Mary, the Awesome Virgin, Mary: Day 150

Mary, the Awesome Virgin

The awe that is struck in human hearts by angelic visitors cannot compare to the awe and wonder we should feel in Mary’s presence. Blessed John Henry Newman tells why.

The holy Daniel, when St. Gabriel appeared to him, “fainted away, and lay in a consternation, with his face close to the ground” (see Dan 8:17). When this great archangel came to Zechariah, the father of St. John the Baptist, he too was troubled, and fear fell upon him (see Lk 1:12). But it was otherwise with Mary when the same St. Gabriel came to her. She was overcome indeed, and troubled at his words, because, humble as she was in her own opinion of herself, he addressed her as “full of grace” (see Lk 1:28). But she was able to bear the sight of him.

Hence we learn two things: first, how great a holiness was Mary’s, seeing she could endure the presence of an angel, whose brightness smote the holy prophet Daniel even to fainting and almost to death; and secondly, since she is so much holier than that angel, and we so much less holy than Daniel, what great reason we have to call her the Virgo Admirabilis, the Wonderful, the Awesome Virgin, when we think of her unspeakable purity!

There are those who are so thoughtless, so blind, so groveling as to think that Mary is not as much shocked at willful sin as her divine Son is, and that we can make her our friend and advocate, even though we go to her without contrition at heart, without even the wish for true repentance and resolution to amend. As if Mary could hate sin less, and love sinners more, than our Lord does! No. She feels a sympathy for those only who wish to leave their sins; else, how should she be without sin herself ? No. If even to the best of us she is, in the words of Scripture, “fair as the moon, bright as the sun, and terrible as an army set in array” (see Sg 6:10), what is she to the impenitent sinner? —Blessed John Henry Newman, Meditations and Devotions

IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .
Like Jesus, Mary loves sinners, but hates sin. Do I ever approach her for help without genuine contrition, or even the desire to repent and change?

CLOSING PRAYER
From a prayer of St. Alphonsus Liguori: Mary, I abandon myself into your hands.
Only tell me what you would have me do, and obtain for me the strength to do it; for I am resolved to do all that depends on me to recover God’s grace. I take refuge under your mantle.

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