Antonio María Claret was Archbishop of Santiago and founder of
the Congregation of the Sons of the heart of Mary, known as the Claretians.
Text quoted in French by Réné Laurentin (in Maria,
Ecclesia, Sacerdotium, Nouvelles Éditions Latines, Paris 1952, pp.
403) and translated into English by John Wijngaards.
Mary’s first task was that of being a priest
“Mary could not escape from Calvary because God had given her the mission
to remain there as priest, victim and mediatrix. She had to stay on Calvary,
next to the cross and in the heart of her Son. She stood up straight on Calvary
and undertook her function as priest. She stood next to the cross and fulfilled
the role of a victim. She stayed in the heart of Jesus and acquitted herself of
the task of mediatrix: strong in her first task, faithful to her second,
devoted in her third . . . It had been written in heaven and on earth that
the great victim would not have been accepted . . . if his Mother had not
offered him on the top of Golgotha. For she had to fulfill her first task, that
of being a priest.” Copiosa y vera collección de
panegíricos, Rome 1860, vol. 3, pp. 390-391.
