|
But always and everywhere, when I make comparisons, I
intend not to speak of the most holy virgin-mother,
Our Blessed Lady. O my God - no indeed! For she is
the daughter of incomparable dilection, the one only
dove, the all-perfect spouse. Of this heavenly Queen,
from my heart I pronounce this thought, amorous but
true, that at least towards the end of her mortal
days, her charity surpassed that of the Seraphim, for
many daughters have gathered together riches: thou
hast surpassed them all.(1)
The Saints and Angels are but compared to stars,
and the first of them to the fairest of the stars:
but she is fair as the moon, as easy to be chosen and
discerned from all the Saints as the sun from the
stare. And going on further I think again that as the
charity of this Mother of love excels in perfection
that of all the Saints in heaven, so did she exercise
it more perfectly, I say even in this mortal life.
She never sinned venially, as the church considers;
she had then no change nor delay in the way of love,
but by a perpetual advancement ascended from love to
love.
She never felt any contradiction from the sensual
appetite, and therefore her love, as a true Solomon,
reigned peaceably in her soul and made all its acts
at its pleasure. The virginity of her heart and body
was more worthy and honourable than that of the
Angels. So that her spirit, not divided or separated,
as S. Paul says, was solicitous for the things that
belong to the Lord how it might please God.(2) And,
in fine, maternal love, the most pressing, the most
active and the most ardent of all, what must it not
have worked in the heart of such a Mother and for the
heart of such a Son?
Ah! do not say, I pray you, that this virgin was
subject to sleep; no, say not this to me, Theotimus:
for do you not see that, her sleep is a sleep of
love? So that even her spouse wishes that she should
sleep as long as she pleases. Ah! take heed, I adjure
you, says he, that you stir not up nor make the
beloved to awake till she please.(3) No, Theotimus,
this heavenly Queen never slept but with love, since
she never gave repose to her precious body, but to
reinvigorate it, the better afterwards to serve her
God, which is certainly a most excellent act of
charity.
For, as the great S. Augustine says, charity
obliges us to love our bodies properly, insomuch as
they are necessary to good works, as they make a part
of our person, and as they shall be sharers in our
eternal felicity. In good truth, a Christian is to
love his body as a living image of Our Saviour
incarnate, as having issued from the same stock, and
consequently belonging to him in parentage and
consanguinity; especially after we have renewed the
alliance, by the real reception of the divine body of
Our Redeemer, in the most adorable sacrament of the
Eucharist, and when by Baptism, Confirmation and
other Sacraments we have dedicated and consecrated
ourselves to the sovereign goodness.
But as to the Blessed Virgin, - O God, with what
devotion must she have loved her virginal body! Not
only because it was a sweet, humble, pure body,
obedient to divine love, and wholly embalmed with a
thousand sweetnesses, but also because it was the
living source of Our Saviour's, and belonged so
strictly to him, by an incomparable appurtenance. For
which cause when she placed her angelic body in the
repose of sleep, Repose then now, would she say, O
Tabernacle of Alliance, Ark of Sanctity, Throne of
the Divinity, ease thyself a little of thy weariness,
and repair thy forces, by this sweet tranquillity.
Besides, dear Theotimus, do you not know that bad
dreams, voluntarily procured by the depraved thoughts
of the day, are in some sort sins, inasmuch as they
are consequences and execution of the malice
preceding? Even so the dreams which proceed from the
holy affections of our waking time, are reputed
virtuous and holy. O God!
Theotimus, what a consolation it is to hear S.
Chrysostom recounting on a certain day to his people
the vehemence of his love towards them. "The
necessity of sleep," said he, "pressing our eyelids,
the tyranny of our love towards you excites the eyes
of our mind: and many a time while I sleep methinks I
speak unto you, for the soul is wont to see in a
dream by imagination what she thinks in the daytime.
Thus while we see you not with the eyes of the flesh,
we see you with the eyes of charity."
O sweet Jesus! what dreams must thy most holy
Mother have had when she slept, while her heart
watched? Did she not dream that she had thee yet in
her womb, or hanging at her sacred breasts and
sweetly pressing those virginal lilies? Ah! what
sweetness was in this soul. Perhaps she often dreamed
that as Our Saviour had formerly slept in her bosom,
as a tender lambkin upon the soft flank of its
mother, so she slept in his pierced side, as a white
dove in the cave of an assured rock: so that her
sleep was wholly like to an ecstasy as regards the
spirit, though as regards the body it was a sweet and
grateful unwearying and rest.
But if ever she dreamed, as did the ancient
Joseph, of her future greatness, - when in heaven she
should be clothed with the sun, crowned with stars
and having the moon under her feet,(4) that is,
wholly environed with her Son's glory, crowned with
that of the Saints, and having the universe under her
- or if ever, like Jacob, she saw the progress and
fruit of the redemption made by her Son, for the love
of the angels and of men; Theotimus, who could ever
imagine the immensity of so great delights? O what
conferences with her dear child! What delights on
every side!
But mark, I pray you, that I neither say nor mean to
say that this privileged soul of the Mother of God
was deprived of the use of reason in her sleep. Many
are of opinion that Solomon in that beautiful dream,
though really a dream, in which he demanded and
received the gift of his incomparable wisdom, had the
true use of his free-will, on account of the
judicious eloquence of the discourse he made, of his
choice full of discretion, and of the most excellent
prayer which he used, the whole without any mixture
of inconsistency or distraction of mind.
But how much more probability is there then that
the mother of the true Solomon had the use of reason
in her sleep, that is to say, as Solomon himself
makes her say, that her heart watched while she
slept? Surely it was a far greater marvel that S.
John had the exercise of reason in his mother's womb,
and why then should we deny a less to her for whom,
and to whom, God did more favours than either he did
or ever will do for all creatures besides?
To conclude, as the precious stone, asbestos, does by
a peerless propriety preserve for ever the fire which
it has conceived, so the Virgin Mother's heart
remained perpetually inflamed with the holy love
which she received of her Son: yet with this
difference, that the fire of the asbestos, as it
cannot be extinguished, so it cannot be augmented,
but the Virgin's sacred flames, since they could
neither perish, diminish nor remain in the same
state, never ceased to take incredible increase, even
as far as heaven the place of their origin: so true
it is that this Mother is the Mother of fair love,
that is, as the most amiable, so the most loving, and
as the most loving, so the most beloved Mother of
this only Son; who again is the most amiable, most
loving, and most beloved Son of this only Mother.
|