Ave Maria Meditations
Mary’s Maternal Mediation
God and his Christ make use of Mary in this sense, that they make all the graces which they destine for us pass through her … By using her as intermediary, they temper their action all the more with humanity, without in any way diminishing its divine efficacy. They make Mary live by the life we are to live by. She is first filled to overflowing with it. Grace is preformed in her and receives in her the imprint of a special beauty. All grace and all graces come to us thus canalized a1nd distributed by her, impregnated with that special sweetness which she imparts to all she touches and all she does.
By her action Mary enters therefore into our lives as bearer of the divine. In the whole course of our lives, from the cradle and before it to the grave and beyond it, there is nothing of grace in which she had no part. She shapes us to the likeness of Jesus … She leaves her mark on everything and adds to the perfection of what passes through her hands. I have said that we are sustained by her prayer: we are similarly sustained by her action and, if one may say it, have our spiritual being in her hands. Every Christian is a child of Mary, but a child is not worthy of the name unless it is formed by its mother.
Fr. Pierre Rogatien Bernard, O.P.
