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From
the 17th century onwards, a special devotion to Mary developed among priests.
She was seen not only as the person whose virtues should be imitated by
priests, but also as the person who assisted priests to perform their priestly
role well, and especially their sacrifical role in the Eucharistic mystery
itself.
Theologians and spiritual writers gave the following reasons why priests
should have a special devotion to Mary:
1.
Mary is the ‘Queen’ of priests, one who expressed in herself the
highest rank of the priesthood and the most complete expression of all priestly
virtues.
“One should honour the Blessed Virgin as the Queen of the clergy,
a quality acquired by birth through her primary grandeur as spouse of the
eternal Father. Mary manfiests all the zeal which a spouse should have for the
glory of her husband. Therefore the eternal Father has given her the clergy as
her members and subjects, as persons who should be consumed continually in
works of zeal for his glory . . . There is no status or hierarchical order
among the clergy that does not see in the Blessed Virgin the exercise of its
own ministry and she does nothing externally for which she did not possess the
interior grace in abundance.”Jean-Jacques Olier
(1608 - 1657), Journée chrétienne, Paris, vol. 2, col.
233.
2.
Mary’s life should be seen in the light of a priest’s life and
ministry. Her call was similar to a priest’s vocation. Her priestly
ordination took place when Jesus was conceived.
“No other predisposition necessary for the priesthood appears more clearly
in the Virgin than being called by God . . . . That great calling made her the
Mother of God, just as a priest’s calling makes him, to some extent, the
source and the father of the same Son of God since it gives the priest the
power to produce Christ’s body through words, as the Virgin has
done.” Saint-Cyran, Lettre à
un ecclésiastique etc., chap 18, p. 179.
3.
Mary brought Christ down to earth by her word, as priests do at consecration.
“This [to have an image of Mary suspended behind the altar] is a
profitable arrangement so that the priest, while celebrating the sacred
mysteries, can look at Mary and measure the quality of this woman to whom it
was entrusted to make the Word, through her own word. The priest should reflect
on what the priest should be like who on his word, or rather on the word of
Christ spoken through him, makes from the substance of bread and wine the body
and blood of Christ. Through the example of her humility and her chastity, let
him learn to maintain a humble and chaste spirit, and let him make her mediate
for himself, that she may intercede in his favour to be a worthy and faithful
minister of such a sacrament.” St. Antoninus of
Florence OP (1389 - 1459 AD),Summa Theologica Moralis, IV, Tit. 15,
c. 24, § 3.
“Because the blessed Virgin has formed the body which Jesus
Christ has left us as a covenant, the congregation [=of the Oratorians] wants
that all her members be her servants . . . They should have recourse to her,
not only by the obligation incumbent on all God’s children, but by the
special alliance which priests acquire with her in the production of the body
of Jesus Christ, a body which they have to learn from her to treat in a saintly
fashion. There is also a special resemblance and link between their priestly
grace and that of the Mother of God, since both deal with the same body of
Jesus Christ. Superiors must take care that the self-offerings to the holy
Mother of God which our honourable Father founder has left us are not
neglected.” Charles de Condren (1637?),
Lettres du P. de Condren publiées par P. Auvray et A. Jouffrey,
Paris 1943, letter no 79, p. 248.
“You will be very happy, Father, if God permits you to live in
that disposition. For that it is enough if you are content with the power which
he has given you over the glorious and divine body of Jesus Christ through the
[priestly] order and the congregation which you have netered for the
priesthood. He gave you power to produce the body of Christ through the same
Spirit through whom he was conceived in the womb of the Virgin.” Saint-Cyran, Lettres chrétiennes et spirituelles
de messire Jean Duvergier de Hauranne ... etc., published in 1744, p.
647.
4.
Mary continues to offer up Holy Mass with the priests.
“During a great part of the celebration of Mass .... I felt and saw
clearly our Lady engaged in intercession before the Father. My perception of it
was so strong that during the prayers addressed to the Father or Son and when
consecrating I was constantly aware of sensing her and seeing her as being part
and channel of such a great grace. ” Ignatius of
Loyola (1491 - 1556), Spiritual Journal, 15 February 1544, in
:Ignatius de Loyola, Constitutiones Societatis Jesus, Vol. I, Rome 1934,
p. 94.
“The blessed Virgin possesses another extreme
dignity which can rightly be called that of the priesthood, namely that of the
person who is offering as second after Christ. For together with priests who
are performing the sacred mysteries, together with Christ and in the same way,
she always offers the unbloody sacrifice, just as, at one with him, she offered
the bloody sacrifice.” Ferdinand Chirino de
Salazar (1575 - 1646), Canticum, vol. 2, pp. 40.
“O Mary, our Queen and Queen of priests, give to all those who carry the
sacred character that they regard you during the divine ceremonies, and that,
leading Jesus to the altar, they emulate the reverence and singular devotion
with which you gave birth to Jesus and with which you put him as a tiny baby
into the manger and with which you held him in your sacred hands, kissed and
embraced him a thousand times. Oh, that we may always be in actual submission
to, and dependence on, your saintly disposition when we approach holy
communion. For this purpose I submit myself fully to your power.”
F. Bourgoing (1585 - 1662),
Vérités et excellences de Jésus Christ, Paris 1636,
vol. 2, Méditation 19, § 3, pp. 183-184.
“O Mary, this Son, you continue to offer without ceasing every day every
time when one says Mass . . . . Have you not sufficiently contributed to the
humiliations of Jesus when you put him to lie in a manger meant for animals? .
. . Therefore how can you now agree to hand him over to the new humiliations
which he undergoes in the Eucharist? For what else does it mean than immolating
him on the altar? Is it not covering his body with cloths and enclosing him as
a prisoner under the accidents of bread and wine which are even more base? . .
. For offering him for us at the altar, you hand him over to a kind of mystical
and sacramental death which separates his body mystically from his blood and
which reduces him as it were to an annulment and to a destruction of all the
functions of sensible sensitive and corporeal life. ” Jean de Machaut SJ (1599 - 1676), Le
Thrésor, vol III, p. 155.
Intention to be spoken by a priest before saying a foundation Mass:
“I place her Son, Jesus Christ, into the hands (of Mary) by this
foundation in as much as I can, and I beg her with my whole heart to offer it
herself to God in this daily sacrifice as she does offer it and has offered it,
in time and in eternity, on earth as in heaven.” Charles de Condren (1637?), Lettres du P. de Condren
publiées par P. Auvray et A. Jouffrey, Paris 1943, appendix 1,
§ 6.
“Mary is also something greater than temples or tabernacles, . .
. she is priest. What do we mean with a priest of the new covenant? A priest
has the power to mystically produce the body of the Lord giving that body its
sacramental form . . . . I allow myself to say that Mary is to first to say
Mass, by agreeing to the Incarnation and so preparing the victim . . . Mary
fulfils in advance the sacrifice of the cross by preparing what is required for
it . . . . More than any priest she can point at her cruficied Son and say:
‘This is my body!’ Mary is therefore not a priest who does not share
in the sacrifice, but a priest who puts herself into the victim who is the
heavenly bread.” Bishop Nazlian,
Actes du 25e congrès eucharistique international, Lourdes 1914,
pp. 9-10.
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