Vas Honorabile

In His Agony she was agonised. JJ Tissot.

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 Honorabile," the Vessel of Honour

St Paul calls elect souls vessels of honour: of honour, because they are elect or chosen; and vessels, because, through the love of God, they are filled with God's heavenly and holy grace. How much more then is Mary a vessel of honour by reason of her having within her, not only the grace of God, but the very Son of God, formed as regards His flesh and blood out of her!

But this title "honorabile," as applied to Mary, admits of a further and special meaning. She was a martyr without the rude dishonour which accompanied the sufferings of martyrs. The martyrs were seized, haled about, thrust into prison with the vilest criminals, and assailed with the most blasphemous words and foulest speeches which Satan could inspire. Nay, such was the unutterable trial also of the holy women, young ladies, the spouses of Christ, whom the heathen seized, tortured, and put to death. Above all, our Lord Himself, whose sanctity was greater than any created excellence or vessel of grace—even He, as we know well, was buffeted, stripped, scourged, mocked, dragged about, and then stretched, nailed, lifted up on a high cross, to the gaze of a brutal multitude.

But He, who bore the sinner's shame for sinners, spared His Mother, who was sinless, this supreme indignity. Not in the body, but in the soul, she suffered. True, in His Agony she was agonised; in His Passion she suffered a fellow-passion; she was crucified with Him; the spear that pierced His breast pierced through her spirit. Yet there were no visible signs of this intimate martyrdom; she stood up, still, collected, motionless, solitary, under the Cross of her Son, surrounded by Angels, and shrouded in her virginal sanctity from the notice of all who were taking part in His Crucifixion.

Totus tuus ego sum et omnia mea tua sunt.

Tecum tutus semper sum.

Ad Jesum per Mariam