The Virtues of the Blessed Virgin

Source: District of Asia

The beginning and source of the virtues of Mary was the magnificence of the Lord, Who with His own hand planted this garden of His delights. This is why these words are applied to her: The Lord God planted a Paradise of delights from the beginning.

In the first instant of her most blessed and Immaculate Conception, the Lord began working in that ground of natural virtue which-in her-was a nature wholly inclined to well-doing. Therein He placed all those supernatural virtues which are infused by the Holy Ghost, both theological [faith, hope, and charity] and moral [prudence, fortitude, justice, temperance, and their branches, such as religion, humility, and the others]. These were there in so heroic degree that each attained to its final perfection; and it could be said of none that there was something wanting. Hence, after her Son, the Virgin Mary is the divinest work presented to the contemplation of the Blessed in heaven.

From this lofty height the Blessed Virgin began her upward course; and her progress answered to her beginning. By her free co-operation she joined the acquired virtues to those infused by the Holy Ghost, working in so wondrous a way that anyone of her acts might surpass the perfection and merit of all the Saints in that line of virtue.

Thus St. Bernardine considers the humility and obedience, with which Mary gave her consent to the Divine Incarnation, to have been of greater merit to her than were all their torments to all the Martyrs.

For by this consent the Blessed Virgin merited to become the Mother of God-something which all the Martyrs together could not have merited. From this single act of virtue, reaching to so sublime a height, we may reason to the priceless worth of the innumerable acts that made up her life.

All the works of Mary were in full correspondence with the impulses of the Holy Spirit, and all answered fully to the strength of divine grace given to aid her.

The first of the Angels, in the few moments in which he worked in this manner, became as a Sun among the other blessed spirits. To what depths of light did not the Virgin Mary reach in a life so long, with so intense working of her spirit, in a series of actions which were without interruption from sleep and without let or hindrance to delay or turn them back in their onward course!

Hence the marvel of those blessed spirits, saying: Who is she that cometh up from the desert, flowing with delights? . . . Who is she that goeth forth as the rising dawn? And their wonder is not the offspring of ignorance, of which those blessed minds are incapable; but it springs from the grandeur of the sight they contemplate. From the dread desert of earth there rises up this great Virgin in grace so sublime that she gives forth her delights to God her Beloved with greater plenty and loftier merit than all that blessed multitude of Angels and Saints in heaven.

She was greater than them all in merit, because the virtues of Mary were like to the trees planted in the earthly Paradise, giving forth flowers and fruits together. In this way they shared in the high qualities of both heaven and earth. "In their perfection they belonged to the state of the Blessed in heaven; in merit they were of those who are still wayfarers on earth." Such is the teaching of Albertus Magnus.

The commonest plants take on an air of elegance in the gardens of princes, under the hand of skilful culture. So the least and commonest acts of the Virgin Mary differed in their perfection from the highest acts of the other Saints. There is no lower natural act than the taking of food. But the Blessed Virgin knew that her food was to serve to the nourishment of the Incarnate Word; and she mingled with her eating acts of virtue that amazed the very Seraphim.

Amazement ceases, however, when we remember God's end in the creation of Mary. In her He would form for us a Model of every virtue, as St. Thomas teaches. And for Himself He would form the place of His rest, whereto He might withdraw and, as it were, renew Himself in patience wearied out by the sins of men. He Who created me hath rested in my tabernacle."

We can understand how perfect must have been those virtues which were to give us a created image of all sanctity, and to form the delights of this re- treat of Christ from the sins of the world. They must have been shown forth in numberless acts that were sublime beyond example and pure without flaw-acts worthy of her who was to conceive and bring forth, to nourish and guide and command the Incarnate Word.

If we have the mind to weigh aright all these motives, we shall come to know the true worth of the virtues of Mary. A maidenly heart was once so pleasing a resting-place to the Divine Spouse that He said of it" You shall find Me in the heart of Getrude." This was the great St. Gertrude. Who then shall fully understand that rest which the Divine Son found in the Heart of His Virgin Mother? She alone who gave Him that resting place.