Catholics have been taught to regard our Lady always in her relation to God. As we cannot rightly think of Jesus apart from His Mother—at Bethlehem, at Nazareth, on Calvary, in Heaven—so is it impossible to think of Mary apart from her Divine Son. In her images for the most part we see her Lord in her arms, and if sometimes we see her standing alone as the Immaculate Virgin, or as wrapt in prayer, we know that her Son is never absent from her thoughts. Devotion to Mary can never be regarded by a Catholic as an end in itself. All Catholic devotion to Mary terminates in God. It can, therefore, never lead to " extravagance "—that is, in the literal meaning of the word, to wandering out of the way. As Mary was God's way to man, so is Mary man's way to God. She leads us to Jesus, who is Himself the Way, as He is the Truth and the Life. We honour Mary as God's great masterpiece in creation; we throw ourselves into Mary's arms that she may bring us closer to her Child, beseeching her to show Him to us hereafter, as of old she showed Him to the shepherds and the kings.
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