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Pied Piper of Atheism: Philip Pullman and Children's Fantasy
| Pete Vere and Sandra Miesel
God Is No Delusion: A Refutation of Richard Dawkins
| Thomas Crean, O.P.
Socrates Meets Descartes
| Peter Kreeft
Sermon in a Sentence: Saint Thomas Aquinas
| John McClernon
New Outpourings of the Spirit
| Joseph Ratzinger
Meet Henri De Lubac
| Rudolf Voderholzer
Marian Devotion in the Domestic Church
| Catherine & Peter Fournier
Joseph Ratzinger: Life in the Church and Living Theology
| Maximilian Heinrich Heim
The Greek Fathers: Their Lives and Adventures
| Adrian Fortescue
Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: The Letter to the Hebrews
| Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch
Chastity, Poverty and Obedience
| Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C.
The Blessing of Christmas
| Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
Chance or Purpose?: Creation, Evolution, and a Rational Faith
| Chrisoph Cardinal Schšnborn
Island of the World: A Novel
| Michael O'Brien
The Order of Things
| James V. Schall, S.J.
The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan's Top Hand
| Paul Kengor & Patricia Clark Doerner
Seek that Which is Above
| Pope Benedict XVI
Jesus, the Apostles and the Early Church
| Pope Benedict XVI
God and His Image: An Outline of Biblical Theology
| Dominique Barthelemey
An Invitation to Faith: An A to Z Primer on the Thought of Pope Benedict XVI
| Pope Benedict XVI
Mother Benedict: Foundress of the Abbey of Regina Laudis
| Antoinette Bosco
Pope Benedict XVI: The Conscience of Our Age
| Vincent Twomey
Ronald Knox as Apologist: Wit, Laughter and the Popish Creed
| Fr. Milton Walsh
Christians in China: A.D. 600-2000
| Jean Charbonnier
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As Mother of God, our Lady is without equal, surpassing
by far all other created persons, whether angels or men. [37] After the
human nature of the Son, no created entity is closer to the Trinity. According
to St Thomas, Gabriel's words at the Annunciation, 'The Lord is with thee',
express his recognition that the Jewish maiden is closer than he or any
other angel is to the Three-Personed God:
She surpasses the angels in her familiarity
with God. The angel indicated this when he said, 'The Lord is with thee',
as if to say, 'I therefore show thee reverence, because thou art more
familiar with God than I am, for the Lord is with thee. The Lord, the
Father, is with thee, because thou and He have the same Son, something
no angel or any other creature has. "And therefore the Holy which shall
be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (Lk 1: 35). The Lord,
the Son, is with thee, in thy womb. "Rejoice and praise 0 thou habitation
of Zion, for great is He that is in the midst of thee, the Holy One
of Israel" (Is 12:6).' The Lord is therefore with the Blessed Virgin
in a different way than He is with the angel, for He is with her as
Son, but with the angel as Lord. 'The Lord, the Holy Spirit, is with
thee, as in a temple.' Hence she is called 'the temple of the Lord',
'the sanctuary of the Holy Spirit', because she conceived by the Holy
Spirit. 'The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee' (Lk 1:35). In this way,
therefore. the Blessed Virgin is more familiar with God than the angel
is, for the Lord Father, the Lord Son, the Lord Holy Spirit are with
her, in other words, the whole Trinity. That is why we sing of her:
'Noble resting-place of the whole Trinity'. [38]
Our Lady is without compare in her objective dignity,
and so it is fitting that she should be unrivalled in her subjective sanctity.
To prepare her for the task of being Mother to the Son, both physically
and spiritually, God the Father bestows upon her an incomparable plenitude
of sanctifying grace, the, infused virtues and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit.
St Thomas argues as follows. The nearer something is to any kind of source,
the more it shares in the effects of that source. The part of the lawn nearest
to the sprinkler will be greener than the more remote parts. Now Christ
is the source (grace, as author in His Divinity and as instrument in His
humanity, and the Blessed Virgin is closer to Him than ant other creature
is, because it was from her that He received His human nature. 'It was therefore
necessary for her to receive from Christ a plenitude of grace greater than
that anyone else.’ [39]
Even from her conception, she was full of grace. By the anticipated merits
of her Son, she was preserved from all stain of Original Sin in the first
moment of her conception. Now Original Sin is the privation of sanctifying
grace. If, therefore, our Lady was preserved from that privation, if she
lacked the lack of grace, she was–putting it positively–endowed
in the first moment of her existence with the overflowing fulness of the
redeeming grace of her Son. She never lacked grace nor did she ever lose
it. By a special privilege she was free from all personal sin, mortal and
venial, even from the inclination to sin. All men are sinners, says St Augustine,
'except the Holy Virgin Mary, whom, for the sake of the honour of the Lord,
I want to exclude altogether from any talk of sin'. [40]
When, then, we contemplate all the actions that make up our Lady's motherhood,
('Welcome in womb and breast,/ Birth, milk, and all the rest'), [41] we
should remember that these humble human realities are endowed, through Mary's
supernatural perfections, with a spiritual beauty surpassing that of any
other mother in human history. 'And she brought forth her first-born son
and wrapped Him up in swaddling clothes and laid Him in a manger, because
there was no room for them in the inn' (Lk 2:7).
St Luke's words, by their very simplicity and sobriety, convey something
of the supernatural refinement of maternal affection in our Lady's heart.
She shows her Son and God that precious virtue which the Middle Ages (including
St Thomas) named as 'courtesy' (curialitas), the delicacy of a loving
intelligence, the opposite of that crass lack of perception in the man without
charity. [42]
These gestures, which other mothers do instinctively
and which express their natural love in its.most natural aspects, are
done by Mary under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. For these gestures
express a love that is not only motherly but virginal, a divine love
for her God who is giving Himself to her in the weakness, the littleness
of the Little One, handed over totally to His Mother. Under the movement
of the Gifts of Fear, Piety, and Counsel, Mary carries out these actions
in a divine way. It is with a chaste and loving fear, in perfect abandonment
to the Father's will, that she clasps her Child to her heart, to warm
the tiny and tender limbs of the only Son of the Father.... No mother
has clasped her baby to her heart with more tenderness than Mary; no
mother has had more delicacy and respect for the frailry of her baby.
[43]
[This is excerpted from chapter 3, "Mother and Maiden," of
Cradle of Redeeming Love.]
Footnotes:
[37] 'It is impossible for a pure creature to be raised to a higher degree.
By the grace of her motherhood, she exhausts, so to speak, the very possibility
of a higher elevation' (Charles de Koninck, Ego sapientia: La sagesse
qui est Marie [Montreal, 1943], p. 39).
[38] In salutationem angelicam, a. 1.
[39] Cf ST 3a q. 27, a. 5.
[40] De natura et gratia cap. 42, no. 36; PL 44:267.
[41] Gerard Manley Hopkins SJ, 'The Blessed Virgin Compared to the Air We
Breathe', The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, ed. W H. Gardner &
N. H. Mackenzie, new ed. (London, 1970), p. 94.
[42] The anonymous author of the fourteenth-century poem Pearl calls
our Lady 'the Queen of Courtesy': see Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl,
and Sir Orfeo, trans. J. R. R. Tolkien, new ed. (New York, 1980), p. 111.
'Great is the courtesy', says St Thomas, 'when the King of Kings and Lord
of Lords invites us to His nuptials' (Sermo 1, pt. 3).
[43] M.-D. Philippe OP, Mystére de Marie: Croissance de la vie
chréitienne (Nice, 1958), p. 145. According to the Revelations
of St Bridget of Sweden, when the Blessed Mother saw her newborn Son shivering
with cold, she 'took Him in her arms and pressed Him to her breast, and
with her face and breast warmed Him with great gladness and tender motherly
compassion': Revelationes , lib. 7, cap. 21; new ed., vol. 2 (Rome,
1628), p. 231.
John Saward is a Professor of Dogmatic Theology at the International
Theological Institute in Gaming, Austria. He is the author of several books,
including The
Way of the Lamb, The
Beauty of Holiness and the Holiness of Beauty, and Redeemer
in the Womb.
Cradle of Redeeming Love: The Theology of the
Christmas Mystery
John Saward
Following up on his acclaimed Redeemer
in the Womb, John Saward returns to the mystery of Christ's Incarnation.
He draws upon the rich traditions of the Church, as well as the writings
of the great Christian mystics, to create a work that is both new and old,
revolutionary and orthodox. This profoundly moving meditation will aid any
contemplation on the life of Christ.
The subject of this book is the objective and divinely revealed truth of
the Nativity of Christ, as proclaimed by His infallible and immaculate Bride.
It is the splendor of this truth, of “Love’s noon in Nature’s
night”, which for two millennia has captivated the Fathers and Schoolmen,
and activated the genius of poets, painters, and musicians. Illustrated
with eight color paintings.
“Combines Saward’s usual profundity and precision with a treasure-trove
of texts from the tradition. A comphrehensive exposition of the Christmas
mystery. Anyone wanting to know the true meaning of the Incarnation and
Christmas need look no further.” —Aidan Nichols, O.P., Author,
Looking at the Liturgy
“A profound theological meditation on the Incarnation
as an anticipation of the joy in heaven.”
—Fr. Kenneth Baker, Editor, Homiletic and Pastoral Review
“John Saward is on my very short list of preeminently important twentieth-century
Catholic writers. His writing is always profound, original, and clear.”
—Thomas Howard, Author, On Being Catholic
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G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) was one of the finest Christian authors and apologists
of the past two hundred years. Raised as an agnostic, he embraced Christianity as a young man, ultimately entering the Catholic Church
in 1922. He wrote hundreds of essays, as well as novels, short stories, poetry, apologetics, literary
criticism, and nearly everything else imaginable. Dale Ahlquist, president and co-founder of the American
Chesterton Society and author of
G.K Chesterton: Apostle of Common Sense, writes, "Chesterton was equally at ease with literary and social criticism,
history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology. His style is unmistakable, always marked
by humility, consistency, paradox, wit, and wonder. His writing remains as timely and as timeless
today as when it first appeared, even though much of it was published in throw away paper." Read more
about the life and work of this remarkable thinker, author, and apologist.
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The Quest For Shakespeare: The Bard
of Avon and the Church of Rome
by Joseph Pearce
Highly regarded and best-selling literary writer and teacher, Joseph Pearce presents a stimulating and vivid biography of the
world's most revered writer that is sure to be controversial. Unabashedly provocative, with scholarship, insight and keen observation,
Pearce strives to separate historical fact from fiction about the beloved Bard. Shakespeare is not only one of the greatest
figures in human history, he is also one of the most controversial and one of the most elusive. He is famous and yet almost
unknown. Who was he? What were his beliefs? Can we really understand his plays and his poetry if we don't know the man who
wrote them? These are some of the questions that are asked and answered in this gripping and engaging study of the world's
greatest ever poet. The Quest for Shakespeare claims that books about the Bard have got him totally wrong. They misread the
man and misread the work. The true Shakespeare has eluded the grasp of the critics. Dealing with the facts of Shakespeare's
life and times, Pearce's quest leads to the inescapable conclusion that Shakespeare was a believing Catholic living in very
anti-Catholic times.
Read more about The Quest for Shakspeare,
an interview with Joseph Pearce, or
Chapter One from the book.
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