The Wisdom of the Blessed Virgin
The unchanging serenity of the heavens added greatly to the delights of the earthly Paradise. That garden of delights needed not the rain, and no cloud came to darken its light. This privilege of so blessed a place is but a figure to us of the Heart of Mary, in the wisdom imparted to her from the beginning by the Holy Ghost. So high was this wisdom that, by means of it, she dwelt always in the light of a clear faith or a sublime vision of divine things.
Because of her faith she was declared blessed by St. Elizabeth. Blessed art thou who hast believed; for those things shall be accomplished in thee, which have been spoken to thee by the Lord.
The faith of the Virgin Mary is to be measured by the blessedness of her lot. By her faith she came into possession of that Good which is higher than all thought; and beyond all our thought must have been the faith which brought her to it. Faith must have been in her in the highest degree possible to a crea- ture, and thus she is the first and chief of all believers. She has reached, so to speak, the very ideal of this virtue. She has made amends for all the failings of the faithful in their belief; and she atones for all infidels who are never to believe. If she alone of all men had believed, the divine light of faith would have been well spent. The light of faith which was in her might have been shared with all men; and it would suffice to enlighten the minds of as many as have been, are, and shall be to the end of time.
The splendor of this light suffered no change in the Paradise of the Virgin, excepting only when it opened out to more perfect brightness and a clearer day in the high visions which she enjoyed.
It would be more than extreme rashness to deny that the mind of the Blessed Virgin was enlightened by every heavenly vision. This is the means of which our Lord has commonly availed Himself for sanctifying His chosen souls. It would not be fitting that He should reject it in the sanctification of the Tabernacle which, by its holiness, was to give Him so pleasing an abode. The Most High hath sanctified His Tabernacle. To the purest of the Virgin Saints their Divine Spouse has often shown this familiarity. We cannot suppose that He would deny it to the Mother of holy love.
Hence two kinds of visions would more especially be granted to the Virgin Mary. One was frequent-the showing her of the Divine Essence by the means of sublime ideas infused into her mind, wherein as in a clear crystal she daily discerned more and more the fulness of God's attributes.
The other was rarer, but by so much the more sublime. It was the sight of the Divine Essence without veil, so that-while still a wayfarer on earth-she might enjoy that which is the everlasting happiness of the Blessed in the Fatherland of heaven.
St. Augustine and St. Thomas say that this was the sight of the Divinity-face to face-which was granted to Moses and St. Paul; and it certainly should not be denied to the Blessed Virgin. This follows St. Bernard's rule in such things: "When something has been granted even to a few mortals, it is certainly not right to suppose that it has been refused to so blessed a Virgin."
That Moses and the Apostle, while still in mortal flesh, saw the Divinity absolutely without veil, might be doubted without this being a reason for doubting Its vision by Mary. Man shall not look on Me, and live, were God's words to Moses. But the Blessed Virgin was not ruled by Providence according to Its common laws for men, but with due relation to her immeasurable dignity as Mother of God. "If God could give Himself to be thus seen," says Gerson, "it was but just that He should grant it to His Mother."
Beyond all explanation would be the effects remaining from such visions in the Heart of Mary. The slenderest ray of that Uncreated Light, manifested to other Saints in the mirror of created things, raised them above themselves, filled them with unaccountable sweetness, transformed them into beings quite different from their former selves. If the Lord had not tempered this influence of His Divine Light, the Saints could not have borne up under it, as we see in the life of St. Teresa.
Yet this Divine Sun, in Itself and without veil or cloud, clothed round about with the deepest of Its splendors the Heart of Mary. Therein It met with no hindrance from lukewarmness, or failing, from heedlessness or ingratitude or forgetfulness. There was every perfect disposition of the highest grace and love, and the offering of all to God's glory. There, unchecked, the arm of the Almighty might work at pleasure.
We may imagine to ourselves that all rational creatures are changed into so many Apostles like St. Paul. Even then, says St. Bernardine-"If there were as many Pauls as there are creatures, they would not reach to the Blessed Virgin's height of contemplation. For Paul was a Vessel of Election; but the Virgin Mary was the precious Vessel containing the Divinity."
Turn aside thine eyes; for they have made Me to fly forth, says the Divine Spouse. St. Thomas of Villanova, in his comment, says this figures the up- ward glance of the Virgin in prayer, which pleaded so strongly that it drew down the Eternal Word from heaven to earth-"as by a flight, from the Bosom of the Father to the Virgin's womb."
From this we might almost say that, as the grandeur of the Divine Essence draws to Itself the entire sight of the Seraphim, so the perfection of His Mother drew to her the full gaze of the Word Incarnate. My delights are to be with the children of men, He says. Yet, for the most part, He finds in them only ingratitude and rudeness and ignorance. What then were His delights in the Heart of Mary, where everything was fulness of light and love and correspondence with His grace!
"Mary," says St. Jerome, "was all faith in believing Him, all sight in knowing Him, all charity in loving Him, all virtue in working for Him."
