The Mother of the Savior by Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange

[Stone]

PART I. THE DIVINE MATERNITY AND THE PLENTITUDE OF GRACE

CHAPTER 1. THE DIVINE MATERNITY: ITS EMINENT DIGNITY

THE two truths which stand out like mountain peaks in the chain of revelation concerning Our Blessed Lady, and around which cluster all other truths we hold about her, are her divine maternity and her fullness of grace, both of which are affirmed in the Gospels and in the Councils of the Church. To grasp their importance it will be well to compare them, asking which of the two comes first, and gives, as it were, the true Pisgah view of all Mariology. In that spirit have theologians enquired which was the greater of Mary’s prerogatives, her divine maternity (her motherhood of God) or her fullness of grace.


THE PROBLEM STATED

There have been theologians2 who have declared Mary’s fullness of grace her greatest prerogative. The words spoken to Jesus by a certain woman as He passed in the midst of the people, and His answer, have led them to adopt this position: “Blessed is the womb that bore Thee, and the paps that gave thee suck. But He said: Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it.” (Luke 11: 27–28). On their view the Saviour’s answer implies that the fullness of grace and of charity which was the principle of Mary’s supernatural and meritorious acts was superior to her divine maternity, a privilege in itself of the corporeal order only.

According to many other theologians3 the reason given just now is not conclusive. Their arguments are many. They say that the woman in question did not speak precisely of the divine maternity: she thought of Jesus less as God than as a prophet whose words were heard eagerly, who was admired and acclaimed, and she was thinking therefore of a natural motherhood according to flesh and blood: “Blessed is the womb that bore thee and the paps that gave thee suck.” She did not speak of the divine maternity as of something which included a supernatural and meritorious consent to the mystery of the redemptive Incarnation. That was why Our Blessed Lord answered as He did: “Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it.” For it was precisely by hearing the word of God and believing in it that Mary became Mother of the Saviour. She said her fiat generously and with perfect conformity of will to God’s good pleasure and all it involved for her, and she kept the divine words in her heart from the time of the Annunciation onwards. Elisabeth, for her part, expressed this when she said: “Blessed art thou that hast believed, because those things be shall accomplished which were spoken to thee by the Lord” (Luke 1:45). What a contrast with Zachary who was struck dumb for not having believed the words of the Angel Gabriel: “And behold thou shalt be dumb . . . because thou hast not believed my words.” (Luke 1:20).

Nothing said so far, therefore, is sufficient to solve the problem: which was the greater, the divine maternity as realized in Mary or her fullness of grace and charity?

We must search deeper for a solution. To make the terms of the problem still more precise, it should be noted that the maternity proper to a creature endowed with reason is not the maternity according to flesh and blood which is found in the animal kingdom, but something which demands by its very nature a free consent given by the light of right reason to an act which is under the control of the will and is subject to the moral laws governing the married state: failing this, the maternity of a rational being is simply vicious. But the maternity of Mary was more than rational. It was divine. Hence her consent needed to be not free only, but supernatural and meritorious: and the intention of divine providence was that in default of this consent the mystery of the redemptive Incarnation would not have taken place—she gave her consent, St. Thomas says, in the name of mankind (Ilia, q. 30, a. 2).

Hence the maternity we are discussing is not one which is merely of flesh and blood, but one which by its nature included a supernatural consent to the mystery of the redemptive Incarnation which was about to be realized, and to all the suffering it involved according to the messianic prophecies—especially those of Isaias—all of which Mary knew so well. There can, in consequence, be no question of any divine maternity for Mary except a worthy one: in the designs of God she was to be a worthy Mother of the Redeemer, united perfectly in will to her Son. Tradition supports this by saying that her conceiving was twofold, in body and in soul: in body, for Jesus is flesh of her flesh, the flame of His human life having been lit in the womb of the Virgin by the most pure operation of the Holy Ghost: in soul, for Mary’s express consent was needed before the Word assumed our nature in her.

To the problem so stated the great majority of theologians answer that tradition teaches that the divine maternity, defined in the Council of Ephesus, is higher than the fullness of grace, and that Mary’s most glorious title is that of Mother of God. The reasons for their answer are as follows. We ask the reader’s special attention for the first few pages. Once they have been grasped the rest follows quite naturally.


ARTICLE 1. THE PREDESTINATION OF MARY

Let us examine first the primary object in the predestination of Mary, and the sense in which it was absolutely gratuitous.

MARY’S PREDESTINATION TO THE DIVINE MATERNITY PRECEDED HER PREDESTINATION TO THE FULLNESS OF GLORY AND GRACE.

This proposition may appear a little too profound for a beginning. In reality it is quite easy to understand. Most people admit it, at least implicitly. Besides it throws a flood of light on all that follows.

Pius IX affirmed it in effect in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus, by which he defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, when he said that God the Father predestined Jesus to natural divine sonship—so superior to adoptive sonship—and Mary to be Mother of God, in one and the same divine decree. The eternal predestination of Jesus included not only the Incarnation itself as object but also all the circumstances of time and place in which it would be realized, and especially the one expressed by the Nicene Creed in the words: “Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine.”4 By the same eternal decree, therefore, Jesus was predestined to be Son of the Most High and Mary to be Mother of God.5 It follows that as Christ was predestined to natural divine son-ship before (in signo priori) being predestined to the summit of glory and to the fullness of grace (the germ of glory) so also the Blessed Virgin Mary was predestined first to the divine maternity, and in consequence to a very high degree of heavenly glory and to the fullness of grace, in order that she might be fully worthy of her mission as Mother of the Saviour. This second predestination was all the more necessary seeing that, as His Mother, she was called to closest association with Jesus, by perfect conformity of her will with His, in His redemptive work. Such, in substance, is the teaching of Pius IX in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus.6

Thus, just as in Jesus the dignity of Son of God, or Word made flesh, surpasses that of the plenitude of created grace, charity, and glory, which He received in His sacred soul as a result of the hypostatic union of two natures in Him by the Incarnation, so also in Mary the dignity of Mother of God surpasses that of the plenitude of grace and charity, and even that of the plenitude of glory which she received through her unique predestination to the divine maternity.

It is the teaching of St. Thomas and many other theologians when treating of the motive of the Incarnation (for the redemption of mankind) that Mary’s predestination to be Mother of the Redeemer depended on the divine foreknowledge and permission of Adam’s sin. As St. Thomas explains (Ilia, q. 1, a. 3, ad 3), that sin was permitted in view of a greater good, namely that through the redemptive Incarnation “where sin abounded, grace (might) more abound” (Rom. 5:20).7 Just as God wills the human body for the sake of the human soul, and yet, since He wills that the soul give life to the body, does not create a soul till there is a body ready to receive it, so also God allowed in view of the greater good of the redemptive Incarnation that there should be a sin to be atoned for, and He willed the redemptive Incarnation for the sake of the regeneration of souls: thus in the actually existing order of divine providence there would have been no Incarnation had there been no sin. And in this order everything is subordinated to Christ and His Holy Mother, so that it is true to say with St. Paul (1 Cor. 3:23): “All things are yours . . . And you are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.”8 Thus the greatness of Christ and of His Mother are in no way lessened by their dependence on Adam’s sin.

Mary was therefore predestined first to the divine maternity. This dignity appears all the greater if we recall that Mary, who was able to merit glory, was not able to merit the Incarnation nor the divine maternity, for the Incarnation and the divine maternity lie outside the sphere of merit of the just, which has as outer limit the beatific vision.9

There is also another conclusive reason: the principle or beginning of merit cannot itself be merited. Since original sin, the Incarnation is the principle of all the graces and merits of the just; it cannot therefore be itself merited. Neither, then, could Mary merit her divine maternity de condigno nor de congruo proprie, for that would have been to merit the Incarnation.10

As St. Thomas very accurately indicates, what Mary could merit by the first fullness of grace which she received gratuitously in view of the foreseen merits of her Son, was an increase of charity and that higher degree of purity and holiness which was becoming in the Mother of God.11 Or, as he says elsewhere: “Mary did not merit the Incarnation (nor the divine maternity) but, granted that the Incarnation had been decreed, she merited (merito congrui, not condigni) that it should come to pass through her, since it was becoming that the Mother of God should be most pure and perfect.”12 That is to say, she merited the degree of sanctity which it was becoming for the Mother of God to have, a degree which no other virgin had in fact merited, or could merit, since none other had received nor was entitled to receive the initial fullness of grace and charity which was the principle of Mary’s merits.

This first reason for the eminent dignity of the Mother of God, based on her gratuitous predestination to that glorious title, is clear beyond question. It contains three truths which are, as it were, stars of first magnitude in the heavens of theology: 1st—that by one and the same decree the Father predestined Jesus for natural divine sonship and Mary for the divine maternity; 2nd—that Mary was predestined for the divine maternity before being predestined to the glory and the grace which the Father prepared for her that she might be the worthy Mother of His Son; 3rd—that though Mary merited Heaven de condigno she could not merit13 the Incarnation, nor the divine maternity, since these lie outside the sphere and purpose of human supernatural merit which does not extend beyond gaining eternal beatitude.

Many theologians have considered the argument just given as conclusive. It implies the arguments we shall expose in the following article, which really are but its developments, much as the history of a predestined soul is the unfolding of what was implied in its predestination.14


THE GRATUITOUSNESS OF THE PREDESTINATION OF MARY.

A few additional remarks about the uniqueness of Mary’s predestination will make its gratuitousness all the more apparent.

Among men Jesus is the first of the predestined, since His predestination is the model and cause of ours. As St. Thomas shows (Ilia, q. 24, a. 3 and 4), He merited for us all the effects which follow on our predestination. But the man Jesus was predestined, as we have said, to natural divine sonship, even before being predestined to glory and grace. Hence, His first or primary predestination is none other than the decree of the Incarnation. This eternal decree covers not only the Incarnation taken in the abstract—its mere substance—but also all circumstances of time and place in which it was to be put into execution, including the fact that Jesus was to be conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary “espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David.” (Luke 1:27). Mary’s predestination to the divine maternity being thus included in Jesus’s predestination to natural divine sonship, it follows that it precedes her predestination to glory, since Jesus is the first of those so predestined. A striking confirmation of the thesis of the preceding pages!15

It is no less clear that Mary’s predestination, like that of Jesus, was gratuitous. Jesus did not merit His predestination to natural divine sonship for the reason that His merits presuppose His Person, which is that of the Son of God by nature. Being therefore the principle of all His merits, His Divine Sonship could not itself be merited: else it would be cause and effect at the same time and under the same respect.16

In the same way Mary’s predestination to the divine maternity is gratuitous or independent of her merits, for we have seen that to merit it would involve meriting the Incarnation itself, which is the principle of all the merits of mankind since the Fall. That is the reason for Mary’s words in the Magnificat: “My soul doth magnify the Lord. . . . Because He hath regarded the humility (the lowly condition) of His handmaid.” Her predestination to glory and grace is clearly gratuitous also, since it is a result or morally necessary consequence of her predestination to be Mother of God. This does not however involve a denial that she merited Heaven. On the contrary, we affirm that she was predestined to gain Heaven by her merits.17 For the whole question of Mary’s predestination cf. Diet. Theol. Cath., article Marie, col. 2358.18

The sequence or order of the divine plan is therefore clear: 1st—God willed to manifest His goodness; 2nd—He willed Christ and His glory as Redeemer—in which will the permission of original sin for the sake of the greater good is included; 3rd—He willed Our Blessed Lady as Mother of the Redeemer; 4th—In consequence He willed her glory; 5th—He willed the grace and merits by which she would attain to glory; 6th—He willed the glory and grace of all the other elect.

The predestination of Mary appears now in all its sublimity. We can understand why the Church extends to her the application of the words of the Book of Proverbs, 8:22–35: “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His ways, before He made anything from the beginning. I was set up from eternity, and of old before the earth was made . . . when He prepared the Heavens was present . . . when He balanced the foundations of the earth, I was with Him forming all things: and was delighted every day, playing before Him at all times; playing in the world, and my delights were to be with the children of men . . . He that shall find me shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord.” Mary had been promised as the woman who would triumph over the serpent (Gen. 3:15), as the Virgin who would bear Emmanuel (Is. 7:14); she had been prefigured by the ark of alliance, the house of gold, the tower of ivory. All those testimonies show that she was predestined first of all to be Mother of God. And the precise reason why the fullness of glory and grace was given her was to make her the worthy Mother of God—“to make her fit to be mother of Christ, as St. Thomas expresses it (Ilia, q. 27, a. 5, ad 2), This doctrine appeared to him so certain that we find him saying in the same article (corp. art.): “The Blessed Virgin Mary came nearer than any other person to the humanity of Christ, since it was from her that He received His human nature. And that is why Mary received from Christ a plenitude of grace which surpassed that of all the saints.”

Pius IX speaks in the same sense at the beginning of the Bull Ineffabilis Deus: “From the beginning and before all ages God selected and prepared for His only Son the Mother from whom, having taken flesh, He would be born in the blessed fullness of time; He loved her by herself more than all creatures, and with such a love as to find His delight in a singular way in her. That is why, drawing from the treasures of His divinity, He endowed her, more than all the angels and saints, with such an abundance of heavenly gifts that she was always completely free from sin, and that, all beautiful and perfect, she appeared in such a plenitude of innocence and holiness that, except God’s, no greater than hers can be conceived, and that no mind but the mind of God can measure it.”19


ARTICLE 2. OTHER REASONS FOR ASSERTING THE PRE-EMINENCE OF THE DIVINE MATERNITY

We have seen that by the decree of the Incarnation ex Maria Virgine the Blessed Virgin was predestined first of all to the divine maternity and by way of consequence to glory and grace. There are still other reasons, which we shall now bring forward, which show that the divine maternity surpassed the plenitude of grace.

THE VALUE OF A DIGNITY OF THE HYPOSTATIC ORDER

Since the value or worth of a relation depends on the term which it regards and which specifies it—as, for example, the dignity of the beatific knowledge and love of the elect depends on their object, which is the divine essence known intuitively—the dignity of the divine maternity is to be measured by considering the term to which it is immediately referred. Now this term is of the hypostatic order, and therefore surpasses the whole order of grace and glory.

By her divine maternity Mary is related really to the Word made flesh. The relation so set up has the uncreated Person of the Incarnate Word as its term, for Mary is the Mother of Jesus, who is God. It is not precisely the humanity of Jesus which is the term of the relation, but rather Jesus Himself in Person: it is He and not His humanity that is Son of Mary.20 Hence Mary, reaching, as Cajetan says, even to the frontiers of the Divinity,21 belongs terminally to the hypostatic order, to the order of the personal union of the Humanity of Jesus to the Uncreated Word. This truth follows also from the very definition of the divine maternity as formulated in the Council of Ephesus.22

But the order of the hypostatic union surpasses wonderfully that of grace and glory, just as this latter surpasses that of nature—of human nature and of angelic nature, created or possible. The three orders distinguished by Pascal in his Pensees, that of bodies, that of spirits with their powers sometimes amounting to genius, and that of supernatural charity, are separated by an immeasurable distance from each other. The same is true of the hypostatic order and that of glory and grace, considering the latter even as found in the greatest saints. “The earth and its kingdoms, the firmament and all its stars, are not worth a single thought: all spirits taken together (and all their natural powers) are not worth the least movement of charity, for it belongs to another and an entirely supernatural order.” Similarly, all the acts of charity of the greatest saints, men or angels, and their heavenly glory, are far below the personal or hypostatic union of the Humanity of Jesus to the Word. The divine maternity which is terminated by the uncreated Person of the Word made flesh surpasses therefore immeasurably, because of its term, the grace and glory of all the elect, and even the plenitude of grace and glory received by Mary herself.

St. Thomas says (la, q. 25, a. 6, ad 4): “The Humanity of Christ since it is united to God, the beatitude of the elect since it is the possession of God, the Blessed Virgin Mary since she is the Mother of God—all these have a certain infinite dignity from their relation to God Himself, and under that respect there can be nothing more perfect than them since there can be nothing more perfect than God.” St. Bonaventure supports this when he says: “God could make a greater world, but He cannot make a more perfect mother than the Mother of God.” (Speculum, c. 8).

As Fr. E. Hugon, O.P, says: “The divine maternity is by its nature higher than adoptive sonship. This latter produces only a spiritual and mystic relationship, whereas the maternity of the Blessed Virgin establishes a relationship of nature, a relationship of consanguinity with Jesus Christ and one of affinity with the entire Trinity. Besides, adoptive sonship does not impose, as it were, such obligations on God: for the divine maternity imposed on Jesus those obligations of justice which ordinary children contract naturally in regard to their parents, and it confers on Mary that dominion and power over Him which are the natural right accompanying the dignity of motherhood.”23

By way of corollary it may be mentioned that the divine maternity surpasses all the gratiae gratis datae or charismata, such as the gift of prophecy, knowledge of the secrets of hearts, the gift of miracles or of tongues, for all these graces are in some way exterior and lower in dignity than sanctifying grace (cf, la Ilae, q. 3, a. 5). It should be noted also that the divine maternity cannot be lost, whereas grace can be lost on earth.

The eminent dignity of the divine maternity has been set in striking relief by Bossuet in his sermon on the Conception of the Blessed Virgin (towards the end of the first point): “God so loved the world, said Our Saviour, as to give His only begotten Son (John 3:16) . . . (But) the ineffable love which He had for you, O Mary, made Him conceive many other designs in your regard, He ordained that He should belong to you in the same quality in which He belonged to Himself: and in order to establish an eternal union with you He made you the Mother of His only Son and Himself the Father of yours. O prodigy! O abyss of charity! what mind does not find itself lost to consider the incomprehensible regard He had for you; you come so near to Him, through this Son common to you both, this inviolable bond of your sacred alliance, this pledge of your mutual love which you have given so lovingly to each other, the Father giving Him in His impassible divinity, and you giving Him in the mortal flesh in which He was obedient.”

God the Father communicated to His Son the divine nature. Mary gave Him a human nature, subject to pain and death, in which to redeem us. But Mary’s Son is the only-begotten of the Father, and in that consists the whole grandeur of her maternity.


THE REASON WHY SO MANY GRACES WERE CONFERRED ON MARY

The eminent dignity of the divine maternity is revealed in a new light if we consider that it is the reason why the fullness of grace was given to Mary, that it is the measure and end of that fullness, and that it is superior to it.

The reason why Mary was given a fullness of grace from the first instant was that she might be enabled to conceive the Man-God in holiness, by uttering her fiat with the utmost generosity on the day of the Annunciation in spite of the sufferings which she knew had been foretold of the Messiah; it was given her, too, that she might bring forth her child while remaining a virgin, that she might surround Him with the most motherly and most holy devotion; it was given her, finally, that she might unite herself to Him in closest conformity of will, as only a most holy mother can, during His hidden life, His apostolic life, and His suffering life—that she might utter her second fiat most heroically at the foot of the Cross, with Him, by Him, and in Him.

As Fr. Hugon has so well put it: “The divine maternity postulates intimate friendship with God. Since a mother is bound both by a law of nature and an express precept to love her son, and he to love her, Mary and Jesus love each other mutually; and since the maternity in question here is supernatural the love must be of the same order. But this means that it is a sanctifying love, since by the fact that God loves a soul He makes it lovable and sanctifies it.”24 There is thus the most complete conformity between the will of Mary and her Son’s oblation which was, as it were, the soul of the sacrifice of the Cross.

It is clear that it was for the reason we have given and for none other that Mary was given an initial plenitude of grace followed by a consummated plenitude in glory. The same reason or end was the measure of her grace and glory: therefore it surpassed them. Admittedly it is not possible to deduce from the divine maternity each and every one of the privileges received by Mary,25 but all derive ultimately from it. If, finally, she was predestined from all eternity to the highest degree of glory after Jesus, the reason is that she was predestined first of all to be His most worthy mother, and to retain that title during eternity after having enjoyed it in time. The saints who contemplate in Heaven the sublime degree of glory, so far surpassing that of the angels, in which Mary is enthroned, know that the reason why she was predestined to it is that she might be and might remain for eternity the most worthy Mother of God: Mater Creatoris, Mater Salvatoris, Virgo Dei Genetrix.

Such was the teaching of St. Albert the Great on more than one occasion.26 The poets have sung it in their verses. We refer in a note to one of their most recent tributes.27


THE MOTIVE OF THE CULT OF HYPERDULIA

A last consideration, which will be found in the works of many theologians, can be adduced in favor of our thesis.

It is because she is Mother of God rather than because she is full of grace that Mary is entitled to the cult of hyperdulia, a cult superior to that due to the saints highest in grace and glory. In other words, hyperdulia is due to Mary not because she is the greatest of the saints but because of her divine maternity. It would not have been her due had she been raised to her present degree of glory without having been predestined to be Mother of God. This is the express teaching of St. Thomas.28

In the Litanies of the Blessed Virgin the first title of glory mentioned is the Sancta Dei Genetrix. All the others follow as something which pertains to Mary as Mother of God: Sancta Virgo Virginum, Mater divinae gratiae, Mater purissima, Mater castissima, Mater inviolata, Mater intemerata, Mater amabalis, Mater admirabilis, Mater boni consilii, etc.

CONSEQUENCES OF THE PRINCIPLES THUS FAR OUTLINED

It follows from what has been said thus far that, simpliciter loquendo, purely and simply, the divine maternity, even considered in isolation, is superior to the plenitude of grace, consummated no less than initial. The ultimate reason for this assertion is that by its term the divine maternity belongs to a higher order, that of the hypostatic union.29

Thus the rational soul which, considered even in isolation, pertains to the order of substance, is superior to its faculties of intellect and will: it is their end, for they proceed from it as accidents and properties in order that it may have the power of knowing and willing. In a somewhat similar way, the divine maternity, considered in isolation from Mary’s other dignities, is the end and reason of her fullness of grace, and is therefore higher than it.

It is now clear why Mary was predestined first to be Mother of God before being predestined to the highest degree of glory after Jesus. The dignity of a relation is to be judged more by its term than by anything else; but the divine maternity is something relative to the Person of the Word made Flesh. In much the same way the mother of a king is nearer to him than the most able of his lawyers.

However, under a certain respect—secundum quid, as theologians say—sanctifying grace and the beatific vision are more perfect than the divine maternity. As regards sanctifying grace, it makes its bearer holy in the formal sense of the term, whereas the divine maternity, being only a relation to the Word made flesh, does not sanctify in that way.30 The beatific vision, for its part, unites the intellects of the elect to the divine essence without the intermediary of the Sacred Humanity.31

It is evident that the hypostatic union of the two natures in Christ, considered absolutely, surpasses the beatific vision, even though the latter includes a perfection in the order of knowledge not found in the former. In a similar way, and with all due reservations, the divine maternity, if considered absolutely or simpliciter, surpasses the plenitude of grace and glory, even though this latter is more perfect in a secondary way, or secundum quid. For the divine maternity, being but a real relation to the Incarnate Word, is not enough of itself to sanctify Mary. But it called out for, or demanded, the fullness of grace which was granted her to raise her to the level of her singular mission. She could not have been predestined to be any other kind of mother to the Saviour than a worthy one.32 Everything follows from that certain truth. All Mariology is dominated by it just as all Christology is dominated by the truth that Jesus is the Son of God.33

Since Mary pertains by the term of her maternity to the hypostatic order, it follows that she is higher than the angels; higher also than the priesthood, which participates in that of Christ.34 Of course, not having the priestly character, Mary could not consecrate as does the priest at the altar. But none the less, her dignity is higher than that of the priest and of the bishop, since it is of the hypostatic order. The Victim offered on the Cross, and whom the priest offers on the altar, was given us by Mary. The Principal Offerer of our Masses was given us by her. She was more closely associated with Him at the foot of the Cross than anyone else—more than even the stigmatics and the martyrs. Thus, had Mary received the priestly ordination (but it did not form part of her mission), she would have received something less than what is implied in her title of Mother of God. As St. Albert the Great so well expressed it: “The Blessed Virgin was not called by God to be a minister, but a consort and a helper, in accordance with the words ‘Let us make him a help like unto himself’” (Mariale, 42 and 165). Mary was chosen to be not the minister of the Saviour but His associate and helper in the work of redemption.

The divine maternity is therefore, as is commonly taught, the foundation, source, and root of all Mary’s graces and privileges, both those that preceded it as preparation, and those that accompanied it or followed from it as its consequence. It was by way of preparation for the divine maternity that Mary was the Immaculate Conception, preserved from the stain of original sin by the future merits of her Son. He redeemed her as perfectly as was possible; not by healing her, but by preserving her from the original stain before it touched her soul for even an instant. It was because of her maternity that Mary received the initial fullness of grace which ceased not to increase till it reached its consummated plenitude. And because of the same maternity she was exempt from all personal fault, even venial—and from all imperfection, for she never failed in promptitude to obey the divine inspirations even when they came to her by way of simple counsels.35 The dignity of Mary surpasses therefore that of all the saints combined.

Recall, too, that Mary had a mother’s authority over the Word of God made flesh. She contributed therefore to His knowledge: not, of course, to His beatific or infused knowledge, but to the progressive formation of His acquired knowledge, which knowledge lit up the acquired prudence in accordance with which He performed acts proportioned to His age during His infancy and hidden life. In this way the Word made flesh was subject to Mary in most profound sentiments of respect and love. How, then, could we fail to have the same sentiments in regard to the Mother of Our God?

In one of the most beautiful books written about Mary, the Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, St. Grignon de Montfort says (ch. 1, a. 1): “God made Man found liberty in being enclosed in her womb; He showed His power by allowing Himself to be carried by her, young maiden though she was; He found glory, and His Father found glory too, in hiding His splendor from all creatures of earth, so as to reveal them to Mary alone; He glorified His majesty and His independence by depending on the Virgin in His conception, His birth, His presentation in the temple, His hidden life of thirty years—and even up to the time of His death, for she was present then, and He offered one only sacrifice in union with her, and was immolated to the eternal Father with her consent as once Isaac was immolated to the divine will by the consent of Abraham. . . . It is she who nourished and supported Him, who brought Him up and then sacrificed Him for us. . . . Finally, Our Lord remains as much the Son of Mary in Heaven as He was on earth.”

Such is the first reason for the cult of hyperdulia which we owe her. It explains why the voice of tradition, and especially the Council of Ephesus and Constantinople, insisted, before everything else concerning Mary, on the fact that she was the Mother of God, thereby affirming afresh against Nestorianism that Jesus was God.

To conclude this chapter we should note that many Christians find it so evident that Mary’s greatest title is that of Mother of God, and that all her other titles follow from and are explained by it, that they do not understand why time should be devoted to proving the point. It is quite clear to them that had we, for our part, been in a position to do so, we should have given our mother every gift at our disposal. That is why St. Thomas is content to state quite simply (Ilia, q. 27, a. 5, corp. et ad 2): “To be the worthy Mother of God, Mary needed to receive fullness of grace.” Bossuet repeats this in his sermon on the Compassion of the Blessed Virgin (1st point, end): “Since God disposes things with wonderful aptness, it was necessary that He should imprint on the heart of the Blessed Virgin a love going far beyond nature even to the last reaches of grace, so that she might have for her Son sentiments worthy of a Mother of God and of a Man-God.”