Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

Thoughts for the Week - Fr. R. Taouk 
18th August 2019

The Power of the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God
by St. Pius X

Can anyone fail to see that there is no surer or more direct road than by Mary for uniting all mankind in Christ and obtaining through Him the perfect adoption of sons, that we may be holy and immaculate in the sight of God? For if to Mary it was truly said: "Blessed art thou who hast believed because in thee shall be fulfilled the things that have been told thee by the Lord" (Luke 1:45); or in other words, that she would conceive and bring forth the Son of God and if she did receive in her breast Him who is by nature Truth itself in order that that His Mother most holy should be recognised as participating in the divine mysteries and as being in a manner the guardian of them, and that upon her as upon a foundation, rises the edifice of the faith of all centuries. 

How think otherwise? Could not God have given us, in another way than through the Virgin the Redeemer of the human race and the Founder of the Faith? But, since Divine Providence has been pleased that we should have the Man-God through Mary, who conceived Him by the Holy Ghost and bore Him in her breast, it only remains for us to receive Christ from the hands of Mary. Hence whenever the Scriptures speak prophetically of the grace which was to appear among us, the Redeemer of mankind is almost invariably presented to us as united with His mother. In fine, after Christ, we find in Mary the end of the law and the fulfilment of the figures and oracles.

And that through the Virgin, and through her more than through any other means, we have offered us a way of reaching the knowledge of Jesus Christ, cannot be doubted when it is remembered that with her alone of all others Jesus was for thirty years united in the closest ties of intimacy and domestic life. Who could better than His Mother have an open knowledge of the admirable mysteries of Christ? Mary not only preserved and meditated on the events of Bethlehem but sharing as she did the thoughts and the secret wishes of Christ she may be said to have lived the very life of her Son. Hence nobody ever knew Christ so profoundly as she did, and nobody can ever be more competent as a guide and teacher of the knowledge of Christ.

Hence it follows, that the Virgin is more powerful than all others as a means for uniting mankind with Christ. Through Mary we most easily obtain that life of which Christ is the source and origin. And if we set ourselves to consider how many and powerful are the causes by which this most holy Mother is filled with zeal to bestow on us these precious gifts, how our hopes will be expanded! For is not Mary the Mother of Christ? Then she is our Mother also.

Who can doubt that she will work with all diligence to procure that Christ may transfuse His gifts into us, and above all that of knowing Him and living through Him (1 John 4:9)?