Take notice, if you please, that I say the saints are molded in Mary. There is a great difference between making a figure in relief by blows of a hammer and chisel, and making a figure by throwing it into a mold. Statuaries and sculptors labor much to make figures in the first manner; but to make them in the second manner, they work little and do their work quickly. St. Augustine calls our Blessed lady "the mold of God'-the mold fit to case and mold gods. He who is cast in this mold is presently formed and molded in Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ in him.
The third good which Our Lady does for her servants is that she conducts and directs them according to the will of her Divine Son. Rebecca guided her little Jacob, and gave him good advice from time to time; either to draw upon him the blessing of his father, or to avert from him the hatred and persecutions of his brother Esau. Mary, who is the Star of the Sea, leads all her faithful servants into a safe harbor. She shows them the paths of eternal life. She makes them avoid the dangerous places. She conducts them by her hand along the paths of justice. She steadies them when they are about to fall; she lifts them up when they have fallen. She reproves them like a charitable mother when they fail; and sometimes she even lovingly chastises them. Can a child obedient to Mary, his foster Mother and his enlightened guide, go astray in the paths of eternity? "If you follow her," says St. Bernard,"you cannot wander from the road."
Navigating the Interior Life
Daniel Burke
No comments:
Post a Comment