Ave Maria Meditations encore
At first God communicated his image to man; now woman communicates her image to God! His flesh is hardly a mother’s armful; yet by an astounding miracle it is the food of all other flesh in the grand Sacrament of the altar.
It is our Lord’s body with which we have most to do on earth. It is his Body which is prominently worshipped rather than his Soul, in the Blessed Sacrament. It is his pre-eminently which is trusted to our keeping, and which abidingly among us in tabernacles made with hands.
It is his Body which we ourselves spiritually are; for his Church is truly his Body, and it is this which makes the condition of schism so blighted and forlorn. He touches us by his Body, feeds us by his Body, makes us one by his Body, yea, makes us his Body, it is the Hand both of his Soul and of his Divinity, the Hand to baptize, the Hand to confirm, to absolve, to communicate, to anoint, to marry, to ordain, the Hand that touches and does the miracles, that takes hold and lifts up, that points the way and leads on, that strikes those who deal over-lightly with it and that heals so often with the compassionate roughness of its blow. That Infant Body is shrouding its glory, as we gaze it; but that is no trial to our faith. We see the glory for all it makes itself invisible.
Fr. F.W. Faber (Bethlehem)
Mary, the Mother of God, Immaculate, or rather the “Immaculate Conception” itself, as she deigned to call herself at Lourdes. We know what “mother” means. But we cannot grasp with our minds and our limited brains what “Mother of God” means. Only God comprehends perfectly what the “Immaculate” means. She is God’s. She belongs to God in a perfect way although she is a finite creature. Moreover she is not only a “handmaid”, “a daughter”, “a property”, “a possession”, etc., but also Mother of God! Here one is seized with giddiness…she is almost above God, as a mother is above her sons who must respect her. The Immaculate is Spouse of the Holy Spirit in an unspeakable way…she has the same Son as the heavenly Father has. What an ineffable mystery!
St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe
