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Inner Life of a Catholic

The Profession of Faith 

CHAPTER TWO

Life In Jesus Christ

3. The Communion Of Saints

Something has already been said of the place of the Saints of God, the Church Triumphant, in the mystical body of Christ; but so markedly Catholic is this devotion, especially towards her whom he fondly calls the Queen of all the Saints, that, at the risk of some repetition, this would seem the fitting place to speak of that devotion further.

The Catholic knows full well that there is but one God, and one Mediator, Jesus Christ. "For there is one God; and one mediator of God and man, the man Christ Jesus; who gave himself a redemption for all, a testimony in due times" (I Tim. ii, 5, 6). Nevertheless the Catholic believes that it has pleased the wisdom and bounty of God to give us other helps, other protectors, intercessors, models, of our own kith and kin, who, because of this human relationship with us, may be, or rather may appear to be, in some sense nearer to us. He -has made use of every means that may draw us more to Him, not least of that touch of nature which makes the whole world kin. These are the saints, members of that same mystical body of which we are members, who have lived their lives under-like conditions to our own, who under those conditions have reproduced in themselves the traits and perfections of Jesus Christ our Lord, who have reduced His teaching to practice, and have therefore become for us both an example and an inspiration, and who are all the time our own brethren. We hear of their deeds, for God and for man, and we are led to ask ourselves: "Why cannot I do what these and those have done?" We think of them in their heaven of reward, and we know that love does not die. We conclude, and the evidence of Scripture confirms our conclusion, that from their place beside the throne of God they hear us and help us; nay more, we believe that from time to time God shows that He approves our devotion by special favors granted through their intercession. We honor them for their own sakes; we honor them because of the honor their lives have given to God and to man. We speak to them as friend speaks to friend; we ask them to assist us, as the poor man asks the rich man whom he trusts and loves, as the traveler along an unknown road will ask guidance of one who has already explored it.

Moreover, when we honor them we believe that we do but honor God the more. For it is no less than His reflection in them that we honor. We honor them because God has honored them, for the reasons that He has honored them, in the way that we believe He would have us honor those who have served Him well, whom He has loved, and has markedly approved. When we invoke their intercession, it is to God that our petition goes in the last resort; we ask a favored brother to pray with us at the feet of our common Father. When we set them before ourselves for our imitation, it is Jesus Christ reflected in them that we propose to imitate. "Be ye followers of me," St. Paul said boldly to his neophytes, "as I am of Christ." We make use of them for our encouragement, as we all make use of the great men who have gone before us: "A brother helped by a brother is like a strong city." We ask them to show us how we, too, like them, may reproduce Jesus Christ our Lord in ourselves. Far from interfering with our worship of God, or of the Incarnate Word of God, the devotion to the saints does but draw us the nearer to them both, as the experience of centuries has proved; it completes our worship and confirms it. In their company we are in the company of Him whom they have loved above all else; no man ever yet had true devotion to the worthiest followers of Jesus Christ but longed to follow Him as they did.

And in return we are confident that the saints in heaven have regard for us. If they are our brethren, we are no less theirs; if our love keeps them in our hearts, that same love, rendered the more keen by their union now with God, keeps us no less in theirs. As they stand around the throne of God, their warfare over, their victory won, their voices cannot but be powerful with Him for whom they have lived and died; hence we invoke them, ask for their aid, looking into heaven with our purblind eyes, knowing very well that our aspirations will be graciously received. We live in the dark, groping as we may; we see as in a mirror only, and the mirror is but of this earth's making. We know well that "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive what God hath prepared for them that love Him;'; but we do the little we can. And those who see "face to face," after they themselves have gone through the valley of this death, will not, when they look back on us, be wanting to us in their pity and love. When we in our turn come to die, we have confidence that they will welcome us into their company; not least because we have held their memory in honor and affection, and have gloried in them as in those of our own whom the King has delighted to reward.

But among the saints there is one who, in the Catholic mind, holds rank pre-eminently and apart; let us then consider her with her prerogatives. The Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother on earth of the Son of God, the Word Incarnate, Jesus Christ our Lord, holds her unique position essentially because of that Motherhood. On the day of the Incarnation Mary, the Maid of Nazareth, became the real Mother of God come down to earth. She gave of her body for the making of His body, of her blood for the building of His human life; had she no other claim that this on the reverence and devotion of believing man, this alone would be enough. But the record of the Incarnation sanctions much more; every word in the narrative is full of meaning, and the Catholic Church in every generation has lived upon it. She is saluted with respect by an angel, in words that at once place her above all other men and women. Before the message is given she is pronounced "full of grace"; "the Lord is with her" in a way that belongs to her alone; she is "blessed among all women"; there is nothing comparable to honor such as this paid to any other human being, in all the generations of mankind from Adam till today. When the message is delivered, it is more than just a son that is announced; it is a Savior, a Redeemer, the fulfillment of the desire of the nations. All this proclaims the nature of her Motherhood.

"Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and shall bear a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus (i.e. Savior). He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God shall give him the throne of David his father, and he shall reign in the house of Jacob forever" (Luke i, 31, 32).

Such a message is no less than the announcement of the Messias that was looked for; and Mary knew it well. Still, that the promise might be fulfilled, her free consent was to be given; the design of God for the redemption of the world was made to depend upon the "fiat" of the Maid of Nazareth. Freely she gave that consent, and at once the work of the Incarnation and Redemption was begun; and God would have the whole world thank that little maiden for the word she uttered. "Behold the handmaid of the Lord, according to thy word be it done to me."

It was an act of complete surrender. As her preceding question declared, it cost her much; she knew too, what it would imply in the future, to be the chosen companion of Him who was to redeem the world. A few days later she made a prophecy, and wonderfully has that prophecy been fulfilled.

"My soul doth magnify the Lord And my spirit hath rejoiced In God my Savior Because he hath regarded his handmaid's lowliness For behold from henceforth All generations shall call me blessed."—(Luke i, 46-48).

Thus does Mary stand in a place unique, the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ the Redeemer, by her own consent associated with Him in His work as no other creature could be, the second Eve, the mother of the new life, in contrast with the first Eve at every point. We cannot wonder that, by anticipation, the all-possessing and all-loving Lord blessed that soul and adorned it from the beginning of its being, as He has blessed no other.

Moreover, in that she was the actual Mother of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Mary was at once placed in a new relationship with the Blessed Trinity, far transcending that of any other creature. She was the chosen beloved of the Father, His personal associate in the work of the Incarnation. She was the Mother of the Son of God, with a mother's natural right to His respect, His love, and even on earth to His obedience. Nay more, because of the intimate union that exists between son and mother, she had a further claim to share with Him in whatsoever lot might befall Him; His joys were her joys, His sorrows were her sorrows, when the final victory came, who could have a greater part in it than she? Further, she was in a way peculiarly intimate, peculiarly her own, the living Temple of the Holy Ghost, as the Angel had foretold to her: "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee" (Luke i, 35). She was His privileged sanctuary, His spouse; with Him, in dependence on Him, but none the less with full and free co-operation on her part, she would fulfill her mission as the Mother of Jesus Christ, as the Mother of all men engendering them unto God.

Nor is this last a merely empty and poetic title. Mary has a special claim to be called the Mother of mankind; we have a special right to call her Mother. We have considered elsewhere in this chapter the meaning and significance of that mystical body of which Jesus Christ our Lord is the Head. Mary, as His Mother, as the Mother of that vital influence which has given life to that mystical body, in so far is also the Mother of that body. In a true though mystical sense the living members of that body can look upon her as their Mother; the Mother of Jesus Christ according to the flesh is the Mother of all His members according to the spirit. And as if He would Himself formally confirm and sanction this interpretation, as if He would encourage His disciples to draw it out to its logical conclusion, Jesus Christ our Lord suffered to be enacted and to be recorded for all time that memorable episode on Calvary. At the moment when the work of the Redemption was about to be completed by His death, when, in the ordinary course of nature, the Mother's heart would have been broken with the breaking of the heart of the Son, and when, therefore, she must have died with Him, Jesus paused in His great ordeal and looked upon her. He showed to her His beloved disciple John, through him bestowed on her the rest of humankind, and said: "Woman, behold thy son." In that gift He substituted John for Himself in His Mother's heart. He bade the Mother find in His disciple an object that would give an outlet to her Mother's love: "As often as you did it to the least of these you did it to me." Likewise to John He showed Mary. He bade him be a son to her in His own place even as He had been. "Behold thy Mother," he said; and "from that moment the disciple took her to his own." From that moment and because of the commission, every loving disciple of the Son has taken the Mother to his own heart. This is no novel or fantastic interpretation of the passage of St. John. It has come down through the ages, from and beyond the days of Origen; what it has meant to Christendom, the liberation of and reverence for women, the conquest of barbarian brutality, the foundation and development of chivalry, the respect for chastity, and with it for all the moral law, not least the joy and hope it has brought into the lives of the poor and down-trodden, all this historians never tire of repeating.

Upon these two titles, Mary the Mother of God, and Mary the Mother of Mankind, the whole practice of the Catholic's devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary is built. She is the second Eve as her Son is the second Adam; as through a woman came the Fall, so through a woman came the Restoration. On this account she stands alone; thus united to the Son of God she is Immaculate, free from stain of sin as is no other human being whom God has made. As His Mother He delights Himself to honor her, as His Mother He delights that she should be honored by others; as her Son He delights to grant to her what she asks, when she pleads with Him on behalf of her many children. The Catholic must needs restrain himself from saying more. He loves Mary with a child's affection, he thinks of her and sings her praises with a child's heart. Through all time her name has been on his lips; she has been the inspiration of his literature and his art; all that is most beautiful in Christendom has come to it through her. And today the very hovels of the poorest, the most sordid stratum of our vaunted civilization, finds its one illumination and relief in devotedness to the Maid of Nazareth.

Indeed it is true to say that a religion is best tested by the help it gives to the poor; under that test how many of our modern sophistries come to nothing! But with the Catholic Church it is not so; it is par excellence everywhere the religion of the poor—<pauperes evangelizantur.>" And this is specially true of the devotion to the Blessed Virgin.

It was the month of May during the last year of the War in one of the poorest quarters in one of our large towns. Before a statue of our Lady a poor woman was kneeling. Her son was at the front, her only bread-winner. Tears were in her eyes as she was heard to exclaim: "Mother of God, be good to my lad and I'll be good to yours!"

This only we would add. The more a man appreciates and loves the Son, the more, as experience abundantly proves, will he come to appreciate and love the Mother; and conversely, the more he loves the Mother, the more will he grow in devotion to the Son, seeing that in the first place it is on that Son's account that he honors her.