Madonna and Child, Fra Filippo Lippi; 1465

FROM Orestes Brownson’s “The Moral and Social Influence of Devotion to Mary:”

Nowhere in ancient or modern heathendom do we find maternity regarded as a holy function, or any conception of its deep spiritual significance Motherhood had hardly any rights of its own, even with free mothers, and none at all with slave moth

It is mainly to the low estimate in which maternity is held among the heathen that we must attribute in both ancient and modern times the prevalence of child-murder, or the exposure of children, as in China, India, and perhaps in all nations on which the light of the Gospel sheds no ray. In ancient Sparta the law ordered all malformed children to be put to death as soon as born, and in Rome the mother had no rights over her new-born child, and the nurse must wait the word of the father to know whether the babe just born is to live or to be strangled. If the father refuses to own it and to say let it live, it cannot be reared. The father can slay the child with his own hand or with the hand of his slave before the mother’s eyes without her having any right to complain, or the law any right to intervene. If the mother herself had any proper respect for the sacredness and dignity of motherhood she could never destroy her own offspring, and infanticide by the hands of the mother or with her knowledge and consent would be an unheard-of crime. If again, the father or society had any due appreciation of the greatness and sacredness of motherhood, the practice of child-murder could never be tolerated, or even connived at. Not only did the low estimate in which maternity was held, an estimate that placed it little above a mere animal function, lead to the toleration or authorization of child-murder, but it tended to degrade womanhood, and to make woman herself a mere accomplice with man in pleasure or ambition.

Under Christianity this estimate is corrected, and motherhood, as a necessary consequence of elevating marriage to a sacrament, is elevated in some sense to the spiritual order, and made a holy function. Woman herself is elevated, ceases to be a mere drudge, or an article of luxury. She is a person, not a chattel, has her own personal existence, rights, and duties. If a wife, she is indeed under obedience to her husband, but the obedience of a person morally free, not the obedience of a slave. If the rights of the father are paramount, they are not exclusive, and the rights of the mother are recognized, and in some cases even supersede those of the father. Under this Christian view of woman and motherhood infanticide and the exposure of children ceased in the nations that became, and just in proportion as they became and remained Christian.

In general terms this change in regard to the estimate in which maternity is held is of course due to Christianity, but it is more particularly due to that element in Christian worship which we call devotion to Mary, the virgin mother of God. In her motherhood was invested with a significance, a sacredness, a dignity, an awe even, never before conceived of as belonging to it. When God himself condescends to be born of woman, and woman becomes the mother of him who is the Creator of heaven and earth, and the Redeemer and Saviour of mankind, motherhood becomes almost a divine function, and something to be treated with reverence and awe, for not only did Mary bring forth him who is Christ the Lord, but every human mother brings forth a child destined, if true to the law of his Maker, to be one with Christ, one with God, and a real partaker of the divine nature. Satan lied in the sense he intended to be understood, when, in tempting Eve, he said, “Ye shall be as gods; “yet his promise was lees than the truth, below the real destiny to which every human soul may aspire, for God became man that man might become God, and the glorified saints partake not only of the human nature assumed, but of the divine nature itself,-are made, as Saint Peter says, divinae consortes naturae.

Certainly I do not pretend that man ever becomes the Divinity or a divine person. The glorified soul is still a creature, and creature always will be; but it has all of the divine that is communicable, and is joined to God by unity of nature as well as by union of will and affection. The mystery of human destiny through the Incarnation is too great for our comprehension; we cannot conceive what will be the greatness and dignity of man when glorified. “Beloved,” says the Apostle John, “now are we the sons of God, and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be; we know that when he shall appear we shall be like to him, for we shall see him as he is.” (I John, iii, 2.)

Now in estimating the greatness and dignity of the mother we have regard to the Son. All nations call Mary blessed, because he whom she brought forth was the only begotten Son of God, and for a like reason to that for which we honor maternity in her, should we honor it, though of course in an inferior degree, in every human mother. Every human mother may chant with Mary: “My soul cloth magnify the Lord. * * * For he that is mighty hath done great things to me, and holy is his name.” It IB a great and sacred thing to be the mother of a child, if we look to the destiny to which every child may aspire. The mother who feels it, feels the sacredness of her relation as mother, the high duty it imposes, and studies diligently to train up her child in the fear of the Lord, in sole reference to his lofty destiny. This estimate of her own dignity and sacred function, reacts on the father, and compels him to think seriously on his relation and solemn duties and responsibilities as father, for more is exacted of him than even of the mother.

Now, devotion to Mary, the honor we pay in her to motherhood, brings all these great and solemn truths home to our winds, and our hearts. We are led to reflect on the great mysteries of the Incarnation, regeneration and glorification, and thence on the awful dignity of motherhood, the sacredness and worth of every child born of woman, and the obligation to reverence the mother, to provide for the child’s present and future welfare, and to conform society itself, so far as may be, to the virtues honored in the maternity of Mary. From this it is easy to see that devotion . . .

According to my reading of history, the epochs in which faith is the strongest, piety the most robust, and the church wins her grandest victories, whether in individuals or in nations, are precisely those in which devotion to our Lady, or the worship of her virtue, is the most diffused, the most vigorous and flourishing; and the epochs in which faith seems to be obscured, and to grow weak and sickly, and the church is the most harassed and suffers her greatest losses, are precisely the epochs in which this devotion is the most languid and feeble. All the great saints have been no less remarkable for their tender and assiduous devotion to Mary than for their manly virtues and heroic sanctity, and I suspect that most of us could bear witness, if we would, that the least unsatisfactory portions of our own lives have been precisely those in which we were the most diligent and fervent in our devotion to the mother of God. I claim, then, for devotion to our Lady a full share of influence in rendering Christian society so much superior in all the virtues to the polished but corrupt society of pagan Greece and Rome. As with the pagans the worship of the impure gods of their mythologies could not fail to corrupt the worshippers, so with Christians the worship of the purity and sanctity of the mother of God has not failed to purify and render holy those who in sincerity, earnestness, and simplicity of heart were careful to practice it.

I might tale up other virtues of Mary, for she is a Casket of Jewels, and show in like manner how through devotion to Mary they have entered into Christian society and formed its manners and morals; but this every reader can easily do for himself. I have laid down and illustrated the principle, and though I have said not all, rather the least that could be said, I have said enough to show that the influence of this devotion hag been and must have been great and salutary on individual and domestic manners and morals, and in elevating and advancing general society.

But I should be wanting to my own faith, and do far less honor to our Lady than I would, if I stopped here, and limited the effects of devotion, to the natural influence of her example. This influence is great, and we cannot hold intimate, loving, and reverent intercourse with the wise, the great, and the good, without assimilating something to our own minds, hearts, and life. Meditation on the humility, the maternity, the virginity, the immaculate purity of the Virgin of virgins, Mother most pure, Mother most chaste, Mother undefiled, cannot fail to give us something of those virtues so characteristic of her, and of our holy religion; but I do not believe that meditation on her virtues could alone suffice to produce and sustain the effects I have adduced, any more than the simple example of our Lord himself could have sufficed to redeem the world, and elevate souls to union with God. All the peculiarly Christian virtues are in the order of regeneration, as is Christianity itself, though presupposing, as does regeneration, the order of generation, and therefore are impossible without grace or supernatural assistance. Pelagianism, even Semi-Pelagianism, is a heresy, and little would devotion to Mary in reality effect, if we were to leave out all consideration of the supernatural assistance which she obtains for her clients, by her all-powerful intercession with her divine Son. Even faith alone in the mysteries and teachings of the Gospel could not suffice; for the devils believe and tremble, and yet are none the less devils. Most of us know and believe much better than we do. We see, and approve the better, and follow the worse:

Video meliora proboque Deteriora sequor.

What we most need is not amply instruction or precept, but strength. We are weak, and our appetites, passions, propensities, are too strong for us, and enslave us. We feel ourselves sinking; the waves are closing over us, and in fear and agony we cry out: “Lord, save us, we perish!” “Holy Mother of God pray for us, or we are lost!”

(From Orestes Brownson’s “Moral and Social Influence of Devotion to Mary”)

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