Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (August 22)

(Sermon of Saint Bernadine of Siena)

What mortal man, unless he were protected by a divine pronouncement, would presume with his uncircumcised, his impure lips to speak briefly or at length about the true Mother of God and man – about her whom God the Father predestined before all ages to be a perpetual Virgin, whom the Son chose for His most worthy Mother, whom the Holy Ghost prepared as the dwelling place of every grace? With what words can a mere man, like myself, say anything of the lofty thoughts of that Virgin’s Heart uttered by her most holy lips, thoughts for which the tongues of all the Angels would not be adequate? For the Lord said, “the good man from the good treasure of his heart brings forth that which is good”; and this word also can be a treasure. Among those who are merely human, who can be thought of as better than she who merited to made Mother of God, who for nine months gave the hospitality of her Heart and of her womb to God Himself? What treasure could be better than that divine love with which the Heart of the Virgin burned like a fiery furnace?

 And so, from this Heart as from a furnace of divine ardor, the Blessed Virgin brought forth good words, that is, words of the most ardent love. For as from a vase full of the best wine only the best wine can be poured, or as from a very hot furnace nothing can come forth that is not burning hot, so indeed from the Mother of Christ could come no word except one of the highest and greatest divine love and ardor. And as the words of a wise mistress and lady are few, but substantial and full of meaning, so it is that seven times (approximately seven words) are read as having been spoken by the Blessed Mother of Jesus Christ, a mystical way of showing that she was full of the sevenfold grace. To the Angel, she spoke twice only, and twice also to Elizabeth. And she spoke twice to her Son, once in the temple, and once at the marriage feast, and once to the waiters at that feast. On all these occasions, she spoke very little, though she spoke at great length in praise of God and in thanksgiving, that is, when she said, “My soul doth magnify the Lord,” and here she spoke not with men but with God. These seven words were spoken in a wonderful gradation and order according to the seven progressions and acts of love; they are like seven flames from the furnace of her Heart.