From the treatise On the Nature of God by Saint Albert the Great.

 

From the treatise On the Nature of God by Saint Albert the Great.

 

The Word of the Father increased, not diminished, the virginity of his mother.

 

The Blessed Virgin is called the morning star because the morning of   grace has dawned in her, and she is among the clouds which usually rise in the morning. The cloud that the Blessed Virgin scatters is threefold namely, the cloud of sin, the cloud of sorrow, and the cloud of error. First, she scatters by interceding for sinners, the second by pouring consolation on those who suffer, and the third by revealing the truth. She shines like the full moon, whose light is not diminished but increases and

remains continuously diffusing the light of grace to all who are in darkness and in the shadow of death. And like the shining sun she both sheds the warmth of piety and in her goodness melts all rational creatures in order to mold them anew. But this is not sufficient for her praise. Indeed, she is more beautiful than the sun and excels every constellation of the stars.  Compared with the light she is found to be superior, for it is succeeded by the night, but against Mary, the star of the sea, evil does not prevail.

This star of light alone so guides us even in darkness that a little old woman may sometimes contemplate what the learned do not grasp, because the learned scorn to make their intellects captive and bring their minds submission to God. And this is symbolized, when the ass reproves the prophet, for the ass and not the prophet recognized the angel of God and the will of God. Thus. according to the Sentences of Peter Lombard, through a mute beast of burden God rebuked the foolishness of the prophet. This still happens when an unlearned person serves under the yoke of Christ, mute as to the rhetorical and polished language that comes from a knowledge of the arts, and rebukes by word and example the doctors who from the summit of their science know how to examine the heights of heaven as well as the depths of the abyss.

She is a star because "like a ray from a heavenly body the Virgin brought forth her Son in a similar way. For a star does not lose its integrity from its ray, nor did the mother from her Son." So great is the difference between the birth of heavenly bodies and earthly bodies that the terrestrial in giving birth lose their integrity, the heavenly do not. For no matter how rays of light a star puts forth, the star is not marred nor is its light teen to diminish. Thus, the Word of the Father, the ray of eternal light, a brilliant and spotless mirror of the clarity of the Father, brought fecundity to the mother, but did not take away her virginity. The light of her virginity increased, it did not diminish. Without a doubt nothing will be impossible with God. For he who walked on the waves of the sea without immersing his body, who came forth from the tomb without breaking the seal on the done which we read was rolled back by an angel not by the Lord, and who entered the room with the disciples while the doors were locked, was also Able to be born of a virgin mother without breaking the cloister of her virginal chastity. Thus, the aforesaid star, the Blessed Virgin, has risen out of Jacob, because like a rose springing from a root and branch of thorns, thus she herself from the thorny people of the synagogue consented to the lord's birth.

Or we may say that we are that thorny people who have been bloodied by the thorn of sin, or by our very ignorance of the thorn; but as the thorn brings forth a rose so we from our nature brought forth Mary. Therefore, it said: As a lily among thorns so is my beloved among the maidens. She is called a lily, not that she is not a rose, but that the totality of her virtue may be understood. For she is the rose of patience amidst the pricking of thorns Ind the lily of chastity blooming in the field of our nature, which field is accustomed to bringing forth the poisons and nettles of an alluring concupiscence. But through this star a shoot arose from Israel, that is, the power and the rule of Christ: A shoot shall spring from the stump of Jesse, und a branch will sprout from his roots. From Jesse the Lord has sprung In the flesh, but not by the power of human generation, no matter how powerful the fire of the human spirit. For he was born by the power of the Holy Spirit, not from Jesse' s substance, for the name Jesse is interpreted as "fire. "