The Glories Of Mary

Alphonsus Liguori, Alphonsus Liguori

• Publisher: TAN Books
• Year: 1968
• ISBN:
  9781618905291
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Teologia mariana

One of the great doctors of the Church, St. Alphonsus Liguori assembled the finest information on Our Lady from the many writings of the saints, holy authors, and Sacred Scripture.

The Glories of Mary is five complete books in one volume. The first book examines the words of the Salve Regina and shows how God has given Mary to mankind to be the Gate of Heaven. The second book explains Our Lady's principal feasts and reveals fresh truths about these mysteries. The third book explains the Seven Sorrows of Mary and why Our Lady's martyrdom was longer and greater than that of all other martyrs. The fourth book describes ten different virtues of Our Lady, and the fifth book provides dozens of famous prayers, meditations, and devotions to her.

Included are the theological proofs for the Immaculate Conception, explanations of the invocations in the Litany of Loreto, and a description of Our Lady's death. The Glories of Mary is the greatest compendium of nearly eighteen centuries of teaching on Our Lady and seeks to lead many souls to a greater love of Jesus through a more intimate knowledge of Mary and her exalted role in our salvation.

PART THE SECOND

TREATING OF HER PRINCIPAL
FEASTS AND HER DOLOURS

ALSO OF EACH OF HER DOLOURS IN PARTICULAR, AND
OF HER VIRTUES. FOLLOWED BY THE DEVOTIONS USUALLY
PRACTISED IN HER HONOUR

DISCOURSES ON THE PRINCIPAL FEASTS
OF MARY AND ON HER SORROWS

DISCOURSE 1

ON MARY’S IMMACULATE
CONCEPTION

How becoming it was that each of the Three Divine
Persons should preserve Mary from Original Sin

GREAT indeed was the injury entailed on Adam and all his posterity by his accursed sin; for at the same time that he thereby, for his own great misfortune, lost grace, he also forfeited all the other precious gifts with which he had originally been enriched, and drew down upon himself and all his descendants the hatred of God and an accumulation of evils. But from this general misfortune God was pleased to exempt that Blessed Virgin whom He had destined to be the Mother of the Second Adam— Jesus Christ—who was to repair the evil done by the first. Now, let us see how becoming it was that God, and all the three Divine Persons, should thus preserve her from it; that the Father should preserve her as His Daughter, the Son as His Mother, and the Holy Ghost as His Spouse.

First point.—In the first place it was becoming that the Eternal Father should preserve Mary from the stain of original sin, because she was His Daughter, and His first-born daughter, as she herself declares: “I came out of the mouth of the Most High, the first-born before all creatures.”¹ For this text is applied to Mary by sacred interpreters, the holy Fathers, and by the Church on the solemnity of her Conception. For be she the first-born inasmuch as she was predestined in the Divine decrees, together with the Son, before all creatures, according to the Scotists; or be she the first-born of grace as the predestined Mother of the Redeemer, after the prevision of sin, according to the Thomists; nevertheless all agree in calling her the first-born of God. This being the case, it was quite becoming that Mary should never have been the slave of Lucifer, but only and always possessed by her Creator; and this she in reality was, as we are assured by herself: “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His ways.”² Hence Denis of Alexandria rightly calls Mary ‘the one and only daughter of life.’³ She is the one and only daughter of life, in contradistinction to others who, being born in sin, are daughters of death.

Besides this, it was quite becoming that the Eternal Father should create her in His grace, since He destined her to be the repairer of the lost world, and the media- tress of peace between men and God; and, as such, she is looked upon and spoken of by the holy Fathers, and in particular by Saint John Damascen, who thus addresses her: ‘O Blessed Virgin, thou wast born that thou mightest minister to the salvation of the whole world.’⁴ For this reason Saint Bernard says, ‘that Noah’s ark was a type of Mary; for as, by its means, men were preserved from the deluge, so are we all saved by Mary from the shipwreck of sin: but with the difference, that in the ark few were saved, and by Mary the whole human race was rescued from death.’⁵ Therefore, in a sermon found amongst the works of Saint Athanasius, she is called ‘the new Eve, and the Mother of life;’⁶ and not without reason, for the first was the Mother of death, but the most Blessed Virgin was the Mother of true life. Saint Theophanius of Nice, addressing Mary, says, ‘Hail, thou who hast taken away Eve’s sorrow!’⁷ Saint Basil of Seleucia calls her the peacemaker between men and God: ‘Hail, thou who art appointed umpire between God and men!’⁸ and Saint Ephrem, the pacificator of the whole world: ‘Hail, reconciler of the whole world!’⁹

But now, it certainly would not be becoming to choose an enemy to treat of peace with the offended person, and still less an accomplice in the crime itself. Saint Gregory¹⁰ says, ‘that an enemy cannot undertake to appease his judge, who is at the same time the injured party; for if he did, instead of appeasing him, he would provoke him to greater wrath.’ And therefore, as Mary was to be the mediatress of peace between men and God, it was of the utmost importance that she should not herself appear as a sinner and as an enemy of God, but that she should appear in all things as a friend, and free from every stain.

Still more was it becoming that God should preserve her from original sin, for He destined her to crush the head of that infernal serpent, which, by seducing our first parents, entailed death upon all men; and this our Lord foretold: “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head.”¹¹ But if Mary was to be that valiant woman brought into the world to conquer Lucifer, certainly it was not becoming that he should first conquer her, and make her his slave; but it was reasonable that she should be preserved from all stain, and even momentary subjection to her opponent. The proud spirit endeavoured to infect the most pure soul of this Virgin with his venom, as he had already infected the whole human race. But praised and ever blessed be God, who, in His infinite goodness, preëndowed her for this purpose with such great grace, that, remaining always free from any guilt of sin, she was ever able to beat down and confound his pride, as Saint Augustine, or whoever may be the author of the commentary on Genesis, says: ‘Since the devil is the head of original sin, this head it was that Mary crushed: for sin never had any entry into the soul of this Blessed Virgin, which was consequently free from all stain.’¹² And Saint Bonaventure more expressly says, ‘It was becoming that the Blessed Virgin Mary, by whom our shame was to be blotted out, and by whom the devil was to be conquered, should never, even for a moment, have been under his dominion.’¹³

But, above all, it principally became the Eternal Father to preserve this His daughter unspotted by Adam’s sin, as Saint Bernardine of Sienna remarks, because He destined her to be the Mother of His only begotten Son: ‘Thou wast preordained in the mind of God, before all creatures, that thou mightest beget God Himself as man.’¹⁴ If, then, for no other end, at least for the honour of His Son, who was God, it was reasonable that the Father should create Mary free from every stain. The angelic Saint Thomas says, that all things that are ordained for God should be holy and free from stain: ‘Holiness is to be attributed to those things which are ordained for God.’¹⁵ Hence when David was planning the temple of Jerusalem, on a scale of magnificence becoming a God, he said, “For a house is prepared not for man, but for God.”¹⁶ How much more reasonable, then, is it not, to suppose that the Sovereign Architect, who destined Mary to be the Mother of His own Son, adorned her soul with all most precious gifts, that she might be a dwelling worthy of a God! Denis the Carthusian says, ‘that God, the artificer of all things, when constructing a worthy dwelling for His Son, adorned it with all attractive graces.’¹⁷ And the Holy Church herself, in the following prayer, assures us that God prepared the body and soul of the Blessed Virgin, so as to be a worthy dwelling on earth for His only-begotten Son. ‘Almighty and Eternal God, who, by the coöperation of the Holy Ghost, didst prepare the body and soul of the glorious Virgin and Mother Mary, that she might become a worthy habitation for thy Son,’ &c.¹⁸

We know that a man’s highest honour is to be born of noble parents: “And the glory of children are their fathers.”¹⁹ Hence in the world the reputation of being possessed of only a small fortune, and little learning, is more easily tolerated than that of being of low birth; for, whilst a poor man may become rich by his industry, an ignorant man learned by study, it is very difficult for a person of humble origin to attain the rank of nobility; but, even should he attain it, his birth can always be made a subject of reproach to him. How, then, can we suppose that God, who could cause His Son to be born of a noble mother by preserving her from sin, would on the contrary permit Him to be born of one infected by it, and thus enable Lucifer always to reproach Him with the shame of having a mother who had once been his slave and the enemy of God? No, certainly, the Eternal Father did not permit this; but He well provided for the honour of His Son by preserving His Mother always Immaculate, that she might be a Mother becoming such a Son. The Greek Church bears witness to this, saying, ‘that God, by a singular providence, caused the most Blessed Virgin to be as perfectly pure from the very first moment of her existence, as it was fitting that she should be, who was to be the worthy Mother of Christ.’²⁰

It is a common axiom amongst theologians that no gift was ever bestowed on any creature with which the Blessed Virgin was not also enriched. Saint Bernard says on this subject, ‘It is certainly not wrong to suppose that that which has evidently been bestowed, even on only a few, was not denied to so great a Virgin.’²¹ Saint Thomas of Villanova says, ‘Nothing was ever granted to any Saint which did not shine in a much higher degree in Mary from the very first moment of her existence.’²² And as it is true that ‘there is an infinite difference between the Mother of God and the servants of God,’²³ according to the celebrated saying of Saint John Damascen, we must certainly suppose, according to the doctrine of Saint Thomas, that ‘God conferred privileges of grace in every way greater on His Mother than on His servants.’²⁴ And now admitting this, Saint Anselm, the great defender of the Immaculate Mary, takes up the question and says, ‘Was the wisdom of God unable to form a pure dwelling, and to remove every stain of human nature from it?’²⁵ Perhaps God could not prepare a clean habitation for His Son by preserving it from the common contagion? ‘God,’ continues the same Saint, ‘could preserve angels in heaven spotless, in the midst of the devastation that surrounded them; was He, then, unable to preserve the...