From The Spirit of Catholicism by Karl Adam
“But however wondrously glorious all these holy figures are [the saints], each in his own way, yet all are outshone by one, by the Queen of all angels and saints, Mary, the Mother of God. Like every creature in heaven and on earth, she too was called into existence out of nothingness. An infinite distance separates her from the Infinite, from Father, Son and Holy Ghost. And she has not grace, no virtue, no privilege, which she does not owe to the divine Mediator. Both in her natural and supernatural being, she is wholly the gift of God, ‘full of grace’.”
“The mystery of Mary’s divine Motherhood does not merely comprise the bare fact that the Word took flesh and blood, our human nature, in her womb. The Catholic is not content merely to repeat with gladness the words of the inspired woman in the Gospel: ‘Blessed is the womb that bore thee, and the paps that gave thee suck.’ He listens with a far deeper attention to Our Lord’s answer: ‘Blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it’.”
“Mary’s importance in the work of salvation does not lie chiefly in the purely bodily sphere, but in the sphere of morality and religion. It consists in this that Mary, so far as lay in her, gave the best of herself, even her whole being, to service of God, and that, however infinitely small all human doing and suffering are in comparison with the Divine Perfection, she surrendered this infinitely small without limitation or stint to the visitation of Divine Grace, and so prepared herself to be the sublime instrument of the divine redemption.”
“Her whole subsequent life was lowliness and simplicity on the one hand, and on the strong and joyful faith. Bethlehem and Golgotha are the two termini of a way of sharpest renunciation, of heroic resignation, of complete ‘self-emptying’, such a way as our Lord himself traveled (Phil. 2:7). The sword foretold by Simeon (Lk. 2:25) pierced ever more sharply into her soul as the process of her self-abnegation advanced.”
“All the sublimity of Mary’s moral personality, all the depth of her virginal devotion, and all the strength of her faith culminate in the word which she spoke to the angel: ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me according to thy word.’ These were no common, everyday words; no words such as fall from men in the changing circumstance and casual course of life. They were words out of the depths and recesses of a soul that was pure and noble beyond all earthly measure, words that were her being, her expression, her achievement. By them of a truth she consecrated her body to a ‘reasonable service’ (cf. Rom. 12:1), and that is the source of all blessedness.”
“She is mother not of the Redeemer alone, but also of the redeemed; and so she is the mother of the faithful. The Catholic acknowledges in heaven not only a Father, but also a mother…When the Catholic speaks of his Heavenly Mother, his heart is full with all the strength of feeling that is contained in that word. Mary is as it were a gracious revelation of certain ineffable and ultimate traits in the nature of God, which are too fine and too delicate to be grasped otherwise than as reflected in the mirror of a mother. Ave Maria!”
Musical Selection
Hail! Blessed Virgin Mary!
For so, when he did meet thee
Spake mighty Gabriel,
and thus we greet thee.
Come weal, come woe, our
hymn shall never vary.
Hail! Blessed Virgin Mary!
Hail! Blessed Virgin Mary!
Ave! Ave Maria!
To gladden priest and people
The angelus shall ring
from every steeple,
To sound his virgin birth.
Alleluia!
Ave! Ave Maria!
Ave! Ave Maria!
Archangels chant, 'Hosanna!'
And, 'Holy! Holy! Holy!'
Before the Infant born
of thee, thou lowly,
Aye- maiden child of
Joachim and Anna.
Archangels chant Hosanna!
Archangels chant Hosanna!