnation, You become by this sacrament my divine food.

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