Appealing to the Bride, Provoking Mary’s Name
Hi! Indeed providential, the Church celebrates
today the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary! “Let us all rejoice in the Lord, as we
celebrate the feast day in honor of the Virgin Mary, at whose Assumption the Angles
rejoice and praise the Son of God.” “All generations will call me blessed, for
He who is mighty has done great things for me.” Together let us join in
invoking Our Lady “Cor Mariae
Dulcissimum, iter para tutum; Cor Mariae Dulcissimum, iter serva tutum.” Most Sweet Heart of Mary, prepare a safe way;
Most Sweet Heart of Mary keep the way safe.”
Following is the next
excerpt on Appealing to Our Lady as Bride and provoking her
name (From
Joseph Tissot, How to profit from your
faults, Pp 126-128). We have done it above. Let us make it a point to do it more
often during the day. The effort in the
end will do yourself and myself a lot of good in our daily life, keeping Our
Lady, our mother always present in everything we do during the day.
While crossing the Red Sea, the Egyptians, who
symbolize sinners, were swallowed up by angry waves. There was no Ark there. However, when the Jordan was crossed there
were no victims. The Ark of the
Covenant, the Seat of Mercy, kept all chastisement at a distance. Without Mary, there is every reason to fear
God’s vengeance. But with God dwelling
in the propitiatory ark, one expects nothing but blessings. So also, as long as Simon sees the Messiah in
the arms of his Mother, he proclaims Israel’s salvation. And when he holds him in his own arms, he
sees in him the destruction and the resurrection of many (Lk 2:34).
O sinner! You should tremble if you separate Christ from Mary. But when you are in the arms of this loving
Queen, pray to him full of trust. For
she is mercy on his pedestal, the flower on his branch, the water in his ocean.
The son of God, made Man, while in the bosom of the
Father, drew out the attributes of divine fatherhood. He clothed himself with motherly feelings
while in the bosom of his Mother. Taking
an authoritative text of St Ambrose, a famous theologian (Christopher de Bega, Theologia mariana) concludes
effortlessly: Mary increased the
clemency of the God she begot and crowned his head with diadem of eternal
mercy.
The same theologian adds: Truly foolish were the virgins who slept
without oil in their lamps. But still
more foolish were they when, after being spurned by the bridegroom, they did
not beseech the help of the bride, that is to say, Mary. They cry out, Lord, Lord, open to us (Mt
5:11). They appeal to the Judge. From his justice they get the answer they
deserved. I do not know you. Why did they not appeal to the Bride and cry
out: “Our Lady! Our Lady!” With this
name alone, they would have received their favor.
Invoking
Mary’s Name
O sinner!
Whoever you are, and even if one foot is already in Hell, and your heart
if full of despair, look at Mary. Think
of her, (St. Bernard, Homily 2 on the Nativity) and you will regain your
innocence and peace. It is the Virgin
Mary herself who revealed to St. Brigid that anyone (unless he has been already
damned) who invokes her name will get rid of his sins. The devil, for his part, will take to his
heels no sooner than he hears the name of Mary being invoked (Revelat., I, 9).
The Apostle of Chablais narrates the following
incident: A frightened bird was caught
by a sparrow-hawk. However, the
sparrow-hawk, on hearing the name of Mary uttered by the bird, released its
prey. This bird had learned that name in
the monastery. If such be the case of a
bird, then will the sinner not escape from the claws of Satan if he invokes
this all-powerful name? According to the
sacred text, her name should be spiraculum
hominis, our breath. In fact, a
Father of the Church says it is through Mary that his guilty soul breathes and
prepares to obtain forgiveness.
A modern writer is still more explicit. In a daring comparison, he points out the
role of the Mother of God for those whom sin has wounded or killed. “Every heartbeat has a double action and is
made up of two movements. While one
draws in the used blood from the organs, the other releases fresh blood. This is because the heart itself is
double. It is as if two hearts are in
one: one more active and the other more
passive; one that gives life, the other that takes death back and replaces it
with life. One verifies, while the other
purifies.
In the midst of a regenerated world, such is also
the role of the Heart, of this Heart made up of two souls living in one, the
soul of Jesus and the soul of Mary. The
soul of Jesus is the living side of the world’s heart. The soul of Mary is, by the grace of Jesus,
the side through which what is dead returns to life.
It carries humanity’s dead blood to him who is Life
itself. And from there, once renewed, it
is sent back by Jesus into the world, alive and divine. The Word, through the Incarnation, has deified
the blood. But it is the Virgin who gave
the Word the matter to be deified” (P. Gratry, Month of Mary of the Immaculate Conception).
There you have more than
enough to talk with Jesus and Mary in your quiet moments of prayer. May you and I always capture and heed the
inspirations and motions of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and minds.
See
you in the next post, “May tomorrow be a perfect day; may
you find love and laughter along the way; may God keep you in his tender care;
‘til He brings us together again.”
Affectionately,
Guadalupinky
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