Vigils Reading – Memorial of the BVM
THE CHRISTIAN
PAR EXCELLENCE
By Fr Émile Mersch
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The final step in the long preparation for Christ is His mother. We cannot
say anything more glorious or more beautiful about her than that, as the mother
of Jesus Christ, she is inseparable from Christ and from all that is Christ…
The other saints have particular kinds of holiness exclusive of one
another. Their sanctity is that of members. The foot is not the hand, and the ear
is not the eye; St Benedict Labre is quite different from St Francis de Sales, and
St Peter Damien is different from St Theresa of Lisieux. But Mary, who is holy in
her capacity as the mother of Christ, possesses all holiness: the unblemished
splendor of the woman clad with the sun is in striking fashion the splendor of
the sun itself.
This holiness partakes of all the matchless perfections of Christ. Its
excellence, which consists in uniting Christ to all humankind, makes of it a
holiness of union with all; it is a common and everyday holiness, an imitable and
approachable holiness, because it is pure holiness.
There is nothing extraordinary in Mary’s life, nothing to excite wonder. As
Jesus was quite simply a man who did not exalt Himself above His station and
did not harden Himself against pain or despise the slight value to be found in us,
so she was simply His mother, the woman whose Son is Jesus.
All the facts at the disposal of Christian piety show her living, in faith,
hope, and charity, the life that God appointed for her. She does not hesitate to
ask herself exactly what the future will bring, but at the same time she always
and in everything sees, loves, and carries out fully the will of God. She grasps, as
a mother can, with an intuition born of love, which is adequate but may remain
indistinct, what her Son is and what mission He came to accomplish. She
accepts and wishes what he wishes, and with all her heart allows her consent to
be fixed and carried out in His. Because of this unique excellence of hers she is
the Christian par excellence; and that is exactly what she ought to be.