Quote of the day, 8 September: Père Jacques de Jésus

The Mother of Christ is a virgin. When God took on human form, he wanted to assure this characteristic in his mother.

Let us now fix our gaze on the bosom of God and the mystery of the Trinity, to the degree that revelation permits. I maintain that the Word of God is total, absolute virginity.

The Word of God, begotten by the Father is the infinite, equal, and divine expression of the very Being of God. The Word possesses the fullness of the divine nature, just as does the Father, and thus is truly God.

In the infinite simplicity of God’s being, this unfathomable, living expression shines forth so brilliantly that a third person, an outpouring of love, unites in a single nature this Word and the One who begets him from all eternity.

These three persons: the Father, the Son, begotten by the Father, and the Holy Spirit, whose infinite breath of love unites the three, constitute the perfect purity of God. That divine purity is what I term the fullness of virginity. Such is God himself!

We have also seen God’s remarkable preparation of the Virgin Mary for her role as Mother of the Word made flesh. God exempted her from original sin and its consequences.

She is pure creature; God is pure deity, totally independent. For the Virgin Mary, her virginity lies in being a pure creature of God, namely, a creature living in that total dependence on the will of God.

Indeed, when we examine the Virgin Mary’s life, when we gather the conclusions of the Fathers of the Church who dwelt on this Marian mystery, and when we study the works of theologians, we find that she was absolutely obedient to the will of God, even to the least indications of that will.

The virginity of the Virgin Mary is founded on her pure dependence on God. Habitual grace flooded Mary’s soul and made her conscious of her condition as creature and shaped her as a virgin, eager to obey the will of God alone. This fidelity, in turn, increases her merit and occasions a further outpouring of grace.

Thus comes about an extraordinary cycle. Mary’s virginity wins her new graces, which enable her ever more consciously to realize her role as a total virgin.

Servant of God Père Jacques de Jésus

Conference 6, Virginity in God and in Mary
Wednesday Evening, 8 September 1943

“The virginity of the Virgin Mary is founded on her pure dependence on God.” #PereJacquesdeJesus #NativityofMary

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Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: a retreat with Père Jacques, translated from the French and edited by Murphy F, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: This stained glass image depicting the birth of the Virgin Mary is a medieval window from the Burrell Collection in Glasgow. Image credit: Fr. Lawrence Lew, OP via Flickr (Some rights reserved)