Vas Insigne Devotionis

During the month of May, I am publishing a series of posts based on notes made by John Henry Newman (1801-1890) for his May meditations on Mary in the Litany of Loreto. For the Latin and English texts of this Litany, please follow the link to Thesaurus Precum Latinarum.

Totus tuus ego sum et omnia mea tua sunt.

Tecum tutus semper sum.

Ad Jesum per Mariam

[  ] References in the text to numbered footnotes are not hyperlinked but may be found at the end of the relevant text.

Mary is the "Vas Insigne Devotionis," The Most Devout Virgin

To be devout is to be devoted. We know what is meant by a devoted wife or daughter. It is one whose thoughts centre in the person so deeply loved, so tenderly cherished. She follows him about with her eyes; she is ever seeking some means of serving him; and, if her services are very small in their character, that only shows how intimate they are, and how incessant. And especially if the object of her love be weak, or in pain, or near to die, still more intensely does she live in his life, and know nothing but him.

This intense devotion towards our Lord, forgetting self in love for Him, is instanced in St. Paul, who says. "I know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified."[1] And again, "I live, [yet] now not I, but Christ liveth in me; and [the life] that I now live in the flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself for me."[2]

All His sufferings before her eyes. JJ Tissot. Brooklyn Museum.

But great as was St. Paul's devotion to our Lord, much greater was that of the Blessed Virgin; because she was His Mother, and because she had Him and all His sufferings actually before her eyes, and because she had the long intimacy of thirty years with Him, and because she was from her special sanctity so ineffably near to Him in spirit. When, then, He was mocked, bruised, scourged, and nailed to the Cross, she felt as keenly as if every indignity and torture inflicted on Him was struck at herself. She could have cried out in agony at every pang of His.



This is called her compassion, or her suffering with her Son, and it arose from this that she was the "Vas insigne devotionis."


[1] [1] And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not in loftiness of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of Christ.
Et ego, cum venissem ad vos, fratres, veni non in sublimitate sermonis, aut sapientiae, annuntians vobis testimonium Christi.
[2] For I judged not myself to know anything among you, but Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
Non enim judicavi me scire aliquid inter vos, nisi Jesum Christum, et hunc crucifixum. [1 Cor 2]
[2] [20] And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me. And that I live now in the flesh: I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered himself for me.
Vivo autem, jam non ego : vivit vero in me Christus. Quod autem nunc vivo in carne : in fide vivo Filii Dei, qui dilexit me, et tradidit semetipsum pro me. [Gal 2]