The world is saved by Mary’s fiat
4 min • Digitized on March 25, 2022
From The Life and Glories of St. Joseph, in file "The Life and Glories of St. Joseph", page 173
By Edward Healy Thompson, M.A.
A great wonder it is, no doubt, and worthy of our highest admiration, that the accomplishment of all these mysteries and of everything involved in them should be left by the Most High in the hands of a humble maiden, and that all should depend on her fiat; but securely was it left to the wisdom and fortitude of this “valiant woman,” who did not betray the confidence reposed in her.
The works accomplished within God Himself need not the co-operation of the creature, nor do they admit of its participation; therefore God awaits not the consent of creatures to act ad intra. But in His works ad extra, His contingent works, it is different. Among these the greatest was His being made man; and He would not effect it without the co-operation of the most holy Mary or without her free consent; and this in order that with her and by her He should give this fulfilment and crown of all His works, and that we should recognise the benefit as coming to us from the Mother of Wisdom and our Reparatrix.
Moreover, God desired that Mary should give the assent of her whole being, intellect, heart, will, and that her reply should be therefore such as befitted the most exalted of mysteries. And our Lady discerned all that was implied in the stupendous offer made to her; she saw all that depended on her answer—the fulfilment of all the prophecies and of the promises made by God, the most pleasing and acceptable sacrifice ever offered or which could be ever offered to Him, the opening of the gates of Paradise, victory and triumph over Hell, the redemption of the whole human race, satisfaction and compensation to Divine justice, the foundation of the new law of grace, the glory of men, the joy of the angels, and all that would be contained in and result from the Only-Begotten of the Father taking the form of a servant in her womb. All was before the magnificent and divinely illuminated intellect of this great lady.
Having, then, conferred with the angel and within herself concerning this most sublime mystery, her spirit was fortified and raised to such a height of admiration and reverence, and she made so intense an act of the love of God, that her most chaste heart, by the force of this act and under its pressure, gave forth, says Maria d’Agreda, three drops of its pure blood from which the Holy Ghost formed the Body of Christ our Lord, so that the substance of which the Sacred Humanity of the Word was made was furnished by the most pure heart of Mary, through a true and ardent act of love: a beautiful thought, which, when once suggested, we do not willingly relinquish, as it makes us realise more fully and deeply the co-operation of the Blessed Virgin in the work of our redemption.
At the same moment that love had this supernatural effect within her, she bent her head with the profoundest humility, and, joining her hands, she said, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word”. The salvation of the world was awaiting Mary’s consent. Mary has given her consent, and the world is saved. In one instant is accomplished in her the work of the Incarnation, and Mary is the Mother of God. The Virgin remains absorbed in an ecstasy, flooded with torrents of heavenly joy. She has become the tabernacle of the Living God; legions of angels have descended to honour her as their queen and adore the Divine Word made Flesh within her; and Gabriel having fulfilled his mission, after making a profound genuflection, returns to the courts of Heaven.