"Birth of The Virgin".
Artist: Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617–1682).
Date: 1660.
Current location: Louvre Museum, Paris, France.
Source/Photographer: Web Gallery of Art
(Wikimedia Commons)
Volume 14.
Time After Pentecost.
Book V.
LET US MAKE MAN TO OUR IMAGE AND LIKENESS.
‘And God made man; He modelled him,’ says Tertullian, ‘to the image of God, i.e., of Christ. Wonderful deed, to fashion this slime of the Earth ! God seems to be absorbed in it; He makes it the work of His hand and of His heart; counsel, wisdom, providence, and, above all, love, trace the lines.
As he forms each lineament of this clay, He has in mind Christ Who is to become man. This slime of the Earth, stamped with the image of The Christ to come, is not only God's work, it is also His pledge.’
These words were spoken concerning our first parent, Adam; but, how much more truly do they apply to The Mother of The Man-God, during these days when He, Who is to be born of her, watches over her growth !
As God, He now places in her, provisionally, what He wills to take from her, hereafter. For, as Man, He will receive from her, together with His Sacred Body, everything that children naturally inherit from their parents: Such dispositions and qualities as arise from the physical complexion; features, ways, habits acquired by imitation or by early education.
Such is the ineffable condescension of Him, Who, knowing all things by infused science, condescends to pass, like us, through the apprenticeship of life. Jesus is to have no Earthly father; He will, therefore, receive more from His Mother than could any other son.
In return, no creature could be so like to Jesus in The Order of Grace, as she whom He thus deigns to resemble in the order of nature; and our Heavenly Father loves every creature in proportion to the degree of that creature's conformity to the image of His Divine Son.
How exceedingly, then, Oh, Mary, art thou loved !!! Already, in thy sweet features we discern the nobility of The King's daughter, whose glory is from within, hidden beneath the golden fringes and variety of ornaments that deck her; for the manifold gifts of The Holy Spirit enhance the grace and beauty that Crown thee in thy very cradle.
Together with Andrew of Crete, speaking on this day, we thus salute thee: ‘Hail, Mediatrix of The Law of Grace; Seal of The Ancient and of The New Alliance; Luminous Fulfilment of All Prophecy; Summary of Revealed Truth; Living, Immaculate Book of God The Word, wherein, without writing or characters, The Word of God its Author may be daily read !!!
Hail, First-Fruits of our Regeneration; Term of The Divine Promises and Predictions; Sanctuary promised by God to His Own Glory; Liberatrix Foretold To The Nations !!! ’
The Greeks make, today, a Special Commemoration of Our Lady's Holy Parents. Already, yesterday, The Menæa repeated in a thousand ways the gratitude all creatures owe to them.
‘And God made man; He modelled him,’ says Tertullian, ‘to the image of God, i.e., of Christ. Wonderful deed, to fashion this slime of the Earth ! God seems to be absorbed in it; He makes it the work of His hand and of His heart; counsel, wisdom, providence, and, above all, love, trace the lines.
As he forms each lineament of this clay, He has in mind Christ Who is to become man. This slime of the Earth, stamped with the image of The Christ to come, is not only God's work, it is also His pledge.’
These words were spoken concerning our first parent, Adam; but, how much more truly do they apply to The Mother of The Man-God, during these days when He, Who is to be born of her, watches over her growth !
As God, He now places in her, provisionally, what He wills to take from her, hereafter. For, as Man, He will receive from her, together with His Sacred Body, everything that children naturally inherit from their parents: Such dispositions and qualities as arise from the physical complexion; features, ways, habits acquired by imitation or by early education.
Such is the ineffable condescension of Him, Who, knowing all things by infused science, condescends to pass, like us, through the apprenticeship of life. Jesus is to have no Earthly father; He will, therefore, receive more from His Mother than could any other son.
In return, no creature could be so like to Jesus in The Order of Grace, as she whom He thus deigns to resemble in the order of nature; and our Heavenly Father loves every creature in proportion to the degree of that creature's conformity to the image of His Divine Son.
How exceedingly, then, Oh, Mary, art thou loved !!! Already, in thy sweet features we discern the nobility of The King's daughter, whose glory is from within, hidden beneath the golden fringes and variety of ornaments that deck her; for the manifold gifts of The Holy Spirit enhance the grace and beauty that Crown thee in thy very cradle.
Together with Andrew of Crete, speaking on this day, we thus salute thee: ‘Hail, Mediatrix of The Law of Grace; Seal of The Ancient and of The New Alliance; Luminous Fulfilment of All Prophecy; Summary of Revealed Truth; Living, Immaculate Book of God The Word, wherein, without writing or characters, The Word of God its Author may be daily read !!!
Hail, First-Fruits of our Regeneration; Term of The Divine Promises and Predictions; Sanctuary promised by God to His Own Glory; Liberatrix Foretold To The Nations !!! ’
The Greeks make, today, a Special Commemoration of Our Lady's Holy Parents. Already, yesterday, The Menæa repeated in a thousand ways the gratitude all creatures owe to them.
