10 {INSIGHTS} On The Blessed Mother
THE BLESSED MOTHER
The following is an excerpt from, SAINTS, available for purchase in our shop here.
†She’s mentioned in the first pages of the Bible when God addresses the devil: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; she will crush your head, and you will strike her heel” (Genesis 3:15).
†In summary, God declares that since humanity fell by a woman, He will be revenged by a woman.
†In the words of Fulton Sheen, “When God willed to become Man, He had to decide on the time of His coming, the country he would be born in, the city in which He would be raised, the people, the race, the political and economic systems…the language he would speak…and all of these things depended on one thing: who His mother would be.”
†“The closer one gets to the fire, the greater the heat; the closer one is to God, the greater the purity. But since no one was ever closer to God…than no one could have been more pure than she.”
†Our free will is truly the only thing that is our own, and Mary surrendered it within a single moment to the Lord with the word, FIAT.
†Christ spent three years teaching, but before this he spent thirty years obeying his mother. In fact, it was Mary who began his ministry at Cana, when she noticed that her friends were running low on wine. This tells us that she notices what we need before we notice ourselves, and she intercedes for us before we even think about kneeling. At Cana, when Mary mentions this to Christ, he tells her, “My hour has not yet come” (John 2:4). Because of his obedience, he would do anything for her, and did, and in this exchange Mary tells him that she knows once he begins to proclaim his divinity, he won’t have much longer on earth. But he has her permission to start, and it was at Cana that Jesus performed his first miracle. She knew if he turned water into wine, someday wine would be turned to blood. Her words? “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5). And with his mother’s ok, Jesus took his first steps toward the Cross.
†From Crib to Cana, she was the mother of Jesus. From Cana to the Cross, she became the mother of Men.
“On dark nights we are grateful for the moon; when we see it shining, we know there must be a sun. So in this dark night of the world when men turn their backs on Him who is the Light of the World, we look to Mary to guide their feet while we await the sunrise.”
†According to St. Louis de Montfort, if we offer up a sacrifice to God, he may kindly deny it because it may be fraught with the self. I could run a mile and dedicate it to God, but in honesty, that run could have been because my dad told me to get off the couch; however, if we ask Mary for her intercession in everything we do, she purifies it and hands Jesus a spotless sacrifice.
†“St. Gemma Galgani…one day was interceding with Our Lord for the soul of a certain sinner…After the Savior had refused three times, St. Gemma Galgani said: ‘Then I shall ask Your Mother.’ Our Lord answered: ‘In that case, I cannot refuse.’ An hour later the sinner…made his full confession.”
†Whenever we say “Mary, Mary, Mary,” she says, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” She is like a mirror. When we give her praise, she reflects it to her Son. Have you ever heard that Mary is like the moon, and Jesus is the sun?