September 15
On Devotion To Mary
Preparation. - Since the Church celebrates on this day the octave of Mary’s Nativity, we shall mediate, first, on the motives for this august Virgin, and secondly, the immense benefits resulting from devotion to her. Let us profit by this meditation to awaken our confidence in the Mother of God, saying to us through holy Church: “Blessed is the man that watcheth daily at my gates, and waiteth at the posts of my doors. He that shall find me, shall find life and shall have salvation from the Lord” (Prov. 8. 34, 35).
I. Motives Of Devotion To Mary
The adorable Trinity itself has given us the example of doing homage to the most pure, most holy and most sublime of creatures. The eternal Father, treating her from her Immaculate Conception with gifts, prerogatives and favors immensely superior to those of all the angels and saints combined. God the Son, choosing her as His beloved Mother, showed her a perfect obedience and a filial love. Daily He saluted her, thanked her, honored her with the most sincere respect and the most tender affection. What a beautiful model for us! The Holy Ghost predestined her as His most pure Spouse, and entrusted to her all the goods of the Redemption, so that, being herself enriched thereby beyond all measure, she may, as St. Alphonsus teaches, be able to dispense to all men the necessary and superabundant helps to salvation. Can the Creator Himself show greater honor, confidence and love than this to a mere creature?
Hence the Church, inspired by her divine Founder, considers it no excess to raise the honor paid to Mary as high as she has done. Every year she consecrates to the Mother of God two whole months, May and October, and celebrates many feasts in honor of her conception, birth, sorrows, life, death, her privileges and virtues. Every week she reserves Saturday to Mary; and three times a day she invites the faithful to greet her at the ringing of the Angelus, thus recalling to us the unspeakable mystery, in which Mary, by becoming the Mother of God, became also our Mother and our all-powerful advocate with the Almighty. Who can enumerate the sanctuaries dedicated to this glorious Queen, and the titles by which she is everywhere invoked in the Catholic Church? In this manner the whole Church confirms what the doctors and saints have written on Mary’s power and goodness.
O Mary, our Queen and Mother, when I consider what the adorable Trinity, the holy Church and all the true disciples of Jesus, have done for thee, I am full of confusion at the thought of my tepidity in thy service. Obtain for me the grace, first, to honor thee as the Immaculate Virgin, the Mother of the Incarnate Word, the Queen of heaven and earth, the most perfect image of the uncreated Being; secondly, to love thee as the purest and holiest of creatures and the co-operatress of the Saviour in our spiritual restoration; and thirdly, to pray to thee and invoke thee as the Dispensatrix of the heavenly gifts and the Mediatress of our salvation. “He that shall find me, shall find life and shall have salvation from the Lord.”
II. The Beneficial Results Of Devotion To Mary
If the child that loves not his mother, is called unnatural, what will the angels all us, if we do not love Mary? Did she not bring us forth to grace and glory in the greatest anguish and pain? And has she not since then been our Nurse in the order of salvation? Who has ever invoked her without receiving assistance? All sinners that have thrown off the shackles of their slavery, have done so with Mary’s help. All the innocent souls that have persevered in the way of virtue, owe this privilege to her prayers.
Even the saints, who are now in glory, such as, Sts. Ephram, Bernardine of Siena, St. Philip Neri, St. Alphonsus and so many others, all acknowledge that, after Jesus, they owe their crown to Mary. The doctors offer her the homage of their light and, with St. Cyril, proclaim her the inextinguishable Lamp and the Queen of the orthodox faith. The virgins refer to her the honor of their virginity, the martyrs of their patience, and all the saints of their virtues. “Through her,” says St. Cyril, “the whole heaven triumphs, the angels and the archangels rejoice, the devils are put to flight, and all mankind is placed again in the way leading to eternal bliss.”
How canst thou, after this, O presumptuous soul, attribute to thy merits and fidelity the small amount of good thou hast done? Whence didst thou receive the pardon of thy sins, victory over temptations, and the interior peace thou enjoyest? Is it not from her to whom thou givest the sweet name of Mother, and who is the Dispensatrix of heavenly goods? Say to her with humble gratitude:
O Mother of divine grace, if I have received the true faith and a Christian education; if I have escaped the contagion of the world, and have not become, like so many others, the unhappy victim of Satan’s wiles, and of eternal punishment, I owe it, after Jesus, to thy protection and maternal love. Would that I had the language of the angels to thank thee. At least I am resolved, out of gratitude, first, often to read and meditate on thy joys, sorrows and glories; secondly, to greet thee and pray to thee, like St. Alphonsus, every quarter of an hour; and thirdly, to strive to sanctify myself with the intention of pleasing thee, and under thy sweet and efficacious direction.
