Mariology

"Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word."

"My soul doth magnify the Lord: and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.For he hath regarded: the lowliness of his handmaiden.For behold, from henceforth: all generations shall call me blessed.For he that is mighty hath magnified me: and holy is his Name.And his mercy is on them that fear him: throughout all generations.He hath shewed strength with his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek.He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he hath sent empty away.He rememb’ring his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel: As he promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed for ever."

"Do whatever he tells you."

"In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you." Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob's descendants forever; his kingdom will never end." "How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?" The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail." "I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May your word to me be fulfilled." Then the angel left her."

"And she [Elizabeth] spoke out with a loud voice, and said, "Blessed [art] thou among women, and blessed [is] the fruit of thy womb. And whence [is] this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. And blessed [is] she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.""

"Certainly, in the full and strict meaning of the term, only Jesus Christ, the God-Man, is King; but Mary, too, as Mother of the divine Christ, as His associate in the redemption, in his struggle with His enemies and His final victory over them, has a share, though in a limited and analogous way, in His royal dignity. For from her union with Christ she attains a radiant eminence transcending that of any other creature; from her union with Christ she receives the royal right to dispose of the treasures of the Divine Redeemer's Kingdom; from her union with Christ finally is derived the inexhaustible efficacy of her maternal intercession before the Son and His Father."

"Today is the beginning of our salvation, And the revelation of the eternal mystery! The Son of God becomes the Son of the Virgin As Gabriel announces the coming of Grace. Together with him let us cry to the Theotokos: "Rejoice, O Full of Grace, the Lord is with you!""

"Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum: Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus. Sancta Maria mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus nunc et in hora mortis. Amen."

"Faith both in the Immaculate Conception and in the bodily Assumption of the Virgin was already present in the People of God, while theology had not yet found the key to interpreting it in the totality of the doctrine of the faith. The People of God therefore precede theologians and this is all thanks to that supernatural sensus fidei, namely, that capacity infused by the Holy Spirit that qualifies us to embrace the reality of the faith with humility of heart and mind. In this sense, the People of God is the 'teacher that goes first' and must then be more deeply examined and intellectually accepted by theology."

"I cannot think such language either right, or becoming, or suitable. ... To call the Virgin Mary the mother of God can only serve to confirm the ignorant in their superstitions."

"The Most Blessed Virgin Mary is inseparable from the Triune God, her glory is Theirs and Their glory is her, since the Divine Will places everything in common. She denied nothing to the Trinity, giving Them not only that which she was supposed to give Them directly, but also which other creatures denied to give Them. Operating in a universal way is the divine way, and the Blessed Mother was able to operate with the ways of her Creator because she possessed the Kingdom of His Will. The Divine Will contains everything and preserves of all of Its acts, thus it preserves all the acts of the Sovereign Queen as if they were all Its own, because she did everything in the Fiat. One who has done good to all, loved all, and has operated in a universal way for God and everyone, justly has rights over all and over everything. The Celestial Mother wants the return for the universal love she had for all generations. Who else can requite her if not one who loves in the same Kingdom of the Divine Will? The Queen of Heaven, to impetrate the Kingdom of Redemption, had a prayer, a sigh, an act for all, and for each one - she let no one escape Her; and by this, she gave to each one the right to be able to receive their Redeemer."

"We condemn those who affirm that a man once justified cannot sin. ... As to the special privilege of the Virgin Mary, when they produce the celestial diploma we shall believe what they say."

"The belief that the body of the Virgin was not interred on earth, but was taken to heaven, has deprived them of all pretext for manufacturing any relics of her remains, which otherwise might have been sufficiently abundant to fill a whole churchyard; yet in order to have at least something belonging to her, they sought to indemnify themselves for the absence of other relics with the possession of her hair and her milk. The hair is shown in several churches in Rome, and at Salvatierra in Spain, at Macon, St Flour, Cluny, Nevers, and in many other towns. With regard to the milk, there is not perhaps a town, a convent, or nunnery, where it is now shown in large or small quantites. Indeed, had the Virgin been a wet-nurse her whole life, or a dairy, she could not have produced more than is shown as hers in various parts."

"It cannot be denied that God in choosing and destining Mary to be the Mother of his Son, granted her the highest honor."

"And at this day, the blessedness brought to us by Christ cannot be the subject of our praise, without reminding us, at the same time, of the distinguished honor which God was pleased to bestow on Mary, in making her the mother of his Only Begotten Son."

""[Elizabeth] calls Mary the mother of her Lord. This denotes a unity of person in the two natures of Christ; as if she had said, that he who was begotten a mortal man in the womb of Mary is, at the same time, the eternal God.... This name Lord strictly belongs to the Son of God 'manifested in the flesh,' (1 Timothy 3:16,) who has received from the Father all power, and has been appointed the highest ruler of heaven and earth, that by his agency God may govern all things."

"Elisabeth, again, while she praises her, is so far from hiding the Divine glory, that she ascribes everything to God. And yet, though she acknowledges the superiority of Mary to herself and to others, she does not envy her the higher distinction, but modestly declares that she had obtained more than she deserved."

"If there had been any unbelief in Mary, that could not prevent God from accomplishing his work in any other way which he might choose. But she is called blessed, because she received by faith the blessing offered to her, and opened up the way to God for its accomplishment."

"Helvidius has shown himself too ignorant, in saying that Mary had several sons, because mention is made in some passages of the brothers of Christ."

"Christ's birth did not diminish his mother's virginal integrity but sanctified it."

"To this day we cannot enjoy the blessing brought to us in Christ without thinking at the same time of that which God gave as adornment and honour to Mary, in willing her to be the mother of his only-begotten Son."

"Some think that He does not call her 'mother' but only 'woman' so as not to inflict a deeper wound of sorrow on her heart. I do not reject this; but another conjecture is no less probable, that Christ wanted to show that now that He has completed the course of human life, He puts off the condition in which He has lived and enters into the heavenly kingdom where He will rule over angels and men. For we know that Christ's custom always was to recall believers from looking at the flesh. This was especially necessary at His death."

"The Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things."

"The Virgin Mary . . . is acknowledged and honoured as being truly the Mother of God and of the redeemer.... since she has by her charity joined in bringing about the birth of believers in the Church, who are members of its head." "Mary, Mother of Christ, Mother of the Church."

"Mary, Mother of God! no lady though: Common woman of common earth! Our lady ladies call thee now, But christ was never of gentle birth; A common man of the common earth. For God's ways are not as our ways. the noblest lady in the land Would have given up half her days, Would have cut off her right hand To bear the Child that was God of the land... And still for men to come she sings, Nor shall her singing pass away. He hatch filled the hungry with good things' - O listen, lords and ladies gay! - 'And the rich He hatch sent empty away.'"

"The history of theology shows that an understanding of the mystery of the Virgin contributes to a more profound understanding of the mystery of Christ, of the Church and of the vocation of man."

"Let Heaven sustain me in its embrace, because I am honored above it. For heaven was not Thy mother, but Thou hast made it Thy throne. How much more honorable and venerable than the throne of a king is her mother."

"On the scorching cloud of vivid flame, As a queen on a throne of glory, By a beaming sign of new victory, You reign, Mary over this city."

"The Virgin Mary is reflected in Lilith."

"The feast of the Assumption of our Lady into Heaven is one of the five major feast days in the Armenian Church, they are called DAGHAVARS: Nativity of our Lord, Easter, Transfiguration, Assumption of our Mary into Heaven and Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Historically, St. Mary lived in Jerusalem for about fifteen years after the Resurrection, and when she died an elaborate funeral took place. All the Apostles, except St. Bartholomew, buried her with reverence in the garden of Getsemane. For three days and nights singing and prayers were heard over her tomb. When St. Bartholomew arrived, he asked to have a last look at Mary, but to the amazement of all, the tomb was empty. The Apostles were convinced the Lord Jesus Christ had taken her body and soul to heaven, a belief that was sanctioned later, sometime during the 9th and 12th centuries by the Church."

"The corruption of the grave is a punishment for sin (Gen. 3:19). Our flesh is a “flesh of sin” (Rom. 8:3). Through the desires of this flesh the majority of our sins are committed. In Mary, however, there is not the slightest stain of sin. By her Immaculate Conception and fullness of grace she was entitled to immunity from corruption in her body. The principle of corruption which we bear within us did not exist in her. “Flesh and blood,” says the Bible, “cannot possess the kingdom of God” (I Cor. 15:15). Even the bodies of the saints do not deserve to enter the kingdom of God. They must first be renewed by the hand of God. But Mary’s body — Immaculate, pure, sinless — is consequently incorruptible. From the first moment of her conception the state of the Blessed Virgin Mary was analogous, but superior, to the state of Adam and Eve before the Fall. Had they not sinned they would not have heard the divine malediction: “Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return” (Gen. 3,19). Doesn’t justice therefore demand that Mary be preserved from a malediction never merited by her? Mary’s Immaculate Body was, in a sense, the origin of sanctification of all mankind. Her flesh was used to form the flesh of her Son; the flesh which he used on the Cross to destroy death and sin, and which he gave to us that we might rise from the dead. Was this flesh, Mary’s flesh, Christ’s flesh, the instrument of our redemption and resurrection, to be subject to the corruption of the grave? The womb that bore Jesus Christ, the hands that caressed him, the arms that embraced him, the breasts that nourished him, the heart that so loved him — it is impossible to think that these crumbled into dust” (Father Canice, OFM Cap.). Christ’s perfect victory over Satan included victory over sin and death. But Mary, the Mother of God, was most intimately associated with Jesus in his victory over Satan. She not only furnished the flesh which Christ sacrificed for our Redemption, but she also had a definite role of cooperation in this Redemption. She was associated with him in the different parts of his triumph. Hence she was associated with him in his victory over death by her anticipated resurrection and Assumption. This argument is used by Pope Pius IX in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus. In the virginal conception and birth of his Son, God performed an absolutely unique miracle. This miracle was an act of divine respect for the flesh of the Mother of God. Against all the laws of nature he preserved the corporal integrity of his Mother. Would he later allow that Immaculate flesh to suffer the immeasurably greater lesion of the corruption of the grave? It is a basic principle of Catholic teaching that all the prerogatives and glories of Mary are be-cause of Jesus Christ. His divine dignity presupposes and demands such perfection in his Mother. The flesh of Mary was the Flesh of Christ; and Christ owed it to himself to preserve from dissolution the body that had served to form his own Body. Mary’s body, like her soul, had to be sin-less and undefiled. The humiliation of the Mother would have been the humiliation of the Son."

"According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (§ 491-492), the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of Jesus Christ our Savior, “was redeemed from the moment of her conception.” This teaching, which has a long history in the West but was unknown in Armenian circles, was not accepted as a Roman Catholic dogma until 1854, when Pope Pius IX issued an encyclical (Ineffabilis Deus) declaring that Mary “from the first moment of her conception…was by God’s grace and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ…immune from all stain of original sin.” In the Armenian tradition there is no mention of the Holy Virgin’s conception until the 14th century. It was during the late Cilician period that he Armenian Church fathers became aware of some of the questions about the Holy Virgin’s conception under discussion among the theologians of the Roman Catholic Church. The Feast of the Virgin’s Conception, which is now celebrated on December 9, was not introduced into the Armenian tradition until the 17th Century, and it was done so under Western influence."

"The earliest Armenian discussion about the Conception of the Virgin is to be found in St. Gregory of Datev’s Book of Questions, where he upholds the view that is traditional in the East. Ac-cording to this, the Holy Virgin was free of the seven cardinal sins and all the forgivable sins, but show as now immune from original sin, with which all humans are born. According to St.Gregory of Datev, the Holy Virgin was cleansed of original sin by the Holy Spirit at the time of Annunciation. Christ, taking body from the Holy Virgin, took the original sin of mankind on himself and took it with him onto the cross: He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness (1 Peter 2:24). The Armenian Church’s view of the Holy Virgin in this matter is best summarized by the 12th Century Catholicos St. Nerses the Graceful, who states: The Virgin Mary, from whom he took flesh, was of the peccable nature of Adam [the nature being] united with the divine nature of God, the peccable became impeccable… The Eastern Orthodox and the Armenian veneration of the Assumption of the Holy Virgindoes not differ from that of the Roman Catholic dogma, which implies that Mary did not die because of her immunity from original sin. The Assumption has been declared a dogma ever since 1950 by Pope Pius XII."

"The Armenian Church, like the other ancient churches, believes that the virgin birth of Christ did not dissolve the virginity of Mary, since Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit and not by human seed. She continued to live a sinless, stainless and a pure existence after giving birth to the Savior of the world, since she had been cleansed by the Holy Spirit in order to serve as the receptacle of the Word of God."

"Some pro-abortion propagandists with no particular regard for the truth point to the fact that Saint Thomas and Saint Jerome speculated as to when the soul was infused by God, and say that this uncertainty constitutes a definite approval of abortion. Others, like Dr. Robert E. Hall, simply make flatly untrue statements such as "One can admire St. Augustine for conceding that no one will ever know when fetal life begins." Other misleading statements by bogus "Catholics" used to prop up their unjustifiable support of prenatal child killing are even more bizarre. For example, "Catholic" Marjorie Reilly Maguire, a board member of the National Abortion Rights Action League, claims with a straight face that the Annunciation "proves" that ensoulment does not take place until the mother consents to "the pregnancy that is within her." Keep in mind that, according to the Gospels, the Virgin Mary consented prior to the moment of conception."

"It seems to me impossible that we should obtain the reward of Heaven without the help of Mary. There is no sex or age, no rank or position, of anyone in the whole human race, which has no need to call for the help of the Holy Virgin."

"Set before you the blessed Mary, whose surpassing purity made her meet to be the mother of the Lord. When the angel Gabriel came down to her, in the form of a man, and said: Hail, you that are highly favored; the Lord is with you, Luke 1:28 she was terror-stricken and unable to reply, for she had never been saluted by a man before. But, on learning who he was, she spoke, and one who had been afraid of a man conversed fearlessly with an angel. Now you, too, may be the Lord's mother. Take you a great roll and write in it with a man's pen Maher-shalal-hash-baz. And when you have gone to the prophetess, and have conceived in the womb, and have brought forth a son, say: Lord, we have been with child by your fear, we have been in pain, we have brought forth the spirit of your salvation, which we have wrought upon the earth. Then shall your Son reply: Behold my mother and my brethren. Matthew 12:49 And He whose name you have so recently inscribed upon the table of your heart, and have written with a pen upon its renewed surface — He, after He has recovered the spoil from the enemy, and has spoiled principalities and powers, nailing them to His cross Colossians 2:14-15 — having been miraculously conceived, grows up to manhood; and, as He becomes older, regards you no longer as His mother, but as His bride. To be as the martyrs, or as the apostles, or as Christ, involves a hard struggle, but brings with it a great reward."

"But why do you not cease to call Mary the mother of God, if Isaiah nowhere says that he that is born of the virgin is the "only begotten Son of God" and "the firstborn of all creation"?"

"From a woman, and therefore, you also learn the humble faith in relation to the extraordinary, the humble faith that does not incredulously, doubtingly ask, “Why? What for? How is this possible?” – but as Mary humbly believes and says, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.” She says this, but note that to say this is actually to be silent. From a woman you learn the proper hearing of the word, from Mary, who although she “did not understand the words that were spoken” yet “kept them in her heart.” Thus she did not first demand to understand, but silent she hid the Word in the right place, since it is, of course, the right place when the Word, the good seed, “is kept in a devout and beautiful heart.”"

"Catholic youths who are genuinely pious will always feel a sincere affection for the ideal of the Virgin Mary. It is not as if the veneration of the Virgin Mary would detract from a warm and strong devotion to Christ. On the contrary, a true veneration of the Virgin Mary must lead to Christ and a moral code of life. We do not want to dispense with the ideal of the Virgin Mary for the moral and religious education of our youth. Youth is the age of becoming, of external and internal struggle. Passions awaken; there is a fermenting and wrestling in man, a turbulent urging and awakening. To meet this distress, the youth must have an ideal, strong and powerful, an illuminating shining ideal, which will not be shaken by the urging and fermenting ideal must elevate the wavering mind and rouse the wavering heart. Its radiance will eclipse the ignoble and vile. Such an ideal is the Virgin Mary, for it is she who embodies an all-radiant purity and beauty. ‘It is said that there are women whose very presence educates us; whose very behaviour banishes sordid thoughts, prevents all questionable words from crossing our lips. The Virgin Mary is the epitome of such a woman. A young knight devoted to her service is incapable of vulgarity. But if- forgetting her presence - he should nonetheless slip, the remembrance of her will cause inconsolable anguish of soul and at the same time help the noble mind to regain its authority [P. Schilgen S. J.].’ To the young man, the Virgin Mary stands out as unrivalled grace, loftiness and dignity, the like of whom is not to be found in nature, art and the world of man. Why have artists and painters devoted their skill and creativity to the Madonna again and again? It is because they perceive in her the most sublime beauty and dignity. It is a dignity and beauty which never disappoints. Here we have a mistress and queen, ‘to serve whom, for whom to exist, must be the highest honour for the young man. Here we have an exalted woman and bride of the spirit, to whom you can give yourself with the full power of the love which gushes from your youthful heart, without having to fear degradation and desecration.’ The ideal of the Virgin Mary should inspire young men. Especially in an age which takes pleasure in darkening the radiant and dragging what is lofty into the mire, the ideal of the Virgin Mary should shine forth as a salvation and power. In this ideal the young man will perceive that there is indeed something great and elevated in beauty and chastity. Here he will find the strength to walk the steep path, even if all the others lose their best in the depths. The ideal of the Virgin Mary will fortify him who wavers, lift up and strengthen him who stumbles. Indeed, it will so overwhelm him who has fallen that he will be rehabilitated with new courage. The Virgin Mary is that radiant star which will illuminate the passion of the young individual in the dark night, that star which calls forth what is noble in him when everything appears to be shattered in him."

"‘In former days when knights were dubbed, the knight had to give his solemn promise to protect defenceless women. That was when cathedrals were built in honour of the queen of heaven [P. Gemmel S. J.].’ There is an intimate relation between courtship of the Virgin Mary and true chivalry towards the female sex. The man who is inspired by the ideal of the Virgin Mary must of necessity bear within himself that knightly dub which stems from reverent respect for female dignity and majesty. Therefore, the dubbing of the knight in the middle Ages bound the young man to holy Minnedienst, as well as to the protection of a woman’s honour. The symbols of this knighthood no longer exist: but what is worse is that, more and more, shy reverence for women is dying out among the male youth and is giving way to a frivolous and vile robber-knighthood. Just as the knights of old in armour and arms protect and shelter frail femininity and innocence, so should and must the true man of today feel himself to be in the debt of the honour and innocence of woman. True manliness and real nobility of heart willbecome known to the female sex most easily and most beautifully. Lucky the young man who has girded his passion with this armour I Lucky the girl who has found the love of such a young man! ‘Inflict no wrong on a girl and remember that your mother too was once a girl. ’ The young man of today is the husband of tomorrow. How will the husband and man be able to protect womanhood and assure female respect, if the young man and fiance has desecrated love and engagement! Engagement is to be a time of undesecrated love. How many men’s fate would be happier, if the ideal of the Virgin Mary were more keenly alive in the world of youth. How much suffering and grief could be avoided, if young men would not play shameless games with the love of a girl’s soul. Hear me, O young people, let the radiant light of the ideal of the Virgin Mary illuminate your love, so that you don’t trip and fall."

"Mary did not go to Elizabeth to sing the Magnificat, but to help her. So we, too, should not go to our neighbors to reveal the Christian treasure we carry in our hearts, but to share their sorrows and burdens and to share their joys and responsibilities."

"It is an article of faith that Mary is Mother of the Lord and still a Virgin."

"She is rightly called not only the mother of the man, but also the Mother of God ... It is certain that Mary is the Mother of the real and true God."

"But the other conception, namely the infusion of the soul, it is piously and suitably believed, was without any sin, so that while the soul was being infused, she would at the same time be cleansed from original sin and adorned with the gifts of God to receive the holy soul thus infused. And thus, in the very moment in which she began to live, she was without all sin."

"There can be no doubt that the Virgin Mary is in heaven. How it happened we do not know."

"The veneration of Mary is inscribed in the very depths of the human heart."

"Is Christ only to be adored? Or is the holy Mother of God rather not to be honoured? This is the woman who crushed the Serpent's head. Hear us. For your Son denies you nothing."

"The Virgin Mary remains in the middle between Christ and humankind. For in the very moment he was conceived and lived, he was full of grace. All other human beings are without grace, both in the first and second conception. But the Virgin Mary, though without grace in the first conception, was full of grace in the second ... whereas other human beings are conceived in sin, in soul as well as in body, and Christ was conceived without sin in soul as well as in body, the Virgin Mary was conceived in body without grace but in soul full of grace."

"[S]he became the Mother of God, in which work so many and such great good things are bestowed on her as pass man's understanding. For on this there follows all honor, all blessedness, and her unique place in the whole of mankind, among which she has no equal, namely, that she had a child by the Father in heaven, and such a Child.... Hence men have crowded all her glory into a single word, calling her the Mother of God.... None can say of her nor announce to her greater things, even though he had as many tongues as the earth possesses flowers and blades of grass: the sky, stars; and the sea, grains of sand. It needs to be pondered in the heart what it means to be the Mother of God."

"Furthermore, how will you endure [the Romanists'] terrible idolatries? It was not enough that they venerated the saints and praised God in them, but they actually made them into gods. They put that noble child, the mother Mary, right into the place of Christ. They fashioned Christ into a judge and thus devised a tyrant for anguished consciences, so that all comfort and confidence was transferred from Christ to Mary, and then everyone turned from Christ to his particular saint. Can anyone deny this? Is it not true?"

"On account of this personal union and communion of the natures, Mary, the most blessed virgin, did not conceive a mere, ordinary human being, but a human being who is truly the Son of the most high God, as the angel testifies. He demonstrated his divine majesty even in his mother's womb in that he was born of a virgin without violating her virginity. Therefore she is truly the mother of God and yet remained a virgin."

"Mother Mary, like us, was born in sin of sinful parents, but the Holy Spirit covered her, sanctified and purified her so that this child was born of flesh and blood, but not with sinful flesh and blood. The Holy Spirit permitted the Virgin Mary to remain a true, natural human being of flesh and blood, just as we. However, he warded off sin from her flesh and blood so that she became the mother of a pure child, not poisoned by sin as we are. For in that moment when she conceived, she was a holy mother filled with the Holy Spirit and her fruit is a holy pure fruit, at once God and truly man, in one person."

"God has formed the soul and body of the Virgin Mary full of the Holy Spirit, so that she is without all sins, for she has conceived and borne the Lord Jesus."

"All seed except Mary was vitiated [by original sin]."

"She never had public favor; it was a bit like the Hillary Clinton thing. She did all the right things for her country, but she wasn't ultimately revered. So she had a conversation with her confidant-adviser. She asked him, when have they ever looked up to or idolized a woman? Only one, he told her, the Virgin Mary. So she said, Then I will become like the Virgin Mary, and she did. She created a facade for herself; she stopped having lovers; she became like a virgin. She became sexless, and painted her face in a white alabaster way, and turned herself into an icon that was untouchable and sexless, and then she had everybody's respect."

"New Spain puts less faith in its own efforts than in the power of God and the intercession of its Blessed Mother, who appeared within the precincts of Tepeyac as the miraculous image of Guadalupe that had come to comfort us, defend us, visibly be our protection."

"And it came to pass on the third day of their journey, while they were walking, that the blessed Mary was fatigued by the excessive heat of the sun in the desert; and seeing a palm tree, she said to Joseph: Let me rest a little under the shade of this tree. Joseph therefore made haste, and led her to the palm, and made her come down from her beast. And as the blessed Mary was sitting there, she looked up to the foliage of the palm, and saw it full of fruit, and said to Joseph: I wish it were possible to get some of the fruit of this palm. And Joseph said to her: I wonder that thou sayest this, when thou seest how high the palm tree is; and that thou thinkest of eating of its fruit. I am thinking more of the want of water, because the skins are now empty, and we have none wherewith to refresh ourselves and our cattle. Then the child Jesus, with a joyful countenance, reposing in the bosom of His mother, said to the palm: O tree, bend thy branches, and refresh my mother with thy fruit. And immediately at these words the palm bent its top down to the very feet of the blessed Mary; and they gathered from it fruit, with which they were all refreshed. And after they had gathered all its fruit, it remained bent down, waiting the order to rise from Him who bad commanded it to stoop. Then Jesus said to it: Raise thyself, O palm tree, and be strong, and be the companion of my trees, which are in the paradise of my Father; and open from thy roots a vein of water which has been hid in the earth, and let the waters flow, so that we may be satisfied from thee. And it rose up immediately, and at its root there began to come forth a spring of water exceedingly clear and cool and sparkling. And when they saw the spring of water, they rejoiced with great joy, and were satisfied, themselves and all their cattle and their beasts. Wherefore they gave thanks to God."

"Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us." When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus."

"Most images of the Virgin stress her role as Christ’s Mother, showing her standing and holding her son. The manner in which the Virgin holds Christ is very particular. Certain poses developed into “types” that became names of sanctuaries or poetic epithets. Hence, an icon of the Virgin was meant to represent her image and, at the same time, the replica of a famous icon original."

"Most Western types of the Virgin’s image, such as the twelfth-century “Throne of Wisdom” from central France, in which the Christ Child is presented frontally as the sum of divine wisdom, seem to have originated in Byzantium (16.32.194). Byzantine models became widely distributed in western Europe by the seventh century. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw an extraordinary growth of the cult of the Virgin in western Europe, in part inspired by the writings of theologians such as Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), who identified her as the bride of the Song of Songs in the Old Testament. The Virgin was worshipped as the Bride of Christ, Personification of the Church, Queen of Heaven, and Intercessor for the salvation of humankind. This movement found its grandest expression in the French cathedrals, which are often dedicated to “Our Lady,” and many cities, such as Siena, placed themselves under her protection."

"Tender images of the Virgin Mary with her son are among the most beloved in Christian art. Even early images from about the 6th century AD depict her gently cradling or supporting a haloed child or infant on her lap. Devotion to Mary in her dual role as the human mother of Jesus and a divine entity reached a peak in the 14th to 16th centuries, creating great demand for depictions of the mother and child. The term Madonna is Italian for “my lady” and was conferred as a title of respect or high rank, but came to be synonymous with the mother of the holy child and also with the physical representation or manifestation of the two. Small works of art depicting this theme were generally objects of personal worship and prayer intended for intimate use in a private setting, usually a home or a small chapel. Larger and more expansive scenes were produced for altars in public churches, often commissioned by a family or guild as an expression of devotion and an outward display of wealth. Over the centuries different themes emerged, but always with the mother and child as central figures in the scene."

"Virgin Mother who brought forth the King of the whole world."

"Interest in the conception of the Lord was fostered by popular reflection on the Gospel stories, and the liturgical embodiment of this reflection also played a part in the development of reverence for life in the womb. The December 25th feast of the Nativity of the Lord was established by the late fourth century. By the seventh century in the East a feast was established marking the Annunciation to Mary or "the Conception of Christ." This feast was established on March 25, with the implication that nine months had elapsed between conception and birth, and with the further implication that what had come from the Holy Spirit to Mary had been holy from the moment of conception. The feast of the Conception of Christ, it may be supposed, served, beyond its primary meaning, as a symbol of the sacredness of any conception. In the late sixth century there also came into existence in the East the feast of the Nativity of Mary, fixed on September 8. A century later the feast of Mary's conception by St. Anne was established on December 9 with an elaborate vigil on December 8. The prayers in the office of the day rejected the belief that Mary had been "born: after seven months," an apparent repudiation of the view that her soul was infused after her conception. The feast in honor of Christ's conception could be explained as a feast for a conception of a divine man; but the conception of Mary was believed to be the conception of a human being by the inter-course of humans. The recognition that she deserved honor at conception had specific implication for the humanity of all men."

"Since the time of Gregory the Great, the Ave Maria has been part of the Roman liturgy as a prayer to be said on particular feast days. It had not been prescribed as a prayer which every Christian should know. It did not have the status of the creed or the Pater Noster. In the twelfth century the Ave Maria emerged as a popular catholic prayer. In 1198 at the synod of Paris, Odo de Soliac, bishop of Paris, prescribed that priests should exhort the people to pray the “Salutation of the blessed virgin” (Mansi 22:681). In the next century the prayer was recommended by a number of local councils. Not all these bodies reacted to a direct Cathar menace; for example, the action of the council of Covntry in 1237 scarcely responded to a Cathar danger. But the conciliar actions did reflect an ideology which the cathar menace had made prominent in the Church. In 1254, when the Cathars had been destroyed in southern France and a council of Catholic bishops met in the old cathar seat of Albi to root out the effects of the heresy, the three prayers prescribed to be taught to every child over seven were the Creed, the Pater Noster, an the Ave Maria (Mansi 23:837). The central cathar tenet was indirectly denied by the prayer, “Hail Mary, full of grace. The lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”"

"Mary has many faces. In Haiti she’s Ezili Dantò—the Black Madonna. A fierce mother figure as well as a goddess, Ezili has been a revered Vodou spirit since the Haitian Revolution. Here dancers prepare for a midnight ceremony in her honor. Certain images and stories of the Virgin Mary are so powerful they help define a country. That’s the case with Our Lady of Guadalupe, whose image on the tilma, or cloak, of a poor Indian man gave rise, in 1531, to Mexican identity. Anyone witnessing the outpouring of love and devotion that pilgrims demonstrate for their beloved Madre on the days leading up to the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe—broadcast live throughout the country on December 12—can see that the Virgin Mary is deeply embedded in Mexican hearts and souls. Her image was what Mexicans carried into their war against Spain for independence in 1810 and their internal revolution in 1910. César Chávez marched with her banner in his fight to unionize farmworkers in California in the 1960s. Our Lady of Guadalupe conferred instant benediction on the once despised mestizo children of Spaniards and Indians. She is the symbol of la raza, the definition of what it means to be Mexican, and because of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexicans have always believed they’re special."

"Michael O’Neill, 39, a Stanford University graduate in mechanical engineering and product design, is the Virgin Mary’s big data numbers cruncher. On his website, MiracleHunter.com, he has codified every known apparition of Mary back to A.D. 40. Systematic investigation and documentation of supernatural occurrences began with the Council of Trent, the Catholic Church’s ecumenical reaction to the Reformation, more than 450 years ago. Of the 2,000 apparitions reported since then, Miracle Hunter cites a mere 28 as approved by local bishops, who are the first to decide whether “seers” seem plausible. Sixteen of those have been recognized by the Vatican."

"The version that I follow is the one that is closest to the holy revelation of the Evangelist and approved by the Catholic Church on the authority of the sacred and holy interpreters... In this loveliest of mysteries Our Lady should be painted as a beautiful young girl, 12 or 13 years old, in the flower of her youth... And thus she is praised by the Husband: tota pulchra es amica mea, a text that is always written in this painting. She should be painted wearing a white tunic and a blue mantle... She is surrounded by the sun, an oval sun of white and ochre, which sweetly blends into the sky. Rays of light emanate from her head, around which is a ring of twelve stars. An imperial crown adorns her head, without, however, hiding the stars. Under her feet is the moon. Although it is a solid globe, I take the liberty of making it transparent so that the landscape shows through."

"Predestined from eternity by that decree of divine providence which determined the incarnation of the Word to be the Mother of God."

"The Mother of the Church, carries on in heaven her maternal role with regard to the members of Christ, cooperating in the birth and development of divine life in the souls of the redeemed."

"Hence, it is the clear and unanimous opinion of the Fathers that the most glorious Virgin, for whom "he who is mighty has done great things," was resplendent with such an abundance of heavenly gifts, with such a fullness of grace and with such innocence, that she is an unspeakable miracle of God—indeed, the crown of all miracles and truly the Mother of God; that she approaches as near to God himself as is possible for a created being; and that she is above all men and angels in glory. Hence, to demonstrate the original innocence and sanctity of the Mother of God, not only did they frequently compare her to Eve while yet a virgin, while yet innocence, while yet incorrupt, while not yet deceived by the deadly snares of the most treacherous serpent; but they have also exalted her above Even with a wonderful variety of expressions. Eve listened to the serpent with lamentable consequences; she fell from original innocence and became his slave. The most Blessed Virgin, on the contrary, ever increased her original gift, and not only never lent an ear to the serpent, but by divinely given power she utterly destroyed the force and dominion of the evil one."

"Accordingly, the Fathers have never ceased to call the Mother of God the lily among thorns, the land entirely intact, the Virgin undefiled, immaculate, ever blessed, and free from all contagion of sin, she from whom was formed the new Adam, the flawless, brightest, and most beautiful paradise of innocence, immortality and delights planted by God himself and protected against all the snares of the poisonous serpent, the incorruptible wood that the worm of sin had never corrupted, the fountain ever clear and sealed with the power of the Holy Spirit, the most holy temple, the treasure of immortality, the one and only daughter of life—not of death—the plant not of anger but of grace, through the singular providence of God growing ever green contrary to the common law, coming as it does from a corrupted and tainted root."

"We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin."

"There is no more direct road than by Mary for uniting all mankind in Christ."

"If the popular praises of the Blessed Virgin Mary be given the careful consideration they deserve, who will dare to doubt that she, who was purer than the angels and at all times pure, was at any moment, even for the briefest instant, not free from every stain of sin?"

"Within her virginal womb Christ our Lord already bore the exalted title of Head of the Church; in a marvelous birth she brought Him forth as the source of all supernatural life."

"The revered Mother of God, from all eternity joined in a hidden way with Jesus Christ in one and the same decree of predestination, immaculate in her conception, a most perfect virgin in her divine motherhood, as the noble associate of the divine Redeemer."

""When the time had fully come, God sent forth his son, born of woman". With these words of his Letter to the Galatians (4:4), the Apostle Paul links together the principal moments which essentially determine the fulfilment of the mystery "pre-determined in God" (cf. Eph 1:9). The Son, the Word one in substance with the Father, becomes man, born of a woman, at "the fullness of time". This event leads to the turning point of man's history on earth, understood as salvation history. It is significant that Saint Paul does not call the Mother of Christ by her own name "Mary", but calls her "woman": this coincides with the words of the Proto-evangelium in the Book of Genesis (cf. 3:15). She is that "woman" who is present in the central salvific event which marks the "fullness of time": this event is realized in her and through her."

"She has brought forth God as man, and even as Supreme King."

"Then she conceived him; and withdrew with him to a remote place. ‏And the throes of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a palm-tree. She said: Oh, would that I had died before this, and had been a thing quite forgotten! ‏So a voice came to her from beneath her: Grieve not, surely thy Lord has provided a stream beneath thee. ‏ And shake towards thee the trunk of the palm-tree, it will drop on thee fresh ripe dates. ‏So eat and drink and cool the eye. Then if thou seest any mortal, say: Surely I have vowed a fast to the Beneficent, so I will not speak to any man to-day."

"The cult of the Virgin Mary is drawn upon very successfully as a means of inculcating chastity. Again we must inquire into the psychological mechanism that is capable of assuring the success of these intentions. It is a problem of the masses of young men and women who are subjected to this influence. It is chiefly a matter of overpowering genital drives. Just as the Jesus cult mobilizes passive homosexual forces against the genitals, the cult of the Virgin Mary also mobilizes sexual forces, this time from the heterosexual sphere itself. ‘Inflict no wrong on a girl and remember that your mother too was once a girl.’ Thus, in the emotional life of Christian youths, the Mother of God assumes the role of one’s own mother, and the Christian youth showers upon her all the love that he had for his own mother at one time, that very ardent love of his first genital desires. But the incest prohibition cleaves his genital desires into an intense longing for orgasm on the one hand and asexual tenderness on the other hand. The intense longing for orgasm has to be repressed, and its energy intensifies one’s tender strivings and moulds them into an almost indissoluble tie to the mystical experience. This intense longing offers violent resistance, not only to the incestuous desire, but to every natural genital relationship with a woman. The same vital energy and enormous love that a healthy young man puts forth in an orgastic experience with his loved one is used by the mystical man to support the mystical cult of the Virgin Mary, after genital sensuality has been suppressed. This is the source from which mysticism draws its forces. Being unsatisfied forces, they should not be underestimated. They make intelligible the age-old power of mysticism over man and the inhibitions that operate against the responsibility of the masses. In this regard it is not a matter of the veneration of the Virgin Mary or of any other idol. It is a matter of producing a mystical structure in the masses in every new generation."

"This is the blessed Mary, pre-elect God's virgin. Gone is a great while, and she Dwelt young in Nazareth of Galilee. Unto God's will she brought devout respect Profound simplicity of intellect. And supreme patience. From her mother's knee Faithful and hopeful; wise in charity; Strong in grave peace; in pity circumspect. So held she through her girlhood; as it were An angel-watered lily, that near God Grows and is quiet. Till, one day at home She woke in her white bed, and had no fear At all - yet wept till sunshine, and felt awed: Because the fullness of the time was come."

"To the common Protestant mind the dignities ascribed to the Madonna have been always a violent offence; they are one of the parts of the Catholic faith which are openest to reasonable dispute, and least comprehensible by the average realistic and materialist temper of the reformation. But after the most careful examination, neither as adversary nor as friend, of the influences of Catholicism for good and evil, I am persuaded that the worship of the Madonna has been one of its noblest and most viral graces, and has never been otherwise than productive of true holiness of life and purity of character. I do not enter into any question as to the truth or fallacy of the idea; I no more wish to defend the historical or theological position of the Madonna than that of St Michael or St Christopher; but I am certain that to the habit of reverent belief in, and contemplation of, the character ascribed to the heavenly hierarchies, we must ascribe the highest results yet achieved in human nature."

"This New World has been won and conquered by the hand of the Virgin Mary ... [who had] prepared, disposed, and contrived her exquisite likeness in this her Mexican land, which was conquered for such a glorious purpose, won that there should appear so Mexican an image."

"When a priest administers the Sacraments, he is only a mediator in the distribution of divine graces. Mary, however, […] acts on a much higher level than the priest. In virtue of her own natural vitality, but together with the Holy Spirit, she built up [in her womb] the body of the divine child. Mary and the Holy Spirit gave us this divine child."

"Religious icons such as Mary in Christianity and Guanyin in Buddhism had deep roots in European and Chinese traditions. When the Jesuit missionaries came to China in the late 16th century, they represented Christianity as a different yet compatible religion to the native Chinese beliefs, first Buddhism and then Confucianism. Mary, the virgin mother of Christ and the principal saint of Christian Church, was one of the most appealing icons in Jesuits’ paintings and narratives. Though some Chinese expressed suspicion and even rejected Mary, many others tended to equate her with Guanyin, a popular Buddhist goddess in late Ming culture, largely because they two shared similar qualities such as compassion, purification, and child-giving power."

"(To the ever Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus) You have made the nature of men beautiful; you have surpassed the hosts of angels; you have overshadowed the dazzling splendour of the archangels; you have shown the seats of thrones to be inferior to you; you have lowered the height of dominions; you have surpassed the commands of the principalities; you have weakened the power of the powers; you have gone forth as a virtue more powerful than the virtues themselves; you, with earthly eyes, have surpassed the keenest sight of the cherubim; you, with divinely moved wings, have flown beyond the flights of the soul of the seraphim."

"Under thy protection we seek refuge, Holy Mother of God."

"[T]he conciliar debate on Marian devotion influenced the postconcilar debate on celibacy. Devoid of all connotations of sexuality, Mary had long served a twofold purpose in maintaining the discipline of celibacy. First, she provided a justification for a celibate priesthood. The medieval monk Petrus Damiani argued that because Jesus was born of a virgin, he could be touched only by virgin hands, thereby establishing a connection between sexual purity and the Eucharist celebration. Second, she served as a chaste role model and mother figure for priests. Mary, Pius XII wrote, provided the priest solace in his daily struggles against the temptations of the flesh: “When you meet very serious difficulties in the path of holiness and the exercise of your ministry, turn your eyes and your mind trustfully to she who is the Mother of the Eternal Priest and therefore the loving Mother of all Catholic priests.” Many bishops and theologians wanted the council to expand Marian doctrinal some supported conferring on Mary a new title, “Mother of the Church.” However, not all council fathers shared this view. Some preferred that piety be more centered on the Bible and the liturgy and less on devotional practices, including Marian worship. They felt that Marian devotion often diverged from the message found in scripture and in the liturgy. They also feared that any elaboration of Marian devotion would undermine the ecumenical movement. Thus, the seemingly innocent question of where to locate a statement on Mary had far-reaching theological and political ramifications. On August 29, by a margin of only forty votes, the council fathers decided in favor of incorporating a statement on Marian piety into ‘’Lumen Gentium’’. Although Paul VI later preempted the decision of the council fathers and bestowed upon Mary the title they had denied her, “Mother of the Church,” the popularity of Marian devotion continued to decline in Western-Europe."

"Unlike Marian devotion, scripture provided no unequivocal justification for mandatory clerical celibacy; many of Jesus’s apostle had been married men, including Peter, the rock whom the Church was built. In the 1980s, Marian piety came under vehement attack by European feminist theologians, such as Catherina Halkes and Uta Ranke-Heinemann. They argued that Marian piety provided the means by which celibate priests sublimated their sexuality into a sexually safe relationship with a virgin mother, untainted by original sin; the hostility caused by this sublimation was then projected onto real women, who could never realize the unattainable feminine ideal represented by Mary. The Church’s exaltation of Mary did not speak to the dignity of women, but rather served as a counterpoint to real women, who in Church teachings remained the daughters of the sexual temptress Eve."

"Paul VI and Betty Friedan, as representatives of the Catholic hierarchy and the American women’s movement, respectively, had fundamentally different understandings of gender equality. The pope believed that the Church’s esteem for the Virgin Mary constituted an avowal of women’s dignity. Since Mary embodied the feminine essence, any discussion of equality had to stem from the emulation of Mary. On November 6, 1974, in response to the United Nations’ designation of 1975 as “International Women’s Year,” Paul VI underscored how Mary defined the feminine sphere and equality: Equality can only be found in its essential foundation, which is the dignity of the human person, man and woman, in their filial relationship with God, of whom they are the visible image. But this does not exclude the distinction in unity, and the specific contribution of woman to the full development of society, according to her proper and personal vocation . . . . As we stated in our recent Exhortation ‘’Marialis Cultus’’, our age is called upon to verify and to “compare its anthropological ideas and the problems springing therefrom with the figure of the Virgin Mary as presented by the Gospel."

"The Virgin Mary was one of the most powerful images of the Middle Ages, central to people's experience of Christianity. During the Reformation, however, many images of the Virgin were destroyed, as Protestantism rejected the way the medieval Church over-valued and sexualized Mary. Although increasingly marginalized in Protestant thought and practice, her traces and surprising transformations continued to haunt early modern England."

"Mother! Whose virgin bosom was uncrost With the least shade of thought to sin allied; Woman! Above all women glorified, Our tainted nature's solitary boast..."

"It was given to her what belongs to no creature, that in the flesh she should bring forth the Son of God."

"I firmly believe that Mary, according to the words of the gospel as a pure Virgin brought forth for us the Son of God and in childbirth and after childbirth forever remained a pure, intact Virgin."

"The more the honor and love of Christ increases among men, so much the esteem and honor given to Mary should grow."

"I esteem immensely the Mother of God, the ever chaste, immaculate Virgin Mary."

"Christ ... was born of a most undefiled Virgin."

"It was fitting that such a holy Son should have a holy Mother."

"Nou goth sonne under wode; Me reweth, Marye, thy faire rŏde. Nou goth sonne under tre; Me reweth, Marye, thy sone and the."

"Of one that is so fair and bright, Velut maris stella, Brighter than the dayės light, Parens et puella, I cry to thee; thou see to me! Lady, pray thy son for me, Tam Pia, That I motė come to thee, Maria.Lady, flower of allė thing, Rosa sine spina, Thu borė Jesu, hevenės king, Gratia divina. Of allė thou bear’st the prize, Lady, queen of Paradise Electa. Maidė mildė, mother is Effecta.Of carė conseil thou art best Felix fecundata, Of allė weary thou art rest Mater honorata. Biseech him with mildė mood That for us allė shed his blood In cruce, That we moten comen to him In luce.Al this worėld were forlore, Eva peccatrice, Till our Loverd was y-bore De te genetrice. With ‘Ave’ it went away Thuster night, and com’th the day Salutis. The wellė springet hut of the Virtutis.Well he wot he is thy son Ventre quem portasti; He will nout wernė thee thy boon, Parvum quem lactasti. So hendė and so god he is, He haveth brought us to blis Superni, That hath y-dit the foulė pit Inferni."

"The aungil came fro hevene tour To grete Marye with gret honour, And seyde sche xuld bere the flour That xulde breke the fyndes bond."

"The rose is Mary, hevene qwen, Out of here bosum the blosme sprong."

"And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,"

"The one who accepted "Life" in the name of all and for the sake of all was Mary, the Virgin Mother; she is thus most closely and personally associated with the Gospel of life. Mary's consent at the Annunciation and her motherhood stand at the very beginning of the mystery of life which Christ came to bestow on humanity (cf. Jn 10:10). Through her acceptance and loving care for the life of the Incarnate Word, human life has been rescued from condemnation to final and eternal death. For this reason, Mary, "like the Church of which she is the type, is a mother of all who are reborn to life. She is in fact the mother of the Life by which everyone lives, and when she brought it forth from herself she in some way brought to rebirth all those who were to live by that Life".138 As the Church contemplates Mary's motherhood, she discovers the meaning of her own motherhood and the way in which she is called to express it. At the same time, the Church's experience of motherhood leads to a most profound understanding of Mary's experience as the incomparable model of how life should be welcomed and cared for."

"The mutual relationship between the mystery of the Church and Mary appears clearly in the "great portent" described in the Book of Revelation: "A great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars" (12:1). In this sign the Church recognizes an image of her own mystery: present in history, she knows that she transcends history, inasmuch as she constitutes on earth the "seed and beginning" of the Kingdom of God. 139 The Church sees this mystery fulfilled in complete and exemplary fashion in Mary. She is the woman of glory in whom God's plan could be carried out with supreme perfection. The "woman clothed with the sun"-the Book of Revelation tells us-"was with child" (12:2). The Church is fully aware that she bears within herself the Saviour of the world, Christ the Lord. She is aware that she is called to offer Christ to the world, giving men and women new birth into God's own life. But the Church cannot forget that her mission was made possible by the motherhood of Mary, who conceived and bore the One who is "God from God", "true God from true God". Mary is truly the Mother of God, the Theotokos, in whose motherhood the vocation to motherhood bestowed by God on every woman is raised to its highest level. Thus Mary becomes the model of the Church, called to be the "new Eve", the mother of believers, the mother of the "living" (cf. Gen 3:20)."

"Like the Church, Mary too had to live her motherhood amid suffering: "This child is set ... for a sign that is spoken against-and a sword will pierce through your own soul also-that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed" (Lk 2:34-35). The words which Simeon addresses to Mary at the very beginning of the Saviour's earthly life sum up and prefigure the rejection of Jesus, and with him of Mary, a rejection which will reach its culmination on Calvary. "Standing by the cross of Jesus" (Jn 19:25), Mary shares in the gift which the Son makes of himself: she offers Jesus, gives him over, and begets him to the end for our sake. The "yes" spoken on the day of the Annunciation reaches full maturity on the day of the Cross, when the time comes for Mary to receive and beget as her children all those who become disciples, pouring out upon them the saving love of her Son: "When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, ?Woman, behold, your son!' " (Jn 19:26)."

"In the Book of Revelation, the "great portent" of the "woman" (12:1) is accompanied by "another portent which appeared in heaven": "a great red dragon" (Rev 12:3), which represents Satan, the personal power of evil, as well as all the powers of evil at work in history and opposing the Church's mission. Here too Mary sheds light on the Community of Believers. The hostility of the powers of evil is, in fact, an insidious opposition which, before affecting the disciples of Jesus, is directed against his mother. To save the life of her Son from those who fear him as a dangerous threat, Mary has to flee with Joseph and the Child into Egypt (cf. Mt 2:13-15). Mary thus helps the Church to realize that life is always at the centre of a great struggle between good and evil, between light and darkness."

"The angel's Annunciation to Mary is framed by these reassuring words: "Do not be afraid, Mary" and "with God nothing will be impossible" (Lk 1:30, 37). The whole of the Virgin Mother's life is in fact pervaded by the certainty that God is near to her and that he accompanies her with his providential care. The same is true of the Church, which finds "a place prepared by God" (Rev 12:6) in the desert, the place of trial but also of the manifestation of God's love for his people (cf. Hos 2:16). Mary is a living word of comfort for the Church in her struggle against death. Showing us the Son, the Church assures us that in him the forces of death have already been defeated: "Death with life contended: combat strangely ended! Life's own Champion, slain, yet lives to reign".141"

"O Mary, bright dawn of the new world, Mother of the living, to you do we entrust the cause of life Look down, O Mother, upon the vast numbers of babies not allowed to be born, of the poor whose lives are made difficult, of men and women who are victims of brutal violence, of the elderly and the sick killed by indifference or out of misguided mercy. Grant that all who believe in your Son may proclaim the Gospel of life with honesty and love to the people of our time. Obtain for them the grace to accept that Gospel as a gift ever new, the joy of celebrating it with gratitude throughout their lives and the courage to bear witness to it resolutely, in order to build, together with all people of good will, the civilization of truth and love, to the praise and glory of God, the Creator and lover of life."

"Here is confounded and overthrown the foolish opinion of the papists, which would have us to worship a creature before the Creator; Mary before her Son. These wise men do not so; they worship not Mary and wherefore? Because God only is to be worshipped: but Mary is not God."

"Julia Kristeva calls the Virgin a "combination of power and sorrow, sovereignty and the unnnameable," making up "one of the most powerful imaginary constructs known in the history of civilization" It is Kristeva's "unnameable" by which I am primarily fascinated, both in relation to the Virgin herself (insofar as we can speak of "her" as dissociated from any construct of her), and in relation to the reactions of attraction and repulsion to the Virgin in early modern England. The force of that "unnameable" may at times be explicit, but more likely has to be inferred, forcing us to search for the non-saids and the unsayables as well as the saids, probing silences (what was not said_ and the absences (what was not able to be said) of recorded events, records, and literary and other "cultural" texts."

"As Lyndal Roper states, the body of the Virgin was a "litmus test of the separation of the divine and the human" for Catholics and Protestants and what became their "radically differenyt theologies of the body." All sides of the Reformation struggles agreed that deep and mysterious powers had been attributed to the Virgin and to relics and places especially associated with her. For Catholics such attributions were, with the exception of some marginal and pardonable exaggerations and a little corruption, truthful and reflected God's purposes; for Protestants such claims were false and demonic, slippages into paganism and evidence of the irredeemable corruption of the Roman Church. Reformers generally acknowledged Mary as God's chosen instrument, but rejected what Latimer saw as the: foolish opinion and the doctrine of the papists, which would have us to worship a creature before the Creator." The continental reformer Melanchthon regretted that "in popular estimation the blessed virgin has completely replaced Christ"; Bishop John Jewel referred to the blasphemy of regarding Mary as :our lady and goddess"; William Perkins attacked the view of Mary as "a Ladie, a goddesse, a queene whom Christ her sonne obeyethin heaven, a mediatresse, our life, hope, the mediccine of the diseased"; it is, he thundeers, a blasphemy that "they pray unto her thus" The degree of hostility toward Mary varied greatly across Reformation Europe in both time and place, with Lutherans more amenable to modifying rather than radically reducing her rle, but a not uncommon note in Reformed polemic was that under papist superstition - in the words of Puritan polemicist William Crashaw, who, along with his son Richard, will be mentioned frequently in this book - "the paps of a woman" were blasphemously "equaled with the wounds of our Lord, and her milke with his blood," even though "the holy scriptures speak no more of her, but as a creature," and, in a significant slur, as merely "a woman.""

"Even so "catholic" an intellectual as John Donne - who, it is surmised, kept a painting of the Virgin in his study - could preach in 1622 that by then, god had been "a hundred years" in his "repairing" of the Church, and had ordered "not a faint discontinuing of idolatry, but...utter destruction,: and not just mentally or spiritually but "the utter destruction of the very placce, not a seising of the riches of the place, but the place it self." What lay behind the reformers' uneasiness about the place of the Virgin was not an upsurge of entirely new views. As Beattie comments, they believed indignantly that "the ancient goddesses and their female devotees still whisper[ed] and beckon[ed] in the cult of Mary," and saw their attacks as a return to the principles of the early Church."

"In his biblical commentaries, Latimer attacks Mary for what he sees as pride, bad manners, arrogance, and - in an extraordinarily revealing remark given the history of Christianity and its emphasis on motherhood - for reprimanding Jesus "like a mother." As MacCulloch comments,the very phrase forms "a clue to Latimer's unconscious feelings," especially his need to neutralize or destroy specifically female or motherly power."

"Kristeva asserts that although the image and associated stories of Mary constructed by the Church may have been a primary means by which it has tried to keep potential power of the female under paternal control, and so helped to "infantalize half the human race by hampering their sexual and intellectual expression," we should nevertheless consider that the stories embodying such religious beliefs are projections of fantasies which reveal the primal bedrock of our identities, and therefore should be listened to with care. Quoting Philippe Sollers, Kristeva puns that the hole" of the Virgin, both the genital gap and the "empty space left for Mary" around which "the members of the Christian Trinity revolve," is the center of the most profound of human fantasies. That (w)hole represents where we come from and where we will return."

"[W]hat are the stories which we have projected upon the elusive figure of the Virgin? And to what extent were there alternate stories that might have been more liberatory than repressive? One on which Kristeva focuses is the "censorship of Mary's sexuality" which, she asserts, has been the most devastating erasure of human pleasure and fulfillment in our history. Another powerful story of which the Virgin has been the center and by which our history has been haunted, is the fantasy that we can overcome "the unthinkable of death by postulating maternal love in its place," and so move beyond the rule of the father."

"Richard Marks points to the "massive expansion" of representations of the Virgin in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century parish churches. But Madonnas, he points out, "not only multiplied," they also "diversified." Sir Thomas More pointed out to reformers such as Dyndale that the various ladies - such as those of Walingham, Ipswich, and, nearer to his home in Chelsea at Willesden, to which he made a pilgrimage just before he was imprisoned - were "but the images of our Lady herself.""

"Why, asked Luther, was Mary venerated when her role was at best an example of obedience and essentially that of providing Jesus with a womb for nine months? Or, as it was put more disparagingly by Latimer and others, when she was but a pudding sack or a "bag of saffron...when the spice was out," a slur that was sufficiently au courant in 1536 to be specifically named and banned as heretical."

"The reformers believed that medieval theology and devotion had sexualized the Virgin by excessive idolatrous attention to her body, and by venerating the material details, however trivial or aprocryphal, of events in Mariological history. As Donna Ellington puts it, "Marys bodily human nature was the cornerstone of the entire medieval edifice of the virgin's cult." At a further level of idolatry, the veneration of bodily and material objects associated with Mary's body - a term that might appear as a modern anachronism but which was, in fact, already becoming current among Protestant polemists to deride what they saw as superstitious religious practices of pagans and catholics alike."

"Quite apart from the question of the truth of the diverging traditions of Christianity, the Protestant view of Mary, argues Beattie, "easily lends itself to the denigration of the female body," not only "its sexual and maternal functions," but also as the basis for both individual and relational being. That dual claim that the reformers were, in effect, empirically correct about the medieval sexualization of Christianity but at some deeper level mistaken about human sexuality - will be a major suggestion of this study."

"In her discussion of the art of the High Middle Ages, Madeline Caviness comments on the hidden "gynecological power" underneath the "heavily draped idealized figure" of the Virgin. I use the similar term gynotheology to refer to a high degree of concern, sometimes seemeingly obsessive within medieval (and later) Mariology, with the gynecological, the female sexual and reproductive apparatus and functions. It is an emphasis shared, paradoxically, by both late medieval Mariology and its Reformation opponents."

"As Frank Graziano comments, in the 1980s Steinberg's views provoked much polemical scholarship concerning the relationship between theology and eroticism. Carolyn Walker Bynum argued indignantly that medieval viewers of Christ's flesh did not understand the art as sexual: they did not see the representation of Christ's penis in sexual terms, and they viewed the Virgin's breasts "primarily" as food."

"Boss echoes Steinberg's observation that "the modern aversion from Mary's physical motherhood" is accompanied by "a certain embaressment of such commentators in the face of descriptions of pregnancy and parturition." In her reading of the Gospel of Matthew, Jane Scharberg comments on a reviewer's indignation that she should discuss intimate details of Mary's pregnancy as a topic inappropriate for "polite company.""

"My soul magnifies the Lord,"

"And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord,"

"Union with God, the great aim of all prayer and all worship finds its clearest expression in the Magnificat at the end of the day office. All the joy of liturgical prayer leads to oneness with God, and flows out of him again: ‘And my spirit rejoiced in God my Saviour'."

"Mary knows that within her a child is gestating. For she thereupon composed a song. It is the greatest song in history. This "Magnificat" is the battle-hymn of democracy. Sensing a child within her, Mary feels herself equal to the Roman Empire; and she announces that the days of despotism are numbered. Caesar on his seven-hilled throne may sacrilegiously style himself Augustus, "the divine one." But Mary as confidently disallows him that title. Heaven is not on the side of privilege and oppression, she affirms, but is rather on the side of the trodden. Rome is great, but Galilee with God is greater. In this song three classes of people are objects of Our Lady's invective — " the proud," "the mighty," and "the rich." And she passes upon them a threefold sentence: they are to be "scattered," "put down from their seats," and "sent empty away.""

"The Magnificat that Mary recites to Elizabeth contains the interpretation of her personal mission, a mission that almost disappears in the greatness of God who conferred it upon her. She begins by exalting God and puts all the joy of her soul into this praise. She has always prayed in silence and will continue to do so as long as she lives. However, it is part of her mission to pray once before witnesses, in public. At this moment, God needs her as a follower who must respond to what Elizabeth perceives in her; this response is suggested to her by the Father himself and contains her entire message to Elizabeth and, through her, to humanity."

"The Magnificat shows us how carefully the Mother keeps all God's words in her heart. She says only what her mission requires, remaining silent about everything else. However, her words reveal that she knows much more. Her silence is not forgetfulness, but memory. She includes everything in her prayer and now, since her Son is in her womb, her prayer has become more indivisible than ever from that of her Son."

"‘'Fatima, Portugal, July 13, 1917’' Lucia raised her wide eyes to the sky and saw the Lady descending. The apparition came from the east, as on the two previous occasions: a bright dot emerging from the depths of a cloud-covered sky. It approached quickly, gliding without fluctuation, and its figure shone with light as soon as it settled on the holm oak, a couple of meters above the ground. The Lady stood, her crystallized image enveloped in a glow that seemed to shine brighter than the sun. Faced with such blinding beauty, Lucia lowered her gaze."

"Although there are cases in which not only “images” of Hell were shown (which, in my opinion, is the case with the vision of Hell by the children of Fatima), but certain chosen ones had the subjective certainty that a number of men are already lost, nevertheless in them (and this is the purpose of the Revelation) the desire to oppose what has been shown to them, to annul it, far prevails over the idea that, in the face of what has been contemplated as lost, there is nothing more to be done."

"Interviewer: Why did a great Mariologist like Renè Laurentin never deal with Fatima? Because he considered it difficult. Lourdes was a straightforward apparition, while Fatima had several parts and, above all, a disclosure of secrets much later in the years. So he decided not to be called upon to investigate that event. He said this with great cultural independence even to the president of the Portuguese Episcopal Conference, sent directly by the Portuguese patriarch, who would have made everything possible available to him to study the phenomenon. And then too many political passions had been unleashed on Fatima, which in his opinion would have hindered his work... [Laurentin was] a good and easy-going man, always available, and he was not only a Mariologist and the greatest expert on Lourdes."

"Mary is everywhere: Marigolds are named for her. Hail Mary passes save football games. The image in Mexico of Our Lady of Guadalupe is one of the most reproduced female likenesses ever. Mary draws millions each year to shrines such as Fátima, in Portugal, and Knock, in Ireland, sustaining religious tourism estimated to be worth billions of dollars a year and providing thousands of jobs. She inspired the creation of many great works of art and architecture (Michelangelo’s “Pietà,” Notre Dame Cathedral), as well as poetry, liturgy, and music (Monteverdi’s Vespers for the Blessed Virgin). And she is the spiritual confidante of billions of people, no matter how isolated or forgotten. Muslims as well as Christians consider her to be holy above all women, and her name “Maryam” appears more often in the Koran than “Mary” does in the Bible. In the New Testament Mary speaks only four times, beginning with the Annunciation, when, according to Luke’s Gospel, the angel Gabriel appears to her and says she will bear “the Son of the Most High.” Mary answers, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord.” Her only extended speech, also in Luke, is the lyrical Magnificat, uttered in early pregnancy: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed.” Indeed they have."

"(About the Attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II) Interviewer: Was he really convinced that he had been saved by Our Lady? Cardinal Re: Of course. The Governorate of the Vatican posed the question of how to commemorate in St. Peter's Square that dramatic event that took place there. The Pope's answer was immediate: an image of Our Lady was to be placed in memory of the attack. He was convinced that the Blessed Virgin Mary had been present on 13 May to guide the bullet, so that the Pope would survive. Thus, since 8 December 1981, anyone arriving at St. Peter's Square has seen a mosaic of Our Lady holding the Child Jesus in her arms, and at her feet the title Mater Ecclesiae and the coat of arms of John Paul II, with the motto Totus tuus, dominating from a ledge of the Apostolic Palace."

"There has also been felt with greater urgency the need to point out once more the importance of a further essential element in the Rosary, in addition to the value of the elements of praise and petition, namely the element of contemplation. Without this the Rosary is a body without a soul, and its recitation is in danger of becoming a mechanical repetition of formulas and of going counter to the warning of Christ: "And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words" (Mt. 6:7). By its nature the recitation of the Rosary calls for a quiet rhythm and a lingering pace, helping the individual to meditate on the mysteries of the Lord's life as seen through the eyes of her who was closest to the Lord. In this way the unfathomable riches of these mysteries are unfolded."

"The Rosary is my favourite prayer. A marvellous prayer! Marvellous in its simplicity and in its depth. … In fact, against the background of the words "Ave Maria" there pass before the eyes of the soul the main episodes in the life of Jesus Christ. They are composed altogether of the joyful, sorrowful and glorious mysteries, and they put us in living communion with Jesus through—we could say—his Mother's heart. At the same time our heart can enclose in these decades of the Rosary all the facts that make up the life of the individual, the family, the nation, the Church and mankind. Personal matters and those of one's neighbour, and particularly of those who are closest to us, who are dearest to us. Thus the simple prayer of the Rosary beats the rhythm of human life."

"The Rosary, though clearly Marian in character, is at heart a Christocentric prayer. In the sobriety of its elements, it has all the depth of the Gospel message in its entirety, of which it can be said to be a compendium. It is an echo of the prayer of Mary, her perennial Magnificat for the work of the redemptive Incarnation which began in her virginal womb. With the Rosary, the Christian people sits at the school of Mary and is led to contemplate the beauty on the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love."

"The ruddy rosary"

"His Golden lockes, Time hath to Silver turn’d, O Time too swift, O Swiftnesse never ceasing: His Youth gainst Time and Age hath ever spurn’d But spurn’d in vain, Youth waineth by increasing. Beauty Strength, Youth, are flowers, but fading seen, Duty, Faith, Love are roots, and ever greene.His Helmet now, shall make a hive for Bees, And Lovers Sonets, turn’d to holy Psalmes: A man at Armes must now serve on his knees, And feede on praiers, which are Age his almes. But though from Court to Cottage he depart, His Saint is sure of his unspotted heart.And when he saddest sits in homely Cell, He’ll teach his Swaines this Carroll for a Song, Blest be the heartes that wish my Soveraigne well, Curst be the soules that thinke her any wrong. Goddesse, allow this agèd man his right, To be your Beads-man now, that was your Knight."

"I have a Mistresse for perfections rare In every eye, but in my thoughts most faire. Like Tapers on the Altar shine her eyes; Her breath is the perfume of Sacrifice. And where soe’re my fancy would begin, Still her perfection lets religion in. I touch her like my Beads with devout care; And come unto my Courtship as my Praier."

"No Rosary this Vot’ress needs, Her very Syllables are Beads."

"Numb were the Beadsman’s fingers, while he told His rosary, and while his frosted breath, Like pious incense from a censor old, Seem’d taking flight for heaven, without a death, Past the sweet Virgin’s picture, while his prayer he saith."

"The Beadsman, after thousand aves told, For aye unsought for slept among his ashes cold."

"Make not your rosary of yew-berries,"

"The hours I spent with thee, dear heart, Are as a string of pearls to me; I count them over, every one apart, My rosary.Each hour a pearl, each pearl a prayer, To still a heart in absence wrung; I tell each bead unto the end and there A cross is hung.Oh memories that bless—and burn! Oh barren gain—and bitter loss! I kiss each bead, and strive at last to learn To kiss the cross, Sweetheart, To kiss the cross."

"There is this one very little miracle that I attribute to the Rosary. ... I was passing this other tractor on the road, and it was a very narrow road, and I got over too far, and the box and tractor slipped into the ditch. ... So later on, after we had finished with the chopping in the evening, we went to roll the box back up. ... I went over to my dad, and I asked him, you know, "how's the box doing?" And he said there was not a single dent or scratch on the box. Well actually first he looked at me and asked "did you pray the Rosary?" And I was like "yeah" ... And that's when he told me that the box was completely okay. ... I prayed the Rosary asking Mary to protect me and the box, and she answered my prayer!"

""Iconoclasm was the central sacrament of the reform," states Eamon Duffy. It is an assertion that is more provocative than strictly accurate, especially in its dismissive use of the term "sacrament" in association with the Anglican Church, but many historians have persuasively presented iconoclastic extremism as a defining factor in the English Reformation. The long struggle over "images" had broad and deep connections with the transformation of English society and the ideologies of selfhood, identity, gender, and sexuality that governed, or as Louis Althusser puts it, "interpleted", men and women into the grand narrative of their culture. Today, some may say the picture of the world advanced by the reformers was maybe no less false, the idolatry of the Word no less pernicious than the idolatry of the Image."

"As Lyndal Roper states, the body of the Virgin was a "litmus test of the separation of the divine and the human" for Catholics and Protestants and what became their "radically different theologies of the body." All sides of the Reformation struggles agreed that deep and mysterious powers had been attributed to the Virgin and to relics and places especially associated with her. For Catholics such attributions were, with the exception of some marginal and pardonable exaggerations and a little corruption, truthful and reflected God's purposes; for Protestants such claims were false and demonic, slippages into paganism and evidence of the irredeemable corruption of the Roman Church. Reformers generally acknowledged Mary as God's chosen instrument, but rejected what Latimer saw as the foolish opinion and the doctrine of the papists, which would have us to worship a creature before the Creator.""

"What lay behind the reformers' uneasiness about the place of the Virgin was not an upsurge of entirely new views. As Beattie comments, they believed indignantly that "the ancient goddesses and their female devotees still whisper[ed] and beckon[ed] in the cult of Mary," and saw their attacks as a return to the principles of the early Church."

"The reformers perceived the necessity of wholesale cultural revolution and (if possible) the rooting out not just the "structures," but the "feelings" attached to them, to use Raymond Williams's distinction. Their goal was to destroy the images and idols within people's minds. Getting it out of their heads, not just destroying buildings and sending tens of thousands of monks and nuns out into the community, was therefore crucial to the revolution. But the "fantassie of idolatrie" might be so deeply rooted, the reformers feared, that "idolatrie will neaver be left till the said images be taken awaie." Cromwell instructed his agents to remove popular "idols" as discreetly as possible but to highlight what could be presented as obvious fakes, the "certain engines and old wire with rotten sticks," which could be used for propagandist purposes. Reformers jeered that the destruction of some of the more dubious relics and images - the Blood of Hailes and the images of Our Lady of Walingham and her sisters among them - did not provoke the once revered objects to respond, retaliate, or miraculously escape: "Throw them down thrice, they cannot rise, not once to help themselves." With some successes in exposing "idols" and "false reliques," it became easier to make the case that all relics and images were fakes and needed, in the words of a 1535 Proclamation, "utterly to be abolished, eradicated and erased out.""

"A century before, 1520s, the German Protestant Andres von Karlstadt had likewise become more vehement a destroyer of idols when he noted his own fear before the images: "a harmful fear," he records, "has been bred into me" from which he would be delivered, "but cannot." Those sentiments haunt the century of iconoclasm and epitomize the "traces" and "fades" of the virgin in England."

"Beattie comments that is odd that Christianity and psychoanalysis have not come together more frequently to pose the questions of being since they both claim humanity is "marked by originating experience of catastrophic loss that gives rise to an insatiable yearning for restoration and wholeness.""

"English writers from the later Middle Ages to the mid seventeenth century both venerated and denigrated a body, probably a historical certainly a mythologized, body, multiple "images" of which were burnt, in the summer or the autumn of 1538, publicly or privately, certainly at the order and possibly at the house of Thomas Cromwell, in London. That seemingly definitive act, however, remains ambiguous, and did not by any means end the presence of the Virgin in the life and feelings of England. Catholic historians and theologians have argued that Cromwell, Latimer, and their generation of reformers created a huge and perhaps unhealable wound in the collective psyche of early modern England, creating a "disembodied and defeminized Culture.""

"The reformers believed that medieval theology and devotion had sexualized the Virgin by excessive idolatrous attention to her body, and by venerating the material details, however trivial or aprocryphal, of events in Mariological history As Donna Ellington puts it, "Marys bodily human nature was the cornerstone of the entire medieval edifice of the virgin's cult." At a further level of idolatry, the veneration of bodily and material objects associated with Mary's body - a term that might appear as a modern anachronism but which was, in fact, already becoming current among Protestant polemists to deride what they saw as superstitious religious practices of pagans and catholics alike."

"Quite apart from the question of the truth of the diverging traditions of Christianity, the Protestant view of Mary, argues Beattie, "easily lends itself to the denigration of the female body," not only "its sexual and maternal functions," but also as the basis for both individual and relational being. That dual claim that the reformers were, in effect, empirically correct about the medieval sexualization of Christianity but at some deeper level mistaken about human sexuality - will be a major suggestion of this study."

"Sometimes, bringing a silent film to Lourdes, he starts talking. (Romano Bertola)"

"Through the apparitions of Lourdes, Our Lady wanted to restore in us the love of the poor and poverty, an ingenious and liberating love. (René Laurentin)"

"We delude ourselves that we will obtain a miracle in Lourdes, even though in one hundred and fifty years Our Lady has officially granted only sixty-five, to one hundred million pilgrims. An average, less than one in a million, far lower than the percentage of spontaneous remissions of tumors, which is of the order of one in ten thousand. Not to mention that, as Émile Zola observed, among the votive offerings you can see many crutches but no wooden legs. (Piergiorgio Odifreddi)"

"I must say that there, in front of the cave, you can feel something that I don't know how to define, something great, mysterious, indescribable. (Gianni Morandi)"

"Until three o'clock I prefer Lourdes water! It's more pious. (Thérèse of Lisieux)"

"Lourdes – if believers are right – is a glimpse suddenly opened onto an Other World; it is the truth entrusted not to professors and experts, but to the illiterate; it is Heaven itself that ratifies the dogmas of a Pope, moreover "obscurantist" and "reactionary" like Pius IX: it is the mocked Catholic Mariology that has full confirmation; it is the blind who regains his sight, the cancerous person who heals, the paralytic who walks. Lourdes is – and cannot help but be – the scandal, the division, the denial of the common sense imposed by the new conformism. It has therefore not ceased its provocative role; nor, for that matter, will it ever be able to cease it. (Vittorio Messori)"

"I don't think our therapeutic successes can compete with those of Lourdes; the people who believe in the miracles of the Holy Virgin are much more numerous than those who believe in the existence of the unconscious. (Sigmund Freud)"

"For Mariam ad Iesum. This is the meaning of the Lourdes apparitions. (Pope John XXIII)"

"That cave is the place where what Catholic Mariology is is most evident: a bubo of authentic Christology. (Karl Barth)"

"All those who were physically healed in Lourdes have died or will die, even if for evils other than those for which they turned to Mary's intercession. [...] It is an obvious reflection, perhaps apparently banal. Yet, it allows us to clarify the Catholic's perspective in the face of the impressive dossier of "physical" healings which, at the foot of the Pyrenees, have not ceased to occur since 1858. The believer, that is, knows that what is promised by the Gospel - what 'everyone' is promised - it is indeed the radical and definitive "healing" of the body too; but only when this is resurrected to eternal life. (Vittorio Messori)"

"Yes, it has been a long and painful journey. I went to Lourdes in January and felt great straight after for a long time. It's an incredible place. (Cristiano De André)"

"In Lourdes Mary never puts herself in the foreground."

"In Lourdes, in the climate of faith - full of peace and joy - which is typical of it and without pseudo-mystical exaltation, the disease ceases to scare both those who are well and those who are sick."

"Lourdes is much more a city of volunteers than of merchants."

"Bernadetta Soubirous"

"Immaculate Conception"

"From the first moment of her creation and infusion into the body, she had been preserved immune from the stain of original sin by a special grace and singular privilege of God, in anticipation of the merits of Jesus Christ, His Son and Redeemer of the human race."

"To say that corrupt means corrupt the ends is to believe in the immaculate conception of ends and principles."

"Immaculate Conception means that Mary anticipated, in some way, the ultimate condition towards which we are heading. In her, our future condition is revealed with privileged transparency."

"The Christian clergy are, in like manner, attired in the cast-off garb of the heathen priesthood; acting diametrically in opposition to their God's moral precepts, but nevertheless, sitting in judgment over the whole world. When dying on the cross, the martyred Man of Sorrows forgave His enemies. His last words were a prayer in their behalf. He taught his disciples to curse not, but to bless, even their foes. But the heirs of St. Peter, the self-constituted representatives on earth of that same meek Jesus, unhesitatingly curse whoever resists their despotic will. Besides, was not the "Son" long since crowded by them into the background? They make their obeisance only to the Dowager Mother, for — according to their teaching — again through "the direct Spirit of God," she alone acts as a mediatrix. The Ecumenical Council of 1870 embodied the teaching into a dogma, to disbelieve which is to be doomed forever to the 'bottomless pit.' The work of Don Pasquale di Franciscis is positive on that point; for he tells us that, as the Queen of Heaven owes to the present Pope "the finest gem in her coronet," since he has conferred on her the unexpected honor of becoming suddenly immaculate, there is nothing she cannot obtain from her Son for "her Church."*"

"She was prevented and preserved by God's special grace from contracting original sin, and in the first moment of her conception she was saved not from the sin that was in her, but from the sin that would have been in her, if the Holy Spirit had not redeemed her in a new way of sanctification."

"This same holy Synod doth nevertheless declare, that it is not its intention to include in this decree, where original sin is treated of, the blessed and immaculate Virgin Mary, the mother of God; but that the constitutions of Pope Sixtus IV., of happy memory, are to be observed, under the pains contained in the said constitutions, which it renews."

"We have diligently considered the authorities and reasons that have been presented before this holy Council for many years in public relations on both sides, and having seen many others on this same point, and having weighed them with mature consideration; we define and declare that doctrine which says that the glorious Virgin Mother of God, Mary, by a singular grace of the divine Spirit, never succumbed to original sin, but was always immune from all original and actual sin, and was holy and immaculate,be a pious doctrine and in accordance with ecclesiastical worship, the Catholic faith, right reason and Holy Scripture; and therefore must be approved, held and embraced by all Catholics; and it shall no longer be lawful for anyone to preach or teach to the contrary: furthermore, renewing the institution of celebrating her holy Conception, which is celebrated in both the Roman Church and other Churches on 8 December according to ancient and praiseworthy custom, we decree and order that this same celebration be held on the aforementioned day in all Churches, monasteries and convents of Christendom under the name of the Conception."

"Mary was conceived without sin. Behold! what the Church of Paris glories in professing and maintaining; what her Doctors hold it an honor to teach and defend; what her children are jealous of preserving as one of their dearest possessions after the sacred dogmas of faith; what they do not hesitate to regard as an immediate consequence of their faith, not believing it possible to separate in Mary, the title of Immaculate Virgin from that of Virgin Mother of God, and not considering it possible to refuse the privilege of a Conception without spot, to her who was to receive and who indeed did receive, that of the divine Maternity."

"I had a conversation with John Spivak, the Communist writer, a few years ago, and he said to me, "How can you believe? How can you believe in the Immaculate Conception, in the Virgin birth, in the Resurrection?" I could only say that I believe in the Roman Catholic Church and all she teaches. I have accepted Her authority with my whole heart. At the same time I want to point out to you that we are taught to pray for final perseverance. We are taught that faith is a gift, and sometimes I wonder why some have it and some do not. I feel my own unworthiness and can never be grateful enough to God for His gift of faith. St. Paul tells us that if we do not correspond to the graces we receive, they will be withdrawn. So I believe also that we should walk in fear, "work out our salvation in fear and trembling.""

"...29. Concupiscence and pride were lurking in the tree of knowledge: the Virgin conceived fruit without concupiscence, that the deadly concupiscence of the human race might through her forever be done away."

"Words cannot tell the abhorrence nature has of the piecemeal captivity of little constraints. And as to little temptations, I can readily conceive a man having the grace to be roasted over a slow fire for our dearest Mother's Immaculate Conception or the Pope's Supremacy, who would not have the grace to keep his temper in a theological conversation on either of these points of the Catholic faith."

"...Among pure creatures, you are the most perfect, Mary; you alone are blessed, among women you are called: Oh, Immaculate Conception. Let everyone praise her, the Immaculate Queen of Heaven!..."

"The soul is an immaculate virgin...Then it goes out and gets fucked by the world all day long & staggers back a baggy-eyed old whore, still hoping that after a sleep the Moment of purification will come again. (p. 27)"

"Blessed be the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin."

"O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we call upon thy holy name, and as suppliants we implore thy clemency, that by the intercession of Mary, ever Virgin Immaculate and our Mother, and of the glorious Archangel St. Michael, thou wouldst deign to help us against Satan and all other unclean spirits, who wander about the world for the injury of the human race and the ruin of souls. Amen."

"To thee, O blessed Joseph, we have recourse in our affliction, and having implored the help of thy thrice holy Spouse, we now, with hearts filled with confidence, earnestly beg thee also to take us under thy protection. By that charity wherewith thou wert united to the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God, and by that fatherly love with which thou didst cherish the Child Jesus, we beseech thee and we humbly pray that thou wilt look down with gracious eye upon that inheritance which Jesus Christ purchased by His blood, and wilt succor us in our need by thy power and strength. Defend, O most watchful guardian of the Holy Family, the chosen off-spring of Jesus Christ. Keep from us, O most loving Father, all blight of error and corruption. Aid us from on high, most valiant defender, in this conflict with the powers of darkness. And even as of old thou didst rescue the Child Jesus from the peril of His life, so now defend God's Holy Church from the snares of the enemy and from all adversity. Shield us ever under thy patronage, that, following thine example and strengthened by thy help, we may live a holy life, die a happy death, and attain to everlasting bliss in Heaven. Amen"

"Despite what many think, the Vatican may not impose teachings on an unwilling faithful. Through the concept of reception, Catholics have a role to play in the establishment of church law. The popular notion that whatever the pope says on a serious topic is infallible is an exaggeration of the principle of infallibility. While some ultra-conservative groups claim that the teaching on abortion is infallible, it does not in fact meet the definition of an infallible teaching. Since the doctrine of papal infallibility was first declared in 1870, only three teachings have been declared infallible: the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the Assumption of Mary, and the declaration on infallibility itself."

"We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful."

"Did you notice that Our Mother in Lourdes did not simply say, as she did in Paris on Rue du Bac, that she was conceived without sin, but rather, “I am the Immaculate Conception”! She waited for the Church's proclamation of the dogma of her Holy Immaculate Conception to give us her personal identity before God."

"Mary Immaculate, whose feast day is celebrated on December 8, is, by God's will, a sign of absolute perfection in a human creature: no person comes close to her heights of goodness and beauty, and no one, not even all the angels and saints combined, has greater intercessory power with the Almighty."

"The Holy Spirit descends upon you, who are the Immaculate One, to make you purer and give you the virtue of fertility."

"No, father. She said exactly that: “I am the Immaculate Conception.”"

"What joy! I have always felt that this ray was missing from the splendour of Catholic truths. It is a gap that could not remain in religion."

"The Immaculate Conception of Mary could be called a gift that the Father gives to the Son. Mary is certainly saved by the Son, but in this there is a kind of accompaniment of the Son's work by the Father. Like a trial before the trial. Like the certainty that the Father gives to the Son on his journey, that everything will be fine. The original sin from which we are all marked has the property of giving rise to new sins. In the Immaculate Conception, Mary receives the task of proclaiming the ever-greater purity of the Son and his divinity. She is like a wedding ring that the Father gives to the Son, a pledge of the success of the work of redemption."

"I esteem immensely the Mother of God, the ever chaste, immaculate Virgin Mary."

"Christ ... was born of a most undefiled Virgin."

"It was fitting that such a holy Son should have a holy Mother."

"At that time, the Saxons grew strong by virtue of their large number and increased in power in Britain. Hengist having died, however, his son Octha crossed from the northern part of Britain to the kingdom of Kent and from him are descended the kings of Kent. Then Arthur along with the kings of Britain fought against them in those days, but Arthur himself was the military commander [dux bellorum]. His first battle was at the mouth of the river which is called Glein. His second, third, fourth, and fifth battles were above another river which is called Dubglas and is in the region of Linnuis. The sixth battle was above the river which is called Bassas. The seventh battle was in the forest of Celidon, that is Cat Coit Celidon. The eighth battle was at the fortress of Guinnion, in which Arthur carried the image of holy Mary ever virgin on his shoulders; and the pagans were put to flight on that day. And through the power of our Lord Jesus Christ and through the power of the blessed Virgin Mary his mother there was great slaughter among them. The ninth battle was waged in the City of the Legion. The tenth battle was waged on the banks of a river which is called Tribruit. The eleventh battle was fought on the mountain which is called Agnet. The twelfth battle was on Mount Badon in which there fell in one day 960 men from one charge by Arthur; and no one struck them down except Arthur himself, and in all the wars he emerged as victor."

"I, Pope Calixtus III, promise and vow to the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to the Ever-Virgin Mother of God, to the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and to all the heavenly host, that I will do everything in my power, even, if need be, with the sacrifice of my life, aided by the counsel of my worthy brethren, to reconquer Constantinople, which in punishment for the sin of man has been taken and ruined by Mahomet II, the son of the devil and the enemy of our Crucified Redeemer. Further, I vow to deliver the Christians languishing in slavery, to exalt the true Faith and to extirpate the diabolical sect of the reprobate and faithless Mahomet in the East. For there the light of Faith is almost completely extinguished. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten. Let my tongue cleave to my jaws, if I do not remember thee. If I make not Jerusalem the beginning of my joy, God and His holy Gospel help me. Amen."

"93 Q. Having made the sign of the Cross what should you say?"

"I say then, first, that holy virginity is like a divine balm which preserves the body of Mary from corruption, and you will be convinced of it if you meditate attentively on what was the perfection of her virginsl purity...Why, you will never form a just idea of it, you will never comprehend its perfection until you have understood that it wrought in the Virgin Mother a perfect integrity of soul and of body...An extraordinary grace gas diffused over her an abundant heavenly dew which has not tempered, as in the other elect, but quenched the fire of concupiscence, that is, not only evil works, which are as it were the conflagration that concupiscence excites; not only evil desires, which are as it were the flame it thrusts forward, and evil inclinations, which are the intense heat it produces, but even the furnace and the hearth itself. In the words of theology the 'kindling of sin', that is , the deepest root and the most intimate cause of sin. After this, how could the flesh of the holy Virgin have decomposed, that felsh from which virginity of soul and body, and perfect conformity with Jesus Christ has taken away every principle of corruption together with the fire of concupiscence?...Mary was all pure and she ought consequently to be incorruptible."

"There are things which, in your extreme ignorance, you Elvidius had never read, and therefore you neglected the whole range of Scripture and employed your madness in outraging the Virgin, like the man in the story who being unknown to everybody and finding that he could devise no good deed by which to gain renown, burned the temple of Diana: and when no one revealed the sacrilegious act, it is said that he himself went up and down proclaiming that he was the man who had applied the fire. The rulers of Ephesus were curious to know what made him do this thing, whereupon he replied that if he could not have fame for good deeds, all men should give him credits for bad ones. Grecian history relates the incident. But you do worse. You have set on fire the temple of the Lord's body, you have defiled the sanctuary of the Holy Spirit from which you are determined to make a team of four brethren and a heap of sisters come forth. In a word, joyning in the chorus of the Jews you say, "Is not this the carpenter's son?is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? and his sisters, are they not all with us? The word all would not be used if they were not a crowd of them." Pray tell me, who before you appeared, was acquainted with this blasphemy? Who thought the theory worth two-pence? You have gained your desire and have become notorious by crime..."

"Canon 3. If anyone does not in accord with the Holy Fathers acknowledge the holy and ever virgin immaculate Mary as really and truly the Mother of God, inasmuch she, in the fulness of time, and without seed, conceived by the Holy Spirit God the Word Himself, who before all time was born of God the Father, and without loss of integrity brought Him forth, and after His birth preserved her virginity inviolate, let him be condemned."

"In vernacular language, it is said that the Precious Blood was shed “for all,” whereas in the Latin text (even the latest revised Latin text) it is said that the Precious Blood is “for many” and not “for all.” [...] The new Offertory prayers do not express the Catholic notion of sacrifice. They simply express the concept of a mere sharing of bread and wine. For example, the Tridentine Mass addresses the prayer to God: “Accept, O holy Father, almighty and eternal God, this Immaculate Victim which your unworthy servant offers to You, my living and true God, in reparation for my countless sins, offenses, and negligence.” The new Mass says: “We offer this bread as the bread of life.” There is no mention of sacrifice or victim. Interviewer: Could you cite a translation that actually contradicts Catholic dogma? Mgr. Lefebvre: Yes. For example, in the Latin text, the Virgin Mary is called Semper Virgo, “Ever Virgin.” In all modern translations, the word “ever” has been removed. This is very serious, because there is a big difference between ‘Virgin’ and “Ever Virgin.” It is very dangerous to tamper with translations of this kind."

"Latin is also important for maintaining the unity of the Church, because when people travel, and people travel more and more abroad nowadays, it is important for them to find the same echo that they heard from a priest at home, whether in the United States, South America, Europe, or anywhere else in the world. They are at home in any (Catholic) church. It is their Catholic Mass that is being celebrated. They have always heard the Latin words since childhood, their parents before them, and their grandparents before them."

"He [Eutyches] did not realize what he was bound to hold on the Incarnation of the Word of God. Nor he was willing to seek the light of understanding through a diligent search of the wide range of the Sacred Scriptures. And yet, he might have listen attentively to that common and universal confession in which the whole body of the faithful acknowledges it's belief in God the Father Almighty, and in Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son our Lord, who was born of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary. By these three statements, the devices of almost all heretics are overthrown,...Unquestionably, therefore, He was conceived of the Holy Spirit within the womb of His Virgin Mother. She brought Him forth without the loss of virginity, even as she conceived Him without its loss...That birth, so wondrously unique and so uniquely wonderful, must not be understood in such a way that the distinctive properties of His humanity were excluded through this newness of His creation. For while it is true that the Holy Spirit gave fruitfulness to the Virgin, yet the reality of His body was received from her body; and "Wisdom building itself a house" (Prov. 9,11), "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (Jn. 1:14)-that is, in that flesh which He took from man and which He quickened with the breath of a higher life..."

"[Jesus] was born in time with a rational soul, by virtue of the Holy Spirit, from Mary, ever virgin; he has two births, one eternal from the God the Father, the other in time from his mother."

"O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we call upon thy holy name, and as suppliants we implore thy clemency, that by the intercession of Mary, ever Virgin Immaculate and our Mother, and of the glorious Archangel St. Michael, thou wouldst deign to help us against Satan and all other unclean spirits, who wander about the world for the injury of the human race and the ruin of souls. Amen."

"The divine Christ, Who was conceived by this perpetual Virgin through the activity of the Holy Spirit, and was clothed by her with flesh animated by a rational soul, has called her to Himself and in His turn has clothed her with an unequalled glory. He has made her take part in His inheritance; for she is His most holy mother."

"Surely we cannot deny that Your Reverence was perfectly justified in rebuking him on the score of Mary's children, and that you had good reason to be horrified at the thought that another birth might issue from the same virginal womb from which Christ was born according to the flesh. For the Lord Jesus would never have chosen to be born of a virgin if he had ever judged that she would be so incontinent as to contaminate with the seed of human intercourse the birthplace of the Lord's body, that court of the Eternal King. To assert such a view is to do nothing less than to accept as a basis that Jewish falsehood which holds that He could not have been born of a virgin. And once the weight of episcopal authority is gained for the view that Mary gave issue to many children, they will strive with even greater zeal to attack the truth of [Christian] faith."

"We pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory."

"If Mary was thus strengthened against every movement of sin by her first sanctification, much more did grace grow in her and much more was concupiscence weakened or even completely uprooted in her, when the Holy Spirit came upon her, according to the angel’s word, to form of her the body of Christ. After she had been made the shrine of the Holy Spirit and the tabernacle of the Son of God, we may not believe that there was ever any inclination to sin in her, or that she ever experienced any pleasurable feeling of carnal concupiscence. And so we must view with revulsion the error of Helvidius who, while admitting that Christ was conceived and born of the Virgin, asserted that she later bore other sons to Joseph."

"Live in hope. And in hope, we are guided to put ourselves on the path which leads us to the goal of following in the footsteps of the Lord and his mother Mary, who is our mother."

"Faith in Mary's Assumption is not an exaltation, with impossible images, of a glorious body that we do not know where to place: everything is in the mystery of God, which we cannot enter because he is beyond the veil of the sanctuary that will not open to our eyes until it is torn apart. What matters, instead, is to be able to live in the world a story that repeats the wonders that Mary sings here and which are wonders of salvation in time."

"4 Q. Why is it said of Jesus Christ that He ascended, and of His Most Holy Mother that she was assumed, into heaven?"

"There are two methods by which Catholics may know that a teaching of the Church is infallible and therefore must be obeyed by all Catholics in order to remain Catholic. The first of these, of course, is an ex cathedra pronouncement. Popes use this mechanism very infrequently, and then only to address the very fundamentals of Catholic faith. Only once since 1870 has the Pope spoken ex cathedra; on November 1, 1950, when Pope Pius XII declared the doctrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Many pro-life theologians have debated the wisdom of having the Church's teachings on birth control and abortion be formally declared infallible, and have decided that this would not be wise in the larger scheme of things. The reason is that such a pronouncement in an area of morals (as opposed to fundamental beliefs) would give the impression that all other moral teachings of the Church were optional. This might lead to a situation where disbelief would run rampant in the areas not specifically addressed ex cathedra, and would lead to more and more demands for such pronouncements in almost every area of Church teaching."

"She who was conceived without spot and borne without pain, who became mother without loss of virginity, who placed God in the world, who died without suffering, was also preserved from corruption ; and we believe she lives in heaven with her body. It is piously believed."

"Since Hw who humbled himself in her was God from the beginning and was life before all ages, it was right that the 'Mother of Life' be associated with Life; her death should be only a sleep, and her removal an awakening."

"Death will not boast of you, because you have carried Life in your womb; [and the vessel which held It] will not be broken by death, nor will it be enshrouded by the somber folds of darkness."

"The ark which was made of incorruptible timber (Ex. 15:10) was the Savior. The ark symbolized the tabernacle of His body, which was impervious to decay and engendered no sinful corruption...The Lord was sinless, because, in His humanity, He was fashioned out of incorruptible wood, that is, out of the Virgin and the Holy Ghost, lined within and without as with the purest gold of the Word of God."

"How shall corruption be able to touch her who has given us Life?"

"Since she is the Mother of the living God, it is right that living she ascend towards Him."

"It was necessary that she, who with fixed eyes on her Son hanging on the crosshad her heart transpierced by a sword, gaze upon Him at the right hand of the Father."

"Let us enter then into this sepulchre in order to adore; let us acknowledge the new mystery. Raised, carried up to heaven above all the choirs of angels, Mary holds her place beside her Son; for between the Son and the Mother there is no distance."

"Will death take possession of the first fruits of life, and the tomb hold her who by her lifegiving childbirth ought to empty the tombs? Certainly not!"

"A striking image, suggested by a verse from the Canticle of Canticles, evokes the triumph of the risen Mother of God. "Who is that cometh up from the desert, flowing with delights, leaning upon her beloved" (Canticles 8,5). Fathers, exegetes and preachers (cf. Pseudo-Damien, Serm. 40, In Assumpt. B.V.M.; St Bernard, Serm. IV, In Assumpt.; Pierre de Blois, Serm. 33, In Assumpt. B.M.; Cornelius a Lapide, Comment. in Cant., VIII), and with them the liturgy in its most expressive language (cf. J. Linden, Die leibliche Aufnahme Maria in der Himmel", Zeithscr. f. kath. Theologie, t. XXX (1906), pp. 215-221), recognize in this beloved Spouse the Mother of the Son of God mounting to heaven thanks to the omnipotence of her divine Son and Spouse-"She ascends to her Son but only through her Son", says an old writer-shining with glory and completely filled with happiness"."

"The Marian dogmas are, as we know, four in all: perpetual virginity and divine motherhood; then, after almost fifteen centuries of debate and exploration of the mystery, here is the conception without the stain of original sin and the assumption into heaven. Well, these truths have been codified and solemnly protected as dogmas, that is, as basic and indisputable truths of the faith, not so much out of devotion to Mary, but as a defense of faith in Jesus. In fact, if we reflect on their content , we realize that they reaffirm the authentic faith in Christ as true God and true man: two natures in one Person. They then reiterate the fundamental eschatological expectation, indicating in Mary the immortal destiny that awaits us all. And, finally, they secure the faith, now threatened, in a creator God (it is one of the meanings of the more misunderstood truth about Mary's perpetual virginity), a God who can freely intervene even on matter."

"The Saviour arose into heaven through His own power as Lord and Creator...Mary arose into heaven lifted up by grace, not through her own power. This is why one is called Ascension and the other Assumption."

"Despite what many think, the Vatican may not impose teachings on an unwilling faithful. Through the concept of reception, Catholics have a role to play in the establishment of church law. The popular notion that whatever the pope says on a serious topic is infallible is an exaggeration of the principle of infallibility. While some ultra-conservative groups claim that the teaching on abortion is infallible, it does not in fact meet the definition of an infallible teaching. Since the doctrine of papal infallibility was first declared in 1870, only three teachings have been declared infallible: the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the Assumption of Mary, and the declaration on infallibility itself."

"The opinions and hesitations of some do not stop us from now believing in the bodily Assumption of Mary more resolutely, from affirming it more plainly and from professing it more openly-together with the Church than was done in the first centuries of Christianity. For the Church acquires wisdom through the ages, and she receives and manifests ever increasingly the light of truth, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit Who rules and teaches her."

"We pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory."

"It seems than that Mary rightly enjoys ineffable happiness in both body and soul, in her own Son and with Him and through Him...She ought to live in her entirety, who has given birth to the complete and perfect Life of all. She ought to be with Him Whom she carried in her womb, Whom she bore, warmed and nourished: Mary, the Mother of God, the nurse of God, the servant and the follower of God."

"“Ecce ancilla.” With these words, Mary places herself entirely at God's disposal. She is the chosen one, the one visited by the angel, yet she understands her service in such a way that all believers are included through her. She says yes, hoping to be able to speak on behalf of all those who are willing to believe. She is full of grace, but precisely when she responds in accordance with this grace, she wishes to withdraw—pure handmaid!—into the anonymity of service. And, as the only chosen one, she makes this available too. Her availability wants to include everything that God may ask of her, so that her availability also embraces the availability of all women to whatever is asked of them."

"We raised our eyes to Our Lady, who said to us with kindness and sadness: – You have seen hell, where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to My Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is about to end, but if they do not cease offending God, another worse war will begin during the pontificate of Pius XI. [...] To prevent this, I will come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays. If they accept My requests, Russia will convert and they will have peace; if not, it will spread its errors throughout the world, promoting wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be destroyed. In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph."

"‘'Mary, Mother of Jesus, | give me your heart, | so beautiful, so pure, so immaculate, | so full of love and humility, | so that I may receive Jesus in the Bread of Life, | love Him as you loved Him | and serve Him under the guise of the poorest of the poor.’'"

"Let us turn to the Virgin Mary: her Immaculate Heart, a mother’s heart, has fully shared in the “compassion” of God, especially in the hour of the passion and death of Jesus. May Mary help us to be mild, humble and merciful with our brothers."

"Without introducing himself [to Mary], the Angel can therefore begin immediately with his greeting: ‘Hail, full of grace.’ In this first form of greeting, he immediately gives her the title that is due to her, as he has no doubt that she will accept everything. Without having said it, with her demeanour and her constant expectation of the path reserved for her by God, Mary has already said her yes. The angel can therefore continue: ‘The Lord is with you!’ She has not yet conceived the Lord, but he is already with her because he has chosen her as his Mother, and with the same certainty with which the angel now addresses his announcement to her, the Lord also knew that she would accept everything, even to have him as her Son."

"The Hail Mary has inspired poetry, painting, sculpture and music. In music, the Hail Mary sounded divine."

"Giuseppe Cesare Abba, Scritti vari, Morcelliana, 1995."

"Quann'ero ragazzino, | mamma mia me diceva: | Ricordati, fijolo, | quanno te senti veramente solo | tu prova a recità n'Ave Maria."

"More good can be done with a well-said Hail Mary than in the Mission field by neglecting one's duty."

"What art thou, Mary, thou who wilt presently bring forth? Whence hast thou merited, whence hast thou obtained this favor? Whence is it that He who made thee will be made in thee? Whence, I say, does this great gift come to thee? Thou art a virgin, thou art holy, thou hast vowed a vow. True, thou hast merited much; or better, thou hast received much. But how hast thou merited it? He who made thee is being made in thee. He is made in thee by whom thou thyself wast made; rather should I say, by whom heaven and earth were made, by whom all things were made; the Word of God is made flesh in thee, by taking flesh, not by losing divinity. The Word is joined to flesh; the Word is wedded to flesh, and the bridal chamber of this exalted marriage in thy womb. Let me repeat, the bridal chamber of this exalted marriage between the Word and flesh in thy womb, whence "he, the bridegroom, goes forth from his bridal chamber" (Ps. 18:6). He finds thee a virgin at His conception. He leaves thee a virgin at His birth. He gives thee fecundity. He takes not away thy integrity. Whence is this to thee? Perhaps I am too forward in asking such questions of a virgin and, I might say, somewhat rude in shocking thy bashful essay with such words. But I see a virgin who is indeed bashful, and yet one who can answer and at the same time put me in my place. "Dost thou ask of me whence is this? I blush to answer thy questions as to my blessedness. Rather, listen to the Angel's salutation... Believe him who I believed. Do you ask whence have I this favor? Let the Angel reply." Tell me, Angel, whence has Mary this?" I already said when I saluted her: 'Hail, full of grace'. ""

"And surely what joy, what delight can ever be found that far surpasses the announcement made to that blessed Virgin and Mother of joy? Rejoice, O mother of supernatural joy! Rejoice, O nourisher of sublime joy! Rejoice, capital seat of the joy of salvation! Rejoice, cooperator of immortal joy! Rejoice, O mystical dwelling place of ineffable joy! Rejoice, O most blessed source of inexhaustible joy! Rejoice, O treasure of eternal joy who bears God! Rejoice, O most luxuriant tree of life-giving joy!"

"Florence is the centre of the world. [The Dominican convent of] San Marco is the centre of Florence, and the Annunciation frescoed there by Beato Angelico is the centre of San Marco. Therefore, the Annunciation is the centre of the world."

"The Annunciation appears as a unique moment in the world history of women: it is the moment when God, taking women as free partners in his covenant, brings them true emancipation."

"The Annunciation is the beginning of a conception, something I wanted to compare to the creative process. As for iconography, Mary is usually depicted in an enclosed garden, a symbol of virginity, an inner, intimate space that I evoked through a red carpet."

"Our Lady has appeared and spoken to many visionaries from many nations and in the most varied circumstances, as a living person who promises, announces, praises, exhorts, prophesies, prays, guides and protects from danger, heals the sick, works miracles, weeps, invites conversion and penance, and helps people to draw closer to Christ, her Son."

"Why is it Our Lady who appears? Why did Jesus himself or some canonised saint not appear in Lourdes (as in Rue du Bac, La Salette, Pontmain, Beauraing, Fatima, to mention only the last century and a half and events approved by the Church)? But it is because – according to theology, as meditated upon by mystics – according to the Catholic Creed, “the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever-Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed into heavenly glory 'in soul and body”. Thus, the words of the dogma of the Assumption, defined and proclaimed by Pius XII only in 1950 but believed, in its essence, since the time of the Fathers of the Church in both the East and the West (the feast of the “Dormition”, which has “in nuce” the Assumption of the Virgin Mother, is probably the oldest of the Marian feasts that unite the universal Church). In short, Mary, having carried in her womb the One who said, ‘I am the resurrection and the life’ (Jn 11:25), followed her Son in his eternal destiny before any other human creature; she is the one who preceded us all, already welcomed into eternity ‘in soul and body’. Therefore, if she appears to mortals, it is also to remind us that what she already is, we too will be. In short, she is the sign and pledge, in her very person, of that salvation we were talking about, which will give us true health: the vision of Mary's body already “saved” is a guarantee that everyone's body will be saved."

"We must know that the most important thing about Mary's apparitions today, as always, is the fact that she is a Mother! Our Lady is a Mother who cares for her little ones with immense tenderness. She prays for us, blesses us and has incredible love for us."

"Approach, my children, don't be afraid, I'm here to tell you great news. If my people won't submit, I'm forced to let go the hand of my son. It is so strong and so heavy that I can no longer maintain it, for the time I have suffered for you. If I don't want my son to abandon you, I have all the charge to pray to him unceasingly. For you, you don't care. No matter what you do, you will never be able to compensate for the trouble I have taken for you."

"L'apparition de la Très Saint Vierger sur la Montagne de La Salettepar la bergère de La Salette avec l'imprimatur de Mgr l'éveque de Lecce, Pierre Téqui éditeur, Paris, 2018, pp. 44. ISBN 978-2-7403-2158-4. (full text of the messages given by the Virgin Mary to Mélanie Calvat and Maximin Giraud, firstly published on November 15, 1879 with nihil obstat and imprimatur by bishop Salvatore Luigi Zola and Archbishop Carmelo Cosma, vicar general of the Archdiocese of Lecce; in French). French original text and English translation available here."

"Dost thou believe in God the Father Almighty?"

"I believe in God the Father Almighty,"

"...τὸν δι' ἡμᾶς τοὺς ἀνθρώπους καὶ διὰ τὴν ἡμετέραν σωτηρίαν κατελθόντα ἐκ τῶν οὐρανῶν καὶ σαρκωθέντα ἐκ Πνεύματος Ἁγίου καὶ Μαρίας τῆς παρθένου καὶ ἐνανθρωπήσαντα,..."

"O you, Jews, which is more difficult, for a virgin to bear a child, or for a rod to quickened into a living thing? You admit that at the time of Moses a perfect straight rod took the form of a serpent and became an object of terror to him who cast it down, and he who before had held the rod fast now fled from it as a dragon..."

"He exists, not only inconceivably as God, but also conceivably as a man ; not only above the world, but also in the world, and of the world ; not only in a heavenly and invisible, but in an earthly and visible form. He becomes and is, He exists—we cannot avoid this statement ; to do so would be the worst kind of Docetism—with objective actuality. Does this mean, then, that He exists as one thing amongst others, and that as such He can be perceived and may be known like other things ? Well, we cannot deny that He is a thing like this, and can be perceived and knovra as such, if He was and is a man in the world, with an earthly and visible form. But, of course, a man is not merely a thing or object. As a man among men he is a human Thou, and as such distinct from all mere things."

"This skeptical way of thinking reached its culmination in the argument that Jesus as a human being never existed at all and is a myth. In ancient times, this extreme view was named the heresy of docetism (seeming) because it maintained that Jesus never came into the world "in the flesh", but only seemed to; (I John 4:2) and it was given some encouragement by Paul's lack of interest in his fleshly existence. Subsequently, from the eighteenth century onwards, there have been attempts to insist that Jesus did not even "seem" to exist, and that all tales of his appearance upon the earth were pure fiction. In particular, his story was compared to the pagan mythologies inventing fictitious dying and rising gods. (paragraph break) Some of the lines of thinking employed to disprove the Christ-myth theory have been somewhat injudicious."

"Stop your ears therefore when anyone speaks to you that stands apart from Jesus Christ, from David's scion and Mary's Son, who was really born and ate and drunk, really persecuted by Pontius Pilate, really crucified and died while heaven and earth and the underworld looked on; who also really rose from the dead, sice His Father raised Him up-His Father, who will likewise raise up all who believe in Him through Jesus Christ, apart from whom we have no real life."

"Now do we say that the nature of the Word became flesh by undergoing change, nor that it was transformed into an entire man of soul and body; rather do we say that the Word, in a manner indescribable and incomprehensible, personally (hypostatically) united to Himself flesh animated by a rational soul, and thus became Man and was called the Son of Man..."

"Anathema 1. If anyone does not confess that the Emmanuel is in truth God, and that the Holy Virgin is, in consequence, Theotokos (Mother of God), since she brought forth according to the flesh the Word of God who has become flesh, let him be anathema."

"Fragments of the schisms came to mind, passages from the heresies that had divided the Western and Eastern Churches for centuries. Here Nestorius contested the title of Mother of God given to the Virgin, since, in the mystery of the Incarnation, she had carried a human creature in her womb and not God."

"Nestorius, a follower of the Antiochian school where he had been trained, argued that in order to preserve the integrity of Christ's humanity, the divine person of the Word cohabited with the person of the man Jesus, with the consequence that in Christ, according to him, there are two natures and two persons, and Mary can only be called the mother of Christ and not the mother of God."

"Nestorius reaffirms the unity of Christ despite the distinction between the natures, opposing the doctrine of Cyril of the single nature; he speaks of the “person” of the Son, in whom the relationship between the two natures is realised in a manner that is completely different from any other possible relationship between God and human beings. Nestorius is therefore careful to avoid the accusation of Christological dualism."

"Now, first of all, they believed in an orthodox manner in the preaching of the Apostles who lived [at the time of] Constantine [...]. Later, Satan, who has been the enemy of man since ancient times, rose up and seduced the people of the land of Byzantium, and they corrupted the Faith of Christ and introduced heresy into the Church of God through the mouth of Nestorius."

"The error of Nestorius, who refused to acknowledge that Blessed Mary is the Mother of God, is likewise excluded. Both Creeds assert that the Son of God was born or was made flesh of the Virgin Mary. The woman of whom any person is born is called his mother, for the reason that she supplies the matter for human conception. Hence the Blessed Virgin Mary, who provided the matter for the conception of the Son of God, should be called the true mother of the Son of God. As far as the essence of motherhood is concerned, the energy whereby the matter furnished by a woman is formed, does not enter into the question. She who supplied matter to be formed by the Holy Spirit is no less a mother than a woman who supplies matter that is to be formed by the energy latent in male seed. If anyone insists on maintaining that the Blessed Virgin ought not to be called the Mother of God because flesh alone and not divinity was derived from her, as Nestorius contended, he clearly is not aware of what he is saying. A woman is not called a mother for the reason that everything that is in her child is derived from her. Man is made up of body and soul; and a man is what he is in virtue of his soul rather than in virtue of his body. But no man’s soul is derived from his mother. The soul is either created by God directly, as the true doctrine has it, or, if it were produced by transplanting, as some have fancied, it would be derived from the father rather than from the mother. For in the generation of other animals, according to the teaching of philosophers, the male gives the soul, the female gives the body."

"The Word of the Father came forth from His Bosom, and in another bosom he put on a body. From a Bosom He came forth to a bosom. These pure Bosoms were filled with Him. Blessed is He who dwells in us."

"Now with the exception of the holy Virgin Mary in regard to whom, out of respect for the Lord, I do not propose to have a single question raised on the subject of sin-after all, how do we know what greater degree of grace for a complet victory over sins was conferred on her who merited to conceive and bring forth Him who all admit was without sin-to repeat then: with the exception of this Virgin, if we could bring together into one place all those holy men and women, while they lived here, and ask them whether they were without sin, what are we to suppose that they would have replied? Would it be the reply of this man (Pelagius) or that of John the Apostle? I ask you. No matter how they excelled in holiness during her their stay in this body, if they could have been asked, they would have exlaimed with one voice: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."."