Vita, dulcedo - 02

XVIII.-MARY IS OUR LIFE, BECAUSE SHE OBTAINS FOR US THE PARDON OF OUR SINS.

Mary says, in the eighth chapter of the sacred Canticles, that God has placed her in the world to be our defence: I am a wall: and my breasts are as a tower -(Cant. viii. 10). And she is truly made a mediatress of peace between sinners and God: Since I am become in his presence as one finding peace. On these words St. Bernard encourages sinners, saying: “Go to this Mother of Mercy and show her the wounds which thy sins have left on thy soul; then will she certainly entreat her Son, by the breasts that gave Him suck, to pardon thee all. And this Divine Son, Who loves her so tenderly, will most certainly grant her petition.” In this sense it is that the holy Church, in her almost daily prayer calls upon us to beg our Lord to grant us the powerful help of the intercession of Mary to rise from our sins: “Grant Thy help to our weakness, O most merciful God; and that we who are mindful of the holy Mother of God may, by the help of her intercession, rise from our iniquities.” With reason, then, does St. Laurence Justinian call her “the hope of malefactors,” since she alone is the one who obtains them pardon from God. With reason does St. Bernard call her “the sinners ladder,” since she, the most compassionate Queen, extending her hand to them, draws them from an abyss of sin, and enables them to ascend to God. With reason does an ancient writer call her “the only hope of sinners,” for by her help alone can we hope for the remission of our sins.

St. John Chrysostom also says “that sinners receive pardon by the intercession of Mary alone.” And therefore the Saint, in the name of all sinners, thus addresses her: “Hail, Mother of God and of us all; Heaven where God dwells; throne, from which our Lord dispenses all grace; glory of our Church, assiduously pray to Jesus that in the Day of Judgment we may find mercy through thee, and receive the reward prepared by God for those who love Him.”

With reason, finally, is Mary called, in the words of the sacred Canticles, the dawn: Who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising?-(Cant. vi. 9). Yes, says Pope Innocent III, “for as the dawn is the end of night and the beginning of day, well may the Blessed Virgin Mary, who was the end of vices, be called the dawn of day.” When devotion towards Mary begins in a soul it produces the same effect that the birth of this most Holy Virgin produced in the world. It puts an end to the night of sin, and leads the soul into the path of virtue. Therefore St. Germanus says: “O Mother of God, thy protection never ceases, thy intercession is life, and thy patronage never fails.” And in a sermon the same Saint says that to pronounce the name of Mary with affection is a sign of life in the soul, or at least, that life will soon return there.