Doctrine of St. Francis of Sales upon Devotion to Mary.
HOLY Church, speaking of the most Blessed Virgin, says that she went
up from the desert of this world _flowing with delights, leaning upon
her Beloved_. In fact, all the praises bestowed upon the Saints, and
upon Mary in particular, terminate in Christ our Lord; because all
these praises should be directed to the glory of her Divine Son, Who
led her by His grace to the most exalted degree of merit and
happiness.
It is related in Scripture that the Queen of Saba, taking a multitude
of gifts to Jerusalem, offered them _all_ to Solomon. It is thus that
all the Saints act--and the Mother of God especially. She is ever
attentive to recognise that her virtues, her perfections, her merits,
and her happiness proceed from the mercy of her Divine Son, Who is
alone their source, their origin, and perfection: _Soli Deo honor et
gloria_. All honour and glory to God alone; all should return to Him,
because _from Him alone is every perfect gift_.
If Mary be holy, who is it that sanctified her but her Divine Son? If
she be saved, who was her Saviour but Jesus Christ?--_Innixa super
dilectum suum_. Her whole happiness has its foundation in the mercy of
her Divine Son. She may be called a lily of purity and innocence. This
lily has acquired all its purity by being washed in the Blood of the
Immaculate Lamb. She is a rose, on account of the ardour of her love,
and her rich vermilion can be nought else than the Blood of her Son.
If she is likened to fumes of odoriferous sweetness, the fire which
produces them is the charity of her Divine Son and the wood of the
Cross; in a word, everywhere and in everything, Mary is leaning upon
her Beloved. Behold, devout souls, how we ought to be jealous of the
honour of Jesus Christ. Do not imitate the enemies of holy Church, who
think that they honour the Son more perfectly by refusing all honour
to the Mother. On the contrary, the worship of the Mother is referred
to the Son, and thus exalts His glory and mercy all the more.
In order to show more clearly the purity of the worship which holy
Church pays to the most Blessed Virgin, I will mention two contrary
heresies, both equally injurious to the veneration deservedly due to
Our Lady. One of these heresies sinned by excess; calling Mary _the
Goddess of Heaven_, and offering sacrifices to her as such; the other
sinned by default, condemning all honour paid to Our Lady. The Church,
who walks in the royal road of moderation, in which virtue consists,
condemned both these heresies, defining against the former that no
sacrifice whatever could be offered to Mary, as she was a pure
creature; and against the latter, that this holy Virgin, being Mother
of God the Son, was worthy of special worship, infinitely less than
that of her Son, but incomparably greater than that of all the other
Saints. To the first, she says, that the Virgin is simply a creature,
yet so holy, so perfect, so closely united to her Son, and so much
loved by God, as to render it impossible to love the Son sincerely
without loving and honouring the Mother. To the second, she says,
sacrifice is the supreme worship of latria, due to the Creator alone,
and the Blessed Virgin is simply a creature, although most excellent.
Indeed, in speaking of Mary, I call her more the creature of God and
of her Son than the rest of creation; because God created greater
perfections in her than in all other creatures, and she had a greater
share in the Redemption than all others, being rescued not only from
sin but from the power and inclination to sin. And who does not know
that it is a greater benefit to rescue a person from slavery before he
is made a slave, than to deliver him after he has become captive! How
far are we then from placing the Son and the Mother on an equality, as
our adversaries falsely assert?
It is true that we call her beautiful, and the most beautiful amongst
creatures; but she is beautiful _as the moon_, which receives its
light from the sun; because all her glory is communicated to her by
her Son. Pliny writes that the thorn, named _aspalathum_, is not
naturally odoriferous, but that if the rainbow rests upon it, it
quickly exhales a rare and sweet odour. The holy Virgin is a thorn of
that burning bush which Moses saw and which was not consumed, as the
Church says: '_Rubum quem viderat Moyses incombustum, conservatam
agnovimus tuam laudabilem virginitatem_'. Of herself alone, she is
certainly unworthy of our worship, for she is without odour. But when
the great sign of reconciliation between God and men came and rested
upon this holy thorn--first, by His grace in her Immaculate
Conception, and afterwards at the Incarnation, when God became her
Son, and reposed in her immaculate bosom--then, indeed, so great
became the fragrance of this thorn that no other plant ever could
produce before God so sweet and pleasing an odour. Nor will He ever
reject the prayers that are perfumed in this fragrance. We repeat that
all this perfume came to her from her Divine Son.
Jesus Christ is our Advocate, and so is Mary; but with what
difference! In right of justice, the Saviour is alone our Advocate,
because when He pleads our cause He justifies His petition by showing
His Blood and His Cross. He does not hide our debts from His Father;
but at the same time He urges the value of the price that He has laid
down for our salvation. Mary and all the Saints exercise, also, the
office of advocate in our favour; it is only by way of intercession.
They entreat the Divine Justice to pardon our iniquities; but it is
through the merits of the Passion of Jesus Christ. In a word, they do
not add their prayers to the prayers of the Saviour, but to ours; in
order to help us to obtain the graces which are necessary for our
eternal salvation.
THE MONTH OF MARY.
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THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION.
THE wonderful variety which is observable in the works of nature gives
us a very high idea of the immeasurable riches of the Almighty
Creator. And yet He manifests His power still more in the supernatural
order, and the wonderful diversity of the works of grace preaches more
loudly the munificence of His mercy. God, in the excess of His
goodness, did not merely grant a general redemption to men, sufficient
for the salvation of each one, but He diversified and multiplied the
supernatural gifts which accompany this redemption with infinite
liberality and wonderful variety. But His highest favours were
lavished upon the most holy Virgin. From all eternity the Heavenly
Father had ordained in His love to form her heart to the perfection of
charity, that she might love His Divine Son with the most perfect
maternal love--as He had loved Him from all eternity with the most
perfect paternal love. The Son of God cast His eyes upon this Virgin,
and chose her for His Mother, and co-operator in the great work of the
world's redemption, a merciful Mother, a most powerful advocate of
mankind--the most amiable, the most loving, and the most beloved of
all creatures.
It is the opinion of many theologians that our Lord sanctified St.
John the Baptist in the womb of St. Elizabeth, by a ray of His light
and grace, and gave him the use of reason together with the gift of
faith, so that he knew his God, hidden in the immaculate womb of Mary,
adored Him, and consecrated himself to His service. If such a grace
were granted by Our Lord to His precursor, who can doubt for a moment
that He should have granted not only a similar, but a much greater
privilege to her whom He Himself had chosen for His Mother, and that
He should not only have sanctified her in the womb of her mother, St.
Anne, but should have, moreover, raised her from the very first
instant of her conception to a state of purity and sanctity?
The adorable Redeemer of the human race, the eternal object of the
love of His Heavenly Father, considered His Mother from that first
moment, as a delicious garden which was to produce the fruit of
eternal life, and He cultivated this garden in order that every kind
of perfection should flourish therein. He adorned her with the gold of
charity and with a wondrous variety of virtues, that she might be able
to sit at His side as a Queen--that is to say, occupy the first place
amongst the elect, and, in this manner, enjoy the delights that are
found at the right hand of the Eternal God.
This Divine Mother was redeemed, therefore, in a manner becoming the
dignity of the Son, for Whom she was created. Hence she was preserved
from reprobation and from all danger of it, because she was enriched
with the perfection of grace and with everything necessary for its
preservation. Well is she compared to a beautiful aurora, or dawn,
which, from its very beginning, went on increasing until it reached
its perfect day. O first-fruit of the Redemption! O masterpiece of the
Redeemer! It is just, indeed, O my Divine Saviour, that as a Son full
of love and devotion towards Thy Mother, in preventing her with the
blessings of Heaven, Thou shouldest have preserved her, not only from
sin like the Angels, but even from every danger of sinning, and
shouldest, moreover, have removed from her path all that could hinder
or even retard her in the exercise of Thy holy love. It was written in
Thy eternal decrees that Thou wouldest at one day prefer her to all
rational creatures who were dear to Thy Divine Heart, and that Thou
wouldest call her _the beloved object of Thy predilection, Thy dove,
Thy spotless and beautiful one, perfect beyond compare_.
A special privilege was reserved for Mary, worthy of a Son Who loved
her with an infinite love, and Who, being infinitely good, wise and
perfect, was to choose for Himself a Mother, and form her according to
His own heart. He willed then that the grace of Redemption should be
applied to her as a preservative remedy. Like the waters of the Jordan
that, in the days of Josue, interrupted their course through respect
for the Ark of the Covenant, so the stream of original corruption
stayed its course at the feet of Mary, at the conception of this
living tabernacle of the Eternal Covenant.
From the first instant of her conception, Mary knew her God, and loved
Him sovereignly; from that moment she became impeccable, through the
special assistance of the divine protection, and through the continual
inflow of efficacious and preventing graces, to which she never
offered the slightest resistance. God not only adorned her with the
most abundant habitual grace, but He preserved it in her, keeping her
always free from every evil inclination, every idle thought, and every
feeling in the slightest degree contrary to the most perfect sanctity.
As to her body, we may believe it was endowed with singular
perfections. St. Joachim and St. Anne received her from God through a
particular, and we may say, even a miraculous grace, so that she was
one of the most excellent works of the Holy Ghost, and breathed only
sanctity and purity. This Queen loved, then, her virginal body, not
only because it was docile, humble, pure and obedient to Divine Love,
but still more because from it was formed the Body of her Saviour.
Truly has this holy Virgin been called _elect as the sun_, because as
the sun shines resplendent above all the stars, through the excellence
of its prerogatives, so there is no one amongst all the Saints who has
obtained, or can ever obtain, graces superior to those bestowed upon
Mary. There are Saints who have received signal graces from our Lord,
and these, compared with the rest of the world, are like queens
crowned with charity, and occupy a distinguished position in the love
of our Divine Saviour. But His most blessed Mother is the Queen of all
Queens, for she is not only crowned with charity, but with the
perfection of charity, and to use an expression of the Holy Spirit,
Who says that _the Son is the crown of the Father_; her crown is in
truth her Son; that is to say, the sovereign object of charity, the
Eternal Love, forms her crown.