"...wonders which... God has worked in Mary."

[MariaChristi]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Please let us listen to St. Louis with gratitude for the holiness of his life and the gifts given to him by God to share with the Church: the wonders God has worked in Mary our Mother. Only in heaven will we behold her in fullness, but many saints were given more grace on this earth than most of us to see by faith more deeply into God’s beautiful work in Mary and the work God desires to work in us who will open ourselves as Mary did to His Loving Will. Today we continue in the final chapter of St. Louis de Montfort’s book, “The Love of Eternal Wisdom”:

1. Moreover, Mary is the royal throne of Eternal Wisdom. It is in her that he shows His perfection, displays His treasures, and takes His delight. There is no place in heaven or on earth where Eternal Wisdom shows so much magnificence or finds more delight than in the incomparable Virgin Mary. That is why the Fathers of the Church call her the tabernacle of the divinity, the place of rest and contentment of the Blessed Trinity, the throne of God, the city of God, the altar of God, the temple of God, the world of God and the paradise of God. All these titles are most correct with regard to the different wonders which the most high God has worked in Mary.
2. Only through Mary, then, can we possess divine Wisdom. But if we do receive this great gift, where are we to lodge him? What dwelling, what seat, what throne are we to offer this Prince who is so dazzling that the very rays of the sun are dust and darkness in his presence? No doubt we will be told that he has asked only for our heart, that it is our heart we must offer him, and it is there we must lodge him.
3. But we know that our heart is tainted, carnal, full of unruly inclinations and consequently unfit to house such a noble and holy guest. If we had a thousand hearts like our own and offered him the choice of one of them as his throne, he would rightly reject our offer, turn a deaf ear to our entreaties, and even accuse us of boldness and impertinence in wanting to house him in a place so unclean and so unworthy of his royal dignity.

Come Holy Spirit, kindle in us the Fire of Your Love. Jesus we trust in You and thank You for the gift of Mary to help us become truly pure of heart as she is. Holy Mary, Mother of God and our Mother, pray for us.

 

[Dorothy]

The devils hate Mary because she comes from the human plane and is so full of grace, and she leads us deeper into Jesus!

 

[MariaChristi]

Dear Dorothy,

Thanks for your reply. Yes, having fallen from heaven the the Angel Lucifer/ now the devil, satan, the evil serpent we hear about in Genesis, continues to hate Mary. The devil and all the fallen angels continue to seek the ruin of the human family – tempting us to deny God’s Gift of Jesus through Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit! In Genesis we hear God say:

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers;
They will strike at your head, while you strike at their heel.(Gen 3:15)

The Good News is that Jesus came to set us free from evil and we hear in the Gospel of Luke, when the 72 disciples return after beingn sent out by Jesus:

The seventy-two returned rejoicing, and said, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us because of Your name.” Jesus said, “I have observed Satan fall like lightning from the sky. Behold, I have given you the power ‘to tread upon serpents’ and scorpions and upon the full force of the enemy and nothing will harm you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” (Luke 10: 17 - 20)

The 72 remained with Jesus listening to Him and then obeyed His Word, – sharing the Truth He gave them. Like Mary, and all those Jesus calls to hear Him, we too need to remain in Him, listening and pondering His Word that we may share Him with the world. Mary is full of Grace and is given to the Church as Mother and Model. How sad to see so many in the world today, ignore or treat with disrespect the Mother of God!

Pope St John Paul II saw this as far back as 1982 and said in an Address to the Legion of Mary:

… Where the Mother is, there too is the Son. When one moves away from the Mother, sooner or later he ends up keeping distant from the Son as well. It is no wonder that today, in various sectors of secularised society, we note a widespread crisis of faith in God, preceded by a drop in devotion to the Virgin Mother.

Thanks, dear Dorothy for your faithfulness to Jesus through Mary.

 

[patricius79]

Mary is full of Grace and is given to the Church as Mother and Model. How sad to see so many in the world today, ignore or treat with disrespect the Mother of God!

We can pray that this changes, because it is through staying close to Mary that we receive the fullness of Christ’s Mercy.

Pope Leo XIII wrote this in the Encyclical “Iucunda Semper”, as he talks about the power of the Rosary and Mary’s role as Mediatrix of all of our Lord’s grace:

1. If in all this series of Mysteries, Venerable Brethren, are developed the counsels of God in regard to us - “counsels of wisdom and of tenderness” (St. Bernard) - not less apparent is the greatness of the benefits for which we are debtors to the Virgin Mother. No man can meditate upon these without feeling a new awakening in his heart of confidence that he will certainly obtain through Mary the fulness of the mercies of God. And to this end vocal prayer chimes well with the Mysteries. First, as is meet and right, comes the Lord’s Prayer, addressed to Our Father in Heaven: and having, with the elect petitions dictated by Our Divine Master, called upon the Father, from the throne of His Majesty we turn our prayerful voices to Mary. Thus is confirmed that law of merciful meditation of which We have spoken, and which St. Bernardine of Siena thus expresses: “Every grace granted to man has three degrees in order; for by God it is communicated to Christ, from Christ it passes to the Virgin, and from the Virgin it descends to us.” And we, by the very form of the Rosary, do linger longest, and, as it were, by preference upon the last and lowest of these steps, repeating by decades the Angelic Salutation, so that with greater confidence we may thence attain to the higher degrees-that is, may rise, by means of Christ, to the Divine Father. For if thus we again and again greet Mary, it is precisely that our failing and defective prayers may be strengthened with the necessary confidence; as though we pledged her to pray for us, and as it were in our name, to God.
   Iucunda Semper Expectatione (September 8, 1894) | LEO XIII

 

[MariaChristi]

Dear patricius,

Thanks for your reply and the quote from Pope Leo XIII. Thanks for your “heart” also, letting us know that you appreciated today the words from St Louis de Montfort’s book, “The Love of Eternal Wisdom”

Yes, prayer to change the hearts of coldness to hearts of Love for Jesus and Mary is possible for nothing is impossible for God. Yet, we also know that God never “forces” love, but wants us to love freely. Our own hearts may feel sad knowing some continue to dishonor her and her Son, but we can remember the words of Jesus and Mary to Sister Lucia of Fatima in the apparition of 1925:

Lucia was a postulant in the Convent of St. Dorothy in Pontevedra, Spain when she had the apparition of our Blessed Mother. She was standing over a cloud of light with the Child Jesus at her side. The Blessed Virgin put one hand on Lucia’s shoulder, while her other hand sustained her Immaculate Heart that was surrounded with thorns. The Child Jesus said: "Have compassion on the Heart of your Blessed Mother. It is surrounded with thorns that ungrateful men pierce each moment, and there is no one that is willing to offer an act of reparation to take the thorns away."

Our Lady immediately said to Lucia: "Look, my daughter. My Heart is surrounded with thorns that ungrateful men pierce unceasingly with their blasphemies and ingratitude. You, at least, try to console me and announce that for all those, who for five consecutive first Saturdays, confess, receive Holy Communion, pray the Holy Rosary and accompany me for15 minutes by meditating the mysteries of the Holy Rosary with the intention to do reparation, I promise to assist them at the hour of death with the graces needed for salvation."

Let us pray fervently in reparation for our sins and the sins of the world which have so wounded the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

 

[patricius79]

Yes, Maria Christi. I’ve been ungrateful to both my earthly mom, who is very good, as well as to the Blessed Mother. By the way, my favorite term from the opening post is “the world of God”, which I think describes Mary so well.

We happily owe Mary so much for giving us birth in Christ during the Incarnation and Nativity, and under the Cross, and from Heaven.

Pope St. Pius X wrote about this tremendous mystery in the Encyclical “Ad Diem Illum”:

Wherefore in the same holy bosom of his most chaste Mother Christ took to Himself flesh, and united to Himself the spiritual body formed by those who were to believe in Him. Hence Mary, carrying the Savior within her, may be said to have also carried all those whose life was contained in the life of the Savior. Therefore all we who are united to Christ, and as the Apostle says are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones ( Ephes . v., 30), have issued from the womb of Mary like a body united to its head. Hence, though in a spiritual and mystical fashion, we are all children of Mary, and she is Mother of us all. Mother, spiritually indeed, but truly Mother of the members of Christ, who are we (S. Aug. L. de S. Virginitate, c. 6).
…
When the supreme hour of the Son came, beside the Cross of Jesus there stood Mary His Mother… And from this community of will and suffering between Christ and Mary she merited to become most worthily the Reparatrix of the lost world (Eadmeri Mon. De Excellentia Virg. Mariae , c. 9) and Dispensatrix of all the gifts that Our Savior purchased for us by His Death and by His Blood.

1. Leaving aside charity towards God, who can contemplate the Immaculate Virgin without feeling moved to fulfill that precept which Christ called peculiarly His own, namely that of loving one another as He loved us? “A great sign,” thus the Apostle St. John describes a vision divinely sent him, appears in the heavens: “A woman clothed with the sun, and with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars upon her head” ( Apoc . xii., 1). Everyone knows that this woman signified the Virgin Mary, the stainless one who brought forth our Head. The Apostle continues: “And, being with child, she cried travailing in birth, and was in pain to be delivered” ( Apoc . xii., 2). John therefore saw the Most Holy Mother of God already in eternal happiness, yet travailing in a mysterious childbirth. What birth was it? Surely it was the birth of us who, still in exile, are yet to be generated to the perfect charity of God, and to eternal happiness. And the birth pains show the love and desire with which the Virgin from heaven above watches over us, and strives with unwearying prayer to bring about the fulfillment of the number of the elect.
   Ad Diem Illum Laetissimum (February 2, 1904) | PIUS X

I like how Pope St. Pius X says that in contemplating Mary we are moved to love our neighbor as Christ loved us.

 

[MariaChristi]

Thanks again, dear patricius for another beautiful quote from one of our Popes – this time from Pope St. Pius X. The scene in Revelation - Chapter 12 in which the Apostle John describes “A Great Sign” – his vision of the Woman signifying the Virgin Mary is such a beautiful chapter and Pope St. Pius X writes beautifully about Mary in the quote you posted:

John therefore saw the Most Holy Mother of God already in eternal happiness, yet travailing in a mysterious childbirth. What birth was it? Surely it was the birth of us who, still in exile, are yet to be generated to the perfect charity of God, and to eternal happiness. And the birth pains show the love and desire with which the Virgin from heaven above watches over us , and strives with unwearying prayer to bring about the fulfillment of the number of the elect.

Anyone who has not read that entire Chapter 12 in Revealtion would be blessed to read it HERE

Mary is the Mother of God Who IS Love, and Mary strives to bring us closer to Him and to one another in His Love. By God’s Grace let us continue to strive with Her to build up the Body of Christ (cf Eph 4)

 

[Dorothy]

I say Mary leads us deeper into Jesus because she is “full of grace”…and her heart is one with Jesus.

She was given to us at the foot of the cross when Jesus said “Behold thy thy Mother”.
We can imitate her virtues, and she is a great intercessor.

 

[MariaChristi]

Dear “theorangeandblue”

Not sure if Dorothy will answer also, but I wanted to thank you for the good question you’ve asked. The Love Mary has for Jesus, conceived in her by the power of the Holy Spirit is so great that it is difficult to “count all the ways” she leads us deeper into Jesus. Let me suggest a few ways you might ponder:

During those days Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.41When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”

And Mary said: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior.
For he has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness; behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed…" (Luke 1: 39 -48)

When we prayerfully consider Mary setting out with Jesus in her womb to visit Elizabeth, we see Mary begin to lead both Elizabeth and baby John the Baptist to Jesus. The sound of her voice led Baby John to leap in his mother’s womb. Elizabeth filled with the Holy Spirit cried out "…And how does this happen that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" Elizabeth recognizes Jesus when Mary comes with Jesus-- and so it is with us. When God enables us to recognize Mary, she brings Jesus to us in ever deeper ways to bless us and learn from Him as she learned from Him.

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom He loved, He said to His mother, “Woman, behold, your son.” Then He said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his home. (Jn 19: 26-27)

In the original Greek the word “home” is not given but the phrase reads “took her into his own”. Pope St. John Paul II maintained the Greek words “into his own” imply taking Mary into his life – more than just his home. Jesus wanted John and all of us to “Behold” our Mother Mary because He wanted us to know Him more deeply and no one other human person knew Him better than Mary. When we ponder the union of Love Mary and Jesus shared we begin to go deeper into God’s love for us.

This thread on St. Louis de Montfort’s book, “The Love of Eternal Wisdom” ends with this Chapter 17 in which he shows how Mary can lead us to know Jesus Who is Eternal Wisdom. St. Louis wrote more about Mary, in his book on "[True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin].(https://www.ewtn.com/library/Montfort/TRUEDEVO.HTM) I hope you’ll read both books to see even more, how Mary can lead us deeper into Jesus .

 

[MariaChristi]

Dear “theorangeandtheblue”,

Thanks for your reply. I’m sorry that you heard St. Louis de Montort’s words as someone who seems to be: “making the Virgin Mary equal to God”. In the paragraph 208 quoted from his book on the Love of Eternal Wisdom, St. Louis wrote:

Moreover, Mary is the royal throne of Eternal Wisdom. It is in her that He shows His perfection, displays His treasures, and takes His delight. There is no place in heaven or on earth where Eternal Wisdom shows so much magnificence or finds more delight than in the incomparable Virgin Mary.

The emphasis is on Eternal Wisdom – but only on Mary because of the wonders He has worked in her Whom He chose to be the Mother of God made Man. She is HIS royal throne, HE shines through Mary who held in her womb the incarnate Son of God. She displays HIS treasures of grace bestowed upon her as the Angel called her “Full of Grace”. HE delights in her because she reflects His image as He intended and as He intends us to be like her in this world. Mary is only human – never does St. Louis de Montfort claim she is equal to God nor does any other Saint of the Catholic Church claim such, for that would be blasphemy.

Mary was gifted from her conception in a unique way by God’s Plan to be without sin and thus she is His Holy Temple where He dwells within her even as we are called to be temples of the Holy Spirit. . She possessed from the beginning of her existence all the gifts of the Holy Spirit listed in Isaiah 11 including the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom and the gift of understanding mentioned in your quote from Proverbs 9:10.

I hope and pray by God’s Grace you may see the Truth in what St. Louis has written. In his other short treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin which you can read on line by clicking on the link, he wrote:

1. With the whole Church I acknowledge that Mary, being a mere creature fashioned by the hands of God is, compared to His infinite majesty, less than an atom, or rather is simply nothing, since He alone can say, “I am He who is”. Consequently, this great Lord, who is ever independent and self-sufficient, never had and does not now have any absolute need of the Blessed Virgin for the accomplishment of His will and the manifestation of His glory. To do all things He has only to will them.
2. However, I declare that, considering things as they are, because God has decided to begin and accomplish His greatest works through the Blessed Virgin ever since He created her, we can safely believe that He will not change His plan in the time to come, for He is God and therefore does not change in His thoughts or His way of acting.

May God open the hearts of all to “see” by the Supernatural faith given in Baptism, the Love with which Jesus gave Mary to us to be our Mother and Model.

 

[MariaChristi]

I’m really sorry, dear “the orangeandblue” that you seem to hold to your own opinion on St. Louis De Montfort’s words. No reply I offered, seems to help but in fact leads you back to your own opinion you stated in your first reply.

Your reply today is now asking a question and using a scripture that brings in adoration as if to imply "devotion to Mary equals adoration of her as if she were God. " It seems to me best to end the discussion at this point.

 

[MariaChristi]

Dear OScarlett,

Thanks for your “heart”, letting us know you read and appreciated what St. Louis de Montfort wrote, in paragraphs 208, 209, and 210.

In today’s post (July 24) we continue in Chapter 17 and the title of that thread is : “What then must we do to make our hearts worthy of Him?” I think you’ll be blessed in the answer St. Louis gives us.