Every Catholic renders homage to the most Holy Trinity, at least in his mind. He believes that in God there are three Persons, distinct but not separate, who constitute but one God, and that these three Persons are equal in duration, power, intelligence, and love.
To this cult of the mind, the Catholic sometimes adds a cult of the will. He makes the sign of the cross while invoking the three divine Persons; sometimes he recites the “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost,” or the Creed which mentions the works attributed to each of the three Persons. With the whole Church he honors this mystery on Trinity Sunday.
Besides the cult rendered to God and to His saints, there is also devotion to them. Cult gives what is obligatory; devotion adds the supererogatory. Cult stems from the virtue of justice and is an affair of the will; devotion proceeds from love, supposes attraction, spontaneity, generosity, joy, sometimes even enthusiasm.
Fervent Christians profess not only a cult, but a devotion to the most Holy Trinity.
Above all, they show devotion to the Son of God incarnate, to His different mysteries, His coming among us, His Passion, the Eucharist, the Sacred Heart.
They love also to pray to the Father, according to the very recommendation of the Son: “Thus shall you pray: Our Father who art in heaven. . . .” They recall the goodness of the Father who knows their needs even before they ask for help, who takes
more care of them than the best of earthly fathers cares for his children.1
They also invoke the Holy Spirit, with more frequency perhaps than devotion, by the recitation of the “Come, Holy Ghost,” before instructions or courses in school, or by the more solemn Veni Creator Spiritus in extraordinary circumstances when they feel more need of His light.
There are Christians who, with conviction and feeling, cultivate a devotion to each of the three divine Persons. For the majority of Christians, however, the devotion to the first and the third Persons is generally reduced to a minimum. This is true of the Holy Spirit, the Great Misunderstood because the Great Unknown, the one who most attracted the attention of the faithful in the first period of Christianity, when He distributed His astonishing charismata.
Furthermore, the three Persons are honored almost as if they were separate. No one admits this, of course; for were he questioned, he would confess that they are not separate at all. But in practice he addresses them without even insinuating the intimate and necessary relations that unite them.
As in our other activities, union with Mary might be said to introduce new life into our trinitarian devotion. As already explained, such devotion consists not in reasoning, but in entering into the interior of Mary and, with her, into the interior of Jesus to make their thoughts, sentiments, desires, and activities our own.
Certainly it is not necessary to show any further how union with Mary helps us attain intimacy with Jesus. The preceding chapters suffice. There is a word to be said, however, about souls animated, it would seem, with a great devotion to our Lord without great devotion to Mary. We do not speak here of Protestants who, through a scruple of conscience, have rejected
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recourse to the Mother of Jesus. Nor do we speak of the Christians of the first centuries when devotion to Mary was not as explicit as at present because the knowledge of Mary’s role was not as clear as it is today. We are speaking of Catholics of our time, of certain laymen, priests, religious men and women.
Often they are souls, naturally quite noble but more or less rationalistic, for whom Christ is a Leader who invites them to follow Him, a Model who poses before them, rather than a Life which makes them live. They do not understand well the spirit of humility, still less the spirit of evangelical childhood. Certain women religious have a fairly intense love for our Lord, their divine Spouse, but they think more of being loved by this Spouse than of loving Him, more of receiving than of giving. If they really wanted to love Him with their whole heart, they would feel both their powerlessness to do so and the need they have of that Mother who would unite her love to theirs. Sometimes the attitude in question springs from prejudice or from a Jansenistic education.
Here are two appropriate testimonials. The first is furnished by Msgr. d’Hulst, writing to one of his spiritual clients under date of May 26, 1880:
I have promised to help you discover Mary and to tell you what she must be especially for you, my child. It is clear that God wants you for Himself. The essence of your religion is love; the chief obstacle, mistrust. The obstacle will disappear, the essence will develop when the filial spirit masters your soul; and the filial spirit will cause you to enter the family of God such as God made it, that is, with Mary as mother. You cannot change the fact that Jesus was given by Mary, and all good things together with Him. You cannot change the fact that the Holy Spirit inspires souls with sentiments like His for the Blessed Mother. All this is true for everybody. But by the very fact that you have a virtue of religion that is
more laborious, more contradicted, more interiorly tried, more exteriorly disturbed by the storms of temptation and doubt, you have a more particular need of this sweet remedy which softens, simplifies, dilates, restores, and introduces the soul to generosity through confidence.
That is the secret, my dear child; it is not very mysterious, but it is efficacious. Try it, and instead of being jealous for the moments seemingly taken from Jesus and given to Mary, take Mary for patroness, not in the sense of that exterior devotion which satisfies common souls, but as patroness of your interior life. Have recourse to her on every occasion; give her half of all your prayers, of all the events that occur in your interior kingdom, your joys, pains, temptations, desires. Ask that she herself lead you to her Son, to be sure you are not deceived and not wearied in seeking Him.
His spiritual daughter obeyed with docility and was rewarded, as we learn from the letter of her director, dated June 10 of the following year:
What happiness you cause me by telling of the discovery which you have just made, finally—the discovery of Mary! More peace in suffering, more sweetness in austerity, more confidence in trial, more generosity in love— such are the fruits proper to intimacy with her. Do not terminate the octave of Pentecost without asking, through
her, for devotion to the Holy Spirit, that is, devotion to
the interior life, to the principle of love hidden in our hearts which inspires prayer and sacrifice.
This soul continued her efforts and her discoveries. On May 3, 1886, Msgr. d’Hulst was able to write to her:
How right you are about the Blessed Virgin! . . . Indeed, there is a perfection in the Christian life which is
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not reached except by devotion to Mary and according to the measure of that devotion, be it in prayer, in penance, in hope, or in love. A person advances that much further as she has more abundantly the spirit of the Son. Now, the spirit of the Son does not only cry in our hearts: Father, Father . . . it also cries: Mother, Mother. The day on which we have understood the facility, the advantage, the assurance, the economy of time, of effort, and of suffering which full openness of heart with the “Mother of fair love” procures for us, we shall make a decisive step forward on the path which leads to God and we shall place ourselves in safety.
Here is the more recent testimony of a cloistered religious, pious, but without any special devotion to Mary. Her brother, a priest, recommended that she consecrate herself to Mary. “Oh,” she replied, “I understand the Blessed Virgin well and I love her, but I feel attracted toward the Sacred Heart.” She consented however to make her consecration to Mary. Since then, every time she meets her brother she speaks to him of Mary. “My life is entirely transformed ever since I belong entirely to Mary.”
What was the attitude of Mary toward God the Father? Very early, probably from her Immaculate Conception,1
by means of infused light she must have known God as her Creator and Father; she saw that she was filled by Him with unique graces that were always increasing; she felt with what infinite love He loved her, a creature who was nothing by herself. Hence, sentiments of veneration, of thanksgiving, of filial love, of abandonment filled her heart. Hence also, the total and irrevocable gift of her entire self to the good pleasure of this infinitely loving Father.
1 This opinion is professed by a considerable number of saints and theologians: St. Bernardine of Siena, St. Francis de Sales, St. Alphonsus Liguori; Terrien, Hugon, Suavé, Garrigou-Lagrange. The
Contact with people around her showed her how she was better preserved from sin, how much more she was favored than all of them, without any merit on her part. Hence an increase in gratitude and filial love; hence also sentiments of reparation for the sins which she saw His other children commit against Him.
And as she daily received more graces and corresponded with them in ever increasing fervor, her filial piety toward the Father increased incessantly.
Then one day an angel told her that the Father willed His own Son to be her son also. She would thus be His associate in the generation of the same Son of God, though under another aspect. What infinite condescension in that inconceivable love of the Father for His lowly daughter! Henceforth what will be her filial love, her gratitude, her humility, her devotedness toward this Father!
Jesus is born. Soon, and how often and with what accents, will He speak of His Father in the little house of Nazareth! What love, what respect, what filial devotedness for this Father! One day, in the temple, He will recall to His parents that He must be entirely about His Father’s business, though it will pain them to hear it.
Later, to His disciples, He will speak of this same Father who sent Him to redeem the world at the price of His blood. He honors His Father; His nourishment is to do the will of that Father, and although the chalice that is presented to Him inspires with human repugnance, He prays repeatedly: “Father, not My will but Thine be done.” His last word on the cross will be an act of confidence in His Father: “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.”
Of these words pronounced after His departure from Nazareth, Mary hears some directly; others are reported to her by the disciples, especially by John. She passes her life meditating on them in her heart. The contemplation of the