FROM MARY MAGNIFYING GOD. BY WILLIAM HUMPHREY, OF THE CONGREGATION OF THE OBLATES OF ST. CHARLES. AD 1873
"When, by His creative omnipotence, the Triune God called the soul of Mary out of nothingness into existence, it was as yet the masterpiece of all His works, the greatest and most royal of all spiritual beings; its capacities unfathomed, as they were unsurpassed, by any created intelligence. The angels, beholding it, were lost in awe and reverence at its merely natural perfections, at its perfections as a creature, as a human soul. It exceeded and excelled not only those of any individual angel, or of any individual soul of man that had ever existed, but those also of all angels and of all human souls together.
But this was merely its natural and its lowest perfection. It was a perfection that had its perfection in being a capacity for an ulterior perfection, for a supernatural perfection,—a perfection above all the perfections of its nature, and beyond all its exigencies.
Mary's soul was not merely a marvel of natural beauty, a miracle of creative wisdom and power. It was in that moment of its creation—in the first instant of its existence—charged with sanctifying grace. This added to it a supernatural lustre and radiance, a beauty and brilliance, a loveableness and attractiveness, which not merely caused God to gaze upon it with complacency and love and joy, but impelled Him to desire it; to long to enter into and possess and enjoy it; to have it and hold it as His own; to dwell and to reign within it without a rival. It was the coveted home, the most royal residence, the chiefest palace of the Blessed Trinity, 'The rushing of the river of grace made glad the City of God.' Of Mary's soul God could say: 'This is My rest for ever; here will I dwell, for I have a delight therein.'
But again : it was not merely passively, that in her Immaculate Conception Mary magnified the Lord; not merely as being a resplendent manifestation of His wisdom and power—a clear, unspotted, unclouded mirror of the Divine perfections; it was riot as a mere inert and inactive, albeit glorious, royal, peerless creature, but actively; by an exertion of her own faculties; by an exercise of her intellect and her will; and it was thus' especially that she magnified the Lord.
But what mean we by the word ' magnify' ? It means literally to make great; to add to one's. greatness; to increase one's glory, and so to give to one something which he had not before. But how can this apply to the great God, the God of glory—to Him in regard of Whom the ideas of increase and diminution of addition and subtraction, are repugnant, inconsistent, and incompatible? And how, moreover, can a creature be said to magnify its Creator—a creature who, by the very fact of its being a creature, not only has nothing, but is nothing, apart from its Creator; who owes all it is and has to Him ? Quid habes, quod non accepisti ? —'what have you that you have not received?'
"When, by His creative omnipotence, the Triune God called the soul of Mary out of nothingness into existence, it was as yet the masterpiece of all His works, the greatest and most royal of all spiritual beings; its capacities unfathomed, as they were unsurpassed, by any created intelligence. The angels, beholding it, were lost in awe and reverence at its merely natural perfections, at its perfections as a creature, as a human soul. It exceeded and excelled not only those of any individual angel, or of any individual soul of man that had ever existed, but those also of all angels and of all human souls together.
But this was merely its natural and its lowest perfection. It was a perfection that had its perfection in being a capacity for an ulterior perfection, for a supernatural perfection,—a perfection above all the perfections of its nature, and beyond all its exigencies.
Mary's soul was not merely a marvel of natural beauty, a miracle of creative wisdom and power. It was in that moment of its creation—in the first instant of its existence—charged with sanctifying grace. This added to it a supernatural lustre and radiance, a beauty and brilliance, a loveableness and attractiveness, which not merely caused God to gaze upon it with complacency and love and joy, but impelled Him to desire it; to long to enter into and possess and enjoy it; to have it and hold it as His own; to dwell and to reign within it without a rival. It was the coveted home, the most royal residence, the chiefest palace of the Blessed Trinity, 'The rushing of the river of grace made glad the City of God.' Of Mary's soul God could say: 'This is My rest for ever; here will I dwell, for I have a delight therein.'
But again : it was not merely passively, that in her Immaculate Conception Mary magnified the Lord; not merely as being a resplendent manifestation of His wisdom and power—a clear, unspotted, unclouded mirror of the Divine perfections; it was riot as a mere inert and inactive, albeit glorious, royal, peerless creature, but actively; by an exertion of her own faculties; by an exercise of her intellect and her will; and it was thus' especially that she magnified the Lord.
But what mean we by the word ' magnify' ? It means literally to make great; to add to one's. greatness; to increase one's glory, and so to give to one something which he had not before. But how can this apply to the great God, the God of glory—to Him in regard of Whom the ideas of increase and diminution of addition and subtraction, are repugnant, inconsistent, and incompatible? And how, moreover, can a creature be said to magnify its Creator—a creature who, by the very fact of its being a creature, not only has nothing, but is nothing, apart from its Creator; who owes all it is and has to Him ? Quid habes, quod non accepisti ? —'what have you that you have not received?'
