Vigils Reading – Memorial of the BVM

A reading from “The Seat of Wisdom” by

FR LOUIS BOUYER

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Virginity consecrated to God in Christ has its justification in that it is a

means for engendering offspring without number; and therein lies the real

nature of its sacrifice. This is the supreme truth revealed to us by Mary’s virginal

motherhood, and, at the same time, its supreme justification. By her

renunciation in a spirit of perfect faith, of the very possibility of generation on

the earthly plane, that of the first creation, she lent herself to be used to generate

the human body of the Son of God.

And, since he is, in himself, not only the origin but the whole of the new

creation, she also brought this to birth in bearing him. The sacrifice inherent in

her chosen virginity was fulfilled in that the “Holy One” born of her was the Son

of God, since this made him, the fruit of her own life, the absolute Stranger to

her. though belonging wholly to her as to no one else, Christ could not but be the

one who was apart form her from the very moment of his birth, more so than

any other child from its parents. At the same time, her virginity was justified in

that it made a birth of the kind possible. And all the hopes of renewal that this

birth held out to mankind, in the state it then was in, justified the seeming

refusal of human love by the one most worthy of loving and being loved that had

been seen on earth since Eve.

The counterpart of this is that it is by their participation in Mary’s destiny

that, henceforth, those vowed to virginity will see and fulfill the purpose of their

own sacrifice. They renounce all possibility of prolonging and continuing the

present order of creation in order to dedicate themselves wholly to engendering

the new order which is to redeem the old. Such entire devotion to bringing about

the new birth of a humanity regenerated in Christ makes of their virginity, not a

negation of love, but an act of love of the most exalted kind.