Intimately connected with the humility of our Lady is her spotless purity. God giveth grace to the humble and rejecteth the proud. Purity. The grace which He deigned to bestow upon Mary's humility was the Divine Maternity. God chose her from all creatures to be His Virgin Mother. It is this mystery of virginity in mother hood that, above all, caused the Fathers again and again to break forth in praises of the Maiden-Mother. St. Ambrose in particular, throughout his treatise on virginity, never tires of extolling our Lady, in whose life he finds every virtue appropriate to her sublime vocation.
"Therefore," writes the holy Doctor, "you should have before you the life of Mary, in which you may behold, as it were in a mirror, chastity and the pattern of virtue. The nobility of a teacher will immediately set on fire the ardour of the disciple. Who can be more noble than the Mother of God ? Who more splendid than she whom Splendour chose ? Who more chaste than she who gave birth to a Body without any detriment to her own body ? But what shall I say of her other virtues ? She was a virgin not only in body, but also in mind (Cf. St. Augustine, Lib. IV., De doct. Christ., c. 21.) . . . humble of heart, grave of speech, prudent in mind, restrained in conversation, devoted to reading, placing her hopes, not in the uncertainty of riches, but in the prayers of the poor, devoted to duty, modest in her words, accustomed to weigh the judgments of God, not of man, to injure none, to wish well to all, to show deference to her elders, to have no grudge against her neighbours, to fly boastfulness, to love virtue."
