SPES NOSTRA SALVE.
Hail, our hope.
SECTION I.
MARY IS THE HOPE OF ALL.
Modern heretics cannot endure that we should salute Mary in this manner by calling her our hope. Hail, our hope, “spes nostra salve.” They say that God alone is our hope, and that he who places his hope in a creature is accursed of God.[227] Mary, they exclaim, is a creature, and, as a creature, how can she be our hope? Thus say the heretics, but notwithstanding this, the Church requires all the clergy, and all religious daily to raise their voices, and in the name of all the faithful, invoke and call Mary by the sweet name of our hope, the hope of all: “Hail, our hope!”
In two ways, says the angelic St. Thomas, can we place our hope in a person: as the principal cause, and as the intermediate cause. Those who hope for some favor from the king, hope for it from the king as sovereign, and hope for it from his minister or favorite as intercessor. If the favor is granted, it comes in the first place from the king, but it comes through the medium of his favorite; wherefore, he who asks a favor justly calls that intercessor his hope. The king of heaven, because he is infinite goodness, greatly desires to enrich us with his graces; but, because confidence is necessary on our part, in order to increase our confidence, he has given us his own mother for our mother and advocate, and has given her all power to aid us; and hence he wishes us to place in her all our hopes of salvation, and of every blessing. Those who place all their hope on creatures, without dependence upon God, as sinners do, who to obtain the friendship and favor of man, are willing to displease God, are certainly cursed by God, as Isaias says. But those who hope in Mary, as mother of God, powerful to obtain for them graces and life eternal, are blessed, and please the heart of God, who wishes to see that noble creature honored, who, more than all men and angels, loved and honored him in this world.
Hence, we justly call the Virgin our hope, hoping, as Cardinal Bellarmine says, to obtain by her intercession what we could not obtain by our prayers alone.[228] We pray to her, says St. Anselm, in order that the dignity of the intercessor may supply our deficiencies.[229] Therefore, the saint adds, to supplicate the Virgin with such hope, is not to distrust the mercy of God, but to fear our own unworthiness.[230]
With reason does the Church, then, apply to Mary the words of Ecclesiasticus, with which she salutes her: “Mother of holy hope;”[231] that mother who inspires us not with the vain hope of the miserable and transitory advantages of this life, but with the holy hope of the immense and eternal good of the blessed life to come. St. Ephrem thus salutes the divine mother: “Hail, hope of the soul! hail, secure salvation of Christians! hail, helper of sinners! hail, defence of the faithful, and salvation of the world!”[232] St. Basil teaches us that, next to God, we have no other hope than Mary, and for this reason he calls her: After God our only hope, “Post Deum sola spes nostra;” and St. Ephrem, reflecting on the order of Providence in this life, by which God has ordained (as St. Bernard says, and we shall hereafter prove at length) that all those who are saved must be saved by means of Mary, says to her: Oh Lady, do not cease to receive and shelter us under the mantle of thy protection, since, after God, we have no hope but thee.[233] St. Thomas of Villanova says the same thing, calling her our only refuge, help, and protection.[234]
St. Bernard assigns the reason for this by saying: Behold, oh man, the design of God, a design arranged for our benefit, that he may be able to bestow upon us more abundantly his compassion; for, wishing to redeem the human race, he has placed the price of our redemption in the hands of Mary, that she may dispense it at her pleasure.[235]
God ordered Moses to make a propitiatory of the purest gold, telling him that from it he would speak to him: “Thou shalt make also a propitiatory of the purest gold. Thence will I give orders, and will speak to thee.”[236] A certain author explains this propitiatory to be Mary, through whom the Lord speaks to men, and dispenses to them pardon, graces, and favors.[237] And therefore St. Irenæus says that the divine Word, before incarnating himself in the womb of Mary, sent the archangel to obtain her consent, because he would have the world indebted to Mary for the mystery of the incarnation.[238] Also the Idiot remarks, that every blessing, every help, every grace that men have received or will receive from God, to the end of the world, has come to them, and will come to them, through the intercession and by means of Mary.[239] Rightly, then, did the devout Blosius exclaim: Oh Mary, who art so amiable, and so grateful to him who loves thee, who will be so stupid and unhappy as not to love thee? In doubt and perplexity thou dost enlighten the minds of those who have recourse to thee in their troubles. Thou art the comfort of those who trust in thee, in time of danger. Thou dost help those who invoke thee. Thou art, continues Blosius, next to thy divine Son, the secure salvation of thy servants. Hail, then, oh hope of the despairing! Hail, helper of the destitute! Oh Mary, thou art omnipotent, since thy Son would honor thee by immediately doing all that thou desirest.[240]
St. Germanus, recognizing Mary to be the source of every blessing and the deliverance from every evil, thus invokes her: Oh my Lady, thou alone art my help, given me by God; thou art the guide of my pilgrimage, the support of my weakness, my riches in poverty, my deliverer from bondage, the hope of my salvation: graciously listen, I pray thee, to my supplications, take compassion on my sighs, thou my queen, my refuge, my life, my help, my hope, my strength.[241]