O Mary, Cause of Our Joy!

A short break from my revision for the exams now, I am here typing a little, on the Feast of St. Anselm.

This saint, St. Anselm, he composed a very beautiful prayer, the Prayer of St. Anselm to Our Lord and Our Lady:

O Good Son, by the love, by which Thou lovest Thy mother, give me, I pray Thee, to love her truly, as truly Thou lovest her and will to love her.

O Good Mother, by the love by which thou lovest thy Son and want Him to be loved, obtain for me, I pray thee, to love Him truly as thou lovest Him and willest Him to be loved

St. Anselm, Bishop, Confessor and Doctor of the Church, was born in 1033 AD at Piedmont. He is one of the famous medieval philosophers (namely, after the Patristic Period, St. Augustine, St. Bonaventure, St. Albert the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas :), etc). "I do not attempt, O Lord, to penetrate Thy profundity, for I deem my intellect in no way sufficient thereunto, but I desire to understand in some degree Thy truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand, in order that I may believe; but I believe, that I may understand. For I believe this too, that unless I believed, I should not understand." (The Credo, ut intelligam attitude)

Faith and Reason go hand in hand. They are not mutually exclusive or independent of each other as what some may make us believe in this horribly modern world we live in.

Beautiful, O, So Beautiful! :)

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Alone with God
By Father J. Heyrman, S.J.

Saturday, the First Week after Easter

MARY – ‘CAUSE OF OUR JOY’

1. More than any other human being Mary has participated in her Son’s resurrection: she alone enjoys the full fruit of redemption: she has entered body and soul into the joy of the Lord. Applied to her the words, which Jesus spoke to the Apostles, must be taken unreservedly, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be filled” (John 15:11). Of this fullness, poured over into her soul by her divine Son, we have all received. Behold her enthroned in the resplendent glory and joy of her Son.

2. Petition: The grace to turn in all our troubles and trials with childlike confidence to Mary “cause of our joy”, that she may lead us to the prime source of all joy and delight, Jesus.

I. Mary’s Beauty, Cause of Our Joy

All beauty, being an irradiation of God’s Beauty’ engenders joy. Mary is the “All-Beautiful”, unspotted even in the sight of God; immaculate and full of grace. How could she not be wholly well-pleasing to the eyes of the Lord? The liturgy makes her cry out, “All ye that love the Lord, rejoice with me; for when I was little I was pleasing to the Most High.” As Dante sings, “With a single glance of her eyes she, who is loved and revered by God, obtains for us all graces.”

We, children of Adam, conscious of our sinfulness, gaze in wonder at this marvel of spotless beauty; we congratulate her, and we exult in the Lord, because one of our race has been endowed with so much grace that she was deemed worthy to be the Mother of God. Enraptured we sing with the Church, Thou art all-beautiful, O Mary; thou art the glory of Jerusalem, the joy of Israel, the honour of our people. Thou art the Advocate of sinners, O Mary, Virgin most prudent, Mother of Love; pray for us, and intercede for us with our Lord, Jesus Christ.

II. Mary Our Mother, Cause of Our Joy

To every man his mother is a sacred source of noble and unalloyed joy. In the supernatural order, too, God has given us a Mother. So has the Church understood the words, which at the hour of His death Jesus addressed to Mary, “Woman, behold thy son;” and to John, “Behold thy mother.” These were simple, solemn, divine, creative words.

In the beginning God said, “Be light made, and light was made” (Gen. 1:3). On the cross God said, “Behold thy mother,” and she was made our Mother; “Behold thy son”, and he was made her son. At that moment Mary became the Mother of all those that would believe in Jesus and through Baptism would be incorporated into Him.

When she was about to become the Mother of Jesus, Mary by her Fiat gave her full consent to whatever that motherhood would imply; here there was no need of renewal of that consent. She was the Mother of God’s Son, and as such she became the Mother of all those who, in Christ, have been made children of God.

Can aught be closer to Mary’s heart than this last charge committed to her by her dying Son? And to us, what a cause of joy it is, to know that we have received from Jesus Himself His own Mother as our Mother too. When such a Son commends us to such a Mother, how safe we feel and how happy! “To thy protection we fly, O Holy Mother!”

III. Mary’s Divine Motherhood, a Cause of Our Joy

Mary was the first to hear “the good tidings”; and “the great joy that shall be to all the people”, which the angel announced to the shepherds, filled first the heart of Mary when “the Holy” was born as her child.

Through Mary the Father gave us His Son, and with Him all things. When the Holy Ghost “came upon her”, she conceived in her womb the prime Fountain of all bliss and all grace, of all joy and all peace, on earth and in heaven. Rightly do we greet Mary as the “Cause of our joy”; for she has borne, nourished, and given birth to Him who was to say, “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6).

She is the Alma Redemptoris Mater, the fostering Mother of the Redeemer, though only a creature, the “handmaid of the Lord”, herself redeemed, but sublimely redeemed. In her first of all was poured the fullness of salvation and of joy; then of that over-fullness we have received. From her we have received Him as our Brother in manhood; from Him we have received her, as our Mother in the divine scheme of redemption. And one day she will “show us the fruit of her womb” and introduce us into the eternal joy of her Son our Lord.

Prayer:

O Mother blest, whom God bestows
On sinners and on just
What joy, what hope thou givest those
Who in thy mercy trust!
O Mother blest, for me obtain,
Ungrateful though I be,
To love that God, who first could deign
To show such love to me.

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A small request from your humble blogger: please do pray for me, horrible (just joking ;)) exams are on next week until the end of April. Deo gratias et Mariae!

Jesus, Mary, I love Thee, Save Souls!

Regina Caeli, Laetare, Alleluia!