~A Rare Flower*s Pad~

   I.   Mary Gives Herself to Her Slave of Love.  The most holy Virgin, who is a Mother of sweetness and mercy, and who never let's herself be outdone in love and liberality, seeing that we give ourselves entirely to her, to honor and to serve her, and for that end strip ourselves of all that is dearest to us, in order to adorn her, meets us in the same spirit.  She also gives her whole self, and gives it in an unspeakable manner, to him who gives all to her.  She causes him to be engulfed in the abyss of her graces.  She adorns him with her merits; she supports him with her power, she illuminates him with her light; she inflames him  with her love; she communicates to him her virtues: her humility, her faith, her purity and the rest.  She makes herself his bail, his supplement, and his dear all toward Jesus.  In a word, as that consecrated person is all Mary's, so Mary is all his; after such a fashion that we can say of that perfect servant and child of Mary what St. John the Evangelist said of himself, that he took the holy Virgin for this own: "The disciple took her for his own" John 19:27.

   145. It is this which produces in the soul, if it is faithful, a great distrust, contempt and hatred of self, and a great confidence in and self-abandonment to the Blessed Virgin, its good Mistress.  A man no longer, as before, relies on his own dispositions, intentions, merits, virtues and good works; because; having made an entire sacrifice of them to Jesus Christ by that good Mother, he has but one treasure now, where all his goods are laid up, and that is no longer in himself, for his treasure is Mary.  This is what makes him approach our Lord without servile or scrupulous fear, and pray to Him with great confidence.  This is what makes him share the sentiments of the devout and learned Abbot Rupert, who alluding to the victory that Jacob gained over the angel, said to our Blessed Lady these beautiful words: "O Mary, my Princess, Immaculate Mother of the God-Man, Jesus Christ, I desire to wrestle with that man, namely, the Divine Word, not armed with my own merits but with yours."  Oh, how strong and mighty we are with Jesus Christ, when we are armed with the merits and intercession of the worthy Mother of God, who, as St. Augustine says, that lovingly vanquished the Most High.

II.   Mary Purifies Our Good Works, Embellishes Them and Makes Them Acceptable to Her Son

   146.  As by this practice we give to our Lord, by His Mother's hands, all our good works, that good Mother purifies them, embellishes them and makes them acceptable to her Son.

1.  She purifies them of all the stain of self-love, and of that imperceptible attachment to created things which slips unnoticed into our best actions.  As soon as they are in her most pure and fruitful hands, those same hands, which have never been sullied or idle, and which purify whatever they touch, take away from the present which we make her all that was spoiled or imperfect about it.

   147.  2.  She embellishes our works, adorning them with her own merits and virtues.  It is as if a peasant, wishing to gain the friendship and benevolence of the king, went to the queen and presented her with a fruit which was his whole revenue, in order that she might present it to the king.  The queen, having accepted the poor little offering from the peasant, would place the fruit on a large and beautiful dish of gold, and so, on the peasant's behalf, would present it to the king.  Then the fruit, however unworthy in itself to be a king's present, would become worthy of his majesty, because of the dish of gold on which intrested and the person who presented it.

   148.  3.  She presents these good works to Jesus Christ; for she keeps nothing of what is given her for herself, as if she were our last end.  She faithfully passes it all on to Jesus.  If we give to her, we give necessarily to Jesus.  If we praise her or glorify her, she immediately praises and glorifies Jesus.  As of old when Elizabeth praised her, so now when we praise her and bless her she sings: "My soul doth magnify the Lord".

   149. She persuades Jesus to accept these good works, however little and poor the present may be for that Saint of Saints and that King of Kings.  When we present anything to Jesus by ourselves and relying on our own efforts and dispositions, Jesus examines the offering, and often rejects it because of the stains it has contracted through self-love; just as of old He rejected the sacrifices of the Jews when they were full of their own will.  But when we present Him anything by the pure and virginal hands of Him Well-beloved, we take Him by His weak side, if it is allowable to use such a term.  He does not consider so much the thing that is given Him as the Mother who presents it.  He does not consider so much whence the offering comes, as by whom it comes.  Thus Mary, who is never repelled but always well received by her Son, makes everything she presents to Him, great or small, acceptable to His Majesty.  Mary has but to present it for Jesus to accept it and be pleased with it.  St. Bernard use to give to those whom he conducted to perfection this great counsel: "When you want to offer anything to God, take care to offer it by the most agreeable and worthy hands of Mary, unless you wish to have it rejected".

   150.  Is not this what nature itself suggests to the little with regard to the great, as we have already seen?  Why should not grace lead us to do the same thing with regard to God, Who is infinitely exalted above us and before Whom we are less that atoms?-especially since we have an advocate so powerful that she is never refused; so ingenious that she knows all the secret ways of winning the heart of God; and so good and charitable that she repels no one, however little and wretched he may be ...

                                                                    Copyright 1941, by the Fathers of the Company of Mary