Ave Maria Meditations
Lady, full and overflowing with grace, all creation
receives new life from your abundance. Virgin,
blessed above all creatures, through your blessing
all creation is blessed, not only creation, but the
Creator himself has been blessed by creation.
To Mary God gave his only-begotten Son, whom he
loved as himself. Through Mary, God made himself
a Son, not different but the same, by nature Son of
God and Son of Mary. The whole universe was created
by God, and God was born of Mary.
God created all things, and Mary gave birth to God. The God who
made all things gave himself form through Mary, and
thus he made his own creation. He who could create all
things from nothing would not remake his ruined creation
without Mary.
God, then, is the Father of the created world and Mary
the mother of the re-created world. God is the father by
whom all things were given life, and Mary the mother
through whom all things were given new life. For God
begot the Son, through whom all things were made, and
Mary gave birth to him as the Savior of the world. Without
God’s Son, nothing could exist; without Mary’s Son, nothing
could be redeemed.
Truly the Lord is with you, to whom the Lord granted
that all nature should owe as much to you as to
himself.
St. Anselm
Hymn
Mary Immaculate; star of the morning,
Chosen before the creation began
Chosen to bring, for thy bridal adorning,
Woe to the serpent and rescue to man.
Here, in an orbit of shadow and sadness,
Veiling thy splendor, thy course thou hast run;
Now thou art throned in all glory and gladness,
Crowned by the hand of the Savior and Son.
Sinners, we worship thy sinless perfection;
Fallen and weak, for thy pity we plead;
Grant us the shield of thy sovereign protection,
Measure thine aid by the depth of our need.
Bend from thy throne at the voice of our crying,
Bend to this earth which thy footsteps have trod;
Stretch out thine arms to us, living and dying,
Mary immaculate, Mother of God.
F. W. Weatherell
