Second Sunday after Pentecost

Thoughts for the Week - Fr. R. Taouk 
29th May 2016

The Divine Motherhood of Mary by Dom Anscar Vonier O.S.B.

It is possible for us to make the distinction between Our Lady's personal sanctity and Our Lady's divine motherhood. Her Immaculate Conception, her absolute sinlessness, her immense charity, may be considered as her personal sanctity. She was already endowed with this personal sanctity when the Archangel Gabriel approached her with his message of infinite import: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women".  Great as was Mary's sanctity at that moment, the moment that preceded her divine motherhood, there is nothing that could compel us to say that such sanctity could not be granted by God to a human being quite irrespective of the mystery of the divine motherhood. God could grant the privilege of Immaculate Conception and the privilege of absolute sinlessness in soul and body to anyone born from Adam.

The angel's words have reference to Mary's actual state, the spotless angel meets the spotless woman. In a memorable passage of the Gospels we find this distinction between Mary's divine motherhood and her personal sanctity made use of by Christ Himself in order to enhance the importance of personal sanctity. "A certain woman from the crowd, lifting up her voice, said to Him: Blessed is the womb that bore Thee, and the paps that gave Thee suck. But He said: Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God, and keep it" (Luke 11:27). This contrasting between the divine motherhood and personal sanctity by the Son of God Himself is, no doubt, one of the most telling things in the sacred Gospels.

The most exalted spiritual marvel is, by the very laws of the divine life, intimately connected with personal sanctity. But nothing, on the other hand, would be less justifiable than to read into Our Lord's words the least depreciation of the worth of the divine motherhood, as such. He emphasises the value of personal sanctity by means of the highest created form of comparison, the divine motherhood. It would be quite futile to ask ourselves the question whether divine motherhood could be separated in practice from personal sanctity; in other words, whether it is on the whole possible for a creature to be the Mother of God, and yet to be deprived of personal sanctity. No doubt, such a thing implies a contradiction.

There is, however, one spiritual fact of absolute certainty: The divine motherhood is the primary, the central fact in Mary's election and predestination on the part of God. She is not a saint to whom divine motherhood was bestowed as an extra grace; she is the divine Mother to whom sanctity has been granted as a necessary spiritual complement. Divine motherhood is a grace, or rather, a spiritual marvel so prodigious, so unique in its nature, that it must be considered as the all overpowering spiritual factor in the person who receives it. All other endowments of soul and body in that ever-blessed person could not be anything except a preparation for, and a sequel to, that great mystery of divine life. So though we fail to see whether sanctity of the highest degree is united with divine motherhood through a necessary law of life, one thing we cannot fail to see is this priority of the divine motherhood in Mary's election; she is simply the Mother of God; such is the definition of Mary.