St. Alphonsus Liguori: Daily Meditations for Third Week after Easter

[Stone]

Saturday – Third Week After Easter

Morning Meditation

MARY’S CHASTITY

“Of all the combats in which we are engaged,” says St. Augustine, “the most severe are those of chastity: its battles are daily, but victory rare.” May God be ever praised, however, Who in Mary has given a great example of this virtue! And, O how powerful is the name of Mary in conquering all temptations against holy purity!

I.

Ever since the fall of Adam, the senses being rebellious against reason, chastity is, of all virtues, the most difficult to practise. St. Augustine says: “Of all the combats in which we are engaged, the most severe are those of chastity; its battles are daily, but victory rare.” May God be ever praised, however, Who in Mary has given us a great example of this virtue!

“With reason,” says Blessed Albert the Great, “is Mary called the Virgin of virgins; for she, without the counselor example of others, was the first to offer her virginity to God.” Thus did she bring all virgins who imitate her to God, as David had already foretold: After her shall virgins be brought … into the temple of the King-(Ps. xliv. 15) Without counsel and without example. Yes; for St. Bernard says: “O Virgin, who taught thee to please God by virginity, and to lead an Angel’s life on earth?” “Ah,” replies St. Sophronius, ” God chose this most pure Virgin for His Mother, that she might be an example of chastity to all.” Therefore does St. Ambrose call Mary “the standard-bearer of virginity.”

By reason of her purity the Blessed Virgin was also declared by the Holy Ghost to be beautiful as the turtle dove: Thy cheeks are beautiful as the turtle dove’s -(Cant. i. 9). “Mary,” says Aponius, “was a most pure turtle-dove.” For the same reason she was also called a lily: As the lily among the thorns, so is my love among the daughters-(Cant. ii. 2). On this passage Denis the Carthusian remarks that “Mary was compared to a lily amongst thorns, because all other virgins were thorns, either to themselves or to others; but that the Blessed Virgin was so neither to herself nor to others”; for she inspired all who looked at her with chaste thoughts. This is confirmed by St. Thomas, who says that the beauty of the Blessed Virgin was an incentive to chastity in all who beheld her. St. Jerome declared that it was his opinion that St. Joseph remained a virgin by living with Mary; for, writing against the heretic Helvidius, who denied Mary’s virginity, he says: “Thou sayest that Mary did not remain a virgin. I say that not only she remained a virgin, but even that Joseph preserved his virginity through Mary.”

Blessed John of Avila says that “many who were tempted against purity preserved themselves chaste by devotion to our Blessed Lady.” Oh, how specially powerful is the name of Mary in conquering all temptations to impurity! O most pure Mary, deliver me from it. Grant that in all my temptations I may always have recourse to thee, and invoke thee as long as the temptation lasts.


II.

St. Gregory of Nyssa says that so much did the Blessed Virgin love this virtue that, to preserve it, she would have been willing to renounce even the dignity of Mother of God. This we may conclude from her answer to the Archangel: How shall this be done, because I know not man?-and from the words she afterwards added: Be it done to me according to thy word-(Luke i. 34, 38), signifying that she gave her consent on the condition that, as the Angel had assured her, she would become a Mother only by the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost.

Saint Ambrose says that whoever has preserved chastity is an Angel, and that he who has lost it is a devil. Our Lord assures us that those who are chaste become Angels: They shall be as the angels of God in heaven-(Matt. xxii. 30). But the impure become as devils, hateful in the sight of God. St. Remigius used to say that the greater part of adults are lost by this vice. Seldom, as we have already said with St. Augustine, is a victory gained over this vice. But why? It is because the means by which it may be gained are seldom made use of, namely, fasting, avoidance of the occasions of sin, and prayer. Ah, my Immaculate Queen, fair dove, and the beloved of God, disdain not to cast thine eyes on the many stains and wounds of my soul. Behold me, and pity me! God Who loves thee so much denies thee nothing; and thou knowest not how to refuse those who have recourse to thee. O Mary, to thee I have recourse. Pity me. Mother inviolate, pray for us!

Spiritual Reading

SALVE, REGINA, MATER MISERICORDlAE! HAIL, HOLY QUEEN, MOTHER OF MERCY!

XII.-THE GREATNESS OF THE LOVE THIS MOTHER BEARS US

Oh, that all would come to love Mary as did Charles, the son of St. Bridget, who said that nothing in the world consoled him so much as the knowledge that Mary was so greatly loved by God. And he added that he would willingly endure every torment rather than allow Mary to lose the smallest degree of her glory, were such a thing possible; and that if her glory were his, he would renounce it in her favour, as being far more worthy of it.

Let us, moreover, desire to lay down our lives as a testimony of our love for Mary, as St. Alonso Rodriguez desired to do. Let us love her as did those who even cut the beloved name of Mary on their breasts with sharp instruments, as did Francis Binanzio and Radagundis, wife of King Clothaire; or as did those who could imprint this loved name on their flesh with hot irons in order that it might remain more distinct and lasting, as did her devout servants Baptist Archinto and Augustine d’Espinosa, both of the Society of Jesus, impelled thereto by the vehemence of their love.

Let us, in fine, do or desire to do, all that it is possible for a lover to do who intends to make his affection known to the person loved. For be assured that the lovers of Mary will never be able to equal her in love. “I know, O Lady,” says St. Peter Damian, ” that thou art most loving, and that thou lovest us with an invincible love.” I know, my Lady, that among lovers thou lovest the most, and that thou lovest us with a love that can never be surpassed.

St. Alonso Rodriguez, of the Society of Jesus, once prostrate before an image of Mary, felt his heart inflamed with love towards this most Holy Virgin, and burst forth into the following exclamation: “My most beloved Mother, I know that thou lovest me, but thou dost not love me as much as I love thee.” Mary, as it were, offended on the point of love, immediately replied from the image: “What dost thou say, Alonso? What dost thou say? Oh, how much greater is the love that I bear thee than any love thou canst have for me! Know that the distance between Heaven and earth is not so great as the distance between thy love and mine.”

St. Bonaventure, then, was right in exclaiming: Blessed are they who have the good fortune to be faithful servants and lovers of this most loving Mother. “Blessed are the hearts of those who love Mary; blessed are they who are tenderly devoted to her. Yes, for in this struggle our most gracious Queen never allows her clients to conquer her in love. She returns our love and homage, and always increases her past favours by new ones.” Mary, imitating in this our most loving Redeemer Jesus Christ, returns to those who love her their love doubled in benefits and favours.

Then will I exclaim, with the enamoured St. Anselm, “May my heart languish and my soul melt and be consumed with your love, O my beloved Saviour Jesus, and my dear Mother Mary! But, as without your grace I cannot love you, grant me, o Jesus and Mary, grant my soul, by your merits and not mine, the grace to love you as you deserve to be loved. O God, Lover of men, Thou couldst love guilty men even unto death. And canst Thou deny Thy love and that of Thy Mother to those who ask it?”

Evening Meditation

THE PRACTICE OF THE LOVE OF JESUS CHRIST

XVIII.-HOW MUCH WE ARE OBLIGED TO LOVE JESUS CHRIST

I.

“Love is a great thing,” says St. Bernard. A great thing, a precious thing is love. Solomon, speaking of the Divine wisdom, which is holy Charity. called it an infinite treasure; because he that possesses Charity is made partaker of the friendship of God: For she is an infinite treasure to men, which they that use become the friends of God-(Wisd. vii. 14). The angelic doctor, St. Thomas, says that Charity is not only the queen of all virtues, but that wherever she reigns she draws along with her, as it were in her train, all other virtues, and directs them all so as to bring us in closer union with God; but Charity is properly that which unites us with God. As St. Bernard tells us: “Charity is a virtue uniting us with God.” And, indeed, it is over and over again signified in the Holy Scriptures that God loves whoever loves Him: I love them that love me-(Prov. viii. 17). If anyone loves me . . . my Father will love him; and we will come to him and make our abode with him-(John xiv. 23). He that abideth in charity abideth in God, and God in him-(l John iv. 16). Behold the beautiful union which Charity produces; it unites the soul with God. Moreover, love supplies strength to practise and to suffer everything for God: Love is strong as death -Cant. viii. 6). St. Augustine writes: ” Nothing is so hard that cannot be subdued by the fire of love.” Wherefore the Saint says that where we love, either the labour is not felt, or if felt, the labour itself is loved: "In that which is loved either there is no labour, or the labour is loved.”


II.

Let us hear from St. John Chrysostom what are the effects of Divine love in those souls in which it reigns: “When the love of God has taken possession of a soul it produces an insatiable desire to work for the Beloved; insomuch that however many and however vast the works she does, and however prolonged the duration of her service, all seems nothing in her eyes, and she is afflicted at doing so little for God; and were it permitted her to die and consume herself for Him she would be most happy. Hence it is that she esteems herself an unprofitable servant in all that she does; because she is instructed by love to know what God deserves, and sees by this clear light all the defects of her actions, and finds in them motives for confusion and pain, well aware how mean is all she can do for so great a Lord.”

“Oh, how those persons delude themselves,” says St. Francis de Sales, “who place virtue in anything else but loving God! Some,” writes the Saint, “put perfection in austerities. others in alms, others in prayer, others in frequenting the Holy Sacraments. For my part, I know of no other perfection than that of loving God with our whole heart; because all the other virtues, without love, are but a mere heap of stones. And if we do not perfectly enjoy this holy love, the fault lies with us because we do not, once for all, come to the conclusion of giving ourselves wholly to God.”