Our Lady Saint Mary

by J. G. H. Barry

hose who were faithful in Israel and were looking forward to the fulfilment of God's promises would be drawn together by close bonds of sympathy. It oftentimes proves that the bonds of a common ideal are stronger than the bonds of blood. It was to prove so many times in the history of Christianity when in accordance with our Lord's words the closest blood relation would be broken through fidelity to Him, and a man's foes be found to be those of his own household. But also it is true that the possession of common ideals becomes the basis of relations which are stronger than race or family. We may be sure that the members of that little group of which we catch glimpses now and then in the progress of the Gospel story found in their expectation of the Lord's deliverance of Israel such a bond. We feel that S. Mary and S. Joseph must have been members of this group and that they were filled with the hope of God's manifestation. Another family which shared the same hope was that of the priest Zacharias whose wife Elizabeth was the cousin of Mary of Nazareth. It is to their house in the hill country of Judah we now turn our thoughts.

It was a part of the angelic message to S. Mary that her cousin Elizabeth had "conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren." Overwhelmed as S. Mary was by the vocation which had come to her, perplexed as to what should be her next step, she may well have seized upon the words of the angel as a hint as to her present course. She must confide in some one, and that some one, we instantly feel, must be a woman. In her own great joy she would need some one with whom to share it. In her unprecedented case she would need a counselor, and who better could afford aid than her cousin whose case was in so many respects like her own, who was already cherishing a child whose conception was due to the intervention of God? We understand therefore, why it is that without waiting for the further development of events, Mary arises, and goes "with haste" to the home of her cousin.

It is just now a house full of joy. For many years there had been happiness there, but a happiness over which a cloud rested. The affliction of barrenness was their sorrow. To the Hebrew there was no true family until the love of the father and the mother was incarnated in the child; and through many weary days Zacharias and Elizabeth had waited until hope quite failed as they found themselves beyond the possibility of bearing a child to cheer them and to hand on their name. We may be sure that they were reconciled to the will of God, for it is written of them that they were righteous, and the central feature of righteousness is the acceptance of the divine will. But though one cheerfully accepts the divine will there may still remain a consciousness of a vacancy in life; and therefore we can understand the joy that came to Zacharias when the angel appeared to him in the temple when he was exercising the priest's office and offering the incense of the daily sacrifice with the message that he should have a son. It was a joy that would be unclouded by the God-sent dumbness which was at once a punishment for his lack of immediate faith and a sign of the faithfulness of God. It was a joy that would hasten his steps homeward with the glad tidings, a joy that would fill the heart of Elizabeth when she heard the message of God. Soon the consciousness of the babe in her womb would be a growing wonder and a growing happiness. There would be a new brightness in the house where the aged mother waits through the months and the dumb father with his writing tablet at his side meditates upon the meaning of the providence of God and upon the prophecies of the angel as to his child's future. But what that future would be he could hardly expect to witness; he was too old to live to the day of his child's showing unto Israel.

It is to this house that we see S. Mary hastening, sure of finding there a heart in which she can confide. She "entered into the house of Zacharias and saluted Elizabeth." We are not told what the words of her salutation were, but no doubt it was the customary Jewish salutation of peace. There could have been no more appropriate salutation exchanged between these two in whose souls was abiding the peace of a perfect possession of God. The will of God to which they had been accustomed to offer themselves all their lives was being accomplished through them in unexpected ways; but it found them as ready of acceptance as they had been in any of the ordinary duties of life wherein they had been accustomed to wait upon God. We may seem sometimes to go beyond Holy Scripture in our interpretations of feelings and thoughts which we are sure must have been those of the actors in the drama of salvation unfolded to us in the Scriptures; but are we not entitled to infer from God's actions a good deal of the nature of the instruments He uses? Are we not quite safe in the case of S. Mary in the deduction from the nature of her vocation of the spiritual perfection to attribute to her? Does not God's use of a person imply qualities in the person used? It is on this ground that I feel that we are quite safe in inferring the spiritual attitude of S. Mary and of S. Elizabeth from the choice God made of them to be the instruments of His purpose of redemption.

But we are not inferring, we have the record with us, when we think of the joy of the mothers transcended in the joy of the children. The unborn Forerunner becomes conscious of the approach of Him of whom he is to say later: "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world"; and there is an instantaneous movement that can only be that of recognition and worship. The movement of the child is at once understood and translated by S. Elizabeth: "And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy."

In the presence of such joy and such sanctity we feel that our proper attitude is the attitude of adoring wonder that S. Elizabeth expresses. We worship our hidden Lord as the unborn prophet worships Him. We have no question to ask, nor curiosity at the mode of God's action. We are quite content to accept His action as it is revealed to us in Scripture; a revelation of the divine presense in humanity which has been abundantly verified in all the history of the Church. That verification in experience--a verification that we ourselves can repeat--is worth infinitely more than all the argument that the centuries have seen.

"Blessed art thou among women," S. Elizabeth cries; and in doing so she is but repeating the words of the angel of the Annunciation. This word, too, we presently hear S. Mary taking up, and under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost saying: "From henceforth all generations shall call me blessed."

And so they have. All generations, that is, that have been faithful to the Gospel teaching and have assimilated in any degree the consequences of S. Mary's nearness to God. When we speak of "Blessed" Mary we are but doing what angels and holy women have done, and it is great pity if in doing so we have to make a conscious effort, if the words do not spring spontaneously from our lips. Surely, we have not gone far toward the mastery of God's coming in the Incarnation if we have not felt the purity of the instrument through whom God enters our nature. The outward and visible sign of our understanding is found in our ability to complete the Ave as the Holy Spirit has taught the Church to complete it: "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our death."

This reiterated attribution of blessedness to Mary our Mother calls us to pause and ask just what blessedness means. It is of course the characteristic Scripture locution for those who in some way enjoy the special favour of God. Blessedness is the state of those who have received special divine gifts of favour. A characteristic scriptural description of the blessedness of the righteous in contrast with the disaster of the unrighteous may be studied in the first Psalm. In the New Testament we naturally turn to the Sermon on the Mount where the Beatitudes give us our Lord's thought about blessedness. I think that we can describe the notion of blessedness there presented as being the state of those who have taken God at His word and chosen Him, and by that act of choice, while they have forfeited the world and the world's favour, have attained to the spiritual riches of the Kingdom of God. They are those to whom God is the Supreme Good, in whose possession they gladly count all things but loss. These are they who here in the pilgrim state have already attained to the enjoyment of God because they want nothing other or beside Him.

Supremely blessed, therefore, is Mary our Mother, who never for a moment even in thought was separate from God. From the earliest moment of her existence she could say, "My beloved is mine and I am His." We try to think out what such a fact may mean when translated into terms of spiritual energy, and it seems to mean more than anything else boundless power of intercession such as the Church has attributed to S. Mary from the earliest times. We see no other way of estimating spiritual power save as the power of prayer. It is through prayer that we approach God--for we remember that sacrifice is but the highest form of prayer. The blessedness of S. Mary, that peculiar degree of blessedness which seems signalized by the reiterated attribution of the quality to her, must for our purposes to be understood as "power with God," power of intercession. It means that our Lord has chosen her to be a special medium of approval to Him, and that through her prayers He wills to bestow upon men many of His choicest gifts. Naturally, her prayers, like our prayers, are mediated by the merits of her divine Son; nevertheless they have a peculiar power which is related to her peculiar blessedness in that she is the mother of Incarnate God, and by special privilege is herself without sin. Of all those to whom we are privileged to turn in the joys and tragedies of our lives for the sympathy which helps through enlightened, loving prayer, we most naturally resort to her who is all love and all sympathy, Mary, the Mother of Jesus, blessed among women forever.