Virgin Annunciate by Antonello da Messina
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Available from St. Bonaventure Publications and TAN Books
Book Length: 670 pages
Of all the works written about Our Lady, this one should especially shine in the hearts and minds of Catholics. It was authored by St. Alphonsus Ligouri, an eminent and erudite Doctor of the Church who has inspired great devotion not only in his native Italy, but indeed the whole breath and width of the Catholic world. This tome, simply put, is his magnum opus concerning practically all that one would or could ever desire to know about the Mother of God. Due to the colossal size of this volume, it may in fact intimidate souls from approaching this fount of wisdom. Some extracts of this work concerning the role of Our Lady in history and her title as the Mother of Mercy, therefore, shall be examined so that these fears may be transformed into a burning desire to discover the spiritual richness that lies within these pages.
A simple question has been asked by many—why God does not chastise men as harshly as He did in the Old Testament? Why are the onanists of our time not punished as Onan, their namesake, who for having done this “detestable thing” (Genesis 38:10) was slain on the spot? Why does He not make the earth swallow up the heretics of our time, as happened to the schismatic Core and his followers? Among the many other explanations which theologians have given, St. Alphonsus reasonably adds another:
Saint Bonaventure remarks that the prophet Isaias complained of the times in which he lived, saying, “Behold thou art angry, and we have sinned:…there is none…that riseth up and taketh hold of thee.” And then he makes the following commentary: ‘It is true, O Lord, that at the time there was none to raise up sinners and withhold thy wrath, for Mary was not yet born;’ ‘before Mary,’ to quote the Saint’s own words, ‘there was no one who could thus dare restrain the arm of God.’ But now, if God is angry with a sinner, and Mary takes him under her protection, she withholds the avenging arm of her Son, and saves him.
(98)
Consider then the great power and love of this Virgin Mother, the Queen of Heaven! She is able to restrain the justice of the Lord, and does on so on our behalf, her children by faith. It may be objected that this kind of intercession puts the Virgin at odds with the will of the Holy Trinity; but this cannot be further from the truth. If Moses, a holy prophet—but still a sinful man—could appeal to the mercy of God and intercede so that the Israelites could be given an opportunity to repent of their idolatry,1 how much more of a perfect intercessor do we Catholics, the modern Israelites, possess! How fortunate are we, despite the harshness of these times, to have this immaculate intercessor! Moses could not devote all his time to pray for the Israelites whenever they went wayward, as happened during the forty years in the desert; yet Mary is always praying for us, no matter the length we may have been in our own spiritual desert.
We may, however, feel hesitant to ask this perfect woman to intercede for us; we may fear that our spiritual impurity may make us reviled by her. One might posit the concept that it is even impossible for this woman to have compassion on us fallen men, given the sublimity of her Immaculate Conception. How could she, being spotless as such, sympathize with the follies and shameful grime of fallen men? Would not her exalted state instead even necessitate a revulsion towards ourselves? Such ideas are quite erroneous, though at first glance they may appear true. The love of the Virgin Mary, being immaculate, is among men the closest to that of God Himself after Jesus Christ, who said, “For I am not come to call the just, but sinners” (Matthew 9:13). Therefore, her sense of mercy is, excepting the God-Man, nearest to that of the Triune God. St. Alphonsus, illustrating this truth by drawing upon the figure of Noah’s Ark from the Old Testament, writes:
At the time of the deluge even brutes were saved in Noah’s ark. Under the mantle of Mary even sinners obtain salvation. St. Gertrude once saw Mary with her mantle extended, and under it many wild beasts—lions, bears, and tigers—had taken refuge; and she remarked that Mary not only did not reject, but even welcomed and caressed them with the greatest tenderness. The Saint understood hereby that the most abandoned sinners who have recourse to Mary are not only not rejected, but that they are welcomed and saved by her from eternal death.
(59)
Therefore, we should not fear to approach this Mother of Mercy, as the Church wisely terms her. Instead, sinners great and small should fly under this mantle and implore her maternal aid, as she has been given to us as a spiritual mother—a point not neglected at all by St. Alphonsus. On this, he writes in one place that:
…[O]ur Mother loves us much, because we were recommended to her by her beloved Jesus, when He before expiring said to her, “Woman, behold thy son!” for we were all represented by St. John, as we have already observed: these were His last words; and the last recommendations left before death by persons we love are always treasured and never forgotten. But again, we are exceedingly dear to Mary on account of the sufferings we cost her; mothers generally love those children most, the preservation of whose lives has cost them the most suffering and anxiety; we are those children for whom Mary, in order to obtain for us the life of grace, was obliged to endure the bitter agony of herself offering her beloved Jesus to die an ignominious death, and had also to see Him expire before her own eyes in the midst of the most cruel and unheard-of torments. It was then by this great offering of Mary that we were born to the life of grace; we are therefore her very dear children, since we cost her so much suffering.
(33)
It is said often that Mary is our Mother. Here, the saintly author elaborates with luminous clarity as to what this truly means, by way of comparing her seemingly distant love for us to the more immediately recognizable love of earthly mothers. Therefore, we ought to be moved by these words to fly more readily to Mary our Mother, who is ever willing to help us. Perhaps on account of our frailty, we may still fear to invoke her aid; therefore, these words of Holy Writ should be kept in view: “…perfect charity casteth out fear, because fear hath pain” (1 John 4:18). Being our spiritual mother, Mary has perfect charity towards us; she will cast out our fears if we go to her, so long as we desire to be saved from our sins. If we are in the state of grace, she fortifies us and helps cleanse our frailty with her benignity. If we are unfortunate enough to be in the state of sin, she helps prepare us to confess our sins and amend our lives. To further this point, there are numerous credible stories in this work which the saintly author cites for the edification of the reader in which great sinners, who in some occasions had been living years outside of God’s grace, were converted because they performed some pious act towards the Virgin. These are spread throughout the work, though a large amount of them can be found in the first chapter of Part III, which is dedicated to relating pious stories concerning devotion to Mary.
Without at least a semblance of humility, there can be no true mercy—for the offended party, in order to grant pardon, must possess a degree of humility in order to resist the pride which tempts one to refuse mercy and instead humiliate the opponent entirely. Now, as Mary is immaculate and is the Mother of Mercy, she possesses humility insofar as it can be possessed. But with the knowledge that humility, in our experience, often lessens the view we have of ourselves, there may come a question of how this applied to the Virgin Mother. After all, she had no sins to be reminded of, not even mere venial faults. How, then, did she perceive herself in the light of God? She was certainly not deceived by humility; and the effect that this virtue had on her, as opposed to what happens with ourselves is quite different in a respect. In Mary there was no pride, while in ourselves there is quite a bit of it. Thus humility among us sinners has the effect of removing the blinding of our perceptions which comes with concupiscence; in the soul of the Virgin, humility took the form of a further ennobling of her spiritual perfection. Utilizing an analogy, St. Alphonsus comments that:
As a beggar, when clothed with a rich garment, which has been bestowed upon her, does not pride herself on it in the presence of the giver, but is rather humbled, being reminded thereby of her own poverty; so also the more Mary saw herself enriched, the more did she humble herself, remembering that all was God’s gift…
(466)
Therefore, she was moved to further gratitude for the gift of the Immaculate Conception. She recognized that without this extraordinary grace, she would have been the worst sinner in the world. In this, there is a lesson for ourselves—we must imitate Mary by returning each and every spiritual gift we have received (and even temporal ones too) to God, for He has given these riches to us out of His sublime generosity. But how can we imitate Mary without loving her? And how can we love her without approaching her, without imploring her intercession? We must therefore seek to make Mary truly present in our lives, so that Jesus Christ will be present with us always.
In closing, this book is not only a superabundant source of Marian doctrine, it is also a lengthy defense of these truths. The truths of her life on earth are covered extensively, as well as her exalted role as Queen of Heaven ever since the Assumption. With such a magnificent effort in view, the author underwent great lengths to cite the teachings of the Fathers of the Church and other great saints such as St. Bernard of Clairvaux and St. Bonaventure concerning the Holy Virgin. So it is not merely the voice of St. Alphonsus whom the Holy Ghost speaks through when we read this work, but the voices of all these radiant lights, who have been brought together to compose a wonderful unity.
All Catholics therefore should read at least parts of this work, for it will do us immense good. In some parts of this work, let it be noted, there is some repetition of stories; but this should not tax the reader as somehow being “uncreative”. Rather, such a stylistic choice is meant to further cement the lessons which this Doctor wishes and prays for us to learn and practice. If read with a sincere heart and mind, one will find as the result of imbibing this book the fruit of a renewed devotion to Mary. As St. Alphonsus writes:
Let us also rejoice on our own account; for though our Mother is no longer present with us on earth, having ascended in glory to heaven, yet in affection she is always with us.
(399)