Virgo Potens

Chapter I The Martyrdom of Mary (continued) The same law has environed the martyrs of all ages. Their passions have been living shadows of the great Passion, and the blood they shed mingled its kindred stream with the Precious Blood of their Redeemer, the King of Martyrs. So with the saints. Whether they have been bishops or doctors, virgins or matrons, seculars or religious, unusual love and unusual grace have always reached them in the shape of unusual trial and unusual suffering. They too must be drawn into the cloud, and they will come out of it with their faces shining, because they have seen, and seen closely, the Face of the Crucified. It is so in its measure with all the elect. They must stand at least within the fringes of the dark cloud, or it must overshadow them in transit, perhaps more than once, in order to secure the salvation of their souls by giving them at least an adequate likeness to their Lord. What, then, must we think of His Mother, who came nighest to Him of all? ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Foot of the Cross (1857)

Chapter I The Martyrdom of Mary (continued) This same law of suffering, which belongs to Jesus, touches all who come nigh Him, and in proportion to their holiness, envelops them, and claims them wholly for itself. The Holy Innocents were, in the counsels of God, simply our Lord's contemporaries, but that is similitude enough to plunge them in a sea of suffering, and for His sake their fresh lives must bleed away in their distracted mother's arms, to be followed by eternal crowns and palms: a happy merchandise, a huge fortune swiftly made, and then so marvellously secured! The same law wound itself round each of the apostles, upon whom the indescribably blessed choice of the Incarnate Word had fallen. It was a cross to Peter and his brother, a sword to Paul, hard stones to James, the flaying-knife to Bartholomew, and the boiling oil and the long years of wearisome delay to John. But, in whatever shape it came outwardly, inwardly it was always suffering. It went with them into all lands. It overshadowed them in all vicissitudes. It walked with them along the Roman roads, as if it was their guardian angel; it strode by the side of their uneasy galleys on the stormy waters of the Mediterranean. They were apostles. They must be like their Lord. They must enter into the cloud, and the darkness of the eclipse must fall upon them on the top of some Calvary or other, from Rome to Bactria, from Spain to Hindostan. ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Foot of the Cross (1857)

Month of the The Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother ~ September 5th Chapter I The Martyrdom of Mary (continued) The law of the Incarnation is a law of suffering. Our Blessed Lord was the man of sorrows, and by suffering He redeemed the world. His Passion was not a mystery detached from the rest of His life, but only the fitting and congruous end of it. Calvary was not unlike Bethlehem and Nazareth. It exceeded them in degree; it did not differ from them in kind. The whole of the Three-and-Thirty Years was spent in consistent suffering, though it was of various kinds, and not of uniform intensity. ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Foot of the Cross (1857)

Month of the The Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother ~ September 4th Chapter I The Martyrdom of Mary (continued) For the present let us shut ourselves up in the garden of Mary’s sorrows. It is one of God's choicest Edens, and we cannot work there otherwise than under the shadow of His presence, nor without the love of Jesus taking a marvellous possession of our souls. For love of Jesus is in the very viewless air of the place, in the smell of the upturned soil, in the fragrance of the flowers, in the rustling of the leaves, in the songs of the birds, in the shining of the sun, in the quiet tunes of the waterfalls as they dash down its rocky places. There for awhile, for our Lord's love, we will enclose ourselves as in a cloistered place, and let the world, in which we are of no great importance, and which is even of less importance to us than we are to it, miss us for a season from our post. ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Foot of the Cross (1857)

Chapter I The Martyrdom of Mary (continued) But Mary is a world, which we cannot take in all at one glance. We must devote ourselves to particular mysteries. We must set aside certain regions of this world of grace, and concentrate ourselves upon them. We must survey them and map them accurately, before we pass on to other regions, and then we shall learn much, which a general view would have omitted to notice, and store our souls with spiritual riches, riches both of knowledge and of love, which will draw us ever more into communion with our dearest Lord. As God's blessed will still persists in keeping us alive, and for His own gracious purposes detaining us amid all this cold weariness and these dejecting possibilities of sin, let us at least determine to occupy ourselves with nothing but God; for we have long since learned that there is truly no other occupation which is worth our while. He has a thousand Edens still, even in the bleak expanse of this salt steppe of a world, where we may work, to the sound of running waters, not without colloquies with Him in the cool time of the day; and we may wander from Eden to Eden, either as the weakness or the strength of our love impels us. ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Foot of the Cross (1857)

Chapter I The Martyrdom of Mary (continued) Now it is our daily task to love Jesus more and more. Year follows year; the old course of feasts comes round; the well-known divisions of the Christian year overtake us, make their impression upon us, and go their way. How we have multiplied Christmases, and Holy Weeks, and Whitsuntides, and there has been something or other in each of them which makes them lie like dates in our mind! We have spent some of them in one place, and some in another, some under one set of circumstances, and some under another. Some of them, all thanks to God! have been distinguished by remarkable openings of heart in our interior life, such as to change or to intensify our devotion, and materially influence our secret relations with God. The foundations of many buildings, which did not rise above ground till long afterward, have been laid almost unconsciously in those times. Yet whatever may have been the changes which these feasts have brought or seen, they have always found us busy at one and the same work, trying to love Jesus more and more: and through all these changes, and in all this perseverance at our one work, unerring experience has told us that we never advance more rapidly in love of the Son than when we travel by the Mother, and that what we have built most solidly in Jesus has been built with Mary. There is no time lost in seeking Him, if we go at once to Mary; for He is always there, always at home. The darkness in His mysteries becomes light when we hold it to her light, which is His light as well. She is the short road to Him. She has the “grand entry” to Him. She is His Esther, and speedy and full are the answers to the petitions which her hand presents. ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Foot of the Cross (1857)

Month of the The Seven Dolors of Mary ~ September 1st THE beauty of Jesus is inexhaustible. Like the Vision of God in heaven, it is ever diversified, yet always the same, always cherished as an old and familiar joy, yet ever surprising and refreshing the spirit as being, in truth, perpetually new. He is beautiful always, beautiful everywhere, in the disfigurement of the Passion as well as in the splendor of the Resurrection, amid the horrors of the Scourging as well as amid the indescribable attractions of Bethlehem. But above all things our Blessed Lord is beautiful in His Mother. If we love Him we must love her. We must know her in order to know Him. As there is no true devotion to His Sacred Humanity, which is not mindful of His Divinity, so there is no adequate love of the Son, which disjoins Him from His Mother, and lays her aside as a mere instrument, whom God chose as He might choose an inanimate thing, without regard to its sanctity or moral fitness. ~ Fr. Faber, The Foot of the Cross (1857)

September ~ Month of The Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother The Foot of the Cross or The Sorrows of Mary Fr. Frederick William Faber ~ 1857 Chapter I The Martyrdom of Mary

Here ends our meditation for now, dear Subscribers, on The Admirable Heart of the Most Holy Mother of God (1680) by Saint John Eudes. Beginning tomorrow, on September 1st, we will be exploring the Sorrowful Heart of Our Lady the through the writings of Father Frederick William Faber in his book The Foot of the Cross or The Sorrows of Mary (1857). Please continue to visit Virgo Potens for a new post each day. Also, please explore our sister channel Defende nos in proelio where we post Traditional Catholic prayers daily. God bless you!

Month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary ~ August 31st But I must return to thee, O Mother Most Admirable, to exclaim that in thee are accomplished all things most perfectly, most gloriously, in union with thy Divine Son. Whether it be corporeal, spiritual or divine, His Heart is thine, He is the life of thy life and the heart of thy Heart. May He be blessed, praised and glorified forever by all creatures, because of the graces imparted to thee, O Mary, and all the greatness of His humanity and His divinity! ~ Saint John Eudes, The Admirable Heart of the Most Holy Mother of God (1680)

Month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary ~ August 30th Especially useful is the most devout prayer of St. Augustine, the Anima Christi, Sanctifica Me. “Soul of Christ, sanctify me.” It will help you to attain your purpose at all times, but particularly after you have received Our Saviour within your heart, either during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, or in Holy Communion. When you are speaking to the Divine Heart of Jesus, if you realize His actual and veritable presence within you, you will pronounce this prayer with greater fervor and receive greater blessing for its recitation. ~ Saint John Eudes, The Admirable Heart of the Most Holy Mother of God (1680)

Month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary ~ August 29th If the will of God is to become your will, and if the spiritual and corporeal faculties of the sacred humanity of Our Lord are to animate the faculties of your soul and body, what must you do? You must cooperate. First, you must seek the death of every activity of your soul and body that is displeasing to God, bearing in your body the mortification of Christ. Then, having mortified your faculties, their powers and exercise must be turned towards virtue. Above all, offer yourself frequently to the Son of God. Beg Him to deign to exercise the almighty power of His arm to destroy within you everything that is contrary to His Holy Will, and to establish over you the reign of His divine Soul and His Crucified Body. ~ Saint John Eudes, The Admirable Heart of the Most Holy Mother of God (1680)

Month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary ~ August 28th . . . I would have you realize, dear Reader, that Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Heart of the Eternal Father, willed to become the Heart or life-principle of His Most Blessed Mother, and He likewise wills to become the Heart of your own life. Having granted you the grace to become one of the members of His mystical body, He seeks to share your life so that you may say with St. Paul: “Christ liveth in me!” Such is the infinite plan of God, such His burning desire. Our Lord seeks to establish His life, not only in your soul, but in your body, that His spirit may become your spirit and His heart your heart, united in all its love, thoughts and actions, by self-surrender, even as His Heart was completely and perfectly the heart of His Admirable Mother. ~ Saint John Eudes, The Admirable Heart of the Most Holy Mother of God (1680)

Month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary ~ August 27th It means honoring and glorifying all the effects of light, grace, and sanctity which this divine Heart of Mary, who is Jesus Christ Himself, has effected, and all the movements of the heavenly life of which He was the principle in her soul, and also the great fidelity with which she co-operated, on her part, with all that His grace accomplished in her heart during so many years. What tongue could proclaim, what mind could conceive, what heart could worthily honor so many great and admirable wonders of grace! ~ Saint John Eudes, The Admirable Heart of the Most Holy Mother of God (1680)

Month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary ~ August 26th This veneration of Mary means honoring the corporeal Heart, the spiritual Heart and the divine Heart of Jesus, who are also the Hearts, or rather, the one and only Heart of Mary. It means giving glory to Our Lord, Jesus Christ, who is the Heart of the Eternal Father, and has willed to become the Heart of His Holy Mother. ~ Saint John Eudes, The Admirable Heart of the Most Holy Mother of God (1680)