Mary’s Humility
Friends in Christ, today is Saturday, the day of Our Lady; if we think of the saints, and all the virtues they possessed, Mary possessed them to a greater degree. One of the great virtues of the Blessed Virgin, is humility, and she did possess this virtue more than any other saint.
.
It has been said that Mary won God with her humility. St. Augustine says, Mary’s humility was like a ladder, by which Our Lord descended from heaven to earth to become Man in her womb. This is confirmed by St. Antoninus, who says, the humility of Mary was her most perfect virtue, and the one that immediately prepared her to become the Mother of God.
.
Humility is not to act in some artificial, deprecating way; humility is to know the truth of one’s self before God. The truth that we are utterly nothing in comparison to God, but at the same time that we are unbelievably blessed in experiencing God’s love for us. Now in this virtue of humility, Mary exceeded, as we have said, all the other saints put together.
.
This is in stark contrast to that of God’s enemy, Lucifer; such a beautiful, gifted, angel, seeing himself endowed with such marvels, aspired to exalt his throne above the stars and to make himself like God. But Isaiah 14:7 tells us: ‘How have you fallen from the heavens, O Lucifer? You said in your heart: I will scale the heavens; above the stars of God I will set up my throne; I will be like the Most High! Yes. But now, ‘down to hell you go, to the recesses of the pit! You are cast forth, loathsome and corrupt, as a rotten carcass. This is the end for those full of pride. Thus, God’s mortal Enemy.
.
Mary, on the other hand, by her most humble heart, in a way, held God captive; Francone the Abbot says, Mary, with a kind of ‘sweet violence,’ drew the Word himself down from heaven and made him a prisoner in her chaste womb. And St. Bernard remarks, O Lady, by your humility you drew the Eternal Son from his repose into thy most pure womb.
.
Albert the Great says: O Mary, you have found, not taken, grace as Lucifer tried to take it. You did not lose it as Adam lost it; you have not bought it as Simon Magnus tried to buy it. But you have found it, because you have desired and sought it.
.
St. Louis de Montfort says that in a certain way, the devil fears Mary more than God. Why? Because Satan, being proud, suffers infinitely more, being beaten by a humble and little handmaid; he fears even one sigh of Mary for a poor sinner, than all the prayers of all the Saints.
