Mary, Full of Grace
Fr. A. Raymond, SMM
How Do The Saints Describe Mary’s Grace?
In the last several articles, we have already pointed out that the beauty of Mary’s soul as she issued forth from the hands of her Creator was second only to that of Christ, the God-Man.
This has been the constant teaching of the Doctors and Fathers of the Church. “After the Incarnation of the Word,” says St. Peter Damien, “the creation of Mary’s soul was the greatest work ever wrought by the Almighty. Her soul was the most worthy of Him – a work surpassed by God alone.”
Divine Grace Entered Mary’s Soul
Divine grace entered Mary’s soul not ‘drop by drop’, as in the other saints. But as an abundant rain upon a fleece, as the prophet David had predicted in Psalm 72, 6. Commenting on this text, St. Basil had this to say. “… A fleece absorbs all the water that is poured upon it. Mary’s soul, from the first moment of her existence absorbed the torrential rain of graces that inundated her soul. Not one single drop was lost.”
It is thus that she could say, according to this other prophecy from the Book of Ecclesiasticus : . . . ”my abode is in the full assembly of saints” (24:16). St. Bonaventure used to interpret this text thus. “I possess fully what the other saints possess only in part.” St. Vincent Ferrer spoke so admirably of the Blessed Virgin. He never tired of telling his hearers this truth. From the very beginning of her existence Mary’s sanctity surpassed that of all the angels and saints. She received more graces than the angels and saints put together could ever hope to receive.
This was the opinion of Father Francesco Pepe, learned Jesuit theologian, who says that this opinion is today . . . that of all modern theologians and he quotes especially from Cartagena, Suarez, Spinelli, Recupito, Guerra and others who had made a special study of the question – something which had never been done before. This same Father Pepe relates that the Blessed Virgin sent Father Guttierez to thank on her part Father Suarez for having upheld this opinion and given it as the most probable.
Father Segneri, in his book Mary’s Devotee, tells us that in his day (XVIIth Cent.) this opinion was up-held by the famous school of Salamanca as being the most commonly accepted.
Immaculate Conception: Spanish Painter: Francis Zurbarán: 1632
This (cropped) painting resides in Museum of National Art de Catalunya, in Barcelona, Spain.
With this article, Father A. Raymond, a Montfort Father and seasoned Missionary of Our Lady, continues a series of sermonettes. The prior article may be found here. The next article (#6) in the series may be found here: Grace For All.
Mary responded to God’s gifts by an act of perfect love. She began to sing in her heart the great things which the Almighty was working in her, His handmaid. This was the prelude to her Magnificat. She began to love God with every fiber of her being, with her whole strength.
From The First Moment of Mary’s Existence
The prophet David caught a glimpse of this beauty of Mary’s soul. He said the foundations of this City of God were to be placed on the summits of the highest mountains. In other words, the very beginning of Mary’s earthly existence is to be placed at a height no other saint could ever hope to reach, even after a whole life-time of good works.
And the same prophet went on: ”The Lord loveth the gates of Sion more than all the tabernacles of Jacob”. God has preferred Mary, the gate of the city of Sion, that is to say the gate of heaven, to all the dwelling places of the predestined souls, sons of Jacob. And the prophet immediately gives the reason why: because God was to become man in her virginal womb. ”This man was born there.” (Ps. 86:2,4)
From all this, St. Alphonsus de Liguori concludes; It was indeed fitting that God should enrich his Mother from the first moment of her existence. He enrich his Mother with a grace in keeping with her divine Maternity to which He destined her. The prophet Isaias seems to have foretold the same thing when he announced that, at some future date, one would behold the mountain of the Lord’s house (the Virgin Mary), above all the other mountains; and that all the nations would run towards that mountain to receive the blessings of God. (Isaias II 2)
Mary, the Mountain God Chose For His Throne
St. Gregory explains that this mountain spoken of by the prophet Isaias is the Virgin Mary who by her exalted sanctity was to outshine all the other saints. St. John Damascene explaining this other word of David, ”. . . a mountain God has chosen for His throne, where the Lord himself will dwell forever” (Ps. 67 : 17), says that Mary is that mountain which God has been pleased to raise up and to make it His own resting place.
That is why Mary is compared to the sun, ”bright as the sun,” says St. Peter Damien. As the sun outshines in brilliancy all the stars in heaven in such a way as to make them disappear from our sight, so does the Blessed Virgin Mary surpass in holiness all the merits of the heavenly court. And St. Bernard, in his own characteristic way, adds that Mary was so exalted in sanctity that no other mother but Mary was befitting to God and no other Son but God’s Son was befitting to Mary.
Mary, Exalted in Sanctity
What is even more marvelous in all this, however, is the fact that Mary began at once to capitalize on that immense treasury of grace she had just received. Theologians are unanimous in saying that in the sublime instant of her conception, by a special privilege, Mary enjoyed the use of reason and received at the same time great divine enlightenment corresponding to the grace with which she had been endowed.
So much so that we may well believe, as St. Alphonsus de Liguori points out, in that first moment when her beautiful soul was united to her most pure body, she received from Divine Wisdom all the infused knowledge she needed to understand perfectly well the eternal truths, the beauty of virtue and above all the infinite goodness of God, Who deserves to be loved by all creatures, but especially by her, because of the special graces and gifts he had imparted to her, such as: her preservation from original sin and her receiving countless graces that would make her a worthy Mother of the Word and Queen of the world.
Mary’s Response to God’s Love
Mary responded to God’s gifts by an act of perfect love. She began to sing in her heart the great things which the Almighty was working in her, His handmaid. This was the prelude to her Magnificat. She began to love God with every fiber of her being, with her whole strength.
To such an act of generosity, God, Who is never outdone in generosity, responded by enlarging her soul’s capacity for receiving and by pouring into it other gifts. To these new gifts Mary responded by another and even more intense act of Charity towards her Creator. Thus it was that she continued to grow spiritually, to love God and to approach Him by leaps and bounds. The prophet David had already caught a glimpse of her advancing towards God with giant steps.
God Enlarges Her Soul’s Capacity to Receive Gifts
Without entering upon any controversy, let us point out in passing that certain theologians looking upon Mary’s prodigious advancement in virtue say with St. Alphonsus that Mary redoubled her spiritual capital at every moment. Theologians admit that when a soul corresponds faithfully to the grace which God gives to it that soul doubles her capital of graces and merits. This favor was granted to the angels. Why should it be denied to Mary?
Now, to put it very concretely, if at the first instant of her conception Mary had a thousand degrees of graces, if we may so speak, she had two thousand at the second instant, four thousand at the third, eight thousand at the fourth, sixteen thousand at the fifth, thirty-two thousand at the sixth. And we are only at the sixth second of her existence! Try to calculate the treasures of graces she must have stored up during those first twenty-four hours of her earthly existence. Then during the nine months that preceded her birth. We will be forced to admit that on the day of her holy Nativity she had already reached treasures of merits that the greatest saints are unable to amass in a whole life’s span!
Mary’s Graces
To better understand Mary’s rapid ascent to God, suffice it for us to note that she was in the hands of the Holy Spirit what the heavenly bodies are in the hands of the angels who direct them. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, each star in the heavens and each planet is directed by an angel who wakes it follow the path traced out by the hand of God. Mary, I say, let herself be led by the Holy Spirit. From the first moment of her existence, not only without offering any resistance but fully corresponding with Him. She received no grace but that she fully cooperated with it, not the least inspiration but that she wholly consented to it, not the least good impulse but that she followed it out perfectly according to the exigency and the plenitude of the grace given.
Conceived without original sin, it is easy to understand that she did not experience that sluggishness and sloth which we are prone to in the presence of good, nor that rebellion of the flesh we experience daily and which are the baneful effects of that first sin. Her body was under the full control of her spirit, her spirit to her reason, her reason to her will and her will to God’s will.
She was more pleasing to God, says St. Ambrose, and merited a thousand times more by one twist of her distaff than St. Lawrence on his red-hot gridiron, than St. Rufina in the boiling oil and the other martyrs tortured on the rack because she performed her actions with a greater love and with incomparably more perfect dispositions than the saints have ever or will ever hope to accomplish them.
Mary’s Love
She must have merited even while she slept; and, during the whole time she remained in her mother’s womb, she performed acts of the most pure love of God for, as we have noted, she had the use of her reason. She was forever in contemplation. The patriarch Jacob, King Solomon and St. Joseph were sometimes accorded the use of their reason while they slept. Why deny this privilege to Mary? It is said of her, in the Canticle of Canticles: ”I sleep but my heart keepeth vigil”. Her Spouse does not want us to awaken her. Because He knows that she is as holily occupied in sleep as she is when awake. ‘Do not awaken my beloved,” He tells us. Awaken rather those who sleep in the valley of sin and death! Mary’s love, therefore, even when she slept, increased continually in the sight of God.
With St. Alphonsus, may I say in conclusion that the love which shone in Mary’s heart from the first moment of her conception was like a giant bonfire that God had ignited and from which the devils were to recede more and more like flies from a fire. Moreover, this fire not only did not die down but it grew more intense at every moment of her existence. It grew until it was finally to unite her in the consuming furnace of God’s Infinite Love, on the day of her Assumption into heaven!
