Salve, regina, mater misericordiae - 15

XV.-MARY IS THE MOTHER OF PENITENT SINNERS.

This most benign Lady only requires that the sinner should recommend himself to her, and purpose amendment. When Mary sees a sinner at her feet, imploring her mercy, she does not consider the crimes with which he is loaded, but the intention with which he comes; and if the intention is good, even should he have commiitted all possible sins, the most loving Mother embraces him, and does not disdain to heal the wounds of his soul; for she is not only called the Mother of Mercy but is so, truly and indeed, and shows herself such by the love and tenderness with which she assists us all. And this is precisely what the Blessed Virgin herself said to St. Bridget: “However much a man sins, I am ready immediately to receive him when he repents; nor do I pay attention to the number of his sins, but only to the intention with which he comes: I do not disdain to anoint and heal his wounds; for I am called, and truly am, the Mother of Mercy.”

Mary is the Mother of sinners who wish to repent, and as their Mother she cannot do otherwise than compassionate them; nay, more, she seems to feel the miseries of her poor children as if they were her own. When the Canaanite woman begged our Lord to deliver her daughter from the devil who possessed her, she said: Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David, my daughter is grievously troubled by a devil-(Matt. xv. 22). But since the daughter, and not the mother, was tormented, she should rather have said, “Lord, take compassion on my daughter” and not have mercy on me: but no, she said have mercy on me, and she was right; for the sufferings of children are felt by their mothers as if they were their own. And it is precisely thus, says Richard of St. Laurence, that Mary prays to God when she recommends a sinner to Him who has had recourse to her; she cries out for the sinful soul: “Have mercy on me!” “My Lord,” she seems to say, “this poor soul that is in sin is my daughter, and therefore, pity not so much her as me, who am her Mother.”

Would that all sinners had recourse to this sweet Mother, for then certainly all would be pardoned by God. “O Mary,” exclaims St. Bonaventure in rapturous astonishment, “thou embracest with maternal affection a sinner despised by the whole world, nor dost thou leave him until thou hast reconciled the poor creature with his Judge”-meaning, that the sinner, whilst in the state of sin, is hated and loathed by all, even by inanimate creatures; fire, air, and earth would chastise him, and avenge the honour of their outraged Lord. But if this unhappy creature flies to Mary, will Mary reject him? Oh, no, provided he goes to her for help and in order to amend she will embrace him with the affection of a Mother, and will not let him go, until, by her powerful intercession, she has reconciled him with God and reinstated him in grace.