THE UNPARALLELED LOVE OF THE MOTHER OF GOD, OUR LADY
Always and everywhere when I make comparisons, I do not intend to speak of the most holy Virgin Mother, Our Lady. No, O God ! She is the daughter of unparalleled, pure and tender love, the absolutely unique dove, the all perfect spouse (Song 6:8). Regarding this heavenly queen, I declare from my heart this thought, loving but true: at least at the end of her mortal days her charity surpassed that of the seraphim. For if many daughters have gathered together riches, she has surpassed them all (Prov 31:29). All the saints and the angels are compared only to the stars, the foremost of all to the most beautiful of them (1 Cor 15:4; Isa 15:12). But she is as beautiful as the moon, chosen and discerned easily among the saints like the sun among the stars (Song 6:9). Furthermore, I think again that as the charity of the loving Mother surpasses the perfection of all the saints in heaven, so also she practised it more excellently, I say, even in this mortal life. The Church teaches that she never committed a venial sin. Hence, she never had any change or delay in the progress of her love. Rather she rose from love to love by a perpetual advancement. She never felt the slightest opposition of her sensual appetite. Therefore her love, like a wise Solomon, reigned peacefully in her soul and carried out everything in freedom. The virginity of her heart and body was of greater dignity and more honourable than that of the angels. That is why her heart, not divided, nor shared, as St. Paul says, (1 Cor 7:32-34) was concerned with the things of the Lord, how she would please God. Maternal love is the most urgent, most active and most ardent of all, since it is a love that is untiring and insatiable. Hence how great it must have been in the heart of such a Mother and for the heart of such a Son.
Oh! do not object, I beg of you, that this holy Virgin was, however, subject to sleep. No, do not say this to me, Theotimus. For do you not see that her sleep is a loving slumber, so that her Spouse himself wishes that she be asleep as long as it pleases her? Ah, keep well, I adjure you, he says. Wake up my beloved when she wishes (Song 8:4). Yes, Theotimus, this celestial Queen never slept except out of love. It is because she gave rest to her precious body only to reinvigorate her strength to serve her God better. Certainly this act is the most excellent act of charity. As St Augustine says, “Charity requires us to love our bodies properly." Since our bodies are required for good work, they are part of our person, and will share in eternal happiness. Indeed, a Christian should love his body as a living image of his incarnate Saviour. Having issued like him from the same stock, he belongs to him in parentage and consanguinity. Above all, we renew the covenant by the real reception of the divine body of our Redeemer in the most adorable sacrament of the Eucharist. By Baptism, confirmation and other sacraments we dedicate and consecrate ourselves to the supreme goodness of God.
As for the most holy Virgin, O God, with what devotion must she have loved her virgin body! Because it was a gentle, humble, pure body, obedient to holy love and completely anointed with a thousand holy sweetnesses. It was also the living source of our Saviour’s body. It intimately belonged to him with unparalelled closeness. That is why when she gave her angelic body rest in sleep she could say: “ Take rest, O tabernacle of the covenant, ark of sanctity, throne of God, unload a little of your weariness, regain your strength by this sweet stillness."
My dear Theotimus, do you not know that bad dreams, deliberately brought on by the evil thoughts of the day, are sinful? They are sinful to the extent that they result from the preceding evil thoughts. The dreams which proceed from the holy affections of our waking time are considered to be virtuous and holy. My God, Theotimus, what a consolation it is to hear St Chrysostom as he narrates on a certain day to his people his heartfelt love for them! “The necessity of sleep", he says, “presses our eyelids. The intensity of our love for you opens our heart’s eyes. Many a time while I am asleep, it seems to me that I am speaking to you. For a soul is accustomed to see in a dream, by imagination, what it thinks during the day. So we do not see you with the bodily eyes, but with the eyes of charity."
Ah, sweet Jesus, what dreams must your most holy Mother have had while she slept and her heart was awake? (Song 5:2). Did she not dream to see you still in her womb as you were for nine months? Or hanging at her bosom and pressing gently upon her virginal breast? Ah what sweetness [was] in this soul! Perhaps she often dreamed that as our Lord had formerly slept in her bosom like a little lamb upon its mother’s soft flank, so also she slept in his pierced side like a white dove in the cave of a rock (Song 2:14). As regards the operation of the spirit, her slumber was in every way like an ecstasy. But for her body it was a gentle gracious relief and rest. However did she ever dream, as did the ancient Joseph (Gen 37:5-10), of her future greatness when in heaven she would be clothed with the sun, crowned with stars, and have the moon under the feet (Rev 12:1)? In other words, she is completely enveloped by the glory of her Son, crowned with that of the saints and having the universe beneath her.
Like Jacob, she saw the progress and the fruits of the redemption accomplished by her Son in favour of angels and humans. Theotimus, who could ever imagine the immensity of such great delights. What conversation with her dear child! What sweetness on every side!
But see, I beg of you, that I neither say nor mean to say that this privileged Mother of God was deprived of the use of reason in her sleep. Many persons are of the opinion that Solomon in that beautiful dream, although truly a dream, asked for and received the gift of his unparalleled wisdom (I King 3: 5-15). He was truly using his free will. He held discourse with judicious eloquence, made discernment with full choice and offered the most excellent prayer. All these were without any admixture of inconsistency or distraction of mind.
But is it not much more profitable that the Mother of the true Solomon had the use of reason in her sleep? That is, as Solomon himself made her say, that her heart watched while she slept. In fact it was a great miracle that St John had the exercise of his awareness even in the womb of his mother. So should we deny a lesser miracle to her for whom God granted more graces than he ever did or ever will do for all other creatures?
To sum up, as the precious stone asbestos does by a peerless propriety preserve for ever the fire which it has received, so the Virgin Mother’s heart remained perpetually inflamed with the holy love which she received from her Son. But with this difference: that the fire of asbestos, as it cannot be extinguished, so it cannot be intensified. But the sacred flame of the Virgin could neither perish nor diminish, or remain in the same condition. It never failed to grow incredibly up to heaven, the place of its origin. So it is true that the Mother is the Mother of beautiful love. In other words, she is the most lovable, most loving and the most beloved Mother of this unique Son. He is the most lovable, the most loving and the most beloved Son of this unique Mother.