Mary, Mother of Fair Love, Mary: Day 139

Mary, Mother of Fair Love

St. Alphonsus celebrates the love of a mother unlike any other.

The Church applies to Mary these words of the Book of Sirach: “I am the mother of fair love” (see Sir 24:18). A commentator, explaining them, says that the Blessed Virgin’s love renders our souls beautiful in the sight of God, and also makes her, as a most loving mother, receive us as her children, “since she is all love towards those whom she has adopted in this way.” St. Bonaventure says to her: “Don’t you love us and seek our welfare far more—without compari- son!—than any earthly mother?”

Blessed are those who live under the protection of so loving and powerful a mother! The prophet David, although Mary was not yet born, sought salvation from God by dedicating himself as a son of Mary, and prayed to God this way: “Save the son of your handmaid” (Ps 86:16). “Of what handmaid?’ asks St. Augustine. He replies: “Of the one who said, ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord’ ” (Lk 1:38).

“Who would ever dare,” asks St. Robert Bellarmine, “to snatch these chil- dren from the bosom of Mary, when they have taken refuge there? What power of hell, or what temptation, can overcome them, if they place their confidence in the patronage of this great mother, the Mother of God, and their mother?”

There are some who say that when the mother whale sees her young in danger, either from storms or predators, she opens her mouth so they can swim inside her to be protected. This is precisely what the devotional writer Luigi Novarini asserts of Mary: “When the storms of temptations rage, the most com- passionate mother of the faithful, with maternal tenderness, protects them as if in her own bosom, until she has brought them into the harbor of salvation.” —St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Glories of Mary

IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .
In what ways has Mary shown herself to be the “Mother of Fair Love” in my life? How has her love helped to make my soul beautiful like hers?

CLOSING PRAYER
From a prayer of St. Bonaventure: As a mother loves her children and attends to their welfare, so you love us and procure our happiness, O most sweet Queen!

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