Some more of my refelctions on the interior life of our Lady. The interior life of Mary was united constantly to the passion of her Son, but she alone on that barren hill at calvary knew of the coming resurrection. She alone understood that when her Son said that he would raise the temple in three days that he was referring to his own mortal body, as he was flesh of her flesh. The spiritual martyrdom of our Lady mirrored the physical martyrdom of her Beloved Son, but her soul was recollected in constant adoration of the saviour, and ‘out of the winepress of her suffering, the Lord our God blessed her’ (Deuteronomy 15v14). There is a mystery to suffering, offered freely as an act of love for in a sense the law of love is sacrifice. Our Lady’s self-donation to the will of God was resolute, her heart was aflame with divine love, of her the Lord could say, ‘I will kindle a fire in you, and shall devour every green tree in you and every dry tree; the flaming flame shall not be quenched and all faces from the south to the north shall be burnt thereby’, (Ezekiel 20v47). Thus, those who consecrate themselves to the Immaculate heart of Mary and live in imitation of her; ‘their faces will be faces of flame’ (Isaiah 13v8).
AN INTERIOR LIFE OF PURITY The purity of our Lady is one of her greatest attributes, she is the immaculate one, ‘all shining through’, a prism of the interior life of the Holy Trinity. She is the new Eden where God chose to dwell, ‘you were in Eden, the Garden of God; every precious stone adorned you; carnelian, chrysolite and emerald, topaz, onyx and jasper, lapis lazuli, turquoise and beryl. Your settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared’ (Ezekiel 28v13). It was in the garden of her soul where the holy Trinity dwelt from the moment of her conception as a free gift of divine grace. She was pre-eminently a ‘partaker of the divine nature’ (2 Peter 1v4) escaping the corruption of this world, a precious pearl, divinized in perfect theosis with God, the author of her immaculate existence. Our Lady’s mystical marriage with the Holy Spirit was a Holy Bond that surpasses the sanctity of all the saints combined, ‘for the Lord has chosen (this daughter of) Zion, he has desired it for his dwelling place’ (Psalm 132c13). Her soul like a pure crystal fountain; as in the words of Joel 'And it shall come to pass in that day, the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with waters, and a fountain shall come forth of the house of the Lord, and shall water the valley' (Joel 3v18). Christ was able to utter the beautiful words of beatitude because he knew his mother's heart, ‘Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God’. A mother’s heart is never her own, forever aflame for the fruit of her womb, a fecund love that never dies. The poetic words of Christina Rosetti about her earthly mother could equally apply to Christ’s love of his eternal mother; ‘to her whose heart is my heart’s quiet home, To my first love, my Mother, on whose knee I learnt love-lore’, ‘I have woven a wreath of rhymes wherewith to crown your honoured name; of love, whose blessed glow transcends the laws of time’ (Christina Rosetti; Sonnets are full of love; adapted). The immaculate Logos was born in the Immaculate heart of Mary first before her womb. Our Blessed Lady was that pure vessel, the theophany of God; the first-fruit of her womb was the Divine Logos, Jesus Christ. She was the living tabernacle manifesting God’s love to the world. The shekinah glory of God held within her womb is the Eternal Light that shines for all eternity, Jesus Christ, Light of the World.
I noticed this aspect of the Rosary, as a Teacher, many years ago after my conversion. I believe this is why it is such a really great weapon against heresy. One of the first thing bad priests did in seminaries,, for instance, was to discourage the use of the rosary. I believe such wisdom is called, ' Infused Knowledge'. https://secondexodus.com/home/words/preternatural/ Infused Knowledge Adam’s infused knowledge was not acquired, in the sense of natural cognition derived from experience and the reasoning process; nor was it intrinsically supernatural as giving a knowledge of the mysteries, such as the souls enjoy in the beatific vision. It was infused because not naturally acquired, but yet entitatively not beyond the capacity of man’s faculties in his statu viae. Theologians commonly refer to three areas of special knowledge possessed by Adam: regarding God and His attributes, the moral law or man’s relations to God, and the physical universe both material and spiritual.
This website is excellent. It is fully Catholic but wonderfully connected to the Church's Hebrew roots. I highly recommend it.
Some more thoughts: Due to her immaculate conception, our Lady’s gifts were preternatural, that means above the order of human nature, freely given from the divine bounty. As with our first parents, our Lady was preserved from all sin. Since ‘the wages of sin in death’ (Romans 6v23), it is logical to assume that Mary had bodily immortality, the original gift given to Adam and Eve. She was, therefore, assumed body and soul into heaven. There was no separation of body and soul, which, is the definition of death. She was also gifted with integrity being exempt from concupiscence, her will and the Divine will were fused as one. In her, soul and body were a harmonious union, an enclosed garden, where wisdom dwelt. Mary, immaculate, was the perfect temple, where the Logos could become incarnate. Our Lady, is a seat of Wisdom, and was gifted with infused knowledge with regard to God and His attributes, the moral order both spiritual and physical. As spouse of the Holy Spirit, she was endowed with all of the spiritual gifts and virtues. Our Lady is beautiful because her greatest gift is love for she radiates love – ‘above all put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony’ (Colossians 3v14), she is a ‘pleasing aroma to God’ (Genesis 8v21), and the ‘odour of Christ’ (2 Corinthians 2v15). Her immaculate soul, in its purity and perfection, ‘proclaims the greatness of the Lord’ (Luke 1v46).
When it is said that Mary is the Queen of the Prophets, many Protestants take issue with it, believing it is wrong to place her above the lawgiving prophet of the Old Covenant, who spoke face to face with God. However, it is interesting to note how the Book of Exodus provides a remarkable parallel to the Annunciation and the exaltation of the Immaculate even above the prophets of the Old Testament. While the Lord instructed Moses to set boundaries around Mount Sinai so that only the prophet could approach His glorious presence—and not the people of Israel—in the episode of the Annunciation, the angel declares that the shadow of the Most High would overshadow Mary, that the Holy Spirit would come upon her, and that she would give birth to the Son of God. We see that while Abraham witnessed a prefiguration of the Holy Trinity at the Oak of Mamre, and Moses served as a mediator between God and humanity, Mary was not only consecrated as a mediator between Christ and humanity but was also elevated to a position that no previous human creature had attained: the tabernacle of the Holy Trinity. EXODUS 19:10-13 10 And the Lord said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Have them wash their clothes 11 and be ready by the third day, because on that day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. 12 Put limits for the people around the mountain and tell them, ‘Be careful that you do not approach the mountain or touch the foot of it. Whoever touches the mountain is to be put to death. 13 They are to be stoned or shot with arrows; not a hand is to be laid on them. No person or animal shall be permitted to live.’ Only when the ram’s horn sounds a long blast may they approach the mountain.
I think I am going to pen another book,'The Enclosed Garden' reflections on our Lady's interior life, her virtues and beatitudes. This morning I was joking to our Lady that I am her little donkey that she can sit on & I can carry her around in a spiritual sense let her direct me as I am only a dumb vehicle in her hands. Then a grave doubt entered my mind - in writing about our Lady am I not undermining her Son and His uniqueness and maybe the protestants are right that we give too much credence to our Lady - should I not be writing about her Son? The evil one is so clever in planting these seeds of doubts - Reflecting on this in a short moment the verse 'My soul magnifies the Lord' came immediately into my mind - that in honouring our Lady, God is magnified and exalted as she is the daughter of the Father, mother of the Son and Spouse of the Holy Spirit. I take this to mean in examining our Lady she is like a magnifying glass that helps us to understand the Triune God. I have to say this has proved to be correct in my life, having made a study of our Lady I understand God more and love her Son more. I take comfort from the words of the saints who say we can never love our Lady enough because we can never love her more than her Son.
Yes to all your observations. We can never love or honor Our Lady more than Her Son. When I think of " my soul magnifies the Lord" I think of holding a magnifying glass on a sunny day above dry leaves and watching them smoulder into flame--when I was a kid. But isn't that what happens to us as we pray through Mary. She magnifies our prayers and offerings into pure flames of love for her Son. I've often thought of this. Of course the evil one tried to guilt you with a Protestant argument. Same old same old.
There is no Biblical figure or person dearer to God than Mary. The stubbornness of Protestants on this issue is incredible, God literally chose a woman of flesh and blood, consecrated her from birth so that God would incarnate through her into this World, to nurse him, raise him, feed him and watch over him, watching not only his growth, life path but also his suffering and Resurrection. At the end, from the sacrifice of the cross, he says to John, and thus to all of us, here is your mother and to her mother, here is your son, i.e. that we are all her children... Mary is not only the new Eve, that we consider her the heavenly mother of all people, but if Peter is the rock on which the Catholic Church was built, then Mary is the ideal of God's love for man and man's love for God and what it should look like. How much honor God has shown her is best shown by Revelation, all of human history and finally how this period of the end of time ends and all the apparitions in the Catholic Church, which is primarily led by Mary. The Rosary is another peak of honor that God primarily gives her and I can do so until tomorrow... Moses, Abraham, all the Apostles, Christian saints and all those holy people before Abraham from Job to the very beginning of the World are only a shadow of the greatness of Mary and no one hides that, in fact many have claimed it and died with these claims on their lips. I can understand some other nonsense of Protestantism, but this is the last straw for me and something that there is so much evidence to deny is the twilight of reason.
