You are the Mother of Jesus, Who has deigned to become our Brother, and hence you are our Mother; why, then, shall we not cast ourselves into your arms with perfect confidence, invoking your maternal love and imitating your virtues? O God, what a blessing for us to be sons of such a Mother! If we love and serve her with a truly filial love, she will enrich us with her favours. And, meanwhile, let us present her with the flowers of every virtue: but, above all, with the lily of purity, the rose of ardent charity, and the violets of holy humility and simplicity. She loves nothing so much as hearts deepened by humility, opened by simplicity, and enlarged by charity; and she prefers to be in the company of souls near the manger and at the foot of the Cross; that is, with the poor and the afflicted, in order to succour and console them.
[1] Happy the soul who, like a good child in regard of her parents, sees only Jesus and Mary, converses only with Jesus and Mary, and whose only joy and desire in this world is to know Mary in Jesus and Jesus in Mary. This is a wonderful means, given us by God, of spending our lives holily during our sorrowful sojourn in this present life.—(J. J. OLIER.)
SPIRITUAL FLOWERS.
Mary is like a lily amidst thorns: she loves and suffers at the same time. When the thorns are blown about by the wind, they tear the lily on all sides; but it revenges itself by causing to exhale, through the apertures of its wounds, a sweet fragrance, which perfumes the thorns that have so cruelly wounded it. In imitation of Mary, figured by the lily amidst thorns, let your only revenge for your afflictions be to increase your love for those who are the cause of your pains.—Père Avrillion.
Mary is compared to the white lily, on account of her innocence and exemption from all sin; and as the lily is beautiful amongst the thorns where it has sprung up, so was Mary distinguished amidst the women of Judea. The lily loses nothing of its whiteness, although amongst thorns, and the august Virgin, tortured in the Person of her Son, by the Jewish Deicides, preserved the innocency of her soul and the purity of her heart, rendering good for evil.—St. Francis of Sales.
Mary is that most beautiful and lofty cedar, from which God detached the finest branch, to transplant it on Calvary.—The same.
Lose not sight of eternity, and the adversities of this life will not trouble you.—The same.
The 'Regina Cœli.'
Baronius and St. Gregory of Nyssa relate that in the year 690 the city of Rome was in danger of becoming a desert, on account of the number of persons who became victims to a terrible pestilence. St. Gregory, surnamed the Great, successor to Pope Gelasius II., who had fallen a victim to this disease, saw that all human precautions and resources were of no avail, and he resolved to have recourse to the Mother of God. He gave orders that the picture of the Most Holy Virgin—which is believed to have been painted by St. Luke—should be carried in a general procession of all the Clergy and laity, as far as Santa Maria Maggiore. The violence of the plague was such that eighty persons perished during the procession; but before its termination an Angel was seen in human form above Adrian's Tower (called afterwards the Castle of St. Angelo, in memory of this event), sheathing a sword tinged with blood, as in the time of David; and from that moment the pestilence completely ceased. At the same time many voices were heard in the air, singing: Regina cœli, lætare, alleluia; quia quem meruisti portare, alleluia; resurrexit sicut dixit, alleluia—'Rejoice, O Queen of Heaven, for He Whom you deserved to bear has risen, as He said, from the grave; God be praised.' The Holy Pontiff immediately added: Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluia—'Pray to God for us, God be praised.'