The Blessed Virgin

The blessed moment destined from all eternity for the reparation of the human race having arrived, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, to a virgin named Mary, w ho ha Marie Appears to Gregory to give him the symbol of faith. d been betrothed to a man of the house and lineage of David, called Joseph. This angel, having entered the room where she was in prayer, said to her: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women." At these words, the Virgin, who was extremely humble, was surprised; and she pondered within herself what this form of greeting, so new and so unheard of, might be; but the angel, recognizing her trouble, added immediately: "Do not fear, Mary, you have found grace before God; you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end."

The Virgin, who had made a vow of perpetual chastity and was resolved to keep it until death, hearing of conception, childbirth, and a son, asked the angel how these things would be, seeing that she did not know her husband, and that, after the vow she had made, she could not know him. The angel replied to her: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you: therefore the Holy One who will be born of you will be called the Son of God." Then he reminded her of the miracle that God had just performed in favor of her cousin Elizabeth, who, although naturally sterile and already very old, had conceived a son and was six months pregnant: which showed, evidently, that nothing is impossible for God. The Virgin asked no more to give the consent that heaven and earth, angels and men, the just and sinners were awaiting with impatience, and which was to be a source of happiness and joy for all ages. But she expressed it in a manner so humble and so modest that one cannot consider the terms without admiration: "Behold," she said, "the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word." It was at this moment that the ancient promises of God were fulfilled; that a woman enclosed a man, that a Virgin conceived a son, that God was made man, that a Savior was given to the world, and that He who was God infinitely above us, began to be Emmanuel, that is to say, God with us, and of the same nature as us. This is what we call the mystery of the Incarnation, and what Saint John expressed with these words: "And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and w e have seen his glory, g mystère de l'Incarnation Central mystery of Bérullian theology. lory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."

Here is what must be known for a greater clarification of this wonder, which is the masterpiece of the hands of the Almighty. At the same time that the august Mary offered her virginal womb to be the nuptial bed where the alliance of the divine nature with the human nature, and of the eternal Word with our flesh, was to take place, the virtue of the Most High strengthened her, sustained her, and overshadowed her, so that she could bear the greatness of its operation; and the Holy Spirit, according to the word of the angel, descended into her soul and into her body: into her soul, to make her produce acts conformable to the dignity of this mystery; into her body, to operate therein three wonders, in which consists the entire economy of the Incarnation. First, taking a few drops of the purest blood of this Virgin, who was herself purer than the angels and than the rays of the sun, He formed a small human body, composed of all its organs and all its members, and entirely disposed to receive a reasonable soul: which He did, not by succession of time, as in other mothers in whom nature acts all alone; but in an instant, because, as Saint Thomas says, the more perfect a workman is, the more he can accomplish and perfect the works he undertakes promptly: thus the Holy Spirit, an infinitely perfect workman whose power has no limits, did not need time or succession to form and organize this body, which He produced for the eternal Word. Then, at the same moment, He created and drew from nothingness a reasonable soul, the most excellent and the most perfect that has ever been created, and united it by a natural bond to this body that He had just formed, or rather that He was currently forming. By this union, He composed a humanity perfect and accomplished in every point, without it lacking any of its natural faculties and properties.

Finally, in this same instant, as this body and this soul united together, and this human nature composed of both, were to have, according to the natural course, a created substance that would have made them a human person and a pure man, He stopped and prevented this natural result, by uniting them by a physical and substantial union to the divine Word, to subsist in Him and by Him, thus elevating this nature to the infinite happiness of belonging to the Word as His own nature, and of having no other suppositum, no other hypostasis, nor any other person than Him. I say that these three things were done at the same moment, because, as Saint John Damascene says, the flesh of this child was never flesh without being animated by a reasonable soul, and it was never animated by a reasonable soul without being united to the divine Word; but its conception, its animation, and its union were done together, so that the human nature that it composed never belonged to any other than the Word, and that it had no person of its own before being and subsisting in the person of the Word. Furthermore, although we say that it was the Holy Spirit who operated these wonders, we do not, however, exclude the persons of the Father and of the Son, since it is certain that the exterior works of God are done indivisibly by the three Persons of the adorable Trinity. Thus, the Father and the Holy Spirit incarnated the Son and gave Him this new nature, and the Son incarnated Himself and took this nature for Himself; but we attribute this great work to the operation of the Holy Spirit, as the work in which appears the sovereign excess of the goodness, love, and indulgence of God for men, and in which was made the most excellent of all anointings and all sanctifications, that which comes from the immediate and substantial union of the Divinity with a created nature.

From what we have just said, follow great and admirable truths that it is necessary to state in a few words. First, the Child who was conceived in the womb of the holy Virgin, and who was since called Jesus and Christ, is really and truly the Son of God, the eternal Word, the second Person of the most holy Trinity, and he has never been other than this Person. Indeed, each thing is legitimately named and designated by its own suppositum; now, this child has never had any other suppositum than the very Person of the only Son of God, since, as has been said, his humanity was united to this Person from the instant of its formation and conception; it is therefore with truth, and in all the propriety of discourse, that we say that this Child is the Son of God, the divine Word, and the second person of the most holy Trinity.

Secondly, this same child who is Jesus Christ is consequently our true God, and one single God with the Father and the Holy Spirit. For, since he is the only Son of God, he must necessarily be what the only Son of God is. Now, the only Son of God is our true God, and the same God as the Father and the Holy Spirit, being consubstantial with them, and having indivisibly with them one same nature and one same substance which is the divinity.

Third truth: Jesus Christ has two perfect natures in one single Person: the divine nature which he receives from his Father, and by which he is God; the human nature which he receives from his mother, and by which he is man; with this difference that the divine nature belongs essentially and eternally to his person, and is not distinguished from it; whereas the human nature was only united to him in time, and could have not been united to him. Thus, in Jesus Christ and in the mystery of the Incarnation, there is, so to speak, something opposite to what we revere in the mystery of the Trinity. For, in that mystery, there is a plurality of persons and unity of nature, and, on the contrary, in Jesus Christ, there is unity of person and plurality of natures. This is what the Church defined in the general Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, two of the four that Saint Gregory the Great respected no less than the four Gospels. For, in the Council of Ephesus, she defined, against the heretic Nestorius, that Jesus Christ is one in a single person, which is the unique Person of the divine Word; and in the Council of Chalcedon she defined, against the heretic Eutyches, that Jesus Christ has two perfect natures, without confusion, without mixture, without change of one into the other, and without the Divinity having absorbed the humanity into itself.

Fourth truth: Everything that belongs of itself to the person, such as substance, is unique in Jesus Christ; but everything that belongs to the nature is double therein. Thus, in another Council, namely, in the Third of Constantinople, the Church further declared against the Monothelites that there are in Jesus Christ two understandings, two wills, and two operations; because the divine nature has in him everything that is proper to it: to know, to will, and to operate divinely. The human nature also has what is proper to it: to know, to will, and to operate humanly; but these human operations receive an infinite excellence from the union and direction of the divine nature. Despite this distinction of operations, by a great mystery that theologians call the communication of idioms, what is of God is attributed to man, and what is of man is attributed to God, because of the unity of the person; for the same person operates by the divine nature, which is fitting to the divinity; and operates by the human nature, which is fitting to the humanity. Thus we truly say that Jesus Christ is all-powerful, that he is the creator of heaven and earth, that he preserves the world by his power, and that he governs it by his providence, and we say with no less truth that God fasted, that he prayed, that he died for us, and that he rose again for us.

Finally, so as not to extend ourselves further on a mystery which, to be explained worthily, would require several volumes, the fifth truth is that the holy Virgin is truly and properly the Mother of God. Indeed, Jesus Christ being God, not by an accidental union of a human person with a divine person, as the i mpious Nesto Mère de Dieu Appears to Gregory to give him the symbol of faith. rius said, but by the excellence and right of his unique person, which is God; this adorable Virgin cannot be the mother of Jesus Christ without also being the Mother of God. Now, she is the mother of Jesus Christ, she conceived him in her womb, she produced him from her substance, she cooperated in his formation much more than other mothers cooperate in that of their children, since she gave him all the matter of which his body is composed, whereas other mothers give at most only a small part: she is therefore properly and truly the Mother of God. Thus, those who disputed this admirable quality with her did so because they divided Jesus Christ, and instead of confessing him God-Man, and Man-God, without division of man and God, they recognized him only as a divine man. But the Church, which does not divide Jesus Christ, and which adores him as its God, because he has no other person than one of the persons of the Divinity, has always revered the holy Virgin as the Mother of God. It is a name that she gives her, not only in her prayers and in her litanies, but also in the canon of the Mass and in the celebration of the holiest mysteries; and it is also a quality that she confirmed for her in the Council of Ephesus of which we have just spoken: this Queen of angels and men was solemnly proclaimed Mother of God there, and Nestorius, remaining obstinate in his heresy, was struck with anathema and sent into exile: divine Justice still pursuing him, his tongue rotted, was eaten by worms, and he died miserably. This is not the place to dwell on the excellences of this dignity of Mother of God: we will have occasion to speak of it in the particular life of the holy Virgin. It suffices to say here, in passing, that it is the most excellent that can be communicated to a pure creature: it has been in Mary a source of so many graces and prerogatives that there is no tongue in heaven or on earth capable of explaining them.

After these beautiful truths, must we not recognize that it is with great justice that Mary exclaims in her canticle: "The Almighty has done great things in me?" Indeed, He has never done nor will He ever do anything on earth, nor in heaven, that approaches what He did in the womb of Mary. On earth, He communicates Himself according to the order of nature and grace, and raises men to His image and to the quality of His adopted children. In heaven, He communicates Himself in the order of glory. But in the womb of Mary, He communicates Himself in a much more sublime manner, namely in the order of the hypostatic union. He makes it so that man is not merely a friend of God, or a child of God, but that he is truly God; so that one can say that God is man and that man is God.

Furthermore, although human nature only terminated this union considered in its naked state and according to what it has of substance, because the divine substance was the first gift and the first grace it received from the liberal hand of God; nevertheless, it must be recognized that at the very moment it was united to Him, it also received, as an appanage of such a great gift, all the ornaments of grace and glory of which a created nature is capable. God gave to His soul sanctifying grace in such an eminent degree, or rather in such a fullness, that there is no human or angelic spirit that can conceive its immensity. Thus we learn from Saint John that He did not give Him this grace by measure, as to the other Saints, but that He gave it to Him entirely and in all its extent. Thus, this soul is holy with a double holiness: an uncreated holiness, by its union with the divine nature, the most excellent of all anointings; and a created holiness by the possession of this grace, an expression of the Divinity. And yet, one must not believe, with Felix and Elipandus, who were condemned at the Council of Frankfurt under King Charlemagne, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God by adoption. Sanctifying grace operates this effect in angels and in men, who are not raised to natural filiation; but it cannot operate it in Jesus Christ, who, being Son of God by nature, is not capable of this relationship and quality of adopted Son. Secondly, God gave to this soul not only all the divine and human sciences that can be conferred upon a created intelligence, but also the blessed science, the beatific vision; He gave it to Him in the same perfection that He possesses it now in heaven: so that Jesus Christ was from that moment as happy and as glorious, according to His soul, as He is at present and as He will be throughout the extent of all ages. Thirdly, the Holy Spirit spread over this soul with all the fullness of His gifts and favors; the prophet Isaiah had predicted it with these words: "The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him," that is to say upon Jesus Christ; "the spirit of wisdom and the spirit of understanding, the spirit of counsel and the spirit of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and the spirit of piety, and finally the spirit of the fear of the Lord." Saint Paul says it even more briefly, when he assures that all "the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God, and all the fullness of the divinity dwell in him." Finally, there is no virtue, except those which necessarily contain some imperfection, such as faith, hope, and penance, with which this marvelous soul was not adorned, but in a manner so noble and so elevated that they were from then on incapable of receiving any increase.

And one should not be surprised at this; there is no excellence and perfection that is not due to a nature that has ascended to this supreme degree of honor of being united to the nature of God. Our Lord coming into the world to be the head of angels, of men, and the inexhaustible source from which heaven and earth would draw all their treasures, it was necessary that He possess grace, and all the appanages of grace in the highest degree and in the most excellent manner in which they can be possessed. For His sacred body, He also received great beauty, a perfect proportion of His members, a just temperament of His humors, and above all a marvelous purity, to which that of the rays of the sun and that of the purest spirits of heaven is in no way comparable. He also had a right to the qualities of glorious bodies, to impassibility, to immortality, to agility, to clarity, and to those ineffable pleasures which His senses and His sacred members have enjoyed since the moment of His resurrection. These very qualities should naturally have flowed from the glory with which His soul was clothed; but He came into the world to give us examples of mortification and patience, and to redeem us by His sufferings and by His death: a thing impossible if He had enjoyed impassibility and immortality. His divine power therefore prevented this outflow of the divine nature into the human nature, which the personal union of these two natures should have produced, and He Himself willed to be deprived of these excellent gifts which would have been an obstacle to the designs of His Father, and to the charge that He accepted at the moment of His entry into the world.

This, then, is what the great mystery of the Incarnation consists of, which the Church honors today with such joy and solemnity. Let us adore it from the depths of our hearts. Let us not imitate the apostate angels, who, according to the opinion of many theologians, refused to adore it when God proposed it to them at the moment of their creation. But let us imitate the faithful angels who adored Him with all the deference and submission of which they were capable, and very willingly accepted Jesus Christ, God-Man and Man-God, as their head and sovereign. Let us glory in being the subjects of this Sovereign, in being the members of this Head, in being the children of this Father; and let us consecrate to His honor and service all the power we possess, whether in our body or in our spirit.

There would be marvelous things to say here: 1st, on the design of this mystery, which was to strike down the demon, to destroy sin, and to repair the ruins that both had caused in our nature; 2nd, on the need we had for this reparation, and to make us recover the right to the kingdom of heaven, from which the disobedience of Adam had excluded us: God alone not being able to satisfy sufficiently, a Man-God was needed to accomplish this great work; 3rd, on the proportion of this means with its end, which is so great that Saint Anselm and the other holy Fathers do not hesitate to say that God could do nothing in which His wisdom and goodness appeared with more brilliance and glory; 4th, on the preparations of the entire Old Testament for the execution of this great sacrament, the desires of the Patriarchs, the predictions of the Prophets, the figures of the law, the sighs of the Just, and the expectation of the whole human race; 5th, on the interior acts that the Blessed Virgin performed during the entire angelic salutation, and in that blessed moment when she consented to the proposal of the Angel; 6th, on the admirable operations of the soul of Our Lord at the moment of His creation and union. But these are subjects on which there are many meditations; given the brevity to which we are obliged, we can refer the reader to them. Granada has excellent ones in his spiritual works, and his Catechism especially is almost entirely filled with these pious considerations.

## FEAST OF THE ANNUNCIATION.

It remains for us to say that the feast of the Annunciation and the Incarnation of the Word is of very great antiquity in the Church, since not only Saint Augustine, Saint Chrysostom, Saint Epiphanius, and Saint Athanasius, but also Saint Gregory the Wonderworker, who preceded them all and lived in the 3rd century, makes mention of it and composed excellent homilies on this subject. It is even very likely that it is of apostolic institution, or rather that the Blessed Virgin herself gave it its beginning, since, according to the rule of Saint Augustine, the ancient and universal practices of the Church, whose origin we do not see, must be referred to those early times. It has always been celebrated on March 25, the day, as the same Saint Augustine says, on which it is believed that the eternal Word became incarnate. At the Tenth Council of Toledo, celebrated in the year 656, it was ordered that this feast be solemnized on December 18, eight days before that of Christmas, because its proper day usually falls within Passion Week, a time of tears and penance rather than of joy and consolation; nevertheless, it was soon after returned to its proper day, on the condition of transferring it after Easter when it falls on a day occupied by the ceremonies of the death or resurrection of the Son of God. Alone, by an honorable privilege, the church of Notre -Dame du Puy in Velay is a Notre-Dame du Puy en Velay Birthplace of the saint in France. uthorized to celebrate it on Good Friday when it falls on that day; at such times, there are very great indulgences in the form of a jubilee in that church. There are several congregations whose primary goal is to honor the Annunciation of Our Lady; especially both Orders of the Annunciades: Ordre des Annonciades Religious orders founded to honor the Annunciation. we mean that of Bourges, founded by the Blessed Joan of Valois, a nd that of Genoa Jeanne de Valois Foundress of the Order of the Annonciades in Bourges. , founded by the Venerable Mother Maria Vittoria Fornari.

Pope Gelasius I mentioned this feast in 492. The Council of Constantinople, which ordered in 692 that the Mass of the Presanctified be said every day of Lent, excepted Saturdays, Sundays, and the Feast of the Annunciation. The Tenth Council of Toledo, in the year 656, calls this solemnity the feast par excellence of the Mother of God. It was decided by Urban II, in t he counci Urbain II Pope who preached the First Crusade. l held at Clermont in 1095, that the bell should be rung every day in the morning, at noon, and in the evening, and that the Angelic Salutation should be said each time. This is what is called th e Angel Angelus Prayer recited three times a day in memory of the Incarnation. us. The goal of the Sovereign Pontiff was to lead the faithful to praise and thank God for the benefit of the Incarnation. Popes John XXII, Callixtus III, Paul III, Alexander VII, and Clement X highly recommended this practice of devotion and attached indulgences to it. Benedict XIII granted special ones to those who, when the Angelus rings, would recite the Angelic Salutation devoutly and on their knees.