Mary is the "Virgo Prædicanda," the Virgin who is to be Proclaimed
MARY is the Virgo Prædicanda, that is, the Virgin who to be
proclaimed, to be heralded, literally, to be preached.
We are accustomed to preach abroad that which is wonderful,
strange, rare, novel, important. Thus, when our Lord was coming, St. John the
Baptist preached Him; then, the Apostles went into the wide world, and preached
Christ. What is the highest, the rarest, the choicest prerogative of Mary? It
is that she was without sin. When a woman in the crowd cried out to our Lord,
"Blessed is the womb that bare Thee!" He answered, "More blessed
are they who hear the word of God and keep it." Those words were fulfilled
in Mary. She was filled with grace in order to be the Mother of God. But it was
a higher gift than her maternity to be thus sanctified and thus pure. Our Lord
indeed would not have become her son unless He had first sanctified her; but
still, the greater blessedness was to have that perfect sanctification. This
then is why she is the Virgo Prædicanda; she is deserving to be preached abroad
because she never committed any sin, even the least; because sin had no part in
her; because, through the fulness of God's grace, she never thought a thought,
or spoke a word, or did an action, which was displeasing, which was not most
pleasing, to Almighty God; because in her was displayed the greatest triumph
over the enemy of souls. Wherefore, when all seemed lost, in order to show what
He could do for us all by dying for us; in order to show what human nature, His
work, was capable of becoming; to show how utterly He could bring to naught the
utmost efforts, the most concentrated malice of the foe, and reverse all the consequences
of the Fall, our Lord began, even before His coming, to do His most wonderful
act of redemption, in the person of her who was to be His Mother. By the merit
of that Blood which was to be shed, He interposed to hinder her incurring the
sin of Adam, before He had made on the Cross atonement for it. And therefore it
is that we preach her who is the subject of this wonderful grace.
But she was the Virgo Prædicanda for another reason. When,
why, what things do we preach? We preach what is not known, that it may become
known. And hence the Apostles are said in Scripture to "preach
Christ." To whom? To those who knew Him not—to the heathen world. Not to
those who knew Him, but to those who did not know Him. Preaching is a gradual
work: first one lesson, then another. Thus were the heathen brought into the
Church gradually. And in like manner, the preaching of Mary to the children of
the Church, and the devotion paid to her by them, has grown, grown gradually,
with successive ages. Not so much preached about her in early times as in
later. First she was preached as the Virgin of Virgins—then as the Mother of
God—then as glorious in her Assumption—then as the Advocate of sinners—then as
Immaculate in her Conception. And this last has been the special preaching of
the present century; and thus that which was earliest in her own history is the
latest in the Church's recognition of her.
