him deny himself." If these words seem hard to us, it is because we have become blind; for the abnegation which they require from us is still but love and justice. How can we belong to God, if we only follow the vain caprices of our own will, instead of desiring the accomplishment of the Divine will-of that holy law which would make justice and truth to reign within us? When we love, we will only what he wills whom we love. If our love be evil, we shall sacrifice our will to falsehood; but if our love be good, if we love God, and what God would have us love, we shall find verified in the sacrifice of obedience the promise of the Living Truth Himself: "My yoke is sweet, and My burden light." He who, to please God, embraces the cross of obedience and love, does not creep, but runs in the way of the commandments and of conformity to the Divine will, which is itself that Divine cross to which we nail our will, that it may be reformed, and on which it dies, only to live again. 3 Mary, as we have seen, unlike the other children of Adam, had not to overcome concupiscence, God having worthily prepared her to be the Mother of the New Man; but she had to overcome sorrow, and her life was in fact the most heroic of all lives. Having been called to a degree of virtue of which we cannot even form an idea, fidelity to grace required of her a fortitude and a courage far above the fortitude and courage of all the Saints. God prepared her in the Temple for this life of ineffable sacrifice: it was there that she began the ascent of those steps of love and sorrow which were to conduct her even to the heights of Calvary: Ascensiones in corde suo disposuit, in loco quem posuit. It was in the Temple, also, that she accumulated those interior treasures which were soon to draw down upon her the salutation from on high: Ave, gratia plena 15 1 Matt. xvi. 24. 4 Ps. lxxxiii 6. 2 Matt. xi. 30. 3 Ch. x., supra. Prayer. Thou, Lord, didst say: "Suffer the little children, and forbid them not, to come to Me, for the kingdom of heaven is for such." I have no difficulty in believing this, O my God, for I can still recall the blessed days of childhood; and I know that Thou dost speak more often to lowly souls than to the great and proud. Thou dost bestow on children those lights and attractions which, in after life, we should be but too happy to recover; when, alas, vain learning has inflated our intellect without filling it. Why are we not always as reasonable as we were when on the threshold of life, when Thy Divine word showed us the great end, the inevitable term of our existence? Then Thy Name, alone, O Jesus, my Saviour and my God, shed a ray of light on my soul; to love Thee and to obey Thee then seemed easy and pleasant. How well did I know by experience that prayer is the life of the soul-of that divine being destined to live the very life of its Father! How fully did I realise that Thou wast my Father, when I said to Thee: "Our Father, Who art in heaven"! And how earnestly did I desire to be where Thou art! O my God, how is all now changed! I have strayed far, very far from Thee, my Lord; and I have desired the life of those who seemed to live, but who were in reality dead in Thy sight. Father, I have sinned against heaven and against Thee. But my Mother has prayed for me, and behold me weeping at Thy feet: Redde mihi lætitiam salutaris tui et spiritu principali confirma me ("Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, and strengthen me with a perfect spirit"). Yes, restore to me the joy and the spirit of my childhood—that spirit which came from Thee, and which I have lost by my fault. Hear Mary, who asks it for me; grant that I may, indeed, receive it never to lose it again. Holy Virgin, my Mother, intercede for me, that I may die that death,—which is but the death of an hour, the death of an instant, rather than die again by sin that death which shall be eternal. CHAPTER XVIII. THE ANNUNCIATION. Humility. THE Feast of the Annunciation of Mary may also be called the Feast of the Incarnation of the Word. He Who gave Himself visibly to the world, on the day of His Nativity, which the Church celebrates at Christmas, had already given Himself in reality to the human race, when He gave Himself to the new Eve on the day of the Annunciation. At Christmas, the Church shows us God, answering to that cry of man: Aperiatur terra et germinet Salvatorem ("Let the earth be opened and bud forth a Saviour"); but on the Annunciation she shows Him answering to that other sigh of humanity: Rorate, cæli desuper, et nubes pluant Justum ("Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just"). On this day was accomplished in reality what had been prefigured when the dew which was to cover the whole earth, at the prayer of Gideon, the liberator of Israel, fell first only on the hidden fleece, from which it was to spread over the rest of the world.1 The day of the Annunciation thus became that of the greatest act of Providence, the greatest of the works of God. The creation which brought into being that which was not, was, doubtless, an act of infinite power, since there is an infinite distance between nothing and being. But the Incarnation of the Word, which consummated the personal union between the Creator and the creature, was an act of equal power; for if infinity separates nothing from being, it equally separates created 1 Judg. vi. 1 from uncreated being. For this reason the Apostle St. Paul gives to the Incarnation the name of exinanition, because there is no term in human language which so fully expresses the infinite abyss which the Word had to cross when He became flesh: Semetipsum exinanivit formam servi accipiens, in similitudinem hominum factus1 ("He debased Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made after the likeness of men"). The Creation and the Incarnation, then, equally manifest the omnipotence of God. Both are, also, manifestations of His love; but if the love of God is manifested in the gift of existence which He bestowed upon us, it is manifested in a far more glorious degree in the gift which He has bestowed upon us of Himself: Apparuit benignitas et humanitas Salvatoris nostri Dei ("The goodness and kindness of God our Saviour appeared"). It is, above all, in becoming man, and the Saviour of man, that the love of God has manifested itself to mankind. It is, then, true that the day of the Incarnation or Annunciation was the great day of God, the especial day of His power and goodness. It is the day of mercy promised to our first parents, and which they foresaw in the distant ages as the day of their future deliverance. It is the day which from that moment was universally expected, because it was to be that of the "Desired of all nations."2 It is the day pre figured by the types of the Old Testament, and announced by all the Prophets. It is the day pointed out by Daniel, with a precision fatal to incredulity,3 in its relation with the history and with the end of the empires of force which pass away, and the commencement of that spiritual empire which shall never pass away.4 We have already heard a voice from heaven an 1 Phil. ii. 7. 2 Agg. ii. 8. 3 Vide ch. ix. of Daniel, and the explanation of that prophecy in The Christ and the Antichrists, p. 1, ch. ii. 4 See ch. ii. and vii. of Daniel, and their explanation, ibid. nouncing to the world the establishment of that kingdom which shall have no end. We have already listened to the words of the heavenly messenger, by whom God treated concerning our salvation with the second Eve; as the enemy of the human race had treated concerning our ruin with the first. We have learnt, also, all that the Gospel reveals to us of the Incarnation and of the incomparable greatness of Mary,2 as well as of her invincible determination to remain a Virgin;3 but we have not yet fathomed the depth of that humility which it unveils to us in the soul of the second Eve. The pride of the first involved the head of the human race in her fall; the humility of the second drew the Saviour of renewed humanity into her bosom. Her virginity rendered her pleasing to God, and she would never have been the Mother of Christ, if she had not determined to remain a Virgin;4 yet it was humility which made her a Mother: Placuit ex virginitate, ex humilitate concepit.5 Let us see how the Gospel reveals to us the exceeding beauty of Mary's humility, before it manifests to us its power: it does not say that Mary was troubled by the apparition of the Angel, but at his saying: Turbata est in sermone ejus. It was because those words full of praise saluted her as "full of grace," and humility shrinks from all praise save that of God. Thus Mary asked what this language could be, and the heavenly messenger reassured her by declaring that if she were full of grace, she owed it utterly and entirely to God alone: Ne timeas, Maria: invenisti enim gratiam apud Deum ("Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God"). She then listened fearlessly to him, who left her in her own nothingness, and became the Mother of God by declaring herself to be His handmaid, and at the very moment when He was raising her above all: Ecce Ancilla Domini; fiat mihi secundùm verbum tuum (“ Be2 Vide ch. iv., supra. 1 Vide ch. viii., supra. 3 Vide ch. viii., supra. 4 Ibid. 5 S. Bernard, De Laud. V.M., Hom. 2. |