THE CORONATION
And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed
with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head
a crown of twelve stars.
Rev. XII, I.
To-day the Angel Gabriel brought the palm and the crown to
the triumphant Virgin. To-day he introduced to the Lord of
all, her, who was the Temple of the Most High, and the
dwelling of the Holy Spirit.
FOR THE ASSUMPTION. ARMENIAN.
The heaven which S. John the Evangelist shows us is the continuation of
the earthly Church. As we read his pages we feel that entrance there
would be a real home-coming for the earnest Christian. We are familiar
enough with presentations of heaven which seem to us to be so detached
from Christian reality as to lack any human appeal. We think of
philosophic presentations of the future with entire indifference. It is
possible, we say, that they may be true; but they are utterly
uninteresting. It is not so in the visions of S. John. Here we have a
heaven which is humanly interesting because it is continous with the
present life, and its interests are the interests that it has been the
object of our religion to foster. The qualities of character which the
Christian religion has urged upon our attention are presented as finding
their clear field of development in the world to come. There, too, are
unveiled the objects of our adoration, the ever-blessed Three who yet
are but one. Love which has striven for development under the conditions
and limitations of our earthly life, which has tried to see God and has
gone out to seek Him in the dimness of revelation, now sees and is
satisfied. Whom now we see in a mirror, enigmatically, we shall then see
face to face.
And it is a heaven thronged with saints, with men and women who have
gone through the same experiences as those to which we are subjected,
and have come forth purified and triumphant. We sometimes in
discouragement think of life as continuous struggle. It is perhaps
natural and inevitable that we should thus concentrate attention upon
the present, but if we lift our eyes so as to clear them from the mists
of the present we see that it is far from a hopeless struggle, but
rather the necessary discipline from which we emerge triumphant. Those
saints whom we see rejoicing about the throne of God, those who go out
to follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth, passed through the struggle
of persecution to their triumphant attainment of the Vision. It is our
eternal temptation to expect to triumph here; but it is only in a very
limited sense that this can be true: our triumph is indeed here, but the
enjoyment of it and all that is implied in it is elsewhere. Here even
our most complete achievement is conditioned by the limitations of
earth: there the limitations are done away and life expands in
perfectness.
So we look eagerly through the door that is opened in heaven as those
who are looking into their future home. That is what we all are striving
for--presumably. We are consciously selecting out of life precisely
those elements, are centering on those interests, which have eternal
significance and are imperishable values. As we travel along the Pilgrim
Way it is with hearts uplifted and stimulated by the Vision of the end.
We advance as seeing Him Who is invisible. We live by hope, knowing that
we shall attain no enduring satisfaction until we pass through the gates
into the City, and mingle with the throng of worshippers who sing the
song of Moses and of the Lamb. Therefore our life is always
forward-looking and optimistic: because we are sure of the end, we wait
for it with patience and endurance, thankful for all the experience of
the Way. As the years flow by we do not look back on them with regret as
the unrenewable experiences of a vanished youth, but we think of them as
the bearers of experiences by which we have profited, and of goods which
we have safely garnered, waiting the time when their stored values can
be fully realised.
Over all the saints whom the Church has seen rejoicing in the heavenly
life, rises the form of Mary, Mother of God. S. John's vision of the
"great sign in heaven" in its primary meaning has, no doubt, reference
to the Church itself; but the form of its symbolism would be impossible
if there were not a secondary reference to the Blessed Virgin Mary. It
is the thought of her and of her office as Mother of the Redeemer that
has determined the form of the vision. The details are too clear to
permit of doubt, and such has been the constant mind of Catholic
interpreters.
And how else than as Queen of the heavenly host should we expect her to
be represented? What does the Church teaching as to sanctity imply?
It implies the enjoyment of the Beatific Vision. The normal Christian
life begins in the sacramental act by which the regenerate child is made
one with God, being made a partaker of the divine nature, and develops
through sacramental experience and constant response to the will of God
to that spiritual capacity which is the medium of the Beatific Vision
and which we call sanctity or purity. "The pure in heart shall see God."
But the teaching of the Church also implies that there is a marvellous
diversity in the sanctity of the members of the Body of Christ. Each
saint retains his personal characteristics, and his sanctity is not the
refashioning of his character in a common mould but the perfecting of
his character on its own lines. We sometimes hear it said that the
Christian conception of heaven is monotonous, but that is very far from
being the fact. It is only those conceptions of heaven which have
excluded the communion of saints, and have thought of heaven as the
solitary communion of the soul with God; which have in other words,
excluded the notion of human society from heaven, which have appeared
monotonous. As we read any series of the lives of the saints, and
realise that it is these men and women and multitudes of others like
them, that make up the society of heaven, we get rid of any other notion
than that of endless diversity. And thus studying individual saints we
come to understand that not only is the sanctity of them diverse in
experience but different in degree. All men have not the same capacity
for sanctity, we infer; all cannot develop to the same level of
attainment. We may perhaps say that while all partake of God, all do not
reflect God in the same way or in the same degree.
But if there be a hierachy of saints it is impossible that we should
think of any other at its head than Blessed Mary. Whatsoever diversity
there may be in the attainments of the saints, there is one saint who
is pre-eminent in all things, who,--because in her case there has never
been any moment in which she was separate from God, when the bond of
union was so much as strained,--is the completest embodiment of the
grace of God. That is, I think, essentially what is meant by the
Coronation of our Lady,--that her supremacy in sanctity makes her the
head of the heirarchy of saints, that in her the possibilities of the
life of union have been developed to the highest degree through her
unstained purity and unfailing response to the divine will.
It is of the last importance, if the Catholic conceptions are to be
influential in our lives, that we should gain such a hold on the life of
heaven, the life that the saints, with Saint Mary at their head, are
leading to-day, as shall make it a present reality to us, not a picture
in some sort of dreamland. Our lives are shaped by their ideals; and
although we may never attain to our ideals here, yet we shall never
attain them anywhere unless we shape them here. Heaven must be grasped
as the issue of a certain sort of life, as the necessary consequence of
the application of Christian principles to daily living. It is wholly
bad to conceive it as a vague future into which we shall be ushered at
death, if only we are "good"; it must be understood as a state we win to
by the use of the means placed at our disposal for the purpose. Those
attain to heaven in the future who are interested in heaven in
the present.
And a study of the means is wholly possible for us because we have at
hand in great detail the lives of those whom the Church, by raising
them to her altars, has guaranteed to us as having achieved sanctity and
been admitted to the Beatific Vision. They achieved sanctity here--that
is, in the past. They achieved it under an infinite variety of
circumstanies,--that is the encouragement. They now enjoy the fruits of
it in the world of heaven,--that is the promise.
And nowhere can we better turn for the purpose of our study than to the
life of Blessed Mary. There is the consummate flower of sainthood; and
therefore it it best there that we can study its meaning. And for two
principal reasons can we best study it there. In the first place because
of its completeness: nowhere else are all the elements of sanctity so
well developed. And in the second place because of the riches of the
material for understanding Blessed Mary that is placed at our disposal
by the labour of many generations of saints and doctors. All that devout
meditation can do to understand the sanctity of Blessed Mary has
been done.
Our limit is necessarily reduced, our selection partial and our
accomplishment fragmentary. We cannot however miss our way if we follow
in the steps of Holy Revelation in making love the central quality. S.
Mary's greatness is ultimately the greatness of her love. It began as a
love of the will of God. She appears as utterly selfless, as having
devoted herself to the will of God as He shall manifest that will. And
therefore when the time comes she makes the great sacrifice that is
asked of her without hesitation and without effort: "Behold, the
handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word." And all her
life henceforth is loving response to what is unfolded as the content of
the accepted revelation. That is a noteworthy thing that I fancy is
often missed. It is not uncommon for one to accept a vocation as a
whole, and then subsequently, as it unfolds, shrink from this or that
detail of it. But in the case of S. Mary the acceptance of the vocation
meant the acceptance of _God_, and there was no holding back from the
result of that.
That must be our guide in the pursuit of the heavenly life: we must
understand that we are not called to accept this or that belief or
practice, but are called to accept God--God speaking to us through the
revelation He has entrusted to His Catholic Church. We do not, when we
make our act of acceptance, know all or very much of what God is going
to mean; but whatever God turns out to mean in experience, there can be
no holding back. The note of a true acceptance of vocation is precisely
this limitless surrender, a surrender without reservation. S. Mary could
by no means understand what was to be asked of her: she only knew it was
God Who asked it. She could not foresee the years of the ministry when
her Son would not have where to lay His head, followed by the anxiety of
Holy Week and the watch by the Cross on Good Friday; but as these things
came she could understand them as involved in her vocation, in her
acceptance of God.
And cannot we get the same attitude toward life? In the acceptance of
the Christian Religion what we have accepted is God. We have
acknowledged the supremacy of a will outside ourselves. We say, "we are
not our own, we are bought with a price," the price of the Precious
Blood. But if our acceptance is a reality and not a theory it will turn
out to involve much more than we imagined at the first. The frequent and
pathetic failures of those who have made profession of Christianity is
largely accounted for by this,--that the demands of the Christian
Religion on life turn out to be more searching and far-reaching than was
supposed would be the case. Religion turns out to be not one interest to
be adjusted to the other interests of life, but to be a demand that all
life and action shall be controlled by supernatural motive. Those who
would willingly give a part, find it impossible to surrender the whole.
The world is full of Young Rulers who are willing "to contribute
liberally to the support of religion," but shrink from the demand that
they "sell all." "I seek not yours, but you," S. Paul writes to the
Corinthians; and that is also the seeking of God--"Not yours but you."
And because the limit of our willingness is reached in contribution and
does not extend to sacrifice, we fail.
But Blessed Mary did not fail because there was no limit to her
willingness to sacrifice. Her will to sacrifice had the same limitless
quality as her love; and because of the limitless quality of her
self-giving her growth in the life of union was unlimited, or limited
only by the limitations of creaturehood. When therefore we think of her
to-day as Queen of Saints we are not thinking of an arbitrarily
conferred position; we are thinking of a position which comes to her
because she is what she is. She through the unstinting sacrifice of her
love came into more intimate relations with God than is possible for any
other, and through that relation came to know more of the mind of God
than any other. The power of her intercession is the power of her
understanding, of her sympathy with the thoughts of God. When we come to
her with our request for her intercession we feel that we are sure of
her sympathy and her understanding. Her experience of human life, we
think, was not very wide: can she whose life was passed under such
narrow conditions understand the complex needs of the modern man or
woman? It is true that her actual experience of human life was not very
wide; but her experience of God is very wide indeed, and she is able to
understand our experience better than we can understand it ourselves
because of her understanding of God's mind and will. It is seeing life
through God's eyes that reveals the truth about it.
Hence the blunder and the tragedy of those who seek to know life by
experience, when they mean experience gained by participation in life's
evil as well as in its good. They succeed in soiling life rather than in
understanding it; for participation in evil effectually prevents our
understandings of good. It is on the face of things that the farther a
man goes into sin, the less is righteousness intelligible to him. Our
Lord's rule "He that doeth the will shall know of the doctrine" is not
an arbitrary maxim, but embodies the deepest psychological truth. There
is but one path to full understanding, and that is the path of
sympathy. And therefore are we sure of our Lady's understanding and
come to her unhesitatingly for the help of her intercession. She
understands our case because she sees it revealed in the mind of
her Son.
It cannot be questioned that much of the weakness of religion to-day is
due to the fact that Christian ideals make but faint appeal. By many
they are frankly repudiated as impossible of attainment in a world such
as this, and as weakening to human character so far as they are
attained. Christians, of course, are unable to take this point of view,
and, therefore, they treat the ideals with respect, but continue to
govern their lives by motives which are not harmonious with them. It is
tacitly assumed on all sides that a consistent pursuit of Christians
ideals will assure failure in social or business life. This, of course,
is tantamount to a confession that social and business life are
unchristian, and raises the same sort of grave questions as to the duty
of a Christian as were raised in the early days of the Church under the
heathen empire. With that, however, we may not concern ourselves now. We
are merely concerned to note and to emphasise the fact that, whatever
may be true of society or business, our religion is lamentably
ineffective because of its failure to emphasise the ideals of sanctity
and to present those ideals as the ideals of _all_ Christian life, not
as the ideals of a select few. While religious teachers asquiesce in the
present set of compromises as an adequate expression of Christian
character, we may expect a decline in the Church as a spiritual force,
whatever may be true of it as a social force.
If Christian ideals are to resume their appeal to the membership of the
Church as a whole it is requisite that they be studied by the clergy and
intelligently presented. But little is to be hoped in this direction so
long as our theological training ignores religion and concentrates its
attention on something that it takes for scholarship. The raw material
that is sent by our parishes to the seminaries to be educated for Holy
Orders is commonly turned out of the seminary with less religion that it
entered. The outlook for the presentation of Christian ideals is not
hopeful. We seem destined to drift on indefinitely in our habitual
compromises.
All the more is it necessary that we should lift our eyes to the heavens
where humility and meekness, where sacrifice and obdience, are, in the
person of Blessed Mary, crowned as the most perfect expression of
sanctity, as the qualities that raise man nearest God. And what consoles
us in the present depressing circumstances of the Church is that we are
permitted to look through S. John's eyes into the world of heaven, and
there see "a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations,
and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues, before the throne and before the
Lamb, clothed with white robes, and with palms in their hands." Somehow,
we feel, under whatever distressing and discouraging circumstances, the
work of God in the regeneration of souls goes on. No doubt it is a work
that is largely hidden from our eyes, from those eyes which are blinded
to the reality of spiritual things. Humility and meekness are the
qualities of a hidden life; they do not flaunt themselves before men's
eyes. But in their silence and obscurity great souls are growing up,
growing to the spiritual status of the saints of God. In our estimate of
values we shall do well to lay to heart the utterances of WISDOM: "Then
shall the righteous man stand in great boldness before the face of such
as have afflicted him, and made no account of his labours. When they see
it, they shall be troubled with terrible fear, and shall be amazed at
the strangeness of his salvation, so far beyond all that they had looked
for. And they repenting and groaning for anguish of spirit shall say
among themselves, This is he, whom we had sometime in derision, and a
proverb of reproach: we fools accounted his life madness, and his end
without honour: how is he numbered among the children of God, and his
lot is among the saints! Verily we went astray from the way of truth,
and the light of righteousness shined not unto us, and the sun of
righteousness rose not upon us."
When we have attained to the point of view as to life's value which is
expressed in the ideal of sanctity then we shall know how to estimate at
their true worth the constant criticisms which are directed against
those ideals and those who seek them. The saints, we are told, were no
doubt estimable men and women, but they were weak, and for the purpose
of the world's work, useless. But is this true, to keep to a specific
example, of the Blessed Virgin Mary? What is there about her life that
suggests weakness? And what can be the meaning of calling such a life
useless to the world? Take but one aspect of it. It has for centuries
furnished an ideal of womanhood. It is contended that the women who
have taken Blessed Mary for their ideal have shown themselves weak and
useless?--that those women are stronger in character and of more value
to the world who have thrown over the ideals of sanctity and built their
lives upon the social ideals prevalent at present? I no not care to
attempt any characterisation of the feminine ideal which is commended to
us at present; it is sufficient to say that it is difficult to
understand how it can be considered socially valuable; still less how it
can be considered an advance on the character qualities which
distinguish the Christian ideal of sanctity.
In the midst of the present confusion of values it is for us of vast
significance that we have in this matter the mind of Christ. There need
be no confusion in our minds. What Christ commended has proved to be
practical of accomplishment, the evidence of which is the great
multitude which no man can number who to-day sing about the throne of
God and of the Lamb. What God approves is evidenced by the Coronation of
the Blessed Mother over all the multitudes of the saints of God. Blessed
Mary is the embodied thought of God for humanity, the realised ideal of
a human life. He that is mighty hath magnified her, till she shines
resplendent in spiritual qualities over all the hosts of the elect.
But though so highly exalted she is not thereby removed to an
inaccessible distance. She who is privileged to bear the incredible
title, MOTHER OF GOD is our Mother as well. Upon the Cross our Lord
said to us in the person of His beloved Disciple, "Behold thy Mother";
and it is a mother's love that we find flowing to us from the heart of
Mary. Have we been cold to her, and inappreciative of her love? Have we
felt that we have no need of her in the conduct of our lives? If so,
what we have been doing is to isolate ourselves from the divinely
provided fount of human sympathy which ever flows from our star-crowned
Mother. Is life so rich in sources of help and sympathy and love that we
can afford to over-pass the eagerness of God's saints to help us, the
willingness of the very Mother of God to intercede? Is not the life that
shuts out from itself the society of heaven pitifully impoverished?
Too many of us are like the man who owned the field wherein was the
buried treasure. Limitless aid is at our disposal, but on condition that
we want it and will seek it. Let us try to understand what it is to have
at our disposal the love and sympathy of the saints of God,--that they
are not remote inhabitants of a distant sphere whose present interests
have led to forgetfulness of what they once were, whose present joy is
so intense as to make them self-centred, but that their very attainment
of perfection implies the perfection of their love and the completeness
of their sympathy. The perfection of God's saints and their attainment
of the end of their course in the enjoyment of the Beatific Vision, has
but made them more sensitive of our needs and more eager to help.
The spiritual wisdom and power of the Mother of God is at our disposal
to-day. To the feebleness of our prayers may be added the spiritual
wisdom and strength of her intercession. He Whose will it is that we
should pray for one another, wills too that the prayers of His Blessed
Mother should be at the disposal of all who call upon her. Let us take
the fact of the intercession of the Queen of Saints seriously as a
source of power ever open to us.
Thou who art God's Mother and also ours, thou who lookst constantly into
the Face of the Son, thou who art the fullest manifestation of the love
of the Blessed Trinity, thou Mary, our Mother, pray for us now and in
the hour of our death.
All hail, O Virgin crowned with stars
and moon under thy feet,
Obtain us pardon of our sins
of Christ, our Saviour sweet;
For though thou art Mother of any God,
yet thy humility
Disdaineth not this simple wretch
that flies for help to thee.
Thou knowest thou art more dear to me
than any can express,
And that I do congratulate
With joy thy happiness.
Thou who art the Queen of Heaven and Earth
thy helping hand me lend,
That I may love and praise my God
and have a happy end.
And though my sins me terrify,
yet hoping still in thee,
I find my soul refreshèd much
when to thee I do flee;
For thou most willingly to God
petitions dost present,
And dost obtain much grace for us
in this our banishment.
The honour and the glorious praise
by all be given to thee,
Which Jesus thy beloved Son,
ordained eternally;
For thee whom he exalts in heaven
above the angels all,
And whom we find a Patroness
when unto thee we call.
O Mater Dei, memento mei. Amen.
Dame Gertrude More, O.S.B.
Ob. 1633.