Praises of the Virgin Mother by St Bernard : Homily III : §2-4/14

St Bernard, by Juan Correa de Vivar,
c. 1540-45. Museo del Prado.
(Public domain)

The following posts present the text of four homilies by St Bernard (1090-1153) frequently given the title of Missus est but which he himself called Praises of the Virgin Mother.

 

He was the first Cistercian monk to be placed on the calendar of saints and was canonized by Alexander III on the 18th January 1174. Pope Pius VIII bestowed on him the title of Doctor of the Church, “Doctor mellifluus,” on the 20th of August 1830. 

I offer this annotated presentation of St Bernard’s Homilies as a small gift to our gentle Queen and Mother in gratitude for her multitudinous graces and favours, requesting her continued help and protection for the author and his family.

The Latin text and references are based upon De laudibus Virginis Matris (Patrologia latina, vol. 183. J. P. Migne). The English text is based upon the version compiled and translated at St. Mary's Convent, York, and published by Washbourne in 1909.

Homily III : §2-4/14

 §2.   The Angel being come in, he said to her: 

“Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.” 

“Hail, full of grace.” The Coronation of the Virgin,
by Velázquez (c1636). Museo del Prado. Public domain.

In the Acts of the Apostles we read that Stephen was full of grace[1], and that the Apostles were filled with the Holy Ghost[2], but their measure of grace was very different from Mary’s. In Stephen was not found dwelling all the fulness of the Godhead corporeally[3] as it was in Mary; and the Apostles did not conceive of the Holy Spirit as Mary did. “Hail,” the Angel says to her, “full of grace, the Lord is with thee.” What wonder that she was full of grace when the Lord was with her? It is in fact wonderful that He who had sent the Angel was already found by him with the Virgin? Had, then, God been swifter than the Angel, so that He reached the earth more quickly than His hastening messenger? Is it not a cause for wonder that, while the King was at his repose, the Virgin’s spikenard sent forth the odour thereof,[4] the smoke of the aromatic offering rose in the sight of His glory and she found favour in the eyes of the Lord, while His ministers around exclaimed[5]: 

“Who is she that goeth up by the desert, as a pillar of smoke of aromatical spices, of myrrh, and frankincense?” 

And straightaway the King, going forth from His holy place, “rejoiced as a giant to run his way”[6]; and though “His going out is from the height of heaven,”[7] yet flying ahead with an overwhelming desire He outstripped His messenger and came first to the Virgin, her whom He had loved, whom He had chosen for Himself and whose beauty He had desired. At the sight of Him coming from afar, the Church exclaims with joy and exultation[8]: 

“Behold, He cometh leaping over the mountains, skipping over the hills.”

 

Footnotes

[1] A man full of faith, and of the Holy Ghost: Acts vi. 5.

[2] Acts. ii. 4.

[3] Coloss. ii. 9.

[4] Cant. i. 11.

[5] Cant. iii. 6.

[6] Psalm. xviii. 6.

[7] Psalm. xviii. 7.

[8] Cant. ii. 8.

 §3.   Rightly had the King been desirous of the Virgin’s beauty, for she had long before attended to the words of her father David[1]: 

“Hearken, O daughter, and see, and incline thine ear: and forget thy people and thy father’s house,” and if you do this “the king shall desire thy beauty.” 

She indeed heard and saw – but not as those who seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand[2], for she heard and believed, she saw and understood. She inclined her ear to obedience and her heart to discipline, and forgot her people and her father’s house. She took no thought to increase her people through the succession of offspring, nor to leave an heir to her father’s house; but whatever honour among the people and whatever worldly possessions she might have derived from her father’s house – she counted it all as dross, so that she might gain Christ. Nor was her intention disappointed, since she claimed Christ as her Son without violating her vow of chastity. Truly, then, is she full of grace who held fast to the grace of virginity and also obtained the glory of fecundity.

Footnotes

[1] Psalm. xliv. 11-12.

[2] Matt. xiii. 13.

 §4.   “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.” He says not the Lord is in thee, but the Lord is with thee. For God, who is everywhere equally and wholly present through His simple substance, is nevertheless present in rational creatures in a different way than He is in other things. Within those rational creatures themselves, moreover, He is present differently in the good than in the bad through His efficacy. This is indeed the case too in irrational creatures, yet He is beyond their grasp. He can be grasped by all rational beings through knowledge, but by the good He is grasped also through love. With the good alone He is present by love as well as by knowledge, so that He is with them by agreement of wills. While their wills are subject to justice, God does not disdain to will what they will, for their wills being conformed to His, they in a special manner unite God to themselves. 

Annunciation with the Trinity, c. 1480, artist unknown.
National Museum Warsaw. Public domain.

If God is thus present with all the saints, He is especially so with Mary, with whom He was so closely united that He joined to Himself not only her will but also her flesh, for from His own Divine nature and from her virginal substance He fashioned one Christ or rather one Christ who – although He was neither wholly of God nor wholly of the Virgin – He might nevertheless be made wholly of God and wholly of the Virgin. He was not two sons, but one Son of both. The Angel therefore says: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.” 

Not only is there with thee God the Son, whom thou dost clothe with thy flesh, but also with thee is God the Holy Ghost, of whom thou dost conceive, and also with thee is God the Father, who begot Him who is to be thy Son. The Father is with thee who makes His Son to be thine; the Son is with thee who institutes with thee a wondrous Sacrament, and yet preserves the seal of thy virginity; and The Holy Spirit is with thee, and with the Father and the Son He sanctifies thy pure womb. “The Lord,” therefore, “is with thee.”

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The Virgin of Tenderness. >12th century.

SUB tuum præsidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen. 

 

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.

He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded: and they that work by me shall not sin. They that explain me shall have life everlasting. Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) xxiv. 30-31.30-31.