Mary in the Epistles by Thomas Stiverd Livius. Comments on the Epistles part 38


THE EPISTLE OF S. PAUL TO TITUS. CHAPTER I.

4 To Titus my beloved son, according to the common faith, grace and peace from God the Father, and from Christ Jesus our Saviour.

If S. Paul calls Titus his son, is not Mary our Mother ?

CHAPTER II.

4 That they may teach the young women to be wise, to love their husbands, to love their children,

5 To be discreet, chaste, sober, having a care of the house, gentle, obedient to their husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.

Here is another assemblage of virtues which the tradition of the faithful has ever associated with the Virgin Mother, especially, and in the highest degree. Hence she is invoked as Sedes sapientiae, Virgo prudentissima, Mater castissima, O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria.

Virgo singularis, 
Inter omnes mitis, 
Nos culpis solutos 
Mites fac et castos.

11 For the grace of God our Saviour hath appeared to all men. 

13 Looking for the blessed hope and coming of the glory of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.

".For the grace of God our Saviour hath appeared . . . See how this man of God is speaking from God, and attests by a preaching most evident that the grace of God appeared from Mary. And lest, perchance, thou shouldst say, that it was not from Mary that God appeared, he at once added the name of Saviour, for the very purpose that thou mightest believe that He who was born of Mary is God, whom thou canst not deny to have been born a Saviour, according to what is written: 'For this day is born to you a Saviour.' [Luke ii. 11.] O admirable Master, Blessed Paul, verily given by God to the Gentiles . . . Tlic great (rod and our Saviour Jesus Christ: It is not allowed to say, Christ was born from Mary, and yet not God; for the Apostle proclaims: God. It is not allowed to say, Jesus was born of Mary, and not God ; for the Apostle testifies: God. It is not allowed to say, a Saviour is born, and not God; for the Apostle affirms : God." [Cassian, De Incarn. Christi, Lib. ii. c. 4.]

We quote these words of Cassian, not on account of their testimony to the Divinity of Jesus Christ, and to Mary's Divine Maternity, but because they clearly show how obvious it was to that holy Father, that S. Paul in his teaching about Jesus Christ, had the Blessed Virgin His Mother present to his mind.