The life of the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of God, of her blessed spouse, St. Joseph, and holy parents St. Joachim and St. Anne

Front matter

COLL. CHRTSTI. REGIS

BIB. MAJ.

TORONTO

Preface

X undertaking to write a life of the august Queen of heaven, again and again has my heart beat with such deep emotion, that I felt tempted to forego the task. While the piety for our august Lady which fills my heart,

encouraged me to pay her this tribute of respect and love, I could not but recoil when I thought how many a sublime genius from the primitive ages of the Church, has devoted his pen to praise and bless the pure, immaculate Virgin, more ardent than the seraphim ; that Virgin who is the glory of the prophets, the honor of martyrs, the crown of virgins, the fairest and holiest of all creatures ; that Vir-

8 PREFACE.

gin in whose womb the only son of God chose to assume our mortal flesh, and who is therefore called the Mother of God.

My diffidence increased when I called to mind that a St. Anselm, a St. Augustine, a St. Jerome, all of admirable sanctity and the rarest gifts of genius, never spoke of Mary but with the greatest awe, and after avowing themselves unequal to so great an undertaking ; and that a St. Bernard, with all his devotion to the Blessed Virgin, assures us, that whenever he essayed to express his love for Mary, he felt himself overcome by a holy awe ; for we may truly say that a writer then endeavors to explain what the heart of man cannot conceive. And really, why should not my good will find obstacles, and discouragement at the sight of that immense sea, whose shores man is not permitted to salute, even from afar ? Am I not, too, absolutely certain that I can add nothing new to what so many eminently learned and holy writers have penned, in countless works, in praise of that fair Judith, that glory of the heavenly and of the earthly Jerusa lem, that honor of her people ? These were surely reasons to discourage a greater writer than myself ; what shall I say then of my own weakness, and my daily occupations, which for years back have left me so little time to devote to sacred literature and science ? Still men of judgment and taste excited my courage ; they reminded me, with the Fathers, that we should not refrain from praising Mary, on the ground that we cannot do it worthily, since none is worthy, and that moreover it is incumbent on every good son, however inferior his talents may be, to praise his loved mother, lest his silence be assumed as a proof of his ingratitude. These considerations had a great influence with me ; and I also remembered — and the recollection dissipated all my fears — that the Divine master eulogized the widow's mite, cast into the treasury of the temple, because the generous woman offered all she had, without making her poverty a pretext for offering nothing. I accordingly undertook the task, attempting only to gather and condense what the Holy Fathers and Doctors have, during eighteen centuries and more, said to the glory of the Blessed Virgin.

I was also sustained and encouraged by the incalculable protection which the Sovereign Pontiff Pius IX. deigned to bestow on my work, even permitting it to be adorned with his august name. The words of veneration and love for the Divine Mother which he uttered on that occasion, deter mined me to overcome every obstacle, and bear this humble offering to Mary's altar.

Having thus given the reader my reasons for under taking the work, I wish to declare here that I state noth ing that is not based on the soundest authority, both be cause the present age demands it, and because he who speaks of Mary has so much to say, that he need not resort to suspected sources, but may drink in plentifully from the purest fountains. All that I say of the Blessed Virgin Immaculate is taken from Holy Scripture, the Fathers and Doctors of the church, or the most renowned lives of the Blessed Virgin. Among these latter, that published by Dom. John Chrysostom Trombelli, Abbot General of the order of the most Holy Saviour, deserves especial mention ; of this treasure (for so I may call his Latin dissertations) I have made constant use, selecting and abridging what suited my plan. If in any chapter I have dwelt more on some particular incident, analogous to my subject, it was to avoid the monotony into which such a work is apt to glide, and also to excite in the hearts of the faithful, devotion to the Queen of heaven.

This life is divided into four parts ; the first comprises the history of Mary, from the moment when she was promised to the earth, after Adam's sin, till the vow of perpetual virginity which she made in the temple. The second, from her departure from the temple to the death of Joseph, her chaste spouse. The third contains the return of Mary to Jerusalem, after the death of her Divine Son. In the last I treat of the remainder of her life, of her blessed death, of her assumption into heaven, of her glory, her virtues, the devotion to her, and of all that can tend to the consolation of the faithful, and the honor of our august Queen.

Although nothing is more easily acquired than erudition, and nothing usually is more repulsive at first to a reader, I have deemed it best not to discard it altogether in these pages ; hence I have added notes, wherever I deemed them proper, to satisfy curiosity and save the reader from laborious research. I have also taken care to note the passages of Scripture, the Fathers, Doctors, and Saints, on which my statements arc based.

Reader, receive this work kindly ; in it I have devoted all my care to honor the Blessed Virgin, our Mother and Queen.

My work, I confess, is poor from my want of talent, not

1 m from want of affection ; I am consoled by the thought that it suffices to present Mary as a model worthy of admiration, if the reader has a firm will of following her in the exercise of the virtues which she practised in the most sublime degree. Dear reader, rest assured that this powerful Queen, on seeing the honor you pay her here, will ever lavish her graces on you in life, her assistance and blessings at the hour of death, and will secure you a seat beside her in heaven, to be eter nally happy in the untold vision of God, which I sincerely wish you.

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LIFE

MOST BLESSED VIRGIN

BOOK FIEST.

OF THE VIRGIN MART FROM THE MOMENT WHEN GOD PROMISED HER TO

THE EARTH, AFTER ADAM'S SIN, TILL THE VOW OF PERPETUAL

VIRGINITY WHICH SHE PRONOUNCED IN THE TEMPLE.

Chapter I. Mary Promised To The Earth From The Beginning Of The World

F himself, and in himself, God, from all eternity, was perfectly happy. Possessed of all the attri butes of the divinity, without any limit, it was his pleasure to display first in all its splendor his omnipotence, his almighty power. He gave being to what was not, and by the sole force of his sovereign

LIFE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN.

word, existence to all that is on earth and in heaven. And after accomplishing in five days, the wonderful work of creating all these material things, he regarded them with his penetrating glance, and found them good.* Then resolving to create man, and make him lord of all beings, he kneaded him with his Divine hands from clay ; and when he had formed him, he breathed into him an immortal soul, and called him into life, f But the Almighty saw that man, whom lie had created to his image and likeness,^ was alone, which surely was not good ; he therefore cast him into a deep sleep, and while he slept, took from him one of his ribs, of which he formed woman. On seeing her beside him at his waking, man acknowledged her as bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. The name of Adam was given to the man, and that of Eve to the woman. §

* This approbation which God gave his works, was, in fact, his hlessing.

t The hreath of God, or the soul which he united to the body of man, was the principle of sentiment, reason, and life. The union of these two dissimilar sub stances, one material, the other spiritual, is one of the greatest wonders in nature. Man may feel, hut cannot comprehend it.

| God created the world for man, and man for himself. He endowed him with sentiment and reason, to enable him to soar towards his Creator, admire his works, and render him thanks. He created him to his image and likeness, by giving him an incorporeal soul, immortal, endowed with will, understanding, and freedom, capable of wisdom, virtue, and grace, and destined to beatitude, that is, to see and possess God ; in a word, man is the image of God, in that sense, that he has received from Him the attributes of an intelligent creature. This image, this likeness, is so inherent in man's nature, that he cannot lose it without losing his very nature. It may be obscured and tarnished by sin, but cannot be effaced or destroyed. (ST. AUGUSTINK, Retract. Lib. II. cap. 24.) Man's body even has some thing grand and extraordinary. His face is made to look up to the heavens, while other animals are bowed to earth. He has two hands, the prime instruments of his reason and liberty. In his countenance, in his eyes especially, shines forth a reflex of the soul, and in some sort of the divinity.

§ Adam, the name which God gave the first man, signifies earth. Ece, the name of the woman, means life. In the Vulgate the Hebrew names have been preserved. They have lost their common signification, and have come to us only as proper names.

Adam, the noblest and fairest creature issuing from the hands of God, for he alone was God's image, and received existence directly from him, was placed in Eden, * a delicious garden, where he enjoyed the felicity of paradise. — God, his Creator, had expressly threatened him with death if he tasted the fruit of a tree in the midst of the terrestrial paradise, known as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. By this formal command to Adam not to touch the fruit of this one tree, while he might use the fruits of all the others for the nourishment of his body, f God, who had given man free will, wished to inculcate on him his supreme authority, by ex acting on his part a blind obedience, and at the same time to

* Eilen, among the Arabs and Hebrews, is the name of the earthly paradise, and of the paradise of the elect. In Hebrew, it means pldce of delight ; in Arabic, a place suitable for herds to graze. The Jews, according to St. Jerome, believed that Eden had been created before the earth, because the sacred text says that God planted it in tlie beginning ; but the Holy Fathers, and both ancient and modern commentators, think that it was formed on the third day. Some, and but a few, hold that it was immediately after the creation of the first man. In fact, Moses tells us that God planted it for man's abode. It is very difficult to deter mine in what part of the world the Garden of Eden was, for commentators and interpreters alike agree that it was destroyed by the deluge.

t Two trees are mentioned in Genesis : the tree of life, and the tree of the knowl edge of good and evil. Adam was at liberty to eat the fruit of the former, which would have preserved his life, and preserved him from death for ever. It seems, however, that the first man never partook of it, either because his stay in Eden was short, as some authors say ; or that having been created adult, he did not at once feel the want of nourishment ; the reason of the belief is, that it' he had eaten the fruit, his life would have been longer than that of any other man, while in fact he lived for a shorter period than Methuselah, Jarcd ami Xoe.

Yet physical reason would require a repeated use of the fruit to produce its salutary effects in man, inasmuch as he possessed only finite and limited powers. As to the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it does not follow that it was injurious, because God forbid Adam to use it. The Creator simply wished to require of man a tribute of subjection, or obedience to his orders, of what kind soever, and to make him conscious that ho was not the master, but simply the tenant of the abundant good tuinga around him.

LIFE OE THE BLESSED VIRGIN.

terrify him by the chastisement which lie would infallibly incur, if he transgressed the Divine command.

Adam was the only source of the human race, chosen to repeople the heavenly abodes, left unoccupied by the foil of the proud spirits who had been so justly expelled for presum ing to think themselves, or attempting to render themselves, equal to God. He was the first human being endowed with reason, endowed by the Creator himself, with the most eminent gifts of nature and grace. God had constituted him the moral head of the human race, of which he was to be the father. On his will, which contained in germ, the wills of all his descendants, depended, cither their common felicity, if he maintained the state of innocence in which God had created him, or eternal damnation, if he disobeyed the orders of the Almighty.

Unfortunately, he yielded to the allurements of Eve, who had been seduced by the wiles and crafty promises of the serpent, envious of the great happiness which man enjoyed. * Adam imprudently stretched out his hand to receive the fatal fruit which his companion offered him, and eat it. Hence that terrible fall, which hurled the whole human race, with its head, from the summit of happiness,f to the depths

* The name of Xitscasch, which signifies serpent, has not been preserved in tlio Vulgate, where it is translated by its equivalent, serpent. This word is taken not only as a proper name given to the devil, but as that of the animal, of which he assumed the form to seduce the woman. See the reasons assigned by St. Thomas for the name of serpent given to the devil (in Isaiah xxvii). See too the beautiful observations of Kosmini in his Catecisino diiposto secondo le idee, as to the meaning of the words, Adam, Eve, Serpent.

t St. Augustine thus describes man's happiness in a state of innocence. "Man lived in paradise according to his will, because he willed only what God had or dained. ][<• lived in the enjoyment of God whose goodness he had; he lived with out wants, and might always have lived so. He had food, so as not to suffer hunger; he had the tree of life to save him from old age. No corporeal infirmity could dull his senses; he feared neither sickness within, nor injury from without.

LIFE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN.

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m of unutterable woes. It lost its sovereignty to be buried in shameful slavery ; after having till then been the object of the love and goodness of its Divine Creator, it became the object of his just wrath, and as it had become odious to Him by its rebellion, it was condemned to hell. And the first man having introduced sin into the world and by sin death, death became the sad heritage of humanity, all men having sinned in Adam. And as Adam's sin vitiated his whole race, and subjected it to death and eternal damnation, the posterity — which by carnal concupiscence, itself a punishment of sin, were to spring from him and his unhappy wife, the cause of his disobedience — jhould enter the world with the ghastly brand of original sin, which inevitably leads to eternal punishment.

And this fearful ruin was without a Vemedy ; the gen eration of Adam was like a rock, which, loosened from the top of a high mountain, rolls to the depths of a valley, and lies motionless there. Age follows age ; and of himself he cannot climb to the crest of the mountain to bask in the rays of the sun.0 Thus the children of the first man possessed in

Perfectly healthy in body, abs >lntely tranquil in soul. And as in Paradise there was neither heat nor cold, so he who dwelt there was exempt from fear and cu pidity. He was a stranger alike to sadness and vain joy. God replenished him with trie and abiding joy, and he raised to his Creator the affectionate outpour ings of a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. As mind and body watched in concert, he observed the divine commandments without difficulty, and suffered neither listlessness nor fatigue. If sleep descended on him, it was a volun tary slumber."

* Manzoni has most beautifully employed this comparison in his beautiful ode on the Nativity.

As where from some tall mountain's crest

The rock betrayed by snow's insiilious wile,

Roars down the craggy side amain

And clogs the darksome vale, a hideous pile.

In vain the ages circle past,

For ne'er the sun's warm rays that gild.

LIFE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN.

themselves no means of recovery. Neither Adam, noi any of his race, born of his loins in the natural order, cou'.d be adequate to offer to the Divine Majesty a satisfaction propor tioned to the crime committed. In fact, due satisfaction supposes equality between the offender and the offended, the gravity of the fault increasing with the distance which sunders them. "Who then does not see that man, completely limited in his nature and acts, cannot offer God, the essen tially infinite one, more than a reparation infinitely inferior to his guilt, which measured by the distance that divides the creature from his Creator is infinite ?

God might doubtless raise man from his fallen state by means unknown to us ; he might, by virtue of his sovereign clemency, remit man's fault or be satisfied with such limited reparation as the guilty one was able to give. But divine justice cried aloud and exacted a rigorous satisfaction, and this satisfaction, as the Holy Fathers, and especially St. Thomas, ° teach, could be given only by a divine person, who, blending the human and divine natures, becoming man without ceasing to be true God, should pay as man, what man owed God, and give, as God, an infinite value to the expiation which man offered God. Otherwise sin would have remained unexpiated to all eternity. Never Avould Adam and his race have escaped the miseries which attend and

The summit, shall its exile reach.

No kindly hand Its helplessness has filled.

So lay the heir of Adam's race,

That day God's just decree to woe consigned,

His haughty brow now bent in glume,

Heaven's glories all by sin and pride resigned.

Of thousands by that curse attaint,

Who to the dweller in liirht's unseen way

Can "pardon "cry? The covenant

Itestore, or wrest from hell its prey.

embitter this life, except to plunge for ever into the abyss of hell.

But that God, who according to the word of the prophet,0 forgets not his mercy, even in the midst of his wrath, was moved with pity at the sight of such woe. And in order to lower the pride of the devil and the affliction of humanity, he vouchsafed to console fallen, sinful man by the promise of a remedy for his misery. He announced to man a Sovereign Kedeemer, who, by the union of two opposite natures, by suffering as man, and as God giving an infinite merit to the act of satisfaction, should rend the chains, in which man and his future offspring for ever groaned, wretched slaves of Luci-

fer.f

This promise was made when God, in displaying his justice against prevaricating man and inflicting upon him the punishment which he had deserved, turned to the

* Ps. xliv. 8. Ixxxviii. 34, &c.

t How worthy of consideration is this clemency of the Almighty, who at the very moment when he displays his justics ag.iinst sinful man, consoles him and his race, the heirs of his sin, hy the promise of nde npfion. Theologians differ in opinion as to the mode in which this transmission of sin is effected. We shall only cite the three most probable opinions. According to the first, agreeable to the doctrine of St. Augustine, original sin is transmitted to men by generation or the union of the soul with a vitiated body, just as resemblance in features or disease is communicated by a father to his children. According to the second opinion, God made Adam the moral head of the human family, so that the will of all his descend ants was comprised in his, and that their lot was to be happy or unhappy according to his conduct. The third opinion is that advanced by those authors who think that Adam, by his prevarication, having lost for himself and his posterity, the sanctity and justice which he had received from God, deserved for himself and them death and all corporal pains. It would be very difficult to give a sure and satisfactory explanation of this mystery, and it is far better to believe it blindly than to make it the subject of our disputes. " What doth it avail thee," says the author of the Following of Christ, lito discourse profoundly of the Trinity, if thou be void of humility, and consequently displeasing to the Trinity? In truth, sublime words r.i".ke not a man holy and just: but a virtuous life maketh him dear to God. I liad rather feel compunction than know its definition."

LIFE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN.

serpent, that is to the devil, who had taken the form of the serpent to seduce Eve to prevarication, and said : " Because thou hast done this thing, thou art cursed among all cattle and beasts of the earth. I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed ; she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel." * Which ^\%?*Wi nieans : " By a woman, thou hast attempted to corrupt my creature, deform my image, ruin the human race, by making man imitate thy disobedience, in order to make him share thy eternal punishment, and thou hast succeeded in thy criminal design ; but thou shalt soon undergo an ignominious punishment, nor shalt thou long enjoy the success of thy craft. I shall raise up a woman to crush thy pride. I shall establish eternal enmity between thee and her, thy race and hers, and if thou hast overcome a weak woman, thou shalt be overcome by a strong woman who will trample thee under foot, crush thy head, and repair all the ravages thou hast committed in the world."

By this great and incontestable promise, God manifestly prophesied the ineffable mystery of the Redemption, by announcing to men a Saviour to be of woman born. She by becoming his mother, was to afford in him and by him, the reparation of the immense calamity which bowed down all the sons of Adam ; for it was written in the decrees of heaven that a woman's hand should restore what a woman's hand had destroyed.

But who was the woman thus announced by the Al mighty in his oracle ? Evidently Mary, already blessed,

* Genesis iii. 14, 15. The Hebrew text and the Septuagint have "it shall crush," referring the promise not to Eve, but to her seed. The manuscripts arid the Holy Fathers agree with the Vulgate. The sense is the same, however, in both, as the Blessed Virgin has truly cni-'u-.l t!:e si T n-.it't head by the merits of Jesus Christ, her son.

-.

LIFE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN.

Mary, already from all eternity the object of his affection. The Blessed Virgin is certainly the woman announced by the Lord to the earth. " And of what woman," says St. Ber nard,* " did God speak to Adam, if not of Mary ? To what other Mary did he reserve so great a triumph ? She it was who crushed the serpent's head by annihilating the snares which he spreads by the allurements of the flesh and the pride of the spirit." Mary is then the promised woman, whose foot was to crush his head, and whose heel he should endeavor to bite, by surrounding her by ever new but ever fruitless snares.

Thus by the promise of Mary and of the Saviour who was to be born of her in the fulness of time, God in his mercy foretold to man the reparation of the evils, which had been entailed by Adam's sin. Jesus Christ, according to the expression of St. Paul,f was and ever will be the sole object of man's hopes. By their faith in his coming, the just obtained the salvation, which his birth and passion were to secure them ; and by faith in Jesus slain for our sins and risen for our justification, the elect obtained and will obtain salvation. But if men must recognize in Jesus Christ the principal and proximate cause of their redemption, of which lie superabundantly paid the price on the cross, they must at the same time recognize in Mary, the secondary and remote cause of that redemption, since she gave humanity to the Eternal Word. In fact, as Jesus Christ is called, in the Holy Scriptures,^ the new Adam, come to repair the ravages caused in man by the fall of the first Adam, so the Holy Fathers and Doctors proclaim Mary the second Eve, or rather the true Eve,

* Ilomil IT. super Missus ext. Serm. in Domin. inf. Oct. Assumpt'umis B. M. V t Kpi^tle to tin- Umiians, iii.

J 1 Corinthians, xv. 45.

LIFE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN.

the mother of the living, chosen by God to give the world that Messias who has delivered man from the slavery of sin and the devil, has reconciled them to God, and brought them salvation and life everlasting. The Almighty himself, when he promised man a remedy for the fatal consequences of the sin, which a weak woman, seduced by the serpent, had brought upon them, declared to the earth the shameful overthrow of the serpent by means of another woman who should crush his head. By thus contrasting the Immaculate Virgin with frail Eve, God with his own lips inaugurated Mary's praises ; and in a manner resumed all the graces, all the prerogatives with which he had endowed her ; he mani fested to men his tender love for her, and in advance proposed her to their gratitude and love.

The Holy Fathers and the Doctors of the Church have joyfully echoed this heavenly eulogy. They have glorified the restoring Virgin, and almost all contrast the new Eve, with the first Eve. Tertullian says of Adam's helpmate, that she was the portal by which the devil entered the world, the first creature that rebelled against the divine commands, the instigator of sin and the cause of the fall of Adam, whom the devil durst not tempt.0 Ecclesiasticus had declared it before Tertullian.f " But," says St. Augustine, " if woman gave us death, another woman has restored us life. By Eve death, by Mary salvation. The former, seduced by the ser pent, drank and gave to the first man the poisoned cup that has transmitted to us the venom of sin and everlasting death ; the latter, by becoming the mother of the Word made man, prepared the salutary antidote which has saved

* Lib de Lie. Mill. c. t.

t " From th<> -uniTum rame the beginning of sin, and by her we all die." Ecclus. xxv. 33.

m

LIFE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN.

us. Man fell by a woman, and by another woman has been raised up again, for the Virgin bore Christ." St. Epiphanius does not express himself differently : " Where sin abounded, grace superabounds. From the fountain which gave death, we have drawn life ; for he who by a woman, that is by Mary, became our life, has destroyed the death which another woman, Eve, had given us."f St. Irenaeus is of the same opinion : " Eve by disobeying God brought death on herself and the whole world. And as Eve allowed the serpent to seduce her by crediting his words, and aban doned God by transgressing his command, so Mary by be lieving the word of the Angel commissioned to announce the divine mystery to her, obeyed God, and became the protec tress not only of Eve, but of all her children — the human race subjected to death by Eve, having been delivered by Mary. Thus the knot which had been formed by the disobe dience of the first woman was loosed by the obedience of the second ; what had been bound by incredulity, was loosened by faith." J