Man, made in the image of God, finds his Redeemer in Jesus Christ, and finds the human expression of Divine Beauty, Loveliness, and Self-Effacing Goodness in the youthful innocence, and heroic response of His Mother, the Virgin Mary. For Mary found favor with God. And when asked if she would sacrifice her own life, and participate in Redemptive Suffering through Virginal Motherhood of the God-Man, she said, "Thy Will be done...Be it done unto me according to Thy Word." And ever since, any words that rise from natural admiration of the loveliness of woman, find their crowning culmination in the life and smile of the beautiful Virgin Queen:

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY, LIKE THE NIGHT

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

Lord Byron

Through Baptism we are inserted into the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ. We are inserted into the Life of Jesus, the Head of the Mystical Body, the Church. As part of this New Life, we share in Jesus' relationship to both His Father and His mother. For we share in the Life that is both God, and Man. Jesus' Father is our Father. Jesus' mother is Our Mother. Jesus' Holy Spirit Love is our Love.

So the Blessed Virgin is not our mother by an "honorary" title. She is our mother, in truth, just like our flesh and blood mother. She is mother of our Spiritual House, mother of the Real Spiritual Organism of which we are a part, and by which sanctifying grace gives us spiritual life as New Men in Jesus Christ. Be not ashamed of Mary like those stricken by the apophatic thrust of the sixties who smashed their Rosary beads so as to show their contempt for humble humanity in favor of the proud spirit of the Cosmic Hermit spinning His dreamwold in Eastern outer space. Be not ashamed to love such a mother, whose fiat, and willingness to participate in the sacrificial redemption of the human race, gave us the Church and our salvation, through her step by step participation in the Incarnation, life, death and resurrection of her Son, the Messiah Savior, the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world. "Pray for us O Holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ."

VENERABLE DOM COLUMBA MARMION, O.S.B.

"If Christ Jesus is the Son of God by His eternal and ineffable birth in the Bosom of the Father," writes Dom Marmion, "He is also the Son of Man by His temporal birth in the womb of a woman."

"This woman is Mary; but she is also a Virgin. It is from her, and from her alone, that Christ takes His human nature. It is to her that He owes His nature as the Son of Man. She is truly the Mother of God. For this reason Mary occupies a position in Christianity which is unique, exalted and essential. Just as Christ's character as the 'Son of Man' cannot be separated from that of the 'Son of God,' so also is Mary united to Jesus; in fact, the Virgin Mary shares in the mystery of the Incarnation by a claim which belongs to the very essence of that mystery.

"This is why the Virgin Mary is associated by such close ties with the economy of the fundamental mystery of Christianity, and, consequently, with our supernatural life that Divine life which comes to us from Christ, the God-Man, and which Christ gives us as God, but through the instrumentality of His human nature. Like Jesus, we too should be a 'Son of God' and also a 'Son of Mary.' He is both the one and the other in a perfect manner. If we wish to reproduce His likeness in ourselves, we should likewise have this two-fold character.

"Our piety would not be truly Christian if it did not include the Mother of the Incarnate Word. Devotion to the Virgin Mary is not only important, but essential, if we want to draw abundantly from the fountain of Divine life. Separating Christ from His Mother in our devotion is tantamount to dividing Christ. To do this is to lose sight of the essential role of His sacred humanity in the dispensation of Divine grace. When the Mother is abandoned, the Son is no longer understood. Has this not been the fate of some Protestant peoples? By rejecting devotion to Mary under the pretext of preserving intact the dignity of the one and sole Mediator, have some of them not ended by losing their faith even in the Divinity of Christ Himself? If Christ Jesus is Our Savior, our Mediator, our Eldest Brother, inasmuch as He assumed our human nature, how shall we really love Him or attain a perfect likeness to Him unless we have a very special devotion to her from whom He received this human nature?

"We ought to imitate Jesus in all things," Dom Marmion writes. "The Eternal Word chose Mary for His Mother; in like manner we should choose her for our Mother and have a childlike devotion to her."

How was this "childlike devotion" practiced by Dom Marmion?

"In the morning, after Mass," he confided to one of his disciples, "when I have Jesus in my heart, I present myself to the Blessed Virgin in order to consecrate myself to her, and I say to her: 'Behold your Son.' O virgin Mary, I am your child; besides, I share in the Priesthood of Jesus; therefore, accept me as your son as you have accepted Jesus. I am unworthy of your generosity; however, I am a member of the Mystical Body of your Divine Son. And He Himself has said, 'as long as you did it for one of these, the least of My brethren, you did it to Me.' I am one of these 'least brethren'; to refuse me would be to refuse Jesus Himself."

Dom Marmion insisted that everyone should determine for himself the practices of piety best suited to express his confidence in the Mother of Jesus and his reverence and love for her, adding that it is not necessary for anyone to overburden himself with such practices, but that it is important to remain faithful to those which he has selected. In his own case, in addition to his self-oblation each morning after Mass and the recitation of the Angelus, he was devoted most especially to the Rosary.

"There," he wrote, "we praise Mary ever united to her Son; we repeat lovingly and unceasingly the greeting addressed to her by the heavenly messenger of the Incarnation; we contemplate Christ in the whole cycle of His mysteries in order to unite ourselves to Him; we congratulate the Virgin Mary on her intimate association with these mysteries, and we give thanks to the Blessed Trinity in the 'Gloria' for all the privileges of the Mother of Jesus."

"If ever I come to the end of a day without having said the Rosary," he often declared, "I confess that I feel disappointed. There are some people who say: 'The Rosary is a good thing for women and children.' Granted. But what does our Lord say?--and here his voice would take on the tones of deep earnestness--: 'Unless you become as little children, you cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven.'--and for my part, I want to go there!..." (Venerable Dom Columba Marmion, O.S.B

APOSTOLIC LETTER JOHN PAUL II, ROSARIUM VIRGINIS MARIAE

"The Rosary, precisely because it starts with Mary's own experience, is an exquisitely contemplative prayer. Without this contemplative dimension, it would lose its meaning, as Pope Paul VI clearly pointed out: ?Without contemplation, the Rosary is a body without a soul, and its recitation runs the risk of becoming a mechanical repetition of formulas, in violation of the admonition of Christ: 'In praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think they will be heard for their many words' (Mt 6:7). By its nature the recitation of the Rosary calls for a quiet rhythm and a lingering pace, helping the individual to meditate on the mysteries of the Lord's life as seen through the eyes of her who was closest to the Lord. In this way the unfathomable riches of these mysteries are disclosed?.

"It is worth pausing to consider this profound insight of Paul VI, in order to bring out certain aspects of the Rosary which show that it is really a form of Christocentric contemplation."

The Rosary
by Andrew Richards

O Mother of God, O Angel Queen most fair,
Smashing your beads they threw them all away
Saying only God could fill their prayer,
But when He Incarnated flesh...were they there?

O Lady of Sorrows, O Blessed Virgin Queen,
You have no place, they say, in apophatic prayer,
O Mother Whose fiat opened heaven's gates,
When He suffered on the Cross...were they there?

O Mary Most Holy, enthroned in heaven above,
A Goddess, they say, of whom we must beware;
The Mother of Faith and Eucharistic Love,
When your "fiat" bore His Son...were they there?

Mary speaks:

"My joy is to praise and magnify the Lord,
For my spirit doth rejoice in God my King.
He that is mighty hath done great things to me,
And in my lowliness all heaven calls me Queen."

"The angel counseled me, 'Fear not Mary,
O Full of grace and blessed of the earth,
For thou hast found favor with God, and henceforth,
All generations shall praise a Christmas birth.

'Thou shalt bring forth a son and call Him 'Jesus,'
He shall be great and holy of the Most High God,
And He shall reign from David's throne forever,
For His coming shall divert God's vengeful rod.'

"Dear children, let all ye afflicted ones rejoice,
Praise the mystery of the grace from His rod,
For His Mercy now does have a human voice,
In my little one, the newborn Son of God."

"So ye children of Earth, speak without fear,
Of your praise for the Lion made most meek,
Rejecting power, He gave His flesh most dear,
That through death your salvation He might seek."

O Beautiful Mary, O Lady of the Stars,
Your flesh did give birth to Jesus' salvation,
And your Rosary is blest with contemplative prayer,
God's Love from the beads prayed in each nation.

O Holy Beads of Prayer, you Magnify the Lord,
In the beauty streaming from the Savior's face,
From this Christocentric school, the true reward,
Mary's Son, the Glory of the human race.

End

HOME