The Mother of the Savior by Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange

[Stone]

CHAPTER 4. THE FINAL PLENITUDE OF MARY’S GRACE

THE plan of this chapter will be: to speak first of Mary’s fullness of grace at the time of her death; then to recall the teaching of the Church concerning her Assumption; finally to treat of her fullness of grace as it unfolded itself in Heaven.


ARTICLE 1. MARY’S FULLNESS OF GRACE AT THE MOMENT OF DEATH

Bossuet remarks that Mary was left in the world after Jesus to console the Church. This she did by her prayers and ever-increasing merits which were the support of the Apostles in their labours and trials as well as the hidden source of the fecundity of all they did for souls.

We have seen already that in Mary’s case death was not a consequence of original sin, but simply of human nature as such. Man was not made immortal at the beginning otherwise than by a special privilege. The Incarnate Word willed to take passible flesh. Mary’s flesh was passible too. Thus the deaths of Jesus and Mary were consequences of the inherent weakness of human nature left to itself and unsustained by any preternatural gift. Jesus, however, mastered death by accepting it for our salvation. Mary united herself to Him in His death, making for us the sacrifice of His life in the most generous martyrdom of heart the world has ever known after that of Our Saviour. And when, later on, the hour of her own death arrived, the sacrifice of her life had been already made. It remained but to renew it in that most perfect form which tradition speaks of as the death of love, a death, that is to say, in which the soul dies not simply in grace or in God’s love, but of a calm and supremely strong love which draws the soul, now ripe for Heaven, away from the body to be united to God in immediate and eternal vision.

Mary’s last moments are described by St. John Damascene191 in the words “She died an extremely peaceful death.” St. Francis de Sales’ chapters in his treatise on the Love of God (ch. 13 and 14) are an eloquent commentary on the words of St. John Damascene:

“The Blessed Virgin, Mother of God, died of love for her Son. . . . It is impossible to conceive of her death as having been anything except a death of love, which is the most noble of all deaths and the fitting crown of the most noble of all lives. . . . If the early Christians were said to have but one heart and one soul because of their perfect mutual love, if St. Paul lived no longer for himself but Christ lived in him because of the intense union of his heart with the heart of his Master . . . how much more true is it that the Blessed Virgin and her Son had but one soul, one heart, and one life . . . so that her Son lived in her. Mother most loving and most loved that could be . . . of a love incomparably higher than that of angels and men in the measure in which the titles of only mother and only Son are higher than all names that are united in love.

But if this mother lived by the life of her Son, she died also by His death; for as the life is, so is the death. . . . Retaining in her memory all the most lovable mysteries of the life and death of her Son, and receiving always the most ardent inspirations which her Son, the Sun of Justice, poured out on men in the noonday ardor of His charity . . . she was at length consumed by the sacred fire of this charity, as a holocaust of sweetness. And thus she died, her soul ravished and transported in the arms of the love of Jesus. . . .

She died of a most sweet and tranquil love. . . . The love of God increased every moment in the virginal heart of our glorious Lady, but in a sweet, peaceful, and continuous way, without agitation, nor shocks, nor any violence . . . like a great river which, finding no obstacles in the level plain, flows along effortlessly.

Just as iron, if not hindered, is drawn strongly but sweetly by the magnet, and the attraction increases according as it is drawn more close to it, so the Blessed Virgin, being in no way hindered in the operation of the love of her Son, united herself to Him in an incomparable union by sweet, peaceful and effortless ecstasies. . . . So that the death of the Virgin was more peaceful than we can conceive, her Son drawing her gently by the odor of His ointments. . . . Love had caused Mary the pangs of death on Calvary; it was only just, then, that death should cause her the highest delights of love.”

Bossuet, in his turn, voices the same sentiments in his first sermon for the Feast of the Assumption.

“If to love Jesus and to be loved by Jesus are two things which draw down the divine blessing on souls, what a sea of graces must have inundated the soul of Mary Who can describe the impetuosity of that mutual love in which all that is tender in nature concurred with all that is efficacious in grace? Jesus never tired of seeing Himself loved by His Mother: Mary never thought she had had enough of the love of her Son. She asked no grace from her Son except that of loving Him, and that fact drew down more graces on her.

Compare, if you can, with her love the holy impatience she experienced to be united to her Son. . . . St. Paul wished to burst at once the bond of the flesh so as to be with his Master at the right hand of the

Father, and how much greater must have been the longing of a maternal heart! The absence of a year was enough to pierce the heart of the mother of Tobias with sorrow, and what must have been the regret of Mary when she felt herself so long separated from a Son she loved so well! When she saw St. Stephen and so many others depart from this world she must well have asked her Son why He wished to leave her the last of all. He had brought her to the foot of the Cross to see Him suffer, and would He delay to allow her to see Him enthroned? If only He would allow her love its way, it would soon withdraw her soul from her body to unite it to Him in whom she lived.

That love was so ardent, so strong, so inflamed, that not a desire for Heaven sprang from it which was not capable of drawing with it Mary’s soul.

Thus, Mary yielded her holy and blessed soul peacefully and without violence into the hands of her Son. Just as the least touch gathers the ripe fruit, so was gathered her blessed soul, to be at once carried to Heaven; thus the divine Virgin died in a movement of the love of God.”

That holy death reveals the final fullness of Mary’s grace, a fullness which corresponded wonderfully to that initial fullness which had not ceased to grow from the moment of the Immaculate Conception. It disposed her for the consummated fullness of Heaven which is always proportionate to the merits acquired at the moment of death.


ARTICLE 2.THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN

What is meant by the Assumption? The whole Church understands by the term that the Blessed Virgin, soon after her death and glorious resurrection, was taken up body and soul to Heaven to be forever throned above the angels and saints. The term Assumption is used rather than Ascension since, unlike Jesus who ascended to Heaven by His own power, Mary was lifted up by God to the degree of glory for which she had been predestined.

Was the Assumption capable of being perceived by the senses, and if there were witnesses—the Apostles and St. John in particular—had they ocular evidence of it? Certainly there was something of the sense-perceptible order about the Assumption, since it was the taking up of Mary’s body to Heaven. But the term of that taking up, that is, the entry to Heaven and the exaltation of Mary above all the saints, was invisible and inaccessible to the senses.

It can be admitted that did certain witnesses find the tomb of the Mother of God empty after her burial, and did they later witness her resurrection and her being raised up in the skies, they would have been able to presume that she entered Heaven and that Our Blessed Lord had associated her with the glory of His Ascension. But a presumption is not certitude. Mary’s body could have been transported, for all their evidence proved, into a place not visible to human eyes—to the place, for example, in which Jesus’ risen body was between His different apparitions.

But if a presumption is not certitude, how was Our Lady’s entry into Heaven ever known with certainty? For that a divine revelation was required. St. Thomas remarks that there was such a revelation in the case of the Ascension192 made through the intermediary of the angels who said: “Ye men of Galilee, why stand you looking up to Heaven? This Jesus who is taken up from you to Heaven, shall so come, as you have seen him going into Heaven.” (Acts 1:2).

Besides, without a divine revelation, the Assumption would not be capable of being defined a dogma of faith, since the motive of faith is the authority of God in revelation. A private revelation would not however be sufficient. Private revelations—those made to St. Joan of Arc, to St. Bernadette, to the little shepherds of La Salette, are examples of private revelations—could become well known and public in that sense. But they are not public in the sense of being part of the common deposit of revelation and proposed infallibly by the Church to all the faithful. Neither would a revelation of the kind made to St. Margaret Mary be sufficient. For her revelations were private too, and did no more than to draw attention to certain practical consequences of what was already known to be an object of faith—the already accepted truth that the Sacred Heart of Jesus is entitled to adoration or the cult of latria.

Hence, that the Assumption should have been known as certain and capable of being proposed to the whole Church for acceptance, a public revelation must have been made to the Apostles, or at least to one of them—to St. John, for example. Note that this revelation must have been made to an Apostle since the deposit of common and public revelation was completed with the death of the last Apostle. It may have been made explicitly or implicitly. In this latter case its message would have become more explicit in the course of time.

Let us now see what we have to learn from Tradition, and also the theological arguments which have been commonly invoked, at least since the 7th century.

1st—The documents of Tradition show that the privilege was at least implicitly revealed.

It is not possible to prove directly from Sacred Scripture nor from primitive documents that the privilege of the Assumption was revealed explicitly to any of the Apostles, for no text of scripture affirms it explicitly, and there is a similar absence of explicit testimony in the primitive documents. But it can be proved indirectly from later documents that there was at least an implicit revelation since there are certain facts, dating from the 7th century, which are explicable in no other way.

From the 7th century, almost the whole Church, east and west, celebrated the Feast of the Assumption. Pope Sergius (687–707) ordered a solemn procession on that day.193 Many theologians and liturgists contend that it existed already before the time of St. Gregory the Great (d. 604) and they quote in support of their opinion the Collect of the Mass of the Assumption contained in the Sacramentary known as Gregorian (though it is probably later in date) where we read the words: “Nec tamen mortis nexibus deprimi potuit.”194 St. Gregory of Tours seems to imply that the Feast was celebrated in Gaul in the 6th century.195 At any rate, it was certainly celebrated there in the 7th century as is proved by the Missale Gothicum and the Missale Gallicanum vetus, which date from the beginning of that century and contain very beautiful prayers for the Feast. (P. L., t. LXXII, col. 245–246.)

In the East the historian Nicephorus Callistus196 recounts that the Emperor Maurice (582–602), contemporary and friend of St. Gregory the Great, ordered the solemn celebration of the Feast on August 15th. The earliest testimony to the traditional faith of the East appears to be that of Saint Modestus, Patriarch of Jerusalem (d. 634), in his Encomium in dormitionem Deiparae (P. G., t. LXXXVI, col. 3288 sqq.). His account of the matter is that the Apostles were led to the

Blessed Virgin by a divine inspiration and were present at the Assumption. After him, mention must be made of St. Andrew of Crete (d. 720), monk in Jerusalem and later Archbishop of Crete, the author of the homilies In dormitionem Deiparae,197 of St. Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople (d. 733), author of In sanctam Dei Genitricis dormitionem,,198 and finally of St. John Damascene (d. 760), author of In dormitionem beatae Mariae Virginis.199

There is no shortage of testimonies from the 8th century on. Those commonly quoted are Notker of St. Gall, Fulbert of Chartres, St. Peter Damien, St. Anselm, Hildebert, Peter Abelard, St. Bernard, Richard of St. Victor, St. Albert the Great, St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas.200 The period between the 7th and the 9th centuries witnessed the development of the liturgy, theology, and preaching of the Assumption. Pope Leo IV instituted the octave of the Feast around the year 847. Authors then and in the succeeding periods regarded the object of the Feast not as a pious belief peculiar to this or that country, but as an integral part of the general tradition which went back in the Church to the earliest times. And not only the authors, but the Church herself voiced the same doctrine: the simple fact that the Church celebrated the Feast universally in East and West, usually on the 15th of August, shows that she considered the privilege of the Assumption to be a certain truth taught by her ordinary magisterium, that is to say, by all the bishops in union with the supreme pastor. For the faith of the Church is manifested in her prayer: Lex orandi, lex credendi. The doctrine of the Assumption has not yet been solemnly defined, but it is commonly asserted that it would be at least temerarious or erroneous to deny it.201 When some few authors proposed to change the Feast of the 15th of August, Benedict XIV answered: Ecclesiam hanc amplexam esse sententiam.202

The attitude of the Church in regard to the doctrine is not therefore simply one of tolerance: she proposes it positively in the liturgy and in preaching both in the East and the West. This universal agreement of the whole Church in celebrating the solemn Feast shows that her ordinary magisterium is at work. But the ordinary magisterium presupposes at least that the doctrine has been implicitly revealed: otherwise, as we have seen, there could be no certainty that Mary had entered Heaven. And we may go further still and assert that it is probable that the revelation made to the Apostles, or to one of them, was even explicit, since otherwise it is hard to explain the universal tradition in the East and the West from the 7th century at the latest, which manifests itself in the celebration of the Feast.203 For if the revelation had been only implicit at the beginning, how could it happen that the different bishops and theologians in the different parts of the Church, both East and West, would agree that it was implicitly revealed? For such agreement much preliminary work and many preliminary councils would be required, of which there is absolutely no record. Neither is there any record of private revelations such as are sometimes made in order to set the Church’s official investigations of the deposit of revelation in motion.

Up to the 6th century this privilege of Mary’s was hidden behind a veil of silence, lest it be misunderstood through an unfortunate confusion with the fables concerning pagan goddesses. The principal contribution of the early centuries of the Church to Mariology was to establish her great title, “Mother of God,” and eventually to define it in the Council of Ephesus.

Thus, we may conclude that everything tends to indicate that the privilege of the Assumption was explicitly revealed to the Apostles, or at least to one of them, and that it was transmitted subsequently by the oral tradition of the Liturgy; otherwise there is no explanation of the universal Feast of the Assumption, found so clearly from the 7th century on, by which time the Assumption itself was already the object of the ordinary magisterium of the Church.

2nd—The theological reasons usually adduced show that the Assumption is at least implicitly revealed.

These theological arguments, as well as the scriptural texts on which they are built, may be considered in two ways: abstractly—from which point of view many of them are mere arguments ex convenientia and are not demonstrative—and in the concrete—that is to say, as expressing concrete facts, the complexity and richness of which is learned from tradition. It is well to note too that even the arguments ex convenientia may be considered from two points of view: either purely theoretically or as being themselves at least implicitly revealed and as having influenced the divine choice.

In this section we shall insist on two arguments which, taken as expressing Tradition, show that the privilege of the Assumption is implicitly revealed.204 As for the eminent dignity of the Mother of God, though this is the root reason of all Mary’s privileges, it is not the proximate cause of her Assumption. Thus it seems to yield only an argument ex convenientia which is not demonstrative.205 The first of these two arguments runs as follows:

Mary received fullness of grace and was blessed by God among women in an exceptional way. But this exceptional blessing negatives the divine malediction to bring forth children in pain and to return to dust (Gen. 3:16-19). Mary was therefore preserved through it from corruption in her body: her body would not return to dust but would be resuscitated in an anticipated resurrection. Since the two premisses of this argument are revealed, the conclusion is, according to the teaching of most theologians, capable of being defined.

A thing to be noted in this argument is that the reasoning process in it is not precisely illative, but rather explicative since the divine malediction contains the “into dust thou shalt return” of Genesis not as a cause contains an effect but as a whole contains its parts: “Into dust thou shalt return” is a part of the divine malediction. Thus Mary, blessed among women, and not falling under the malediction, would not suffer the corruption of the tomb. The hour of the resurrection would be anticipated for her, and her glorious resurrection would be followed by the Assumption or elevation of her glorified body to Heaven. It is, then, clear that the privilege of the Assumption is contained implicitly revealed in the plenitude of grace and the exceptional blessing with which Mary was favored.

The second argument is no less cogent. It was put forward by the many fathers of the Vatican Council who asked for the definition of the dogma of the Assumption and was indicated by Pius IX in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus.206 The argument may be formulated thus:

Christ’s perfect victory over Satan included victory over sin and death. But Mary, the Mother of God, was most intimately associated with Jesus on Calvary in His victory over Satan. Hence she was associated with Him in His victory over death by her anticipated resurrection and her Assumption.

In this argument, as in the first one, the premisses are both revealed, and the argument itself is explicative rather than illative: it turns on Christ’s perfect victory which is a whole containing as its parts victory over sin and victory over death.

The major premiss is known to be revealed, as the Fathers of the Vatican Council stated, from many texts in the Epistles of St. Paul. Among texts from other books of the New Testament, we may mention a few from St. John’s gospel. Jesus is “the Lamb of God . . . who taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29); He said of Himself “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33); shortly before His Passion He said “Now is the judgement of the world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself.” (John 12:31–32). The sacrifice of the Cross offered in love, the acceptance of humiliation and a most painful death—these were the victory over Satan and sin. But death is a consequence of sin. Hence, He who had conquered Satan and sin on the Cross would conquer death by His glorious resurrection.

The minor premiss is revealed also—that is, that Mary, Mother of God, was associated as closely as possible on Calvary with Jesus’ perfect victory over Satan. It is announced mysteriously in Genesis in the words addressed to Satan: “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head. . . .” And though that text alone would not suffice to establish the point, we have in addition Mary’s words at the Annunciation” “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to Thy word . . .” uttered when she consented to be the Mother of the Redeemer. But she would not have been a worthy mother unless her will were perfectly conformed to the will of Him who was to offer Himself for us. Besides, Simeon told her of the sufferings to be borne: “And thy own soul a sword shall pierce. . . .” Last of all we read in St. John’s gospel: “There stood by the Cross of Jesus, his mother, and his mother’s sister.” She shared in His sufferings, therefore, in the measure of her love for Him: so fully did she share that she is called Co-Redemptrix.207

There is a very intimate connection between compassion and motherhood, for the deepest compassion is that of a mother, and Mary would not have been a worthy mother of the Redeemer had she been lacking in conformity of will with His redemptive oblation.

Since, therefore, Mary was associated very intimately with Jesus in His perfect victory over Satan, it follows that she was associated also with Him in the different parts of His triumph, that is to say, in His victory over sin and over death, sin’s consequence.

It could, perhaps, be objected that it would be enough were Mary associated in His victory over death by her final resurrection on the Last Day. To which the answer can be given that Mary was more closely associated than anyone else with Jesus in His perfect victory—or in the perfection of His victory—over Satan, and that perfect victory included exemption from bodily corruption, and, in consequence, anticipated resurrection and assumption into Heaven. As we read in the Collect of the Mass of the Assumption: “Mortem subiit temporalem, nec tamen mortis nexibus deprimi potuit. . . She died; but she was not retained captive by the bonds of death—a privilege accorded to no other saint, for even though the bodies of some saints are miraculously preserved from corruption, they are still in the bonds of death.

These two great theological arguments taken respectively from Mary’s fullness of grace united to her special blessing, and her association with Jesus in His perfect victory, prove that the Assumption is implicitly revealed and capable of definition as an article of faith.

There are other theological arguments too which confirm the same conclusion, at least by way of proof ex convenientia. The love of Jesus for Mary can be appealed to as a reason why she should have been accorded the privilege. The excellent virginity of Mary seems to demand that her body, free from all stain of sin, should be free from the bonds of death, the consequence of sin. The Immaculate Conception calls for it also since death is a consequence of original sin from which Mary was preserved. It may also be added that there are no relics of Our Lady, which is a probable indication of her Assumption, body and soul, into Heaven.

Since the Assumption is contained at least implicitly in Revelation, it can be defined as an article of faith. The opportuneness of its definition is manifest, as Dom Renaudin says.208 For, from the doctrinal point of view, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin along with the Ascension of Our Blessed Lord, crowns our faith in the objective completion of the work of the Redemption, and gives our hope a new guarantee. For their part, the faithful will derive from a solemn definition of the Assumption the advantage of being able to go beyond their adherence to the infallibility of the ordinary magisterium of the Church who has instituted the Feast, and to adhere immediately to the dogma on the authority of God who revealed it, in which dogma they will find an arm against all those errors of our times—whether materialism, rationalism, or liberal Protestantism—which agree in minimising the faith in every possible way rather than to recognise that the gifts of God surpass our ideas of them. From the point of view of heretics and schismatics, the solemn definition will be a help rather than a hindrance, for it will make more manifest the power and goodness of Mary who has been given to men to lead them along the way of salvation. Finally, the just man lives by his faith. Hence he finds in the solemn definition of a revealed truth a form of spiritual nourishment which increases his faith, and strengthens his hope, and makes his charity more fervent.


ARTICLE 3. THE FINAL PLENITUDE OF GRACE IN HEAVEN

In this article we shall consider Mary’s eternal beatitude: the beatific vision; the love of God and the joy which results from it; her elevation above the choirs of angels; her participation in Christ’s Kingship and the consequences which follow from it.


MARY’S ESSENTIAL BEATITUDE

Mary’s essential beatitude surpasses in intensity and extension that conferred on all the other blessed. This doctrine is theologically certain. Heavenly glory, or essential beatitude, is proportioned to the degree of grace or charity which precedes entry to Heaven. But Mary’s initial fullness of grace surpassed the fmal grace of the highest saints and angels; and we have seen that it is probable, if not certain, that it surpassed their final graces united. It follows that Mary’s essential beatitude surpasses that of all the saints taken together. In other words, Mary’s beatific vision penetrates more deeply into the divine essence seen face to face than that of all the other blessed—exception being, of course, made for the beatified soul of Jesus.

It is true that the natural intellectual powers of the angels are greater than those of Mary, or even the human powers of Jesus. Nevertheless Mary’s intuitive gaze of the divine essence is more piercing than theirs because of the much more intense lumen gloriae (light of glory) with which she is enriched. The object of the beatific vision being essentially supernatural, greater natural powers confer no greater advantage in knowing it. In much the same way an unlettered Christian can have a greater infused faith and charity than a highly endowed and qualified theologian.

Not only does Mary know more of the essence of God in Heaven, but she knows more too of His wisdom, His love, His power, and she sees better the range of their extent both in the order of possible and of existing realities. Besides, since the blessed in Heaven see more things in God according as their mission is a more universal one, Mary, as Mother of God, Universal Mediatrix, Co-Redemptrix, Queen of Angels, Saints, and the whole universe, sees much more in God, in Verbo, than do the other blessed. Higher than her in glory is only her Divine Son. His human mind reads into the divine essence deeper than hers. He knows certain secrets which are hidden from her, for they pertain to Him only, the Saviour, the High Priest and the Universal King.

Mary comes immediately after Jesus in heavenly glory. That is why the liturgy affirms, on the Feast of the 15th of August, that she has been lifted up above the choirs of angels, and that she is at the right hand of her Son. (Ps. 44:10). According to St. Albert the Great,209 she constituted among the blessed an order apart, higher than the seraphim as they are higher than the cherubim: for the queen is as much higher than the first of her servants as they are higher than the last of their fellows.

Being Mother of God she participates more than anyone else in the glory of her Son. And since the divinity of Jesus is absolutely evident in Heaven, it is clear to the blessed that Mary belongs to the hypostatic order, that she has a special affinity to the divine Persons, and that she shares in a unique way in Jesus’ universal kingship over all creatures. This is the doctrine of so many of the liturgical prayers: Ave Regina Coelorum . . . Regina Coeli . . . Salve Regina. It is found also in the Litanies: Queen of Angels . . . Queen of all saints. . . . And it is affirmed also in the passage we quoted earlier from the Bull Ineffabilis Deus. It is taught explicitly by St. Germanus of Constantinople,210 St. Modestus,211 St. John Damascene,24 St. Anselm (Orat. I), St. Bernard,212 St. Albert the Great,213 St. Thomas Aquinas,214 and all the doctors.


MARY’S ACCIDENTAL BEATITUDE

To Mary’s accidental beatitude contribute her more intimate knowledge of the glorious Humanity of Jesus, the exercise of her universal mediation and of her motherly mercy, and the cult of hyperdulia which she receives as Mother of God. She enjoys also in an eminent way the triple aureola of the martyrs, the confessors, and the virgins, for she suffered more than the martyrs during the Passion of her Son, she instructed the Apostles themselves in a private and intimate way, and she preserved virginity of soul and body in all its perfection. The glory of her body—which is a reflection of that of her soul—is of the same eminent degree.

Under all these respects Mary is raised above all the saints and angels, and it becomes increasingly evident that the reason and root cause of all her privileges is her eminent dignity as Mother of God.