This principle being kept in view, how can we be justly accused of slighting God's majesty by invoking the intercession of His handmaid?
If a beggar asks and receives alms from me through my servant, should I be offended at the blessings which he invokes upon her? Far from it. I accept them as intended for myself, because she bestowed what was mine, and with my consent.
Our Lord says to His Apostles: “I dispose to you a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom and may sit upon thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”[268] And St. Paul says: “Know you not that we shall judge angels, how much more things of this world?”[269] If the Apostles may sit at the table of the Lord in heaven without prejudice to His majesty, surely Our Lady can stand as an advocate before Him without infringing on His rights. If they can exercise the dread prerogative of judges of angels and of men without trespassing on the Divine judgeship of Jesus, surely Mary can fulfill the more modest function of intercessor with her Son without intruding on His supreme mediatorship, for higher is the office of judge than that of advocate. And yet, while no one is ever startled at the power given to the Apostles, many are impatient of the lesser privilege claimed for Mary.
III. Is It Lawful To Imitate Her As A Model?
But while the exalted privileges of Mary render her worthy of our veneration, while her saintly influence renders her worthy of our invocation, her personal life is constantly held up to us as a pattern worthy of our imitation. If she occupies so prominent a place in our pulpits, this prominence is less due to her prerogatives as a mother, or to her intercession as a patroness, than to her example as a Saint.
After our Lord Jesus Christ, no one has ever exercised so salutary and so dominant an influence as the Blessed Virgin on society, on the family and on the individual.
The Mother of Jesus exercises throughout the Christian commonwealth that hallowing influence which a good mother wields over the Christian family.
What temple or chapel, how rude soever it may be, is not adorned with a painting or a statue of the Madonna? What house is not embellished with an image of Mary? What Catholic child is a stranger to her familiar face?
The priest and the layman, the scholar and the illiterate, the prince and the peasant, the mother and the maid, acknowledge her benign sway.