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"Now there are many members yet one body" (1 Cor. xii, 20).
The true structural organs of the Body of Christ, as that is realized in space and time, are pope and bishops. Being born of that love which makes the Body of Christ one and maintains its unity, and being authorized by the special institution of our Lord, they exercise among the members of the Body the most important function for its stability, namely governing authority. But the organic activity of the Body is not confined to this administrative activity. The Church as the Body of Christ on earth does not consist merely of the authorities of the Church, of the pope and the bishops. "And if they all were one member, where would be the body? But now there are many members indeed, yet one body" (1 Cor. xii, 19 ff.). By Him who is the Head, namely Christ, is "the whole body compacted and fitly joined together, by what every joint supplieth, and to every part is given its proper service, and so is accomplished the increase of the body, until it is built up in love" (Eph. iv, 16). Therefore there is a manifold abundance of functions in the one Body. In fact the course of St. Paul's thought implies that every faithful and loving member of the Body has a special function to fulfill within the Body. "For as in one body we have many members, but all the members have not the same office: so we being many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another: having different gifts according to the grace that is given us" (Rom. xii, 4-6). And every one of these particular functions has its importance for the well-being of the Body. There is no grace that may be a purely personal possession, no blessing that does not belong to all. "If the foot should say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body: is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear should say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body: is it therefore not of the body?" (1 Cor. xii, 15-16). The ultimate meaning of every vital Christian function lies precisely in its close relation to the complete organism, in its solidarity with the whole.
And so all the members of the Body are necessary to it, although in different ways and different degrees. Some, like pope and bishop, belong to its fundamental structure and are absolutely indispensable. They serve the outer and inner unity, the firm compactness and quiet stability, as well as the living fruitfulness of the Church. The other members, born of the superabundance of those powers of the Holy Spirit which vitalize the Body of Christ, serve its inward activity and movement. When we consider them all in the light of their ultimate purpose, we cannot arrange their functions in any precise order of rank and merit. "The head cannot say to the feet: I have no need of you. Yea, much more those that seem to be the more feeble members of the body, are more necessary" (1 Cor. xii, 21-22). And so it may happen that, though for the external history of the Body of Christ the activities of the structural organs, the official activities of pope or bishop, may be more manifest to the eye, yet the joyful poverty of a St. Francis of Assisi, the vigils of a St. Ignatius of Loyola and the charity of a St. Vincent de Paul may claim greater importance for its inner history, for the realization of the fullness of Christ.
Let us speak in the pages which follow of this constructive effectiveness of the "weaker" members of the Body of Christ. Let us see how and in what measure the rest of the faithful—and not only bishop and pope—work together for the building up of the Body of Christ; and in what degree the special gifts of the individual members benefit the whole organism.
The key to this matter is the doctrine of the "Communion of Saints." By this doctrine the Church means a community of spirit and of spiritual goods among the saints on earth, that is among all those who are incorporated by faith and love in the one Head, Christ. More than that, she means also the vital communion of these faithful Christians with all those souls who have passed out of the world in the love of Christ, and who either as blessed souls enjoy in glory the Vision of their God, or as souls in the state of purgation await that Vision. The doctrine embraces therefore the whole mass of the redeemed, who in the various stages of development, as members of the militant, suffering or triumphant Church, are conjoined through their one Head, Jesus Christ, in one single family and fellowship, in one single sacred Body.
The Church Militant (ecclesia militans).—The "saints" of Christ, His "holy nation" (1 Peter ii, 9), fight here on earth, not with loud clamor or great display, but in quiet and stillness. Their wrestling is not against men, but against sin; they seek the pearl of great price and the hidden treasure. They are depicted in the Sermon on the Mount, in the concise and graphic phrases of our Lord. They are the "poor in spirit," the little ones of state and Church and society, the unappreciated and despised, who day by day go their inconspicuous way of duty, and cannot marvel enough that the great and holy God should wish to be with them also. They are the "meek" who never grumble at life and who ever accept with great content whatever God sends them. They are the "mourners" who in the lonely night cry plaintively to God: Lord, not my will, but Thine be done, and who at the last can thank their God with glad hearts that they are allowed to suffer with Jesus. They are those who "hunger and thirst after justice," those who reck nothing of comfortable piety and well-fed virtue, but on the contrary are pierced to the soul with the thought of their unworthiness, and put their whole trust constantly in the redeeming power of Jesus. They are the "merciful," for whom the need of others is their need, whom no obstacle, no sin or foulness can hinder from succoring their starving brother, and whose hands are closed by no ingratitude. They are the "pure of heart," men of a childlike simplicity and singleness of aim, kindhearted, guileless and always cheerful, for whom life is all sunshine, a constant loving cry of Abba, Father! They are the "peace-makers," men of the Holy Spirit, of inward maturity and serene equipoise of mind, from whom quiet and peace flow forth as from a sanctuary, before whom all discord is ashamed and dumb. And lastly they are those who are persecuted "for justice sake," "for His sake," those apostolic souls and tireless workers in the vineyard, who proclaim His truth by speech and writing, by teaching and example, "in season and out of season" (2 Tim. iv, 2). They seek not their own advantage, neither recognition from the world, nor honors from the Church; they seek only souls. And commonly their lot is abuse, persecution and hatred. For their life is a special challenge to the world, and draws down the scorn and laughter of its wise ones.
The Church Suffering (ecclesia patiens).—The Church teaches, and her doctrine is abundantly supported by the Scriptures, that man can produce fruit for the eternal life only in this world, and not in the next world. "Work whilst it is day, for the night cometh when no man can work" (Jn. ix, 4; cf. 1 Cor. xv, 24 ff.) This earth alone is the field, wherein both good seed and cockle germinate and grow. The next life is the eternal harvest-time. In that life there is no "meritorious" activity, nothing that can elevate a man to a higher degree of grace and beatitude. When he stands before God in the Particular Judgment he sees himself by the judgment of his own conscience assigned once and for all either to the company of the damned or to the ranks of the blessed. And his soul will bear for ever those essential traits which it has acquired in the performance of its earthly task, in its wrestling with God, that is in fulfilling the duty which conscience illuminated by grace pointed out to it. The Catholic doctrine of Purgatory has no affinity with that Platonic and Origenist view, of Eastern derivation, whereby the human soul embarks after death upon a new stage of its development. On the other hand the Church teaches that not every soul, even though it have passed out of this world in the state of sanctifying grace, partakes at once of eternal bliss and of the Vision of God. It is true that sanctifying love gives the soul a right to the possession of God, and is already in germ a participation in the divine life. But since, according to the Catholic conception, justification does not consist in an external imputation of the merits of Christ (see p. 188), but in a true re-creation of the inward man, in his re-birth and in the supernatural emergence of a new love for goodness and holiness, therefore justification of its nature demands sanctification and perfection, and is only complete and finished in this sanctification. Strictly speaking, therefore, a man in a state of grace is not already a saint (homo sanctus), not, that is, until he has given this grace free scope in his life and under its awakening impulse overcome every evil tendency, even to his most intimate thoughts and most subtle inclinations, and having made goodness supreme within him has become the perfect and unalloyed man. Only such a one, whose being is in its every part transfigured by love of God and his neighbor, only such a one will see God. Are there such men on this earth of ours? "Who shall be able to stand before the Lord, this holy God?" (1 Kings vi, 20). History testifies indeed that God has been pleased to reveal His power in weak human vessels. There have been, and there are saints, who have ripened even in this life "unto the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ," though they may in outward form have remained the children of their time and have achieved their final perfection only in their death. But experience also teaches us that the great majority of the pious faithful who leave this life have not attained that sublime ideal of being perfect "as your heavenly Father is perfect" which our Lord puts before us and which is prefigured and implanted in us with the grace of our adoption as His sons. A great many Christians, when they die, are united and devoted to God, the absolute Good, only in the center of their being, but remain otherwise imperfect and immature. God's rule is not yet supreme in every room and corner of their being. They have been subject to many erratic impulses and errors; they have fallen at times into transgressions, without full consciousness of the sinful character of their acts or omissions. Some sins there have been, which they rather suffered than deliberately committed, sins which are to be ascribed to unruly nature and not to the center of their personal being, sins which theology therefore calls "venial sins:" And there is no doubt that innumerable souls leave this world with a load of venial sin, and in consequence are unfit to "walk the holy way" (cf. Isaias xxxv, 8).
It is quite possible that the experience of death itself gives many their final purification. As the world of sense and its confusing turmoil grow still, as loneliness and helplessness press down upon them, as their awe deepens be fore the approach of the great reality and their sense of guilt is intensified by the coming Judgment, they cry in the terrors of death with purer inwardness and more profound trust to the merciful God. As a child in unquiet sleep reaches out for the loving hand of its mother, even so do they grope after God, the Life of their life. And so there springs up within them an ardent love for their Father, a love that is ready to relinquish life gladly, a perfect love. In such ardor all sin dies, every evil inclination is extinguished and every penalty. The soul enters into the joy of its Lord.
But such a happy death is not the lot of all who die in Christ, either because they are called away suddenly, or because they do not in their deaths achieve such a depth of inwardness and such a strength of love. Now, if we do not suppose that those who die thus without a perfect act of love are purified from their faults and prepared for the Vision of God without any act of theirs and so to speak in a purely magical way by a direct interposition of God's mercy—for that would be in conflict with God's justice and with His stipulation that man should co-operate with grace—and if we maintain on the other hand that such souls, being united to God in the center of their being, cannot be eternally banished from His sight—for that would be contrary to His mercy—then there must be after death some possibility of a purification of the soul. This purification was present to the mind of Judas Maccabeus when he caused "sacrifices and intercessions" to be offered in Jerusalem—for those heroic Jews who fell fighting for their faith against Gorgias and yet contrary to the Mosaic Law had idol offerings concealed in their garments—so that they might be "loosed from their sins" and partake of the "resurrection" (2 Macch. xii, 43 ff.). This possibility is alluded to also by our Lord, when He warns us of a certain sin that "shall not be forgiven, neither in this world, nor in the world to come" (Mt. xii, 32), and when He speaks of a prison whence no man shall escape "until he has paid the last farthing" (Mt. v, 25). St. Paul too was certainly thinking of the same thing, when he speaks of that teacher who builds on the one foundation, which is Christ, nothing but wood, hay and straw, and asserts that such a one, although his work be consumed in the fire of the Judgment, will himself be saved, yet "so as by fire," that is, not without labor and pain (1 Cor. iii, 11 ff.). There is no apparent reason why these words of St. Paul should apply only to an unsatisfactory Christian teacher, and not to all Christians. For all such may base their lives upon Christ, and yet from moral frailty achieve only an imperfect work. Tertullian witnesses, and the evidence of early sepulchral inscriptions is constantly reinforcing the fact, that the early Christians, mindful of this salvation "so as by fire," were wont to offer prayers, alms, and particularly the Eucharistic Sacrifice, for the peace (pax), the refreshment (refrigerium),and the eternal rest (requies) of the dead.
On this foundation the Church in the Councils of Lyons, Florence and Trent, formulated the doctrine that there is a state of purification (purgatorium) after death, and that the souls consigned thereto may be helped by the prayers of the faithful (cf. Trent, Sess. 25 De purg.). The process of Purgatory is a negative one, a purification of the soul, a removal of those blemishes that remain in it because of the imperfection of its earthly life; it is not a positive process, an elevation and perfecting of the soul. And because death is the end of all creative moral initiative and meritorious activity, this removal of defects can be effected only by the way of passive punishment. It is not an active satisfaction for sin (satisfactio), but a satisfactory suffering (satispassio). And so the Church calls the sufferings of Purgatory purifying and cleansing punishments (poenae purgatonae seu catharteriae). The poor soul, having failed to make use of the easier and happier penance of this world, must now endure all the bitterness and all the dire penalties which are necessarily attached by the inviolable law of God's justice to even the least sin, until she has tasted the wretchedness of sin to its dregs and has lost even the smallest attachment to it, until all that is fragmentary in her has attained completeness, in the perfection of the love of Christ. It is a long and painful process, "so as by fire." Is it real fire? We cannot tell; its true nature will certainly always remain hidden from us in this world. But we know this, that no penalty presses so hard upon the "poor souls" as the consciousness that they are by their own fault long debarred from the blessed Vision of God. The more they are disengaged gradually in the whole compass of their being from their narrow selves, and the more freely and completely their hearts are opened to God, so much the more is the bitterness of their separation spiritualized and transfigured. It is home-sickness for their Father; and the further their purification proceeds, the more painfully are their souls scourged with its rods of fire.
Such is the character of Purgatory. It is not mere punishment and pain like Hell, but rather urgent love, glad hope and sure expectation. There is a sacred rhythm of pain and joy in the lives of the poor souls, the pain of sin, the joy of their blessed hope. And by that they are essentially different from those who "have no further hope." "Yet a little while and your hearts will rejoice." A moment will come, when for them Purgatory shall be no more, but only the blessedness of Heaven. After all, Purgatory is only a thoroughfare to the Father, toilsome indeed and painful, but yet a thoroughfare, in which there is no standing still and which is illuminated by glad hope. For every step of the road brings the Father nearer. Purgatory is like the beginning of spring. Warm rays commence to fall on the hard soil and here and there awaken timid life. Even so Christ our Head sends grace upon grace, strength upon strength, comfort upon comfort, in ever richer abundance into His suffering members. The blessed light of glory spreads, and embraces an ever wider extent of the suffering Church. Countless souls are already awakening to the full day of eternal life and singing the new song: "Salvation to our God, who sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb" (Apoc. vii, 10).
The Church Triumphant (eccles a triumphans).—Hosts of the redeemed are continually passing into heaven, whether directly, or mediately by the road of purification in the Suffering Church. They pass into the presence of the Lamb and of Him who sits upon the throne, in order face to face—and no longer in mere similitude and image—to contemplate the Trinity, in whose bosom are all possibilities and all realities, the unborn God from out of whose eternal wellspring of life all beings drink existence and strength, motion and beauty, truth and love. There is none there who has not been brought home by God's mercy alone. All are redeemed, from the highest seraph to the new- born child just sealed by the grace of baptism as it left the world. Delivered from all selfish limitations and raised above all earthly anxieties, they live, within that sphere of love which their life on earth has traced out for them, the great life of God. It is true life, no idle stagnation, but a continual activity of sense and mind and will. It is true that they can merit no longer, nor bear fruit now for the Kingdom of Heaven. For the Kingdom of Heaven is established and grace has finished its work. But the life of glory is richer far than the life of grace. The infinite spaces of the Being of God, in all Its width and depth, provide a source in which the soul seeks and finds the satisfaction of its most intimate yearnings. New possibilities continually reveal themselves, new vistas of truth, new springs of joy. Being incorporated in the most sacred Humanity of Jesus, the soul is joined in most mysterious intimacy to the Godhead Itself. It hears the heartbeats of God and feels the deep life that pulsates within the Divinity. The soul is set and lives at the center of all being, whence the sources of all life flow, where the meaning of all existence shines forth in the Triune God, where all power and all beauty, all peace and all blessedness, are become pure actuality and purest present, are made an eternal now.
This life of the saints, in its superabundant and inexhaustible fruitfulness, is at the same time a life of the rich est variety and fullness. The one Spirit of Jesus, their Head and Mediator, is manifested in His saints in all the rich variety of their individual lives, and according to the various measure in which every single soul, with its own special gifts and its own special call, has received and employed the grace of God. The one conception of the saintly man, of the servant of Christ, is embodied in an infinite variety of forms. The Litany of the Saints takes us rapidly through this "celestial hierarchy." Beginning at the throne of the most holy Trinity and passing thence to Mary, the Mother of God, and then through the hosts of the angelic choirs to the solitary penance of the great Precursor, St. John the Baptist, it leads us to St. Joseph, the foster-father of the Lord, the man of quiet dutifulness and simplicity of soul. Next to them tower the figures of the Patriarchs and Prophets, primitive and sometimes strange figures, but men of strong faith, of sacred constancy, of ardent desire. Sharply contrasted with them are the witnesses of the fulfillment, the apostles and disciples of the Lord: Peter, Paul, Andrew, James and the rest. And while every name denotes a special gift, a special character, a special life, yet all are united in one only love and in one gospel of joy and gladness. And around and about these outstanding figures what a harvest and rich crop of infinite color and in infinitely divese fields! All holy martyrs—All holy bishops and confessors—All holy doctors—All holy priests and levites—All holy monks and hermits—All holy virgins and widows—All saints of God. It is that "great multitude which no man can number, of all nations, and tribes, and peoples, and tongues: standing before the throne and in sight of the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands" (Apoc.vii, 9).
But however wondrously glorious all these holy figures are, 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 no grace, no virtue, no privilege, which she does not owe to the divine Mediator. Both in her natural and in her supernatural being, she is wholly the gift of God, "full of grace" (kecharitomene Lk. i, 28). There is nothing, therefore, so misguided and so preposterous as to decry the Mother of God as some "mother goddess," and to talk of Catholicism having a polytheistic character. There is but one God, the Triune God, and every created thing lives in awe of His mystery. But this one God is a God of life and of love. So great, so superabundant is this love, that it not only raises man to its own image and likeness by the natural gifts of reason and will, but also, by the precious gift of sanctifying grace, summons him from his state of isolation to an unparalleled participation in the Divine Nature and in Its blessings, to a sort of active co-operation in the work of God, to effective initiative in the establishment of the Kingdom of God. It is the profoundest meaning and the amazing generosity of the redemption, that it raises the rational creature from the infinite remoteness of its impotence and from the abysmal ruin of its sins into the Divine Life, and thereby makes it apt—while preserving its creaturely limitations—to co-operate in the work of redemption. The Scriptures tell us that the angels in their measure shared in the work of creation, and that they gave the Law to Moses (Gal. iii, 19; Hebr. ii, 2), thus co- operating effectively in the establishment of the Old Covenant. The new creation also and the New Covenant are not perfected without the cooperation of secondary causes (causae secundae), the blessed angels and men. So the whole of redeemed humanity enters in its measure into the circle of the Divine Life. To that extent it is not only the object of the divine work of salvation, but also subject and agent in that work, although the creature, of course, remains always a creature and can co-operate in the work of salvation only through God's power. Yet, looking at the matter as a whole, the true Kingdom, whence comes all blessing, is not God alone, not the divine "One" (hen) alone, but the "One and all" (hen kai pan) or rather the totality of all the members whom Christ, their Head, introduces into the Divine Life of God, who is fruitful in His saints.
Here again we observe the essential difference between Catholicism and Protestantism. The special characteristic of Protestantism is isolation, abrupt separation and schism, not only in the sphere of Church government, but in that of religion generally. Protestantism separates reason from faith, justification from sanctification, religion from morality, nature from supernature, and so it introduces a cleavage into the domain of God's loving and gracious activity. When Luther narrowed the scriptural idea of God's all-efficiency into the doctrine of His sole efficiency, he cut the native strength of the creature loose from its moorings in God, and delivered it over to total unfruitfulness. According to Luther's view, the stream of God's mercy flows only over the justified, and there is no creative radiance of His love within the soul, no bursting forth and concurrent flow of the soul's powers under the touch and stimulus of His love, no confluence of this new wealth with God's abundance, no living of Christ in His members. God alone is the agent and active force, God the supreme and infinite Spirit, and not the God who has taken our human nature, and who through that nature works and suffers, redeems and sanctifies, as though through His members. How different the belief of Catholicism! The Catholic cannot think of the good God without thinking at the same time of the Word made Flesh, and of all His members who are united to Him by faith and love in a real unity. The God of Catholicism is the transcendent, absolute God, who became Man for us in His Son, and therefore no solitary God, but the God of angels and saints, the God of fruitfulness and abundance, the God who with a veritable divine folly by the incomprehensible decree of His most free Will takes up into Himself the whole creation that culminates in human nature, and in a new, unheard of supernatural manner, "lives in it," "moves" in it, and in it "is" (cf. Acts XVii, 28). That is the basis upon which the Catholic veneration of the saints and of Mary must be judged. To the Catholic the saints are not mere exalted patterns of behavior, but living members, and even constructive powers of the Body of Christ. They possess therefore, not merely a moral, but also a religious significance. Like the apostles and prophets, upon whom they are founded (Eph. ii, 20), they are essentially and for ever the fellow- workers of Christ (2 Cor. vi, 1), His servants (Mt. x, 24) and marriage guests (Mt. ix, 15), His friends (Jn. xv, 14) and His glory (2 Cor. viii, 23). They have all an abiding inward relation, a real and vital connection with the whole Christ (totus Christus), and their importance for the welfare of the whole Body depends upon the special function which they have to fulfill within its organism.
That which is valid of the saints in general, holds in the highest measure of the Queen of all saints, Mary the Mother of God. 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" (Lk. xi, 28). 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 the 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. We know of martyrs." But her faith was as strong as her humility. She 'kept all these words," which were spoken of her Son pondering them in her heart" (Lk. ii, 19, 51). And so she became the precious and pure source of the history of His infancy, the faithful evangelist: "Queen of Evangelists." It was his mother's faith that produced the miracle of Cana, the first manifestation of our Lord's glory among men (Jn ii, l). And Mary was a blessed witness also of His last revelation of His glory, in the fiery tongues of Pentecost (Acts ii, 3). No apostle learnt the mystery of Jesus so fully and so profoundly, or preserved his experience so faithfully, as did the Queen of Apostles." It is this radiant image of Mary, as portrayed by St. Luke and St. John, which our Lord had in mind when He directed the woman in the Gospel from the bodily motherhood of Mary to her spiritual sublimity: "Blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it." (Lk. xi 28). This gives the scene its illuminating character and its importance in the history of our salvation. But 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. xii, 1 ff.), and that is the source of her blessedness The "Blessed" with which our Lord corrects that woman's praise, rings then like a conscious reference to the angel's "Blessed" in the same Gospel. "Blessed art thou that hast believed that those things shall be accomplished that were spoken to thee by the Lord" (i, 45). The gladness of redeemed humanity resounds in those words of St. Elizabeth.
They are the first jubilee of the Gospel. And they are true of Mary beyond all others, for she by her "Be it done unto me" preceded all others along the way of redemption, yes even helped to prepare that way. Without her consent there had been no redemption, and therefore is she for us all the "Gate of heaven."
And so the wonderful fact that God is not alone in the work of redemption, but that creatures too, in their measure, truly share in that work, is illustrated nowhere more clearly than in Mary. It is true that the fact that Mary had such privilege was due to Grace alone, that she was called from eternity to be the Mother of God and was from the beginning immersed in Christ's redeeming grace, so that she was conceived Immaculate, without stain of original sin. It was grace too, and grace alone, which gave her heart its ardent and complete devotion to the Savior and its maiden resolution, so that she "knew no man" (Lk. i, 34) and as "Virgin of virgins" was that closed door "through which no man shall pass, because the Lord the God of Israel hath entered in by it" (cf. Ezech. xliv, 2). Yet the grace of God does not offer violence, but would be freely accepted. And therefore, however infinitely small Mary s own activity may appear in comparison with the activity of God, there remains a human strand in the divine robe of our salvation, the "Be it done unto me" of Mary. And the Catholic exalts Mary above all angels and saints (hyperdulia), because it has pleased God to give her decisive words this effective position in the work of redemption. The Fathers from the time of St. Justin Martyr continually urge this importance of Mary in the history of salvation, and contrast it with the sin of the first woman. Just as Eve's consent to the serpent's temptation brought sin and ruin, so did Mary's consent to the angel's message introduce redemption. So Mary possesses not only a personal relation to the Son of God and her personal salvation, but also a relation to the "many" who are redeemed by her Son. 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. Though by her human nature she is infinitely distant from the Father, yet her special graces have raised her to a wonderful nearness to God, and as mother of the Redeemer she reflects God's goodness and bounty with an inwardness and a truth that are possible to no other creature. 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!
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