But let us not wander from our point, let us consider the great humility of the Virgin in this answer. She was indeed well enlightened to understand how great was the dignity of the mother of God. She already had been assured by the angel that she was this happy mother chosen by the Lord. But with all this she is not at all raised in her own esteem, stops not at all to enjoy her exaltation, but considering on one side her own nothingness, and on the other the infinite majesty of her God, who chose her for his mother, she knows how unworthy she is of such an honor, but would by no means oppose herself to his will. Hence, when her consent was asked, what does she do? what does she say? Wholly annihilated as to self; all inflamed, on the other hand, with the desire of uniting herself thus more closely to God, by entirely abandoning herself to the divine will: Behold, she answers, behold the handmaid of the Lord: “Ecce ancilla Domini.” Behold the slave of the Lord; obliged to do whatever her Lord commands. And she intended to say: If the Lord chooses me for his mother, who have nothing of my own; if all that I have is his gift, who could think that he selects me for any merit of my own? Behold the handmaid of the Lord. What merit can a slave have, to be made the mother of her Lord? Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Let the goodness of God alone be praised, and not the slave; since it is wholly his goodness which has led him to place his eye on a creature so lowly as I, and make her so great.
Oh humility, exclaims here Guerric the Abbot; small in its own eyes, great in the eyes of God! Insufficient to itself, sufficient to him whom the whole world cannot contain![1116] But still more beautiful on this occasion is the exclamation of St. Bernard, which he makes in the fourth sermon on the Assumption of Mary, in which, admiring the humility of Mary, he says: Oh Lady, how have you been able to unite in your heart such an humble esteem of yourself with so much purity, so much innocence, and with such fulness of grace[1117] as thou dost possess! And whence, oh blessed Virgin, did this humility, this so great humility, take such deep root in thee, when thou wast so honored and exalted by God?[1118] Lucifer, seeing himself endowed with great beauty, aspired to exalt his throne above the stars, and make himself like to God.[1119] Now what would not that proud spirit have said and attempted if he had seen himself adorned with the privileges of Mary? Not so the humble Mary; the more she saw herself exalted, the more she humbled herself. Ah Lady, for this beautiful humility, concludes St. Bernard, thou hast indeed merited to be regarded by God with peculiar love, to charm thy King with thy beauty; to draw him with the sweet odor of thy humility from his repose in the bosom of God, into thy most pure womb.[1120] Hence St. Bernardine de Bustis says, that Mary merited more by that answer: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord,” than all creatures could merit by their works.[1121]
Thus, says St. Bernard, this innocent Virgin, although by her virginity she rendered herself dear to God, yet by humility afterwards rendered herself worthy, as much as a creature can render itself worthy, to be made the mother of her Creator. Although she pleased by her virginity, by her humility she conceived: “Etsi placuit ex virginitate, tamen ex humilitate concepit.”[1122] And St. Jerome confirms this by saying, that God chose her for his mother more for her humility, than for all her other sublime virtues.[1123] Mary herself expressed this to St. Bridget, by saying to her: How did I merit such a grace to be made the mother of my Lord, if not because I knew my nothingness, and humiliated myself?[1124] And this she declared before in her Canticle, so full of the deepest humility, when she said: “Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid.... He that is mighty hath done great things to me.”[1125] Upon which words St. Lawrence Justinian remarks, that the blessed Virgin does not say, he regarded my virginity, my innocence, but only my humility.[1126] And by this humility, as St. Francis de Sales remarks, Mary did not intend to praise the virtue of her humility, but wished to proclaim that God had regarded her nothingness, humility, that is, nothingness: “Humilitatem, id est nihilitatem,” and through his pure goodness had willed thus to exalt her.
In a word, St. Augustine says that the humility of Mary was like a ladder, by which our Lord deigned to descend upon earth to become man in her womb.[1127] And St. Antoninus confirms this by saying that the humility of the Virgin was her most perfect and the next preparation to become the mother of God.[1128] And by this is explained what Isaias predicted: “And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root.”[1129] The blessed Albertus Magnus remarks, that the divine flower, namely, the only-begotten of God, according to Isaias, would come forth, not from the top or the trunk of the tree of Jesse, but from its root, which precisely denotes the humility of the mother.[1130] And this is more clearly explained by the Abbot of Celles. Observe, says he, that not from the top, but from the root the flower is to spring up.[1131] And therefore our Lord said to this his beloved daughter: “Turn away thy eyes from me, for they have made me flee away.”[1132] And from whence flee, unless from the bosom of the Father to the womb of Mary?[1133] as St. Augustine says. Upon which the learned interpreter Fernandez observes, that the most humble eyes of Mary, with which she always contemplated the divine greatness, never losing sight of her nothingness, did such violence to God himself that they drew him into her bosom.[1134] And by this we are to understand, says Francone the Abbot, why the Holy Spirit so much praised the beauty of this his spouse for her eyes, which were like those of a dove: “How beautiful art thou, my love! how beautiful art thou! thy eyes are like doves’ eyes;”[1135] because Mary, looking on God with the eyes of a simple, humble dove, he was so much enamored of her beauty, that with the bands of love she made him a prisoner in her virginal womb; these are the words of the abbot: In what place on the earth could so beautiful a virgin be found, who could allure the King of heaven by her eyes, and by a holy violence lead him captive, bound in the chains of charity?[1136] We will conclude this point by remarking that Mary, in the incarnation of the Word, as we have seen from the beginning, could not have humiliated herself more than she did. Let us now see how God could exalt her no higher than he did by making her his mother.
Point Second.—In order to comprehend the greatness to which Mary was elevated, it would be necessary to comprehend the sublime majesty and grandeur of God. It is sufficient, then, only to say, that God made this Virgin his mother, to have it understood that God could not exalt her more than he did exalt her. Rightly did St. Arnold Carnotensis affirm, that God, by making himself the Son of the Virgin, established her in a superior rank to all the saints and angels: “Maria constituta est super omnem Creaturam.”[1137] So that, next to God, she is incomparably higher than the celestial spirits, as St. Ephrem asserts: “Nulla comparatione cæteris superis est gloriosior.”[1138] St. Andrew of Crete confirms this, saying: God excepted, she is the highest of all: “Excepto Deo, omnibus est altior.”[1139] And St. Anselm also says: Oh Lady, there is none equal to thee, because every other is above or beneath thee; God alone is superior to thee, and all others are inferior.[1140] So great, in a word, says St. Bernardine, is the exaltation of this Virgin, that God alone is able to comprehend it.[1141]
This removes the surprise expressed by some persons, remarks St. Thomas of Villanova, that the holy Evangelists, who have so fully recorded the praises of a Baptist and a Magdalene, have been so brief in their descriptions of the privileges of Mary; for, says the saint, it was enough to say of her, that from her Jesus was born.[1142] What more would you wish the Evangelists to say, continues the saint, of the grandeur of this Virgin? let it be enough for you, that they attest her to be the mother of God. Having recorded in these few words the greatest, and, indeed, the whole of her merits, it was not necessary for them to describe each separately.[1143] And why not? because, as St. Anselm answers: To say of Mary this alone, that she was the mother of a God, transcends every glory that can be attributed to her, in thought or word, after God.[1144] Peter of Celles adds, remarking on this same thought: By whatever name you may wish to call her, whether queen of heaven, ruler of the angels, or any other title of honor, you will never succeed in honoring her so much as by calling her only the mother of God.[1145]
The reason of this is evident, for as the angelic Doctor teaches: The nearer a thing approaches its author, the greater the perfection it receives from him; therefore, Mary being the creature nearest to God, she has partaken more than all others of his grace, perfection, and greatness.[1146] To this Father Suarez traces the cause why the dignity of mother of God is of an order superior to any other created dignity; because it appertains, in a certain manner, to the order of union with a divine person, with which union it is necessarily connected.[1147] Hence St. Denis the Carthusian asserts, that after the hypostatic union, there is none more intimate than the union of the mother of God with her Son.[1148] This, as St. Thomas teaches, is the highest union that a pure creature can have with God.[1149] And the blessed Albertus Magnus affirms, that to be mother of God is a dignity next to that of being God;[1150] therefore he says, that Mary could not be more united to God than she was, without becoming God.[1151]
St. Bernardine affirms, that in order to become mother of God, it was requisite that the holy Virgin should be exalted to a certain equality with the divine Persons, by a certain infinity of graces.[1152] And as children are esteemed morally one with their parents, so that their possessions and honors are in common, therefore St. Peter Damian says, that if God dwells in creatures in different modes, he dwelt in Mary in a singular mode of fitness, making himself one with her.[1153] And he exclaims in these celebrated words: Here let every creature be silent and tremble, and scarcely dare to behold the immensity of so great a dignity. God dwells in a virgin with whom he has the identity of one nature.[1154]
St. Thomas asserts, that Mary, being made mother of God, by reason of this close union with an infinite good, received a certain infinite dignity, which Father Suarez calls infinite of its kind.[1155] The dignity of mother of God is the highest dignity which can be conferred on a pure creature. The angelic Doctor teaches, that the humanity of Jesus Christ, though it might have received greater habitual grace from God, yet, as to the union with a divine Person, could not receive greater perfection; so, on the other hand, the blessed Virgin could receive no greater dignity than to be the mother of God. For as habitual grace (this is his reasoning) is a created gift, we must acknowledge that its essence is finite. The capacity of every creature is limited in measure, which however prevents not the divine power from being able to form another creature of greater capacity.[1156] Though the divine power may create something greater and better than the habitual grace of Christ, yet it could not destine it to any thing greater than was the personal union of the only begotten Son with the Father.[1157] The blessed Virgin, because she is mother of God, has a certain infinite dignity from the infinite good, which is God; and in this respect nothing greater can be created.[1158] St. Thomas of Villanova says the same thing: Certainly there is something infinite in being the mother of the Infinite One.[1159] And St. Bernardine says, that the state to which God exalted Mary as his mother was the highest, so that he could exalt her no higher.[1160] And this is confirmed by Albertus Magnus. The Lord conferred on the blessed Virgin the highest gift which any pure creature was capable of receiving, namely, the maternity of God.[1161]
Therefore St. Bonaventure wrote that celebrated sentence, that God could make a greater world, a greater heaven, but could not exalt a creature to greater excellence than by making her his mother.[1162] But better than all others has the divine mother herself described the height to which God had elevated her when she said: He that is mighty hath done great things to me: “Fecit mihi magna qui potens est.”[1163] And why has the holy Virgin never made known what were the great favors conferred upon her by God? St. Thomas of Villanova answers, that Mary did not explain them, because they were so great that they could not be explained.[1164]