Born of the Virgin Mary (2)
By Mgr Olympe-Philippe Gerbet | 2 April 2025
This article follows Born of the Virgin Mary (1)
History records that, when the Gospel is announced to a people, women always show a particular sympathy for the word of life and habitually outstrip men in their eagerness to receive it. One might say that Mary’s docile response to the Angel, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord”, finds a most resounding echo in their souls. … At the beginning of all the great religious periods, one sees soaring a mysterious, heavenly figure in the form of a holy woman. When Christianity came out of the catacombs, Helen, the mother of Constantine, gave to the ancient Roman world the recovered Cross, which Clotilde would soon erect on the Frankish cradle of the modern world. Monica, by her prayers, gave birth to the true Augustine. In the Middle Ages, St Hildegard of Bingen, St Catherine of Sienna and St Teresa of Avila kept, better than most of the Doctors of their time, the tradition of a mystical philosophy, which was so heartening and life-giving that, today, souls withered by doubt still come to quench their thirst at this spring. …
Mary did not reveal the divine Word; she gave birth to Him by the power of the Holy Ghost. Likewise, the mission of the Christian woman is not so much to explain the truth as to make it felt. … To the man the chair, the teaching mission of the Church, the public office of doctrine. … The mission of the woman is a private mission. She accomplishes it particularly in the sanctuary of domestic society, in confidence; in the outpouring of souls brought on by the intimacy of the family and of this other relationship that we call friendship; and in misfortune which seeks consolations, secret like its grievances. Woman’s preaching does not attempt to shake human nature but to cut to the quick of every individuality. It is less resounding perhaps but more penetrating. The great voice which announces the truth throughout the centuries is composed of two voices: to the man’s belongs the radiant major tones; that of the Christian woman breathes forth the veiled, unctuous, minor tones whose silence would leave only brute force in the other. From their union results suave and sweet harmony.
Let women not complain about their part. If they are not charged with directing men, they are charged with forming them, as Joseph de Maistre, our Christian Plato, remarks:
“The moral man is made, perhaps, at the age of ten; if he hasn’t been made on the knees of his mother, it will always be a great misfortune. Nothing can replace this education. If the mother has made it her duty above all to impress the divine seal deeply on her child’s brow, one can be nigh on sure that the hand of vice will never erase it.”
… A second role of woman rehabilitated by Christianity consists in the charity with which she associates herself with all the sufferings of humanity in order to alleviate them; charity which has its special type in the Compassion of the Mother of Sorrows, standing at the foot of the Cross and weeping.
A Christian poet, Klopstock, supposes that at the moment of the death of Christ, the souls of Adam and Eve were taken from limbo and brought to Calvary to contemplate their work.1 Not everything is fiction in this beautiful idea. Primitive man was represented at Calvary by St John … Eve appeared with him in Mary. But St John, abandoned by all his fugitive companions, bore the lonely sorrow of man at the foot of the Cross. It was not so with Mary: she had companions there who, together with her, wept their compassionate tears. The first charitable organisation was founded by women, inspired by the final breaths of the Redeemer. …
Catholicism has produced, with an inexhaustible fecundity, religious congregations devoted to the relief of all miseries. These societies of sacrifice are Mary’s spiritual posterity, which say to poverty, “You are our Daughter”, and to all sufferings, “You are our sisters”. They all have her for patron; they all set out to imitate her virtues and, in short, their absolute devotion is only made possible by the beliefs which serve as the basis for the cult of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It cannot be overstated: how could these admirable women consecrate themselves, at all times without reserve, to their works of charity; how could they use up their lives in adoptive suffering if, wives and mothers, duty bound them to consecrate themselves especially to their families? But the vow of virginity, this divine charter guaranteeing them the highest of all liberties — the liberty of devotion — is eminently attached to the apotheosis of virginity in the Mother of God.
In the hymn which we sing on Good Friday, around the tomb of Christ, the Church says to Mary, “O noble Virgin of virgins, Be not bitter with me now”. What does the Church ask of her next? Some great grace, surely, since her supplication is insinuated by praises (one might almost say pious flattery). Behold this great favour the Church asks: “Make me mourn with you”.2 These words are engraved on the heart of the heroines of Christian charity. They would not be able to mourn so well with all the unfortunate if they had not have learned to mourn with the Blessed Virgin Mary.
This series will continue next week with Born of the Virgin Mary (3).
See also:
Born of the Virgin Mary (1) by Mgr Olympe-Philippe Gerbet
On the vocation and mission of Catholic priests by Mgr Olympe-Philippe Gerbet
Notes
- Now Adam rose, and spread his arms to Heav’n,
While for a space he gaz’d upon the cross,
Where hung the Saviour, with a cheek more pale
Than ere was mortal visage ! Short the time
Adam might gaze : his folded hands he clasp’d
Upon his brow, and sunk to earth ; that earth
Whose dust he was ; that earth accurs’d through him ;
In which his body, brought by sin to death,
Had seen corruption ; in whose mould’ring lap
Whole generations had each age been laid !
At length in sobs he spoke. ‘Oh Lord ! Lord God !
‘Long-suffering and gracious ! God of truth,
‘Mercy, and goodness ! Thou who pardon’st sin !
‘Who from the world’s beginning hast been slain
‘For our salvation ! Prophet, Priest, and King !
‘Yet Son of Man ! Oh from thine altar hear,
‘Thy bloody altar, where for man thou diest,
‘Hear the low voice which from thy tomb’s dark mouth
‘Thus dares address thee ! Grateful praise, deep thanks,
‘Unceasing adoration, be to thee,
‘Thou mighty Saviour, bearing thus the weight
‘Of Man’s iniquity, his righteous doom !’
Thus Adam cried, and Eve’s responsive heart
In silence join’d ; while on them both a glance
From the expiring Saviour’s eye now shed
Soft mercy, grace divine, celestial peace,
The richest and the purest gift of Heav’n !”
— F T Klopstock (1724–1803), The Messiah: A Poem, X:443–470, verse translation by Catherine Head, vol 2 (Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, London, 1836) pp 91–92.
↩︎ - Virgo vírginum præclára,
mihi iam non sis amára,
fac me tecum plángere.
— Hymn Stabat Mater ↩︎