MEDITATION VI
The Aid of Mary to Attain Perfection
1st Prelude. See the Blessed Virgin Mary in Heaven, surrounded by the Saints of our Society.
2nd Prelude. Ask for a fervent devotion to her.
POINT I. Consider what part God has assigned to her, in the salvation and sanctification of mankind.
The first promise of the Redeemer referred to her as destined to crush the serpent’s head. The work of the redemption began with her at the Annunciation. At her voice Elizabeth and her child were filled with the Holy Ghost. As through Mary Jesus was given to the world, so through her He is given to His servants individually. As she was with Jesus all through His life on earth, so Mary is ever ready to aid each one of us all through our earthly pilgrimage. On Calvary all of us were committed to her care in the person of St. John. In her company the disciples received the Holy Ghost. She has been bodily taken up to Heaven to intercede for us with the Lord, and to beckon us on to follow her. She is daily co-operating for the sanctification of numberless souls through her multifarious religious Orders and Congregations, her Rosary and Scapular Societies and divers other Confraternities, etc., St. Liguori and various other Doctors say that every grace given to men passes through her hands and that a true child of Mary is never lost.
POINT II. Consider what the Blessed Virgin Mary has been to our Society in particular. She appeared to St. Ignatius at Loyola, set the seal on his conversion and freed him once for all from temptations of the flesh; she made him her devoted Knight at Mont-Serrat; she aided him in composing his Spiritual Exercises at Manresa; she received the first vows of the little band at Montmartre on the feast of her Assumption. She figures most conspicuously in the lives of all our Saints; of St. Stanislaus, St. Aloysius, St. John Berchmans, St. Alphonsus, Blessed Baldinucci, etc., etc. She has given us the direction of her Sodalities, and by its means has helped us to promote piety and purity among countless numbers of her clients. Thank her warmly for all she has done in our favor, and ask an increase of sanctity for yourself and for all your religious brethren.
POINT III. Let each one consider what favors he personally owes to the Blessed Virgin. Retrace in mind your practices of devotion to her from your early childhood to the present day. Offer once more all you have ever done in her honor. Think of the protection she has afforded you with a mother’s love, her probable influence on your vocation to the Society, on your novice fervor, on all your religious life up to the present day. Is there any devotion which you ever practised in her honor and which you have since discontinued? With what fervor do you daily honor her? Could you do more to honor or to please her? either by your own conduct or by your influence over others?
Colloquy. Speak to Mary confidently and lovingly, asking for light and grace to improve further in your zeal for her glory.