The Holy Mother
by VP
Posted on Wednesday December 27, 2023 at 12:00AM in Meditations
The Virgin Mary with the Christ child, surrounded by angel's heads. Engraving by C.D. Jardinier after C. Hutin after C. Maratta.
"By the side of the manger where the Infant lies, His Mother is watching. Who is she ?
1. A poor and humble maiden, but nevertheless the Mother of God. The Mother of God! How can this be ? How can the Eternal, Infinite God have a human mother? Yet so it is; Mary has a privilege which raises her immeasurably above the highest of the seraphim. It makes her more perfect in her likeness to God than is possible to any other creature. If, then, we honor the saints and angels, how much more should we honor God's own Mother !
2. Yet Mary has a still greater claim to our homage, a more fruitful source of blessedness even than the divine maternity. Her unswerving obedience to the inspirations of God is declared by Our Lord Himself to be a still higher privilege. "Yea, rather blessed are they who hear the Word of God and keep it." If only we realized the blessedness of unswerving obedience, how different our lot would be !
3. What are Mary's thoughts as she sits watching there? She has no thought save of God. She is absorbed in Him. The hours pass like minutes, they are a sort of anticipation of Paradise. She sees her God face to face, and though His glory is veiled under the robe of flesh, yet Mary can pierce through it as none else ever could, and can bask in the Divinity which it conceals. O God, help me to realize now Thy presence when Thou art veiled under the sacramental species. "
Meditations for Christmas . By Rev. Richard F. Clarke S.J. The Catholic Truth Society, London 1891
