Our Lady Saint Mary

by J. G. H. Barry

She brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped
him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger;
because there was no room for them in the inn.
S. Luke II. 7.

It is very meet to bless thee who bore the Christ, O ever Blessed and Immaculate Mother of God. More wondrous than the Cherubim and of greater glory than the Seraphim art thou who remaining Virgin didst give birth to God the Word. Verily, do we magnify thee, O Mother of God. In thee, O full of grace, all creation exults, the hierarchy of angels and the race of men. In thee sanctified temple, spiritual paradise, glory of virgins, of whom God took flesh, through whom our God Who was before the world became a Child. Of thy womb He made a throne, and its dominion is more extensive than the heavens. In thee, O full of grace, all creation exults: glory to thee.

RUSSIAN.

e see a man and a woman on the road to Bethlehem where they are going to be taxed according to the decree of Augustus. Bethlehem would be known to them as the home of their ancestors, for they were both of the lineage of David. It was a painful journey for them for Mary was near the time of her delivery. We follow them along the road and into the village, as the twilight fades, and see them seeking shelter for the night. Bethlehem is a small place and the inn is crowded with those who have come on the errand with them, and the only place where they can find refuge for the night is a stable. But they are not used to luxury, and the stable serves their purpose.

It also serves God's purpose. One understands as one reads this narrative of the Nativity what is meant by the Providential government of the world. We see how various lines of action, each free and independent, yet converge to the production of a given event. The different characters in the drama are all pursuing their own courses and yet the result is a true drama, not an unrelated series of events. Caesar's action, Joseph's lineage, our Lord's conception, all working together, bring about the fulfilment of prophecy by the birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem. There is in the universe an over-ruling will which works to its ends by co-operating with human freedom, and not destroying it. We are not the sport of chance, not the slaves of fate, but free men; and yet through our freedom, through our blunders and rebellions and sins as well as through our obedience, the work of God is moving to its conclusion. Man did all that he could to defeat the ends of God and to thwart God's purpose of redemption. Yet on a certain night in Bethlehem of Judea the light of God overcame the human darkness, and the voices of God's angels pierced the human tumult, and Jesus Christ was born. "God of the substance of his Father begotten before all worlds, man of the substance of his mother, born in the world; perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting."

The manifestation came to certain shepherds watching their flocks in the fields about Bethlehem; simple men, quite unable to take in the meaning of what they see and hear. One cannot help thinking of what it would have meant in the way of an intellectual revolution if to some Greek or Roman philosopher, speculating on the destiny of humanity, the truth could have come that the future of the world was not in the court of Augustus, that it was not dependent on the Roman armies or Greek learning, but that it was bound up in the career and teaching of a Baby that night born in a stable in an obscure village in Judea. As we imagine such a case we see in the concrete the meaning of the revolution set in motion by this single event; and we are led to adore the ways of God in that He has chosen for the final approach to man for the purpose of redemption, this way of simplicity and humbleness. Man would not have thought of this as the best path for God to follow in this purpose of rescue, but we can be wise after the event and see that this Child born in poverty and obscurity would have fewer entanglements to break through, fewer obstacles to overcome.

But these thoughts are far away from the night in Bethlehem. In the stable there where a Baby is lying in Mary's arms and Joseph stands looking on, there is no speculation about the world-consequences of the event. There is rather the splendour of love: the love of the mother in the new found mystery of this her Child; the love of God who has given her the Child. And all is a part of the great mystery of love, of the love wherewith God loves the world. "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." Here is the Son, lying in Mary's arms, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and Mary looks into His face as any human mother looks into the face of her child. But through the eyes that smile up into Mary's face, God is looking out on a world of sorrow and pain and sin that He has come to redeem, and for which, in redeeming it, to die. Presently, the shepherds come in and complete the group, the representatives of universal humanity at the birth of their King, We have the whole world-problem in small, but here there is no consciousness of it. No echo of world-politics or of movements of thought break in here. But we know that here is the beginning of that which will set at naught world-politics and revolutionise movements of thought, that here is the centre about which humanity will move in the coming time. Here is that which is fundamental and abiding because here is the one invincible power of the universe--love. All else will fail: prophecies, systems of philosophy, religions, political and social structures; each in the time of its flourishing, proclaiming itself the last word of human wisdom,--these in bewildering succession have arisen and passed away. But love has survived them all. Love never faileth; through the slow succession of the centuries it is winning the world to God.

It were well if we could learn to look on the happenings of this world as the miracles of divine love. We think of the power, the justice, the judgment of God as visible in this world's history; but these are but the instruments of love, and all that He does has its foundation in love and receives its impulse from love. This Nativity is the divine love coming into the world on its last adventure, determined to win man, all other means failing, by the extremity of sacrifice. The final word about this Child will be that having loved his own He loved them unto the uttermost, he loved them without stinting, with the uttermost capacity of love. Understanding this meaning of the love of God, we are prepared for the further fact that God uses all sorts of instruments as the instruments of His love. He shares Himself. He pours Himself into human life. He takes men into partnership in the work of redemption. Whenever a soul is mastered by love, it becomes a tool in God's hands. The progress of the Church--of God's Kingdom--might be described as the accumulation of these tools wherewith God works--souls who are so devoted to Him as to be the medium of bringing His power, the power of love, to bear on the souls of their brethren.

To be the highest, the most perfect, of all the instruments of redemption God chose Mary of Nazareth to be the Mother of His Son. She is the most complete human embodiment of God's love. She, in her perfect purity, can transmit that love as power with the least loss of energy in the process of transmission. When we think of the saints as the means of God's action, we think of blessed Mary as the highest of the saints and the means most perfectly adapted to God's ends. Here at Bethlehem she holds God in her arms and looks into the human face that He has taken for this present work and all her being is absorbed in love. Oblivious, we think her, of her mean surroundings, of the animals that share with her their stable, of the shepherds who come in and look on in wonder, of S. Joseph standing by in sympathy. Love is all. Love is a passion consuming her being--what can the attendant circumstances matter? And to-day, after all these centuries: to-day the Child is the Ascended and Enthroned Redeemer, His risen and glorified humanity, transmitting something of the divine glory, seated at the right hand of the Majesty of God. And Mary, the Mother? Can we have any other thought than that she who on the first Christmas morning looks into the face of her Baby, still, to-day, looks up into the face of her divine Son, and the look is the same look of love? And can we think of the look that comes back to her from eyes that are human, taken from her body, though they be in very truth the eyes of God--can we think, I say, of the eyes of her Child and her God bringing anything else than the message of love? Can we think that when in answer to our invocation she presents our prayers in union with her own, that love will fail?