Mary Is the Treasurer of All the Divine Graces
Mary is the treasurer of all the divine graces. And so whoever desires graces should have recourse to Mary; and whoever has recourse to Mary may be sure of obtaining the graces he desires.
That house is counted happy which is visited by some royal personage, both for the honor it receives and for the advantages it may hope to gain. But far happier should that soul be called which is visited by the Queen of the world, most holy Mary, who cannot but fill with blessings and graces those happy souls whom she deigns to visit with her favors. The house of Obededom was blessed when it was visited by the ark of the Lord: “The Lord blessed his house” (1 Par. 13:14). But with how much greater blessings are those persons enriched who receive some loving visit from this living ark of God, as was the divine Mother! “Happy is that house which the Mother of God visits,” wrote Engelgrave. This was the experience of the house of the Baptist; for scarcely had Mary entered when she filled all that family with heavenly graces and blessings. For this reason the present feast of the Visitation is commonly called the feast of our Lady of Graces. Today, in this discourse, we shall consider how the divine Mother is the treasurer of all graces. We shall divide the discourse into two points. In the first, we shall prove that whoever desires graces must have recourse to Mary. In the second, that whoever has recourse to Mary may be certain of obtaining the graces he desires.
First Point
After the holy Virgin had heard from the archangel St. Gabriel that her cousin Elizabeth was six months with child, she was inwardly enlightened by the Holy Spirit to understand that the Word, who had taken human flesh and become her Son, wished now to begin manifesting to the world the riches of his mercy by the first graces he desired to impart to all that family. And so, without any delay, as St. Luke relates, “Rising up, Mary went into the hill country with haste” (Luke 1:39). Rising from the quiet of her contemplation, to which she was always devoted, and leaving her beloved solitude, she set out at once for the house of Elizabeth. And because holy charity bears all things—Charitas omnia suffert—and can endure no delay, as St. Ambrose remarks in commenting on this Gospel: “The grace of the Holy Spirit knows no slow movements.” And so, heedless of the fatigue of the journey, the tender and delicate maiden quickly set forth on her way. Having reached that house, she saluted her cousin: “She entered into the house of Zachary, and saluted Elizabeth” (Luke 1:40). And as St. Ambrose remarks, Mary was the first to salute Elizabeth: prior salutavit.
But the visit of the Blessed Virgin was not like the visits of worldly people, which for the most part are reduced to ceremonies and empty show. The visit of Mary brought into that house an abundance of graces. For at her first entrance, and at that first salutation, Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and John was delivered from guilt and sanctified; and therefore he gave that sign of joy, leaping in his mother’s womb, for in this way he wished to make known the grace he had received through the Blessed Virgin, as Elizabeth herself declared: “As soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy” (Luke 1:44). And so, as Bernardine de Bustis observes, by virtue of Mary’s salutation John received the grace of the Divine Spirit who sanctified him: “When the Blessed Virgin saluted Elizabeth, the voice of the salutation, entering through her ears, descended to the child, and by virtue of that salutation he received the Holy Spirit.”
Now if these first-fruits of the redemption all passed through Mary, and she was the channel by which grace was communicated to the Baptist, the Holy Spirit to Elizabeth, the gift of prophecy to Zachary, and so many other blessings to that house—which were the first graces we know to have been given on earth by the Word after he became incarnate—then we have good reason to believe that God, even from that time, had appointed Mary the universal channel, as St. Bernard calls her, through which from then on all the other graces the Lord wishes to bestow on us should be dispensed, as was said in Part One, Chapter Five, of this work.
Rightly, then, is this divine Mother called the treasure, the treasurer, and the dispenser of the divine graces. So she is named by the venerable Abbot of Celles: “The treasure of the Lord and the treasurer of graces.” So too by St. Peter Damian: “The treasure of the divine graces.” By Blessed Albert the Great: “The treasurer of Jesus Christ.” By St. Bernardine: “The dispenser of graces.” By a Greek doctor cited by Petavius: “The store-house of all good things.” So also St. Gregory Thaumaturgus says: “Mary is called so full of grace because in her the treasure of grace was hidden.” And Richard of St. Laurence says that God has placed in Mary, as in a treasury of mercy, the gifts of all graces, and from this treasure he enriches his servants.
St. Bonaventure, speaking of the field of the Gospel where the treasure is hidden which is to be bought at any great price—as Jesus Christ said: “The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in a field, which a man having found, hid it, and for joy thereof goeth, and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field” (Matt. 13:44)—remarks that this field is our Queen Mary, in whom is the treasure of God, that is, Jesus Christ, and with Jesus Christ the source and fountain of all graces. St. Bernard also affirms that the Lord has placed in the hands of Mary all the graces he wishes to dispense to us, so that we may know that whatever good we receive, we receive it all from her hands. And of this Mary herself assures us when she says: “In me is all grace of the way and of the truth” (Ecclus. 24:25)—in me are all the graces of the true blessings that you men can desire in your life. Yes, our Mother and our hope, well do we know, to use the words of St. Peter Damian, that all the treasures of the divine mercies are in your hands. And before Damian, St. Ildephonsus asserted it with still greater force, when, addressing the Virgin, he said to her: O Lady, all the graces that God has determined to bestow upon men, he has determined to dispense by your hands; and therefore he has committed to you all the treasure of graces. And so, O Mary—St. Germanus concluded—no grace is dispensed to anyone except by your hands; no one is saved except through you; no one receives the gift of God except through you.
Blessed Albert the Great makes a beautiful reflection upon the words of the angel to the most holy Virgin, “Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God” (Luke 1:30), saying: O Mary, you did not steal grace, as Lucifer wished to steal it; you did not lose it, as Adam lost it; you did not buy it, as Simon the magician wished to buy it; but you found it, because you desired and sought it. You found the uncreated grace—that is, God himself, become your Son—and together with it you found and obtained all created good. St. Peter Chrysologus confirms this thought, saying that the great Mother found this grace in order to restore salvation to all men. And elsewhere he says that Mary found grace in its fullness, sufficient to save all men. Just as God made the sun, says Richard of St. Laurence, that by it the earth might be lit, so he created Mary, that by her means all the divine mercies might be dispensed to the world. And St. Bernardine adds that the Virgin, as soon as she was made Mother of the Redeemer, acquired, as it were, a jurisdiction over all graces: “From the time that the Virgin Mother conceived the Word of God in her womb, she obtained, so to speak, a certain jurisdiction over every temporal manifestation of the Holy Spirit, so that no creature has obtained any grace from God except according to the dispensation of this loving Mother.”
Let us conclude this point in the words of Richard of St. Laurence, who says that if we wish to obtain any grace, we must have recourse to Mary, who cannot but obtain for her servants whatever she asks, since she has found, and always will find, the divine grace. And this he took from St. Bernard, who said: Let us seek grace, and let us seek it through Mary; for what she seeks she finds, and cannot be frustrated. If, then, we desire graces, we must go to this treasurer and dispenser of graces; for this is the sovereign will of the Giver of every good, as St. Bernard himself assures us, that all graces are dispensed by the hands of Mary. Totum, totum—all, all: he who says “all” excludes nothing. But because confidence is needed in order to obtain grace, let us now pass on to consider how certain we should be of obtaining graces if we have recourse to Mary.
Second Point
And why has Jesus Christ placed in the hands of this his Mother all the riches of the mercies he wishes to bestow for our benefit, if not that she may enrich with them all her servants who love and honor her and have recourse to her with confidence? “With me are riches… that I may enrich them that love me” (Prov. 8:18, 21). Thus the Virgin herself speaks in this passage, which the holy Church applies to her on so many of her festivals. For no other purpose, then, but for our benefit, says Adam the Abbot, are the riches of eternal life kept by Mary, in whose bosom the Savior has deposited the treasure of the wretched, so that from this treasure the poor may be supplied and become rich. And St. Bernard adds, as I find quoted in another author, that for this very purpose Mary has been given to the world as a channel of mercy, that by her means graces may continually descend from heaven upon men.
From this the holy Father goes on to ask why St. Gabriel, having found the divine Mother already full of grace—according to his salutation, “Hail, full of grace”—says afterward that the Holy Spirit was to come upon her, to fill her still more with grace. If she was already full of this grace, what more could the coming of the Holy Spirit effect? Mary was already full of grace, St. Bernard answers, but the Holy Spirit came upon her for our good, that from her superabundance we poor sinners might be supplied. For this reason Mary was called the moon, of which it is said: “The moon is full, for herself and for others.”
“He that shall find me shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord” (Prov. 8:35). Blessed is he who, having recourse to me, finds me, says our Mother. He shall find life, and shall find it easily; for as it is easy to find and draw as much water as one wishes from a great fountain, so it is easy to find graces and eternal salvation by going to Mary. A holy soul once said: We have only to ask graces of our Lady, and we shall have them. And St. Bernard says that before Mary was born, the world lacked that abundance of graces which now overflows the earth, because this desirable channel—Mary—was wanting. But now that we have this Mother of mercy, what graces can we fear to be denied if we cast ourselves at her feet? “I am the city of refuge,” St. John Damascene makes her say, “for all who have recourse to me. Come, then, my children, and you will obtain from me graces in greater abundance than you can imagine.”
It is true that many experience what the venerable Sister Maria Villani saw in a heavenly vision. This servant of God once saw the Mother of God in the likeness of a great fountain, to which many came to draw the waters of grace. But what then happened? Those who carried sound vessels afterward kept the graces they had received; but those who carried broken vessels—that is, souls laden with sins—received the graces, yet quickly lost them again. For the rest, it is certain that through Mary all men, even the most ungrateful and wretched sinners, daily obtain countless graces. St. Augustine says, addressing the Virgin: “Through you the wretched obtain mercy, the ungrateful grace, sinners pardon, the weak what is sublime, the earthly what is heavenly, mortals life, and pilgrims their homeland.”
Let our confidence, then, ever revive, O devoted servants of Mary, as often as we have recourse to her for graces. And to revive this confidence, let us always remember the two great privileges this good Mother possesses: the desire she has to do us good, and the power she has with her Son to obtain whatever she asks. To know the desire Mary has to help all, it would be enough simply to consider the mystery of the present festival—the visit of Mary to Elizabeth. The journey from Nazareth, where the most holy Virgin lived, to the city of Hebron (called by St. Luke a city of Juda), where Elizabeth dwelt according to Baronius and other authors, was about sixty-nine miles, as the author of the Life of Mary, Father Joseph of Jesus and Mary, a Discalced Carmelite, asserts, and as Bede and Brocardus also affirm. But this did not keep the Blessed Virgin—tender and delicate as she then was, and unaccustomed to such efforts—from setting out at once. Moved by what? Moved by that great charity with which her most tender heart was ever filled, to go and begin, from that time, her great office of dispenser of graces. So St. Ambrose speaks of this journey of hers: “She did not go as one incredulous of the announcement, but joyful in her desire, hastening for gladness, and intent upon her office.” Mary did not go, the saint says, to satisfy herself of the truth of what the angel had told her about Elizabeth, but rejoicing in her desire to help that household, hastening for the joy she felt in doing good to others, and wholly intent on that errand of charity. “Rising up, she went with haste.”
Here let it be observed that the evangelist, when he speaks of Mary going to the house of Elizabeth, says that she went in haste, “she went with haste”; but speaking of her return from that house, he makes no further mention of haste, and says simply: “And Mary abode with her about three months, and she returned to her own house” (Luke 1:56). What other purpose, then, says St. Bonaventure, made the Mother of God hasten when going to visit the house of the Baptist, except the desire to do good to that family?
Certainly, since Mary’s assumption into heaven, this loving charity of hers toward men has not ceased; indeed, it has ever increased, for there she better knows our needs and feels more pity for our miseries. Bernardine de Bustis writes that Mary more earnestly desires to do us good than we desire to receive it from her. So much so that St. Bonaventure says she considers herself wronged by those who do not ask favors of her; for this is the desire of Mary, to enrich all with her graces. Indeed, as the Idiot asserts, she superabundantly enriches her servants.
And so the same author says that whoever finds Mary finds every good: “Mary being found, every good is found.” And he adds that everyone can find her, were he even the most abandoned sinner in the world; for she is so gracious that she sends away none who have recourse to her. “I invite all to come to me,” Thomas à Kempis makes her say; “I wait for all, I desire that all may come; nor do I ever despise any sinner who comes to seek my help, however unworthy he may be.” All who go to her asking favors, says Richard, will find her always ready, always inclined to help them and to obtain for them every grace of eternal salvation by her powerful prayers: “He will find her always ready to help.”
I have said by her powerful prayers, for this is the other reflection that should increase our confidence: knowing that she obtains from God whatever she asks on behalf of her servants. Observe especially, says St. Bonaventure, in this visit Mary made to Elizabeth, the great power of Mary’s words; for at the sound of her voice the grace of the Holy Spirit was given to Elizabeth as well as to her son, as the evangelist has written: “And it came to pass that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost” (Luke 1:41). On which St. Bonaventure remarks: See how great is the power of our Lady’s words, for at the sound of them the Holy Spirit is given. Theophilus of Alexandria says that Jesus is much pleased when Mary prays to him for us; for then all the graces he bestows on us through Mary’s supplications he counts as bestowed not so much on us as on his Mother herself. And let these words be noted: “Won over by the prayers of his Mother, he gives.” Yes, because Jesus, as St. Germanus attests, cannot but graciously hear Mary in all she asks, wishing in this, as it were, to obey her as his true Mother. And so the saint says that the prayers of this Mother have a certain authority with Jesus Christ, such that she obtains pardon even for the greatest sinners who commend themselves to her.
And this is indeed confirmed, as St. John Chrysostom observes, by what took place at the marriage of Cana, where Mary, asking her Son for the wine that was wanting, said: “They have no wine.” Jesus answered: “Woman, what is that to me and to thee? My hour is not yet come” (John 2:3–4). But although the time appointed for miracles had not yet come, as Chrysostom and Theophylact explain, yet, says the same Chrysostom, our Savior, to obey his Mother, worked the miracle she requested and changed the water into wine.
“Let us go, therefore,” the Apostle exhorts us, “with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace in seasonable aid” (Heb. 4:16). The throne of grace, says Blessed Albert the Great, is the Blessed Virgin Mary. If, then, we wish for graces, let us go to the throne of grace, which is Mary; and let us go with the hope of being certainly heard, for we have the intercession of Mary, who obtains whatever she asks of her Son. Let us ask for grace—I repeat with St. Bernard—and let us ask it through Mary, trusting in what the Virgin Mother said to St. Matilda: that the Holy Spirit, filling her with all his sweetness, had made her so dear to God that everyone who, through her intercession, asks for graces will certainly obtain them.
And if we give credit to that famous saying of St. Anselm, we shall sometimes find grace sooner by having recourse to Mary than by having recourse to our Savior Jesus himself—not that he is not the source and Lord of all graces, but that if we go to Mary and she intercedes for us, her prayers, as a mother’s prayers, will have more power than ours. Let us never, then, leave the feet of this treasurer of graces, but say to her with St. John Damascene: Open to us, O blessed Mother of God, the door of your mercy, for you are the salvation of the human race: open it to us by always praying for us, for your prayers are the salvation of all men. And when we have recourse to Mary, it is best to ask her to pray for us and obtain for us those graces she knows to be most expedient for our salvation—which is exactly what Brother Reginald, a Dominican, did, as is related in the chronicles of his order. This servant of Mary was ill, and asked her for the grace of bodily health. Our Lady appeared to him, accompanied by St. Cecilia and St. Catherine, and said to him with the greatest sweetness: “My son, what shall I do for you?” The religious, at this kind offer of Mary, was overcome and did not know what to answer. Then one of those saints gave him this counsel: “Reginald, do you know what you should do? Do not ask for anything; place everything at her disposal, for Mary knows how to obtain for you a grace greater than you could ask.” The sick brother followed this advice, and the divine Mother obtained for him the grace of health.
But if we too desire the happy visits of this Queen of heaven, it will greatly help us to visit her often before some image, or in some church dedicated to her. Let us read the following example, and learn with what special favors she rewards the devout visits of her servants.
Example
It is related in the Franciscan chronicles that two religious of that order, who were going to visit a sanctuary of the Virgin, were overtaken by night in a great wood, where they became so lost and troubled that they did not know what to do. But going a little farther, they discerned through the darkness something that seemed to them a house. They went groping along with outstretched hands, and at length touched a wall. They found the door, knocked, and heard someone within ask who they were. They answered that they were two poor religious who had lost their way by accident in that wood, and were seeking shelter, that they might at least not be devoured by wolves. But suddenly they heard the door open, and saw two richly dressed pages who received them with great courtesy. The religious asked them who lived in that palace. The pages answered that a very kind and good Lady lived there. “We wish to pay our respects to her,” they said, “and to thank her for her charity.” “We will take you to her,” the pages replied, “for she too wishes to speak with you.” They climbed the stairs and found the rooms all lit and richly furnished, fragrant as with the perfume of paradise. At last they entered the apartment of the Lady, who was majestic and most lovely in appearance, and who welcomed them with the greatest kindness, and then asked them where they were traveling. They answered that they were going to visit a certain church of the Blessed Virgin. “If that is so,” said the Lady, “when you go I will give you a letter of my own, which will greatly help you.” And while the Lady spoke to them, they felt themselves all inflamed with the love of God, and filled with a joy they had never before known. Afterward they went to rest, if indeed they could sleep amid so much joy; and in the morning they went again to take leave of the Lady of the house, to thank her and at the same time receive the letter, which they did, and departed.
But when they had gone a little way from the house, they noticed that the letter had no address on it. They turned back to have the address written on it, but could not find the house again. At last they opened the letter, to see to whom it was sent and what it contained, and found that it was from most holy Mary, written to themselves, letting them know that she was the Lady they had seen the night before, and that, on account of the devotion they cherished for her, she had provided them a house and refreshment in that wood. She exhorted them to continue to serve and love her, for she would well reward their devotion and assist them in life and in death. At the foot of the letter they read the signature: “I, Mary the Virgin.” We may easily imagine the thanks those good religious then offered to the divine Mother, and how much more they were inflamed with the desire of loving and serving her to the end of their lives.
Prayer
Immaculate and blessed Virgin, since you are the universal dispenser of all the divine graces, you are therefore the hope of all, and my hope also. I thank my Lord continually that he has given me to know you, and to know the means I must use to obtain graces and to save myself. You are that means, O great Mother of God; for now I understand that it is chiefly through the merits of Jesus Christ, and after these through your intercession, that I am to be saved. Ah, my Queen, you made such haste to visit and to sanctify with your visit the house of Elizabeth; ah, visit, and visit quickly, the poor house of my soul. Hasten! You know better than I how poor it is, how infected with many maladies—with disordered affections, bad habits, and actual sin, all those deadly diseases that will bring it to eternal death. You can enrich it, O treasurer of God, and you can heal all its infirmities. Visit me, then, in life, and visit me especially at the hour of my death, for then your help will be more needful to me. I do not, indeed, expect, nor am I worthy, that you should visit me on this earth with your visible presence, as you have done for so many of your servants—but servants not so unworthy and ungrateful as I am. I shall be content to be allowed then to see you in your kingdom of heaven, there to love you better and to thank you for whatever good you have done me. For the present I am content that you visit me with your mercies. It is enough that you pray for me.
Pray for me, then, O Mary, and commend me to your Son. You know better than I do my miseries and my needs. What more shall I say to you? Have pity on me. I am so wretched and ignorant that I do not even know, and cannot even ask for, the graces most necessary for me. O my Queen and most sweet Mother, ask and obtain for me from your Son those graces you know to be most useful and necessary for my soul. Into your hands I wholly abandon myself, and I pray only the divine Majesty that, through the merits of my Savior Jesus, he may grant me those graces you ask of him for me. Ask, then, ask for me, O most holy Virgin, whatever you judge best. Your prayers are never rejected; they are the prayers of a Mother to a Son who loves you so much, and who finds his joy in granting whatever you ask of him, thus the more to honor you and at the same time to show you the great love he bears you. O Lady, so let it be. I will live trusting in you. You must think only of saving me. Amen.
Points for Reflection
1. “Whoever desires graces should have recourse to Mary; and whoever has recourse to Mary may be sure of obtaining the graces he desires.”
2. “As it is easy to find and draw as much water as one wishes from a great fountain, so it is easy to find graces and eternal salvation by going to Mary.”
3. “Won over by the prayers of his Mother, he gives. For Jesus cannot but graciously hear Mary in all she asks, wishing to obey her as his true Mother.”