Vigils Reading – Memorial of BVM

A reading from

ST THÉRÈSE OF LISIEUX

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In speaking of our Lady, we ought not to make improbable assertions

about matters that are beyond our knowledge, for example, that when she was a

small child she went up to the Temple to offer herself to God with extraordinary

fervor and a heart on fire with love. For all we know, she went simply in

obedience to her parents.

If a sermon on the Blessed Virgin is to bear fruit, it must describe her

real life, such as the Gospel gives us a glimpse of, and not her fancied life. And

we perceive clearly that her real life at Nazareth and later on must have been

quite ordinary…”He was subject to them”. How simple it all is!

Sometimes the Blessed Virgin is represented as being quite

unapproachable. Instead, we ought to show that she was imitable in her practice

of hidden virtues; we ought to point out that she lived a life of faith, just as we

do.

We know well that the Blessed Virgin is queen of heaven and earth; but

she is more of a mother than a queen, and we ought not to give out the idea, as I

have heard it done more than once, that because of her prerogatives she eclipses

the glory of all the saints, just as the sun, rising in brilliance, makes the stars

disappear. My God, what a strange thing to say! A mother who makes the glory

of her children disappear! For my part, I believe just the opposite; I think that

she will greatly increase the splendor of the elect.

We do well to speak of her prerogatives. But we should not stop there.

We should make her loved. If, when we hear a sermon on the Blessed Virgin, the

preacher tries to do nothing from beginning to end but call forth our

admiration, we become bored, and that does not lead to love and imitation. Who

knows but what some souls will not experience a certain sense of estrangement

from a creature so lofty?

The Theology of the Mystical Body , Emile Mersch SJ, B. Herder Book Co., St Louis MO 1951, pp. 169-170,174ff.15