what S. Leo says here, because he will have had a taste of that light from on high which at once kindles and illuminates and makes us to know God in a way which human language cannot reach, because it is not human, but divine. Yes, the light of faith and grace gives us an insight, as it were, even in this world into the interior life of the living God, and helps us to know and love Him by the very light of His Word, and by His own spirit of love: Dat unde ipsi quoque quod operatur, operemur; though this greatest of gifts which He makes us of Himself be still hidden under the veil of time. But when death shall have torn asunder this veil, in lumine suo videbimus lumen, et similes ei erimus quia videbimus eum sicuti est (“In His light we shall see light, and we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is"). We shall see the hidden treasure which we bear in the frail vessel of mortality; we shall see God face to face, and we shall be like living mirrors, resplendent with His eternal light, and burning with His eternal love.

The divine life of grace and glory does not, then, consist solely in knowing and loving God with the reason and the will, but in knowing and loving Him as He knows and loves Himself by His own light and with His own love, and thus penetrating into the sanctuary of the Divinity, and being united to the Father and the Son, by the Holy Ghost; the Eternal Bond between them who makes us children of adoption, by making us to live the very life of the Indivisible Trinity.

It is this life of grace in which Angels and men are called to participate, according to the measure determined by Divine Providence, that is to say, according to the capacity given to them, the degree of grace proportioned to that capacity, and the fidelity with which they have corresponded to it during the time allotted for its

increase.

Now, it is a certain truth of theology, says S. Thomas, that every one receives grace according to the measure of his vocation, or in proportion to the greatness

of his destiny, and the duties which it lays upon him: Unicuique a Deo datur gratia secundum hoc ad quod eligitur ("God gives grace to every man according to that end whereto He calls him”). S. Bernardin of Sienna has expressed the same truth almost in the same words: Regula firma est in sacra theologia, quod quandocumque Deus aliquem eligit ad aliquem statum, omnia dona illi dispenset quæ illi statui necessaria sunt, et illum copiose decorant2 ("It is a certain rule in theology, that when God calls a man to any state in life, He dispenses to him all the gifts which are needful to that state, and liberally endows him therewith").

What, then, was the grace which was given to Mary? Heaven proclaimed it to earth: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee !" But can earth understand this message from Heaven, and form a correct idea of the measure of grace proportioned to the dignity of Mother of God? Can it understand and form a correct idea of the grace which was necessary to fill the soul of that Mother of God, of the love which was necessary to fill the heart of that Mother of souls? No; for if, as we have seen, human reason is incapable of comprehending in all its greatness the dignity to which Mary was raised by the Divine Maternity, that dignity which borders on the infinite (fines divinitatis attingit), by its immediate, intimate, intrinsic relation to the Hypostatic Union, it is not the less incapable of comprehending in its fulness the grace proportioned to a dignity suo genere infinita, according to the expression of Suarez. But it is capable of comprehending that this grace must be immeasurably superior to all the graces bestowed upon Angels or men, because the vocation of Mary was immeasurably higher than that of Angels and men. The grace of Mary, then, is, like her dignity, of an order apart from any other, and nothing created approaches either to the one or the other: Entra in un ordine superiore a tutto il creato 1 Summa, p. 3, q. 27, a. 5.

2 Pro. Fest. V.M., Serm. x., a. 2, c. 1.

("It belongs to an order superior to that of all other creatures").1

So much reason can and ought to infer from what revelation teaches it respecting Mary, and from what it knows of the harmony which pervades all the works of God.

But, besides these thoughts from Holy Scripture and the Fathers, which we have just given in the words of S. Thomas, we will not omit to add another, which the tender devotion of S. Alphonsus Liguori has likewise drawn from tradition, and which is itself full of grace and truth.

It is this: that the grace of the Mother of God not only became superior to that of all the Angels and Saints by reason of the admirable fidelity of Mary, which made it continually and marvellously to increase in her, but that it was so from the first moment of her life.2

And wherefore? Because at the moment when, in the Divine counsels, the Word resolved to become Incarnate, it was necessary that the human Mother of whom He willed to be born should be predestinated to the Divine Maternity. It is, therefore, certain that when, in the order of time, the eye of God fell upon Mary, He beheld in her the blessed creature whom He had chosen from all eternity to be His Mother. If, then, at that hour when the morning star appeared-the bright and heavenly harbinger of the rising of the sun of justice -Mary had not been endowed with a grace superior to that of all creatures, God would have loved her less at that moment than He loved some other creatures, since His love for them is necessarily proportioned to the measure of grace which He bestows on them. And how is it possible to believe, or even to imagine, that there ever was a time when the Word Incarnate in the counsels of God ab origine mundi (" from the beginning of the world") should, as He contemplated His Mother, have preferred any other of His works to her?

2 Sermon on the Nativity.

What we have said here, is not certainly an article of faith, but it is a truth which faith instils into the soul which it illuminates, and which has always been equally approved by men of learning and of piety.

Prayer.

O Almighty God! infinitely wise, infinitely just, infinitely good! Thou owest nothing to that which is nothing, and, consequently, Thou owest us nothing, since we had no claim to the being which we have received from Thyself alone. And yet in Thy love Thou bestowest Thy gifts upon us all, and dispensest them in number, weight, and measure according to the order of Thy Providence. Blessed be Thou, O Lord, for having lavished them upon our Mother. She has suffered so much for us, and has manifested such constant love for us, that the love we bear her makes us happy in her happiness. Yes, my God, I am not afraid to say, in the name of all her children, that if, in order to be freed from my misery and my sorrows, I must see Thy Mother deprived of a single degree of that grace which makes her so dear to Thee, I would not hesitate to forego that deliverance. But to enrich me with Thy graces, it is not necessary that Thou shouldst impoverish my Mother. Thou hast already proved this; for how many graces have I received from Thee? Yes, I remember them all, and I wish always to remember them; but I remember my infidelities also, and I beseech Thee not to treat me as I deserve. How much more closely should I have been united to Thee, my God, if I had corresponded better to that chain of graces which Thou bringest before me in succession; how mightily should I have been enlightened, invigorated, and strengthened! I will, at least, suffer the obscurity, the void, the solitude, the desolation, which I experience in my soul, in expiation of my continued infidelities; and I offer them to Thee in union with the dereliction of Jesus on the

D

cross.

Thou wast there, my Mother, when He suffered it for Me. Obtain, then, in virtue of that dereliction, that I may not be left to myself; and obtain for me also, by thy loving heart, all the graces I have lost, with the grace henceforth to be more faithful to them. Virgo fidelis ("Virgin most faithful"), pray for me; pray for us all, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

CHAPTER VI.

THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION, OR MARY EVER SPOTLESS.

(Definition of the Dogma.)

In the greatest of human societies, or rather in the superhuman society of the Church, there has ever prevailed a sweet and strong belief regarding the second Eve, the Mother of the true Life, the Virgin in whom the Word became Incarnate. Christendom has ever believed that the fall of man, which wounded us all, had no effect on her; that this second Mother of men, from the very beginning of her existence, was pure and stainless in a sense far higher than the first. But was this belief a simple conclusion of human wisdom, or a reflection of the light of God? Was it a truth of feeling, of reason, or of faith, that the Mother of Christ, who was saved like the rest of the human race by Him alone, was nevertheless saved after an exceptional manner, as beseemed the peerless creature chosen to give to the world the very Source of salvation? Is it of faith, in short, that the grace which raises us from the fall had preserved her from it?

The instinct of Christendom anticipated the answer, but it awaited it nevertheless with filial impatience. It was to obtain that answer that the Supreme Pontiff set the whole Church to pray. It was to obtain that answer