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Vigils Reading – Memorial of BVM
August 3
MARY AND GOD’S REDEMPTIVE PLAN
From “Seasons of Celebration” by Thomas Merton7
◊◊◊
In Mary is perfectly realized God’s whole creative and redemptive plan.
That is why she is said to be for us a light of truth and a pattern of life. That is
why her spiritual beauty includes in itself all the beauty which we see here and
there, in partial and incomplete form, in the universe. In her is all the beauty of
the world, transfigured and elevated to a level beyond our comprehension: and
yet since that perfection was reached by the fulfillment of the obediential
potency in her nature, which is also our nature, there is a certain connaturality
in us which makes us respond to her transcendent radiance even though it
remains obscure to us. We cannot help but see that she is, like ourselves, a
human creature whose littleness has been glorified in the light of Christ and
who has been saved from the power of darkness and evil by the grace of His
cross.
It remains then for us to celebrate her immaculate beauty, to open our
hearts to the same light of truth which sanctified her, the same grace which
made her pleasing to the Most High, Who is her creator as He is ours, and who
wishes to see realized in us the same ineffable mystery of light. More than that,
He wishes to see the whole world saved and transfigured in that light, by reason
of our perfect acceptance of His gift, His love, and His grace, and our
transmission of the power of His love to all people and to all other beings by our
work, our prayers and our love.
7 New York, 1965, pp. 169-170.