The Offering Mary Made of Herself to God Was Prompt, Without Delay; Entire, Without Reserve
There never has been, and there never will be, an offering of a pure creature greater or more perfect than the one Mary made to God when, a child of only three years, she presented herself in the temple to offer him—not spices, nor calves, nor talents of gold, but her whole self as a perfect holocaust, consecrating herself a perpetual victim in his honor. Well did she understand the voice of God, which even then called her to dedicate herself wholly to his love, with these words: Surge, propera, amica mea, et veni—“Arise, make haste, my love, and come” (Cant. 2:10). And therefore her Lord would have her, from that moment, forget her country, her parents, and everything else, to attend to nothing but loving and pleasing him: “Hearken, O daughter, and see, and incline thy ear; and forget thy people and thy father’s house” (Ps. 44:11). And she at once obeyed the divine voice promptly. Let us consider, then, how acceptable to God was this offering Mary made of herself, when she gave herself to him promptly and entirely—promptly, without delay; entirely, without reserve. These are our two points.
First Point: Mary Offered Herself to God Promptly
From the first moment this heavenly infant was sanctified in the womb of her mother—which was the first moment of her immaculate conception—she received the perfect use of reason, so that she might from that time begin to merit, as the Doctors universally agree. One of them, Father Suarez, says that the most perfect way in which God sanctifies a soul is its sanctification by its own merits, as St. Thomas teaches; and so we are to believe that the Blessed Virgin was sanctified in this manner. And if this privilege was granted to the angels and to Adam, as the Angelic Doctor says, much more should we believe that it was granted to the divine Mother. For we cannot doubt that God, having deigned to make her his Mother, conferred greater gifts upon her than upon all other creatures, as the same Doctor teaches. From her he received his human nature; hence, before all others, she must have obtained from Christ the fullness of grace. For, being his Mother, as Father Suarez says, she has a certain singular right to all the gifts of her Son. And as, by the hypostatic union, Jesus must of right possess the fullness of all graces, so by the divine maternity it was fitting that Jesus should confer on Mary, as a natural debt, greater graces than those bestowed on all the other saints and angels.
Thus, from the beginning of her life, Mary knew God, and knew him so well that no tongue—as the angel declared to St. Bridget—will ever suffice to tell how clearly the intellect of the holy Virgin saw God in the first moment she knew him. And even in that first moment of light by which she was illuminated, she offered herself wholly to her Lord, dedicating herself entirely to his love and glory, as the angel went on to say to St. Bridget: “At once our Queen resolved to sacrifice her will to God, with all her love, for the whole time of her life; and no one can understand how completely her will then submitted itself to embrace all things pleasing to him.”
Afterward the immaculate infant came to understand that her holy parents, Joachim and Anna, had promised to God—even by a vow, as various authors relate—that if he should grant them a child, it would be consecrated to his service in the temple. For it was an ancient custom of the Jews to place their children in cells near the temple, that they might there be properly educated, as we learn from Baronius, Nicephorus, Cedrenus, and Suarez, as also from Josephus the Jewish historian, St. John Damascene, St. George of Nicomedia, St. Anselm, and St. Ambrose. This is also clearly seen in the Book of Maccabees, where, speaking of Heliodorus, who wished to enter the temple by force in order to take away the treasures deposited there, it is said: “Because the place was like to come into contempt… the virgins also that were shut up hastened to Onias” (2 Macc. 3:18–19). When Mary knew of this vow, then—being hardly three years old, as St. Germanus and St. Epiphanius attest (the latter saying, “In her third year she was offered in the temple”)—at an age when children most desire and most need the help of their parents, she wished solemnly to offer and consecrate herself to God by presenting herself in the temple. She was even the first to entreat her parents earnestly to take her to the temple, to fulfill their promise; and her holy mother Anna, as St. Gregory of Nyssa says, “did not delay to bring her there, and offer her to God.”
And behold, Joachim and Anna, generously sacrificing to God what was dearest to them on earth, set out from Nazareth, carrying by turns in their arms their beloved little daughter, who could not walk so great a distance as that from Nazareth to Jerusalem—a journey, as several authors assert, of eighty miles. They went on their way accompanied by only a few of their relations, but by hosts of angels, as St. George of Nicomedia asserts, who attended and ministered to the immaculate Virgin as she went to dedicate herself to the Divine Majesty. Quam pulchri sunt gressus tui, filia principis!—“How beautiful are thy steps, O prince’s daughter!” (Cant. 7:1). Oh, how beautiful, how pleasing to God—as the angels must then have sung—are these steps you take to go and offer yourself to him, O great and chosen daughter of our common Lord! God himself, says Bernardine de Bustis, celebrated a great feast that day with the whole heavenly court, when he beheld his spouse conducted to the temple; for he never saw a creature more holy and more beloved come to offer herself to him. “Go, then,” said St. Germanus, Archbishop of Constantinople, “go, O Queen of the world, O Mother of God, go joyfully to the house of the Lord, to await the coming of the Holy Spirit who will make you the Mother of the Eternal Word.”
When the holy company had arrived at the temple, the lovely child turned to her parents, knelt and kissed their hands, and asked their blessing; and then, without turning back, she ascended the fifteen steps of the temple, as Arias Montanus relates upon the authority of Josephus the Jewish historian, and presented herself to the priest, who, according to St. Germanus, was Zachary. Then, taking leave of the world and renouncing all the goods it promises to its followers, she offered and consecrated herself to her Creator.
At the time of the deluge, the raven that Noe sent out from the ark stayed to feed upon the bodies of the dead; but the dove, without stopping to rest her foot, quickly returned to the ark: “She returned to him into the ark” (Gen. 8:9). Many who are sent by God into this world unhappily stop to feed on earthly things. Not so Mary, our heavenly dove. She knew that God alone should be our one good, our one hope, our one love; she knew that the world is full of dangers, and that whoever leaves it soonest is freest from its snares. Therefore she sought to flee from it promptly, in her tenderest years, and to seclude herself in the sacred retirement of the temple, where she could better hear the voice of God and better honor and love him. And so the holy Virgin, from the very beginning of her life, made herself dear and acceptable to her Lord, as Holy Church makes her say: “Rejoice with me, all you who love the Lord; for when I was little, I pleased the Most High.” For this reason she was compared to the moon; for as the moon completes her course more quickly than the other planets, so Mary attained perfection sooner than all the saints, by giving herself to God promptly, without delay—and entirely, without reserve. And now let us pass to the second point, on which we shall have much to say.
Second Point: Mary Offered Herself to God Entirely
The enlightened infant well knew that God does not accept a divided heart, but wishes it entirely consecrated to his love, according to the precept he has given: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart” (Deut. 6:5). Hence, from the first moment of her existence, she began to love God with all her strength and gave herself wholly to him. But her most holy soul awaited with earnest desire the time when she could in reality consecrate herself entirely to God, and with public solemnity. Let us consider, then, with how great a fervor the loving Virgin, seeing herself now enclosed in that holy place, first prostrated herself to kiss that ground as the house of the Lord, then adored his infinite majesty, and thanked him for the favor she had received of being brought so early to dwell in his house. Then she offered herself entirely to God—entirely, reserving nothing. She offered him all her powers and all her senses, her whole mind and her whole heart, her whole soul and her whole body; for it was then, as we are told, that to please God she made the vow of virginity—a vow that Mary was the first to make, according to Rupert the Abbot: Votum virginitatis prima emisit—“She was the first to make the vow of virginity.” And she offered herself without limitation of time, as Bernardine de Bustis asserts: “Mary offered and dedicated herself to the perpetual service of God.” For she then had the intention of dedicating her whole life to the service of his Divine Majesty in the temple, if it should so please God, and of never leaving that sacred place.
Oh, with what affection must she have exclaimed: Dilectus meus mihi, et ego illi—“My beloved to me, and I to him” (Cant. 2:16). I for him, as Cardinal Hugo remarks, “will wholly live and wholly die.” My Lord and my God, she said, I have come here only to please you and to give you all the honor I can; here I will live wholly for you and die for you, if it so please you. Accept the sacrifice that this your poor servant makes to you, and help me to be faithful to you.
And here let us consider how holy was the life that Mary led in the temple, where, “like the rising morn” (quasi aurora consurgens), she increased always in perfection, as the dawn increases in light. Who can describe how, from day to day, her virtues shone in her ever more brightly—her charity, modesty, humility, silence, mortification, and meekness? This fair olive tree, planted in the house of God, as St. John Damascene says, watered by the Holy Spirit, became the dwelling place of all the virtues. The same saint says in another place: “The countenance of the Virgin was modest, her mind humble, her words kind, proceeding from a recollected heart.” And elsewhere he asserts: The Virgin withdrew her thoughts from all earthly things, embracing every virtue; and thus, by the practice of perfection, she made such great progress in a short time that she merited to be made a temple worthy of God.
St. Anselm, too, speaking of the life of the holy Virgin in the temple, says: Mary was docile, spoke little, was always composed, never laughed, and was never troubled. She persevered in prayer, in the reading of Holy Scripture, in fasting, and in all virtuous works. St. Jerome goes into greater detail, and tells us how Mary’s life was ordered: From early morning until nine o’clock she remained in prayer; from nine until three she was engaged in labor; at three she resumed her prayers until the angel, as usual, brought her food. She was the most constant in vigils, the most exact in obedience to the divine law, the most profound in humility, and the most perfect in every virtue. No one ever saw her angry; all her words were so full of sweetness that, when she spoke, it always seemed that God was with her.
The divine Mother herself revealed to St. Elizabeth, a Benedictine nun in the convent of Schönau, as we read in St. Bonaventure, that when she was left in the temple by her parents, she resolved to have God alone for her Father, and often thought what she could do to please him. She determined, moreover, to consecrate her virginity to him, and to possess nothing in the world, giving her entire will to God. She also told her that, above all the divine precepts to be observed, she set before her eyes this one: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God”; and that she went in the middle of the night to pray before the altar of the temple, asking the Lord to grant her the grace to keep his commandments, and to let her see, while she yet lived, the Mother of the Redeemer born—begging him to preserve her eyes that she might behold her, her tongue that she might praise her, her hands and feet that she might serve her, and her knees that she might adore, in her arms, his divine Son. On hearing this, St. Elizabeth said to her: “But, my Lady, were you not full of grace and virtue?” And Mary answered: “Know that I esteemed myself the most vile and unworthy of divine grace; therefore I prayed thus for grace and virtues.” And finally, that she might persuade us of the absolute necessity we are all under of asking from God the graces we need, she added: “Do you think that I obtained grace and virtue without effort? Know that I received no grace from God without great effort, constant prayer, ardent desire, and many tears and penances.”
But above all we should consider the revelations made to St. Bridget concerning the virtues and exercises that the Blessed Virgin practiced in her childhood, in these words: “Even as an infant, Mary was filled with the Holy Spirit; and as she increased in age, she increased also in grace. Even from that time she resolved to love God with all her heart, so that he should never be offended by her actions or her words; and for this reason all the goods of earth were despised by her. She gave all she could to the poor. In her food she was so temperate that she took only what was absolutely necessary to support life. And learning then from the sacred Scriptures that this God was to be born of a virgin to redeem the world, her spirit was so kindled with divine love that she desired and thought of nothing but God; and, taking pleasure only in God, she shunned the company even of her parents, that they might not hinder her from thinking of God. More than all else, she desired that the coming of the Messiah might be in her day, that she might be the servant of that happy Virgin who would merit to be his Mother.” Thus the revelation made to St. Bridget.
Ah, yes—for love of this exalted child the Redeemer hastened his coming into the world; for while she in her humility did not esteem herself worthy even to be the servant of the divine Mother, she herself was chosen to be that Mother, and by the fragrance of her virtues and her powerful prayers she drew into her virginal womb the divine Son. Hence Mary was called the turtledove by her divine Spouse: “The voice of the turtle is heard in our land” (Cant. 2:12). Not only because, like the turtledove, she always loved solitude, living in this world as in a desert, but also because, like the turtledove that makes the fields mournful with its sad note, Mary was always mourning in the temple over the miseries of the lost world, and seeking from God its common redemption. Oh, with how much greater affection and fervor than the prophets did she repeat to God in the temple their supplications and sighs, that he might send the Redeemer: “Send forth, O Lord, the Lamb, the ruler of the earth” (Isa. 16:1); “Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just” (Isa. 45:8); “Oh, that thou wouldst rend the heavens, and wouldst come down!” (Isa. 64:1).
In a word, it was a delight to God to see this young Virgin always ascending to a higher perfection, like a pillar of smoke rich with the fragrance of all the virtues, as the Holy Spirit exactly describes her in the sacred Canticles: “Who is she that goeth up by the desert, as a pillar of smoke of aromatical spices, of myrrh, and frankincense, and of all the powders of the perfumer?” (Cant. 3:6). This holy child, says Sophronius, was in truth the garden of delights of the Lord, for he found there flowers of every kind and all the fragrances of the virtues. And St. John Chrysostom affirms that God chose Mary for his Mother on earth because he found on earth no virgin more holy and more perfect than Mary, nor any place more worthy for him to dwell in than her sacred womb—as St. Bernard likewise says: “On earth there was no place more worthy than the womb of the Virgin.” St. Antoninus asserts that the Blessed Virgin, in order to be chosen and predestined to the dignity of Mother of God, must have possessed a perfection so great and consummate that it surpassed the perfection of all other creatures.
As, then, the holy young child Mary presented and offered herself in the temple promptly and entirely, so let us, on this day, present ourselves to Mary without delay and without reserve, and entreat her to offer us to God—who will not refuse us when he sees us offered by the hand of her who was the living temple of the Holy Spirit, the delight of her Lord, and the chosen Mother of the Eternal Word. And let us place great hope in this exalted and most gracious Lady, who rewards with so much love the devotions her servants offer her, as may be seen in the following example.
Example
We read in the life of Sister Domenica of Paradise, written by Father Ignatius del Nente, a Dominican, that in a village called Paradise, near Florence, this little girl was born of poor parents. From her infancy she practiced devotion to the divine Mother. She fasted every day of the week in her honor, and on Saturday she distributed to the poor the food she had denied herself; and every Saturday she went into the garden, or into the neighboring fields, and there gathered all the flowers she could find, and placed them before a statue of the holy Virgin with the infant Jesus in her arms, which she kept in her house. But let us see now with what favors our most grateful Lady repaid this her servant for the homage she paid her.
As Domenica stood one day at the window, when she was about ten years old, she saw in the street a woman with a beautiful countenance, accompanied by a little child, and both of them extended their hands as if to ask alms. She went to fetch some bread, and behold, before she could open the door, they stood beside her; and she saw wounds on the hands, the feet, and the breast of the child. Then she said to the woman: “Who has wounded this child?” “It was love,” answered the mother. Domenica, charmed by his beauty and modesty, asked him whether his wounds pained him; but he answered only with a smile. As they were now standing near the images of Jesus and Mary, the mother said to Domenica: “Tell me, little girl, what moves you to crown these images with flowers?” She answered: “The love I have for Jesus and Mary moves me to do it.” “And how much do you love them?” “I love them as much as I can.” “And how much can you love them?” “As much as they help me.” “Continue, then,” said the mother, “continue to love them, for they will richly repay your love in paradise.”
Then the little girl, perceiving a heavenly fragrance coming forth from those wounds, asked the mother with what ointment she had anointed them, and whether that ointment could be bought. “It is bought,” she answered, “with faith and works.” Domenica then offered them the bread. The mother said: “The food of this my Son is love; tell him that you love Jesus, and he will be satisfied.” At the mention of this word love, the child began to show great signs of joy, and turning to the little girl, he asked her how much she loved Jesus. She answered that she loved him so much that day and night she was always thinking of him, and desired nothing else but to please him as much as she could. “Well, then,” he answered, “love him; and love will teach you what you must do to satisfy him.” Then, as the fragrance from those wounds increased, Domenica exclaimed: “O God, this fragrance makes me die of love! If the fragrance of a child is so sweet, what must be the fragrance of paradise?” But behold, the scene was changed: the mother appeared robed as a queen and surrounded with light, and the child shone resplendent as a sun of beauty. He took those flowers and strewed them on her head. She saw at once that these persons were Jesus and Mary, and prostrated herself in adoration before them. And thus the vision ended. Domenica afterward took the Dominican habit, and died in the year 1553 with the reputation of a saint.
Prayer
O beloved of God, most lovable child Mary! Oh, that like you—who presented yourself in the temple and at once and wholly consecrated yourself to the glory and love of your God—I might offer to you today the first years of my life, and dedicate myself entirely to your service, O my most holy and sweet Lady! But now it is too late; for, unhappily, I have lost so many years in serving the world and my own whims, as though entirely forgetful of you and of God. Alas for the time in which I did not love you! But it is better to begin late than never. Behold, O Mary, today I present myself to you, and offer myself entirely to your service, for the longer or shorter time that remains for me to live on earth; and together with you I renounce all creatures, and dedicate myself entirely to the love of my Creator. I consecrate to you, then, O Queen, my mind, that it may always think of the love you deserve; my tongue, to praise you; and my heart, to love you. Accept, O most holy Virgin, the offering that this most miserable sinner presents to you; accept it, I pray you, for the sake of that consolation which filled your heart when, in the temple, you gave yourself to God. And if I begin late to serve you, it is right that I should make up for the time lost by redoubling my devotion and my love. Aid my weakness, O Mother of mercy, with your powerful intercession, and obtain for me from your Jesus perseverance and strength to be faithful to you until death, that always serving you in this life, I may come to praise you eternally in paradise. Amen.
Points for Reflection
1. “She knew that God alone should be our one good, our one hope, our one love; she knew that the world is full of dangers, and that whoever leaves it soonest is freest from its snares.”
2. “Know that I received no grace from God without great effort, constant prayer, ardent desire, and many tears and penances.”
3. “As the moon completes her course more quickly than the other planets, so Mary attained perfection sooner than all the saints, by giving herself to God promptly, without delay—and entirely, without reserve.”