O Intemerata
August 15, 2019
Madonna and Child with Two Angels, Filippo Lippi
AS powerful as women are today in politics, government and business, they cannot approach her power.
They rule through will and efficiency. She rules through humility and inner perfection. They rule through the generalized subversion of the natural order. She rules through its culmination. They are, in many cases, the relentless and blind, No. She is the eternal and sublime, Yes.
She is loved as no other woman has been loved. Never has she denied one who has approached her. So often we think we can solve all our problems on our own. We cannot solve them on our own. A woman recently told me of her painful alienation from her own mother in middle-age. It was God’s way of turning her to the Mother of all. If you think there are too many for her to encompass, you do not understand the vast, maternal ocean of her heart.
Billions have been devoted to her. Millions have made pilgrimages to the places where she has appeared, in Guadalupe, in Knock, in Lourdes, in Fatima. There is a rock-like strength in many of those who love her — and a child-like trust. She is the Refuge of Sinners, the heart of tender mercy between the fallen human race and the terrible majesty of God. Blessed is the womb that was worthy to bear the Incarnate Word.
We venerate her especially today, on the Feast of her Assumption into Heaven.
O UNSPOTTED and forever blessed, unique and incomparable virgin Mary, Mother of God, most graceful temple of God, sanctuary of the Holy Spirit, gate of the kingdom of heaven, by whom next unto God the whole world liveth, incline O Mother of Mercy thy ears of piety unto my unworthy supplications, and be merciful to me a most wretched sinner, and be unto me a helper in all things.
— From O Intemerata
