Prayer.
O Lord Jesus, Who didst, for the love of us, etc., etc.
Eighth Day.
The faith of the Catholic Church on the conception of Mary, is this: that, at the very instant when God united the soul of Mary, which He had [pg 511] created with a special regard to the Mother of His divine Son, to the body which it was to animate, this ever blessed soul not only did not contract the stain of that curse which defiles every human soul, but was filled with an immeasurable grace, which rendered it from that moment the mirror of sanctity of God Himself, as far as this is possible to a creature. It was due to His own infinite sanctity that God should suspend, in this instance, the law which His divine justice had passed upon all the children of Adam. The relations which Mary was to bear to the divinity could not be reconciled with her undergoing the humiliations of man's punishment. She was not only the Daughter of the eternal Father: she was destined also to become the very Mother of the Son, and the Bride of the Holy Ghost. Nothing defiled could be permitted to enter, even for the shortest time, that sacred structure.
Prayer.
O Lord Jesus, Who didst, for the love of us, etc., etc.
Ninth Day.
St. Anselm, a Doctor of the Church, tells us, in his time, when the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception had not yet been declared, that, “It was just that this holy Virgin should be adorned with the greatest purity which can be conceived, after that of God Himself, since God the Father was to give her as her Child that only-begotten Son, Whom He loved as Himself, as being begotten to Him from His own bosom, and this in such a manner that the self-same Son of God was by nature the Son [pg 512] of both God the Father, and of this Blessed Virgin. This same Son chose her to be substantially His Mother: and the Holy Ghost willed that in her womb He would operate the conception and birth of Him from Whom He Himself proceeded.” When we remember that Mary is the “Mother of God,” so far from being surprised at the privileges which we see the Church giving her, we approve of all. That the Almighty would shower down upon her the choicest graces of heaven, and by special privileges distinguish her from all the children of God, seems only just. Mary was so surrounded and strengthened by grace that she never committed the least sin during her life.