If You Knew God's Gift!

Si scires donum Dei: "If you knew God's gift," Christ said one evening to the Samaritan woman. But what is this gift of God, if not God Himself? (...)

There is a creature who knew this gift of God, a creature for whom nothing was lost, who was so pure, so radiant, that she seemed to be Light itself--Speculum justitiae--the Mirror of Justice. We can hardly say anything about Mary's life because it was so simple and so totally abandoned to God. She is the Virgo fidelis: the faithful Virgin, who "kept all these things in her heart."

Before God, in the secret of the Temple, she stood so small, so calm and quiet, that the Blessed Trinity could only delight in her. "Because He looked upon his lowly servant, from this day all generations will call me blessed!" Bending down to this beautiful creature, so ignorant of her beauty, the Father willed that she would be, in Time, the Mother of the One for whom He is the Father in Eternity. Then the Spirit of love, who presides over all of God's operations, came; and the Virgin spoke her fiat: "I am the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to your word," and the greatest of all mysteries was accomplished. By the descent of the Word in her, Mary became God's possession for ever.