The Queen of Heaven in the Kingdom of the Divine Will

January One Mary’s Day New Year 2006

The soul to the Divine Agent:

Here I am with You, Celestial Mamma. I feel I cannot be without my dear Mamma; my poor heart is restless, and only when I am on your lap like a tiny little one, clasped to your Heart, to listen to your lessons - then do I feel it at peace. Your sweet accent sweetens all my bitterness, and sweetly binds my will; and placing it like a footstool under the Divine Will, it makes me feel Its sweet empire, Its life, Its happiness.

Lesson of the Celestial Agent:

Dearest child of mine, know that I love you very much; trust your Mamma, and be sure that you will obtain victory over your will. If you are faithful to Me, I will take complete responsibility over you – I will act as your true Mamma. Therefore, listen to what I did for you before the Most High.
I did nothing other than bring Myself onto the knees of my Celestial Father. I was little, not yet born; but the Divine Will, whose life I possessed, rendered my visits to my Creator accessible to Me. All doors, all ways, were open for Me, nor was I fearful or afraid of Them. Only the human will causes fear, apprehension, distrust, and puts the poor creature far away from the One who so much loves her, and who wants to be surrounded by His children. So, if the creature is afraid and fears, and does not know how to be as child and Father with her Creator, it is a sign that the Divine Will does not reign in her. And therefore they are the tortured - the martyred ones of the human will. Therefore, never do your will; do not want to torture and martyr yourself by yourself, for this is the most horrible of martyrdoms, without support and without strength.
Listen to Me: I brought Myself into the arms of the Divinity; more so, since They awaited Me, and made feast on seeing Me. They loved Me so much, that when I would appear, They would pour more seas of love and sanctity into my soul. I do not remember ever having departed from Them without Their adding more surprising gifts for Me.
So, while I was in Their arms, I prayed for mankind; and many times, with tears and sighs, I cried for you, my child, and for all. I cried because of your rebellious will, because of your sad lot of seeing yourself reduced to slavery by it, which rendered you unhappy. To see my child unhappy made Me shed bitter tears, to the point of wetting the hands of my Celestial Father with my crying. And the Divinity, moved by my crying, continued telling Me:

“Our beloved daughter, your love binds Us, your tears extinguish the fire of Divine Justice; your prayers draw Us so much toward the creatures, that We do not know how to resist You. Therefore, We give to You the mandate to place in safety the destiny of mankind. You will be Our Agent in their midst. To You do We entrust their souls; You will defend Our rights, prejudiced by their sins; You will be in the middle, between them and Us, to restore the balance on both sides. We feel in You the invincible strength of Our Divine Will which, through You, prays and cries. Who can resist You? Your prayers are commands, your tears rule over Our Divine Being. Therefore, forward in your enterprise.”

Now, my dearest child, my little Heart felt consumed with love at the loving ways of the divine speaking; and with all my love I accepted Their mandate, saying to Them: “Highest Majesty, I am here in your arms; dispose of Me in whatever way You want. I will lay down even my life - and if I had as many lives for as many as are the creatures, I would put them at their disposal and Yours, to bring them, all safe, into your paternal arms.” And without knowing then that I was to be the Mother of the Divine Word, I felt in Me the double Maternity: Maternity toward God, to defend His just rights; Maternity toward creatures, to bring them to safety. I felt Myself Mother of all. The Divine Will which reigned in Me, and which knows not how to do isolated works, brought God and all creatures from all centuries into Me. In my maternal Heart I felt my God offended, wanting to be satisfied, and I felt the creatures under the empire of Divine Justice. Oh! how many tears I shed. I wanted to make my tears descend into each heart, to let everyone feel my Maternity, all of love. I cried for you and for all, my child. Therefore, listen to Me - have pity on my crying. Take my tears in order to extinguish your passions, and to make your will lose life. O please! accept my mandate – that you do always the Will of your Creator.

The soul:

Celestial Mamma, my poor heart cannot endure in hearing how much You love me. Ah! You love me so much, to the point of crying for me. I feel your tears descend into my heart, and like many wounds, they wound me and make me comprehend how much You love me. I want to unite my tears to yours, and pray to You, crying, that You never leave me alone, that You watch over me in everything, and even beat me, if necessary. Be my Mamma, and I, your little child, will let You do anything with me, so that your mandate may be the welcome one by me, and You may bring me in your arms to our Celestial Father, as the accomplished act of your divine mandate.

Little Sacrifice:

Today, to honor Me, you will give Me your will, your pains, your tears, your anxieties, your doubts and fears, into my maternal hands, so that, as your Mamma, I may keep them in deposit within my maternal Heart, as pledges of my child. And I will give you the precious pledge of the Divine Will.

Ejaculatory Prayer:
Celestial Mamma, pour your tears into my soul, that they may heal the wounds that my will did to me.

Mary: Mother of God

Fundamentalists are sometimes horrified when the Virgin Mary is referred to as the Mother of God. However, their reaction often rests upon a misapprehension of not only what this particular title of Mary signifies but also who Jesus was, and what their own theological forebears, the Protestant Reformers, had to say regarding this doctrine.

A woman is a man’s mother either if she carried him in her womb or if she was the woman contributing half of his genetic matter or both. Mary was the mother of Jesus in both of these senses; because she not only carried Jesus in her womb but also supplied all of the genetic matter for his human body, since it was through her—not Joseph—that Jesus “was descended from David according to the flesh” (Rom. 1:3).

Since Mary is Jesus’ mother, it must be concluded that she is also the Mother of God: If Mary is the mother of Jesus, and if Jesus is God, then Mary is the Mother of God. There is no way out of this logical syllogism, the valid form of which has been recognized by classical logicians since before the time of Christ.

Although Mary is the Mother of God, she is not his mother in the sense that she is older than God or the source of her Son’s divinity, for she is neither. Rather, we say that she is the Mother of God in the sense that she carried in her womb a divine person—Jesus Christ, God “in the flesh” (2 John 7, cf. John 1:14)—and in the sense that she contributed the genetic matter to the human form God took in Jesus Christ.

To avoid this conclusion, Fundamentalists often assert that Mary did not carry God in her womb, but only carried Christ’s human nature. This assertion reinvents a heresy from the fifth century known as Nestorianism, which runs aground on the fact that a mother does not merely carry the human nature of her child in her womb. Rather, she carries the person of her child. Women do not give birth to human natures; they give birth to persons. Mary thus carried and gave birth to the person of Jesus Christ, and the person she gave birth to was God.

The Nestorian claim that Mary did not give birth to the unified person of Jesus Christ attempts to separate Christ’s human nature from his divine nature, creating two separate and distinct persons—one divine and one human—united in a loose affiliation. It is therefore a Christological heresy, which even the Protestant Reformers recognized. Both Martin Luther and John Calvin insisted on Mary’s divine maternity. In fact, it even appears that Nestorius himself may not have believed the heresy named after him. Further, the “Nestorian” church has now signed a joint declaration on Christology with the Catholic Church and recognizes Mary’s divine maternity, just as other Christians do.

Since denying that Mary is God’s mother implies doubt about Jesus’ divinity, it is clear why Christians (until recent times) have been unanimous in proclaiming Mary as Mother of God.

The Church Fathers, of course, agreed, and the following passages witness to their lively recognition of the sacred truth and great gift of divine maternity that was bestowed upon Mary, the humble handmaid of the Lord.

Irenaeus

“The Virgin Mary, being obedient to his word, received from an angel the glad tidings that she would bear God” (Against Heresies, 5:19:1 [A.D. 189]).

Hippolytus

“[T]o all generations they [the prophets] have pictured forth the grandest subjects for contemplation and for action. Thus, too, they preached of the advent of God in the flesh to the world, his advent by the spotless and God-bearing (theotokos) Mary in the way of birth and growth, and the manner of his life and conversation with men, and his manifestation by baptism, and the new birth that was to be to all men, and the regeneration by the laver [of baptism]” (Discourse on the End of the World 1 [A.D. 217]).

Gregory the Wonderworker

“For Luke, in the inspired Gospel narratives, delivers a testimony not to Joseph only, but also to Mary, the Mother of God, and gives this account with reference to the very family and house of David” (Four Homilies 1 [A.D. 262]).

“It is our duty to present to God, like sacrifices, all the festivals and hymnal celebrations; and first of all, [the feast of] the Annunciation to the holy Mother of God, to wit, the salutation made to her by the angel, ‘Hail, full of grace!’” (ibid., 2).

Peter of Alexandria

“They came to the church of the most blessed Mother of God, and ever-virgin Mary, which, as we began to say, he had constructed in the western quarter, in a suburb, for a cemetery of the martyrs” (The Genuine Acts of Peter of Alexandria [A.D. 305]).

“We acknowledge the resurrection of the dead, of which Jesus Christ our Lord became the firstling; he bore a body not in appearance but in truth derived from Mary the Mother of God” (Letter to All Non-Egyptian Bishops 12 [A.D. 324]).

Methodius

“While the old man [Simeon] was thus exultant, and rejoicing with exceeding great and holy joy, that which had before been spoken of in a figure by the prophet Isaiah, the holy Mother of God now manifestly fulfilled” (Oration on Simeon and Anna 7 [A.D. 305]).

“Hail to you forever, you virgin Mother of God, our unceasing joy, for unto you do I again return. . . . Hail, you fount of the Son’s love for man. . . . Wherefore, we pray you, the most excellent among women, who boast in the confidence of your maternal honors, that you would unceasingly keep us in remembrance. O holy Mother of God, remember us, I say, who make our boast in you, and who in august hymns celebrate your memory, which will ever live, and never fade away” (ibid., 14).

Cyril of Jerusalem

“The Father bears witness from heaven to his Son. The Holy Spirit bears witness, coming down bodily in the form of a dove. The archangel Gabriel bears witness, bringing the good tidings to Mary. The Virgin Mother of God bears witness” (Catechetical Lectures 10:19 [A.D. 350]).

Ephraim the Syrian

“Though still a virgin she carried a child in her womb, and the handmaid and work of his wisdom became the Mother of God” (Songs of Praise 1:20 [A.D. 351]).

Athanasius

“The Word begotten of the Father from on high, inexpressibly, inexplicably, incomprehensibly, and eternally, is he that is born in time here below of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God” (The Incarnation of the Word of God 8 [A.D. 365]).

Epiphanius of Salamis

“Being perfect at the side of the Father and incarnate among us, not in appearance but in truth, he [the Son] reshaped man to perfection in himself from Mary the Mother of God through the Holy Spirit” (The Man Well-Anchored 75 [A.D. 374]).

Ambrose of Milan

“The first thing which kindles ardor in learning is the greatness of the teacher. What is greater than the Mother of God? What more glorious than she whom Glory Itself chose?” (The Virgins 2:2[7] [A.D. 377]).

Gregory of Nazianz

“If anyone does not agree that holy Mary is Mother of God, he is at odds with the Godhead” (Letter to Cledonius the Priest 101 [A.D. 382]).

Jerome

“As to how a virgin became the Mother of God, he [Rufinus] has full knowledge; as to how he himself was born, he knows nothing” (Against Rufinus 2:10 [A.D. 401]).

“Do not marvel at the novelty of the thing, if a Virgin gives birth to God” (Commentaries on Isaiah 3:7:15 [A.D. 409]).

Theodore of Mopsuestia

“When, therefore, they ask, ‘Is Mary mother of man or Mother of God?’ we answer; ‘both!’ the one by the very nature of what was done and the other by relation” (The Incarnation 15 [A.D. 405]).

Cyril of Alexandria

“I have been amazed that some are utterly in doubt as to whether or not the holy Virgin is able to be called the Mother of God. For if our Lord Jesus Christ is God, how should the holy Virgin who bore him not be the Mother of God?” (Letter to the Monks of Egypt 1 [A.D. 427]).

“This expression, however, ‘the Word was made flesh’ [John 1:14], can mean nothing else but that he partook of flesh and blood like to us; he made our body his own, and came forth man from a woman, not casting off his existence as God, or his generation of God the Father, but even in taking to himself flesh remaining what he was. This the declaration of the correct faith proclaims everywhere. This was the sentiment of the holy Fathers; therefore they ventured to call the holy Virgin ‘the Mother of God,’ not as if the nature of the Word or his divinity had its beginning from the holy Virgin, but because of her was born that holy body with a rational soul, to which the Word, being personally united, is said to be born according to the flesh” (First Letter to Nestorius [A.D. 430]). And since the holy Virgin corporeally brought forth God made one with flesh according to nature, for this reason we also call her Mother of God, not as if the nature of the Word had the beginning of its existence from the flesh” (Third Letter to Nestorius [A.D. 430]).

“If anyone will not confess that the Emmanuel is very God, and that therefore the holy Virgin is the Mother of God, inasmuch as in the flesh she bore the Word of God made flesh [John 1:14]: let him be anathema” (ibid.).

John Cassian

“Now, you heretic, you say (whoever you are who deny that God was born of the Virgin), that Mary, the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, cannot be called the Mother of God, but the Mother only of Christ and not of God—for no one, you say, gives birth to one older than herself. And concerning this utterly stupid argument . . . let us prove by divine testimonies both that Christ is God and that Mary is the Mother of God” (On the Incarnation of Christ Against Nestorius 2:2 [A.D. 429]).

“You cannot then help admitting that the grace comes from God. It is God, then, who has given it. But it has been given by our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore the Lord Jesus Christ is God. But if he is God, as he certainly is, then she who bore God is the Mother of God” (ibid., 2:5).

Council of Ephesus

“We confess, then, our Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, perfect God and perfect man, of a rational soul and a body, begotten before all ages from the Father in his Godhead, the same in the last days, for us and for our salvation, born of Mary the Virgin according to his humanity, one and the same consubstantial with the Father in Godhead and consubstantial with us in humanity, for a union of two natures took place. Therefore we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord. According to this understanding of the unconfused union, we confess the holy Virgin to be the Mother of God because God the Word took flesh and became man and from his very conception united to himself the temple he took from her” (Formula of Union [A.D. 431]).

Vincent of Lerins

“Nestorius, whose disease is of an opposite kind, while pretending that he holds two distinct substances in Christ, brings in of a sudden two persons, and with unheard-of wickedness would have two sons of God, two Christs,—one, God, the other, man; one, begotten of his Father, the other, born of his mother. For which reason he maintains that Saint Mary ought to be called, not the Mother of God, but the Mother of Christ” (The Notebooks 12[35] [A.D. 434]).

NIHIL OBSTAT: I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004

IMPRIMATUR: In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004

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The Blessings of Mary
Taken from “A GARLAND FOR OUR LADY”
Irish Ursulines, 1920 with IMPRIMATUR

Mary, the Mother of God

The nature and degree of the respect, veneration, or homage we are bound to pay to any person is measured by the dignity of the person either in rank or character. The poorest have a right to a certain respect as the creatures of God; all Christians, because they are followers of Christ; the just, because they have the grace of God; Saints, because they are the friends of God; kings, because they are the ministers of His providence. In short, the possession of any gifts or attributes proceeding from God implies we should respect the possessors of them in proportion, beginning with the lowest and ascending to the highest. What degree then of respect are we bound to pay to the Blessed Virgin? To answer the question, we must ask who she is, because on that depends the measure of respect we must accord to her.

We have to reply that she is the Mother of God. Our respect for her is limited and marked out by the dignity of that office and the holiness which it implies. First, therefore, think of God, that infinite and eternal Being, in Whose sight Angels and men, and the whole creation, or a million creations more perfect than this, are as nothing; and then call to mind the fact that Mary is the Mother of God, in the Person of Jesus Christ, and that to Him she can say with truth: “You are my Son; it was in my womb and of my substance You were formed; I have given You life and brought You into the world.” The Mother of God can say so much to her Son; estimate her dignity and the consequent respect due to her from this truth. For nine months the Eternal Word dwelt in her womb and was part of herself; His infancy was spent in her arms on her virgin breast, and He was fed with her milk. His hidden life, those thirty years, of which we know so little, were spent with her. So much at least we know of them that Jesus Christ, our God, lived with His Mother all those years in the same house, at the same table, in the same state of life, shared her poverty, and was obedient to her. Wherever we seek Christ there we find Mary. We see her associated with Him in the prophecy which announced Him at the sentence of the Fall; we see, side by side with the types which foretold Him in the Old Testament, types also which foretold her.

When He is born, and the shepherds and the Magi of the East come to adore Him, with whom do they find the Child? … With Mary His Mother. At her entreaty He works His first miracle. In the years of His ministry, in His suffering life, in His glorious life, Mary shares with Him His labours, His suffering and His glory. Every pang that he suffered wounded her maternal heart; every glory that He won made her maternal heart joyful. She is, therefore, near Him. We cannot think of Him without her, and therefore we must reverence her as one inseparable from God.
She is, moreover, as we should expect of a mother, like her Son, and in proportion to that likeness must be our veneration for her. Jesus possesses in an infinite degree goodness, wisdom, power, and mercy. Mary possesses these attributes in a higher degree than all Angels and men. Jesus is essential goodness; Mary is created goodness. Jesus is wisdom; Mary is the seat of wisdom. Jesus is the Father of mercy; Mary is “the Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope.”

Jesus is omnipotent, and, in a certain sense, so is Mary—–as the dispensatrix of His graces, all-prevailing by her sweet motherly prayers:

“With eyes on Christ for ever set, And lips, whose fearless pleading hath never known denial yet—– Though always interceding.”

If Jesus is King and Father and Advocate of men, Mary is Queen and Mother and Mediatrix. If He is the Way, she is the “Gate of Heaven,” the mystical ladder of Jacob’s dream. If He is the Author of grace, she is the Mother of grace. If He is the Sun from whence all light comes, she, like the moon, beams with sweet and reflected radiance over the Church of God.

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