What was Mary's life but one long act of
contemplation, a continual outpouring of devotion, the incessant burning of a
spiritual flame? We are not told of the blessed Virgin that she performed many
miracles and signs or made long journeys to spread the gospel, or gave
extraordinary alms (which would have been impossible, because she lacked the
means), or tended the sick, or redeemed captives, or built large numbers of
churches or endowed religious houses with particular generosity. No; all the
glory of the king's daughter was within, in the fervor of her heart, and in
those golden borders, her pure thoughts and keen desires and the virtues which
she possessed in all their manifold variety.
This does not mean that she did not perform
Martha's noble tasks as well: she did, and brilliantly—far better than we can:
for where we serve God in the persons of his servants, her service was given to
him directly. Doing Martha's work did not stop the holy Virgin from fulfilling
Mary's function. I lie asleep; but oh, my heart is wakeful, we read of her.
Which is as if she were to say: "As far as my outward behavior is
concerned, I am asleep, because I am busy with my work; but inwardly I am
awake, since all the time I am intent on prayer".
From the time when she soared up like an eagle and
fixed her strong eyes on the dazzling brightness of the Godhead, she never
looked back at the things of earth. Before she bore God's Word in her womb, she
gave herself to prayer and contemplation day and night, in company with the
other virgins who lived with her in the Temple, where at the age of three she
had been presented by her parents. She knew God before she knew herself, and
before she could pray in words she habitually prayed in her heart. After the
angel had brought her the message and she had become God's mother, she was
always absorbed by the thought of the great mysteries accomplished in her. It
was as though she were totally immersed in a vast sea of light and inwardly
ravished in continual ecstasy, as the gospel shows us when it says that she
treasured up all these sayings, and reflected on them in her heart. How could
she forget God when she had carried him inside her body, nursed him on her lap
and held him at her breast with her hands? Could a mother forget the son she
bore in her womb? Could she possibly forget him if he was a Son like this one?
After his ascension into heaven we are told nothing more about Mary, except
that she is said to have lived enclosed in an oratory, turning over in her mind
all that she had seen and heard. That is all there was in the Virgin's life.
That, in brief, is the whole story of her pilgrimage.
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