To thee do we cry, poor banished children of eve - 10

3.-THE NECESSITY OF MARY'S INTERCESSION FOR OUR SALVATION.

The devil, like Holofernes, who, in order to gain possession of the city of Bethulia, ordered the aqueducts to be destroyed, exerts himself to his utmost to destroy devotion to the Mother of God in souls; for if this channel of grace is closed, he easily gains possession of them. St. Bernard says: "See, O men, with what tender devotion our Lord wills that we should honour our Queen, by always having recourse to her protection; and by relying on it; for in Mary God has placed the plenitude of every good, so that henceforward we may know and acknowledge that whatever hope, grace, or other advantage we possess, all comes from the hands of Mary." St. Antoninus says the same thing: "All graces that have ever been bestowed on men, all came through Mary." And on this account she is called the moon, according to the following remark of St. Bonaventure: "As the moon, which stands between the sun and the earth, transmits to this latter whatever it receives from the former, so does Mary pour out upon us who are in this world the heavenly graces that she receives from the Divine Sun of justice."

Again, the holy Church calls her "the happy gate of heaven"; for, as the same St. Bernard remarks: "As every mandate of grace that is sent by a king passes through the palace-gates, so does every grace that comes from Heaven to the world pass through the hands of Mary." St. Bonaventure says that Mary is called "the gate of Heaven, because no one can enter that blessed kingdom without passing through her."

An ancient author, probably St. Sophronius, in a sermon on the Assumption, published with the works of St. Jerome, says that the plenitude of grace which is in Jesus Christ came into Mary, though in a different way; meaning that it is our Lord, as the Head, from Whom the vital spirits (that is, Divine help to obtain eternal salvation), flow into us, who are the members of His mystical body; and that the same plenitude is in Mary, as in the neck, through which these vital spirits pass to the members. The same idea is confirmed by St. Bernardine of Sienna, who explains it more clearly, saying, "that all graces of the spiritual life that descend from Christ, their Head, to the faithful, who are His mystical body, are transmitted through the instrumentality of Mary." The same St. Bernardine endeavours to assign a reason for this when he says that "as God was pleased to dwell in the womb of this holy Virgin, she acquired, so to speak, a kind of jurisdiction over all graces; for when Jesus Christ issued forth from her most sacred womb, all the streams of Divine gifts flowed from her as from a celestial ocean." Elsewhere, repeating the same idea in more distinct terms, he asserts that "from the moment that this Virgin Mother conceived the Divine Word in her womb, she acquired a special jurisdiction, so to say, over all the gifts of the Holy Ghost, so that no creature has since received any grace from God otherwise than through the hands of Mary."

Another author, in a commentary on a passage of Jeremias, in which the Prophet, speaking of the Incarnation of the Eternal Word, and of Mary His Mother, says that a woman shall compass a man (Jer.xxxi. 22), remarks, that "as no line can be drawn from the centre of a circle without passing through the circumference, so no grace proceeds from Jesus, Who is the centre of every good thing, without passing through Mary, who compassed Him when she received Him into her womb."

St. Bernardine says that for this reason, "all gifts, all virtues, and all graces are dispensed by the hands of Mary to whomsoever, whensoever, and, as she pleases." Richard of St. Laurence also asserts that, "God wills that whatever good things He bestows on His creatures should pass through the hands of Mary." And therefore the Venerable Abbot of Celles exhorts all to have recourse to this "treasury of graces," as he calls her, for the world and the whole human race have to receive every good that can be hoped for through her alone. "Address yourselves to the Blessed Virgin," he says; "for by her, and in her, and with her, and from her, the world receives, and is to receive, every good."

It must now be evident to all that when these Saints and authors tell us in such terms that all graces come to us through Mary, they do not simply mean to say that we "received Jesus Christ, the source of every good, through Mary," as the before-named writer pretends; but that they assure us that God, Who gave us Jesus Christ, wills that all graces that have been, that are, and will be dispensed to men to the end of the world through the merits of Christ, should be dispensed by the hands and through the intercession of Mary.

And thus Father Suarez concludes that it is the sentiment of the universal Church that, "the intercession and prayers of Mary are, above those of all others, not only useful, but necessary." Necessary, in accordance with what we have already said, not with an absolute necessity; for the mediation of Jesus Christ alone is absolutely necessary; but with a moral necessity; for the Church believes with St. Bernard that God has determined that no grace shall be granted otherwise than by the hands of Mary. "God wills," says the Saint, "that we should have nothing that has not passed through the hands of Mary"; and before St. Bernard, St. Ildephonsus asserted the same thing, addressing the Blessed Virgin in the following terms: "O Mary, God has decided on committing all good gifts that He has provided for men to thy hands, and therefore He has entrusted all treasures and riches of grace to thee." And therefore St. Peter Damian remarks that, "God would not become man without the consent of Mary; in the first place, that we might feel ourselves under great obligations to her; and in the second, that we might understand that the salvation of all is left to the care of this Blessed Virgin."

St. Bonaventure, on the words of the Prophet Isaias, And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root, and the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him (Is. xi. 1, 2), makes a beautiful remark, saying: "Whoever desires the sevenfold grace of the Holy Spirit, let him seek for the flower of the Holy Ghost in the rod." That is, for Jesus in Mary; "For by the rod we find the flower, and by the flower, God." And in the twelfth chapter of the same work, he adds: "If you desire to possess this flower, bend down the rod, which bears the flower, by prayer; and so you will obtain it." The seraphical Father, in his sermon for the Epiphany, on the words of St. Matthew, They found the child with Mary his mother (Matt. ii. 11), reminds us that if we wish to find Jesus we must go to Mary. We may, then, conclude, that in vain shall we seek for Jesus unless we endeavour to find Him with Mary. And so St. Ildephonsus says, "I desire to be the servant of the Son; because no one will ever be so without serving the Mother, for this reason I desire the servitude of Mary."