Extremes have a way of producing, or at least occasioning the appearance of their direct opposites. Indeed, even before the appearance of Nestorius on the ecclesial scene and the condemnation of his heresy, trends which would lead to the promotion of the exactly contrary and equally false view of the hypostatic union and role of Mary in bringing it to pass, were already active.

Nestorius naturalized or minimized the Incarnation by affirming two natures and two persons in Christ. Sounded logical: two natures begotten, one from eternity of the Father, the other of Mary in time. In Christ, therefore, there were two persons, united to form one moral person. Best of all, the theory’s easy to accept; it doesn’t require the obedience of faith to accept intellectually, nor the witness of faith before scoffers as does the miraculous, the strictly supernatural. A moment’s reflection, however, should tell us that a merely natural religious theory promising salvation cannot be true, and that, in the end, all heresy concerning the Incarnation and divine Maternity is simply a rationalization of an unwillingness to stand with Mary at the foot of the Cross and by the altar.

Eutyches, a rather puritanical monk of Constantinople, in opposing the error of Nestorius and his disciples, employed a reverse kind of logic: one person in Christ, therefore one nature. Divinity and humanity were united in the unity of a preexisting person; therefore, united, the two natures are one nature. Est pluribus unum . Just as soul and body unite to form one human nature, so divinity and humanity unite in Jesus to form one theandric reality, the one Christ.

Very logical, but in its own way just as rationalistic as the views of Nestorius. The major difference between the two is this: whereas in the practical order Nestorius stressed the autonomy and sufficiency of the natural, Eutyches stressed the supernatural or divine to the exclusion of the human and natural. Here is the remote basis for a slogan still very popular among large numbers of Western Christians separated from Rome: God alone, Christ alone, grace alone, Scripture alone, faith alone. The stress is always on the “alone” of the supernatural, to the exclusion of our free cooperation with the Saviour in the work of salvation, first of all in the Virgin Mother and above all in the divine Maternity and Redemption. Not all who more or less are affected by the trend given classic form by Eutyches are consistent. Some will accept the divine Maternity in some sense, but never the Mediation of Mary as Coredemptrix and Dispenser of all grace.

"The heresy of Eutyches stressed the supernatural or divine to the exclusion of the human and natural. Here is the remote basis for a slogan still very popular among large numbers of Western Christians separated from Rome: God alone, Christ alone, grace alone, Scripture alone, faith alone. The stress is always on the “alone” of the supernatural, to the exclusion of our free cooperation with the Saviour in the work of salvation."

Why this prejudice against our cooperation in the work of salvation, against good works, against the very concept of merit, so essential to any genuine affirmation of liberty as the key characteristic of a human act of cooperation? Once again the answer is to be found in a faulty concept of the Incarnation, and more exactly of the hypostatic union. The Nestorian error excluded the supernatural factor of grace as key to the goodness or merit of our works in view of salvation. The monophysite error (that of Eutyches) excluded the very possibility of merit in fusing, or better, confusing the humanity of Jesus with His divinity as a kind of single, theandric reality or nature.

What was wrong with this? To many then, and still today, this sounds plausible, and hence many are inclined to say: if Christ is the one Mediator between God and men (cf. 1 Tim 2: 5), then Mary is not Mediatrix and Coredemptrix. It was St. Leo the Great who caught the subtle equivocation in this “confusion” of natures. We may compare, up to a point, the hypostatic union with the union of soul and body. But only up to a point, because there’s a crucial difference: body and soul considered in isolation are not complete natures; they unite to form one integral nature or reality known as human nature. Divinity and humanity cannot unite thus, because each is a complete nature already, and were they fused, as Eutyches proposed, each would cease to be itself, or one or the other would absorb its partner. God cannot be part of a creature and remain God; and a creature cannot remain a creature if part of God.

Eutyches claimed that the hypostatic union defined as one person, therefore one nature, was merely a fusion, not a confusion of natures, and so the Son by virtue of His divinity remained “consubstantial” with the Father, as defined at the Council of Nicea (325).

St. Leo then posed to him the key question: in his (Eutyches’) view, was the Incarnate Son also “consubstantial” with us? Eutyches replied in the negative. Christ is truly human, but His humanity is a divinized humanity, whereas ours is merely an ordinary, natural humanity. Christ can save us because it is God alone Who is acting in His divinized humanity. In our terms, Mary is not a maternal Mediatrix Who actively begets the Saviour, but merely a virgin through Whom the divinized man passes to appear in the world as God-with-us.

"This is why He became Incarnate, says Bl. John Duns Scotus: not to exclude, but to make possible our cooperation in a truly human way. That is why the merit and satisfaction of Christ on the Cross and on the altar is not an action of God alone, but of a man Who is God."

St. Leo then explained why this view is just as fatally wrong as that of Nestorius: it renders null the entire purpose of the Incarnation, namely, that a divine Person without ceasing to be divine and so consubstantial with the Father becomes consubstantial with us in being born of the Virgin Mary. The humanity assumed by the Word hypostatically is a complete, fully natural human nature, consubstantial with ours. That is the realistic basis for our sharing in the divine nature (cf. 2 Pet 1: 4), in the adoption of sonship (cf. Gal 4: 4-7). All of this, as St. Paul hints, depends on the maternal Mediation of the Woman, whereby the Son of God came to be born as man, to be born under the law (of suffering for sin), but being man-God was able to save those under the law unable to save themselves. All this, St. Leo insists repeatedly, hinges on Christ’s consubstantiality with Mary. She is not merely Mother of Christ as Nestorius said, but virgin Mother of God. But as perpetual virgin, She is truly and not merely apparently mother of the God Who became man for our sake, that is of the Christ: Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, exclaimed St. Peter (cf. Mt 16: 16).

Once we appreciate the “consubstantiality” of Jesus with Mary, we grasp why in a supernatural view of the Incarnation and Redemption, the maternal Mediation of Mary is so important. The Incarnation, as willed by God in the one economy of salvation, is Marian in mode, because Jesus and Mary are jointly predestined: Mediatrix in the Mediator. Of course Christ is our one and only Mediator (cf. 1 Tim 2: 5): not to the exclusion of our cooperation, and above all the unique cooperation of Mary, but to its inclusion. This is why He became Incarnate, says Bl. John Duns Scotus: not to exclude, but to make possible our cooperation in a truly human way. That is why the merit and satisfaction of Christ on the Cross and on the altar is not an action of God alone, but of a man Who is God. That is why in coming into the world and in leaving it He can be joined actively by His Mother, and through that Immaculate Mother by us. For through Her we are consubstantial with Him, both in being and in operation.

M ary’s perfect joy, one of the fruits of Her union with Her divine Spouse, the Holy Spirit, overflowed from the inexhaustible springs of Her tremendous faith and deep love. The perfection of Her joy is shown not so much in its magnitude as in the fact that She rejoiced even in sharing in the sufferings of Her Son, the Redeemer, becoming thus the “Cause of our Joy,” the co-cause of the salvation of the human race.

"Rejoice always” (1 Thess 5: 16). This is a repeated invitation of the Holy Spirit throughout the Sacred Scriptures. If we, sinful and imperfect as we are, are called to “exult with a joy unspeakable and triumphant” (1 Pet 1: 8), what words could possibly describe the joy of the Immaculate Heart of Mary? If we are called to experience the fruits of the Holy Spirit, “charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, modesty, continence” (Gal 5: 22), how much more did She, the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, experience the joy of the Spirit in all its fullness! She Herself gives witness to this joy and gratitude in Her Magnificat. “My soul magnifies the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; for the Lord has looked with favor on his handmaid” (Lk 1: 46-48). Notice the twofold source of Her joy: God Her Savior and the graces God has bestowed upon Her.

Indeed, the source of Her joy was first and foremost Jesus Christ. The name “Jesus” means God-Savior; thus Our Lady rejoices literally in Her Jesus. This gladness which She found in the Heart of Christ is extended to all of us too. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice” (Phil 4: 4).

The Immaculate Virgin found joy in Jesus as He dwelt within Her most pure womb for nine months after the Annunciation. With joy She brought Jesus to St. Elizabeth and filled the soul of St. John the Baptist with gladness. She gave birth to Him in joy at Bethlehem and adored Him with loving gratitude amidst the songs of Angels and the wonder of St. Joseph and the shepherds. With joy She and St. Joseph conferred upon Him the name of “Jesus,” and 40 days after His birth She exulted in presenting Herself in union with Jesus at the Temple. The serene smile of the Blessed Mother radiated from Her face because Her joy was ever in Jesus, Her God Savior. No trial or tribulation could diminish this joy; rather, every suffering She endured for the love of Christ only served to augment Her joy.

For if St. Peter, the first Pope, exhorted all the faithful to “rejoice in so far as you are partakers of the sufferings of Christ” (1 Pet 4: 13), then She rejoiced exceedingly since She suffered the full measure of Christ’s sufferings in Her maternal Heart and experienced the most perfect conformity to Her Beloved Jesus on the Cross.

Not only did She esteem it purest joy to suffer in union with Jesus (cf. Jn 1: 2) since it united Her with Her Beloved, but She rejoiced in hope (cf. Rom 12: 2). St. Peter went on to say that we ought to find joy in our sufferings in order that we might “also rejoice with exultation at the revelation of His glory” (1 Pet 4: 13). Her hope was twofold. The Blessed Virgin was animated by hope because Her suffering as Coredemptrix brought about the conversion of poor sinners, and because She looked forward to the Resurrection of the dead and the glory of the life to come. Our Lady never despaired, but trusted in God’s promises.

What gladdens our hearts most is that by Her “Yes” to God’s plan—“Yes” to becoming the Mother of God; “Yes” to redeeming us in union with Jesus; “Yes” to being the Mother of the Church—She became Causa nostrae laetitae, the Cause of our Joy! By saying “Yes” to the Archangel Gabriel She brings the Source of all joy into the world— the Word made flesh. By saying “Yes” to the redemptive sacrifice of Jesus She causes gladness to enter the hearts of all the sinful children of Adam through the Precious Blood of Jesus poured out for us. In saying “Yes” to Christ’s command, “Woman, behold Thy son” (Jn 19: 26), She warms us with the joy of Her Immaculate and Sorrowful Heart, which loves us with more tenderness than all the noble love of all mothers put together for their children.

"What gladdens our hearts most is that by Her “Yes” to God’s plan—“Yes” to becoming the Mother of God; “Yes” to redeeming us in union with Jesus; “Yes” to being the Mother of the Church—She became Causa nostrae laetitae , the Cause of our Joy! By saying “Yes” to the Archangel Gabriel She brings the Source of all joy into the world— the Word made flesh. By saying “Yes” to the redemptive sacrifice of Jesus She causes gladness to enter the hearts of all the sinful children of Adam..."

Jesus is joy, and Her joy is our joy. In fact, She continually offers Jesus to us in His Word as we meditate on His life, death and resurrection in the Holy Rosary and Sacred Scripture. She continually offers Jesus to us in His Sacrament of Love, the Holy Eucharist; She invites us to receive Him worthily, to adore and love Him, to live and die in His company as She did. It is Her desire that we might sing Her Magnificat with Her Heart: “My soul magnifies the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”

In this way we too can “abound with joy in all our tribulation” (2 Cor 7: 4) as we follow and even unite ourselves to our Crucified Savior in union with the Sorrowful Mother. In this way we can rejoice in our sufferings as they unleash grace for poor sinners (cf. Col 1: 24). If Our Lady of Fatima was sad in saying, “How many souls go to Hell because there is no one to pray and sacrifice for them,” She was also joyful over those would accept Her invitation to be victims for the salvation and sanctification of souls—starting with the three children Lucia, Francesco and Jacinta.

In union with the Immaculate we exult at the mystery of the Word made flesh, at His miraculous birth, at His hidden life, at His public ministry and teaching, at His Passion and Resurrection. Her joy is our joy, and Jesus Himself indicates that we are to share in the joy that the Mother-Coredemptrix experienced in having given birth spiritually to the Church: “The woman about to give birth has sorrow, because her hour has come. But when she has brought forth the child, she no longer remembers the anguish for her joy that a man is born into the world” (Jn 16: 21). “The woman” is a clear reference to Mary (cf. Gen 3: 15; Jn 2: 4; Jn 19: 26; Gal 4: 4; Apoc 12: 1). After drawing the saddened Apostles’ attention to the joy that Mary was about to experience in bringing forth the Church in “travail” and the “anguish of delivery” (cf. Apoc 12: 2), Jesus links their joy to Hers by saying, “And you therefore have sorrow now; but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no one shall take from you… Ask, and you shall receive that your joy may be full” (Jn 16: 22, 24).

On Easter morning She was filled with joy upon seeing and embracing Her Risen Lord and Son. Pope John Paul II, in a General Audience, said, “How could the Blessed Virgin, present in the first community of disciples (cf. Acts 1: 14), be excluded from those who met her divine Son after he had risen from the dead? Indeed, it is legitimate to think that the Mother was probably the first person to whom the risen Jesus appeared… Welcoming the risen Jesus, Mary is also a sign and an anticipation of humanity, which hopes to achieve its fulfillment through the resurrection of the dead.” Even on Easter, Her joy is our joy… the Risen Savior manifests Himself and His glorified wounds to His disciples and fills them with joy!

Besides rejoicing in Jesus, the Immaculate invites us to rejoice with Her in all that God, in His loving Providence does and has done for us, His unworthy children. As She rejoiced because “the Lord has looked with favor on his handmaid,” so too we should rejoice in Jesus and in all the countless blessings God has bestowed upon us. God has been exceedingly good to us; we literally need an eternity to thank the Most Holy Trinity for all the graces and blessings He continually showers upon us. In conclusion, let us heed the Holy Spirit’s loving invitation to give thanks to the Good God in all circumstances (cf. 1 Thess 5: 18). Let us praise the Lord and incessantly sing, yes, with the very the Heart of our Mother, “psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing in your hearts to God by his grace” (Col 3:16).

he history of the Church teaches us something fundamental about Mariology: Mary’s relation to Christ in virtue of the mystery of the Incarnation links them inseparably. There has never been, in fact, an important heresy concerning the heart of the mystery of Christ, the Incarnation, which has not also involved some grave error in regard to His Mother Mary.

Many councils, ecumenical and local, have dealt with articles of faith concerning the Incarnation and Redemption. Two, however, are rightly regarded as having exceptional importance for 1) a correct theological and practical understanding of that central mystery of faith, Jesus, and 2) for a correct answer to the question: who is the Son of Man? These two are the Councils of Ephesus in 431, and Chalcedon in 451, both cities found in present-day Turkey, but then part of the Eastern Roman Empire, at that time mostly Catholic. Unfortunately, the statistical fact just cited does not mean that among all the Eastern Catholics of the 5th century there was doctrinal unity in replying to this very question. This lack of unity would shortly give rise to schism and heresy, and the eventual reduction of the Church in that part of the world to the status of a small minority in a sea of Islamism.

Doctrinal disunity and the quarrels consequent upon this were not, in the 5th century, novel events in the Christian world. These had arisen almost from the birth of the Church, and in one way or another concerned Jesus and Mary jointly. Those who erred concerning the Messianic character of the Son of Mary—some considering Jesus a mere man (the so-called Ebionites) and some considering Jesus a phantom man (the so-called Docetists or Phantomists)— also erred concerning the person and role of Mary: the first group professing Her a woman no different from any other; the latter group regarding Her as a kind of virginal goddess, without any real maternal activity in the proper sense. In the 4th century, the crisis over the theories of Arius concerning the divine Person of Jesus, and later over those of Macedonius concerning the divinity of the Holy Spirit, were resolved respectively in the first Council of Nicea (325) and the first Council of Constantinople (381), with the condemnation of these two heretics and the imposition of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed on the entire Church, still recited every Sunday during Holy Mass.

"When heresy touched the mystery of Incarnation, it necessarily also touched Mary. In a sense there can be no error concerning the hypostatic union (and its consequences for soteriology) except through an error concerning Mary. In modern times, Card. Newman expressed this most clearly: if one wishes to be orthodox in Christology and soteriology, one must be Marian."

While the great heresies of the 4th century set the scene for those of the 5th, they did not deal directly with the heart of the Incarnation, viz., the hypostatic union, the very basis of our redemption. But when heresy did touch that heart directly, it necessarily also touched Mary. In a sense there can be no error concerning the hypostatic union (and its consequences for soteriology) except through an error concerning Mary. In modern times, Card. Newman (The Glories of Mary for the Sake of Her Son, in Discourses for Mixed Congregations) expressed this most clearly: if one wishes to be orthodox in Christology and soteriology, one must be Marian. Contrariwise, if one wishes to demean Christ, one must first minimize His Virgin Mother. The Council of Ephesus was called in order to deal with the problems posed by the preaching of the Patriarch of Constantinople concerning Our Lady: was She only the Mother of Christ, as the Patriarch Nestorius insisted, or truly Mother of God, as tradition held? Nestorius did not deny, as had Arius, the divinity of the Son of God. He merely maintained that no creature could be parent of a divine Person. Whom did the Virgin beget? Nestorius replied: another man, another human person, who subsequently formed as it were a single personality in union with a divine person called the Son of God.

The error of Nestorius was twofold: he identified begetting with reproduction of a nature. Therefore, first, since Mary could only reproduce a human nature, She could only be the mother of a human person. Therefore (and this is the second error), in Christ there were in fact not one, but two persons, so intimately united or allied as to seem one and the same person in action. To defend his view, however, he had to insist that Mary was not the Theotókos: God-bearer, Dei Genetrix: Begetter of God, or Mother of my Lord (Yahweh), as St. Elizabeth greeted Her (cf. Lk 1: 43), but merely the Christotókos: Christ-bearer.

The position of Nestorius was very popular in his day, as it still is among many influenced by what is known as Pelagianism or naturalism. This is the heretical tendency to confuse grace and free will, to make holiness merely a matter of one’s natural initiative to resist sin and practice virtue, and so define holiness simply in terms of psychological maturity. In the theory of Nestorius, the most that the Christ can do for us is to give us good example, to encourage us, etc., to do what is already in our power. The Nestorians would deny that we depend on this Man, Who is literally God, to find pardon and, still more, those supernatural aids or graces without which we cannot find eternal salvation and blessedness— in a word, a solution to the problems represented by guilt and death. The truth, in contemporary terms, is that Christ can raise us from death, both in soul (the forgiveness of sin) and in body (reunification of body and soul). Christ, the Son of Mary—as Son identical with the divine Person Who is the pre-existent Son of God—can work a miracle. The Nestorian Christ, on the other hand, can only counsel.

"The position of Nestorius was very popular in his day, as it still is among many influenced by what is known as Pelagianism or naturalism. This is the heretical tendency to confuse grace and free will, to make holiness merely a matter of one’s natural initiative to resist sin and practice virtue, and so define holiness simply in terms of psychological maturity."

This is the difference between addressing Mary as Mother of God and not merely Mother of Christ: that a divine Person, without ceasing to be divine, became what He was not, namely a man, by being born of the Virgin Mary, is the heart of the supernatural; whereas the mere Mother of Christ of Nestorius was no different from any other woman who bore a model hero. The mystery of the Divine-Virginal Maternity both reveals and guarantees the supernatural character of grace, and is the reason we invoke Mary as Mother of grace, viz., of the Incarnate Son of God. It is also a guarantee of the true nature of motherhood, which is not primarily a reproducer of nature, but a begetter of a person. In the case of ordinary mothers, that person did not preexist his procreation. In the case of Jesus, the Person begotten pre-existed the begetting, but in no wise was it impossible for Him to be begotten a second time of a virgin Mother, for in this case the Father is the same as in His (the Son’s) eternal generation.

We may ponder here the observation of St. Bonaventure: whether we consider the hypostatic union or the virginal maternity, we are face to face with a mysterious fact totally beyond the powers of nature to effect and the power of reason even to apprehend without the light of faith. We behold here a conception-birth leaving the mother’s virginity integral; we ponder the conception-birth of a child who pre-existed his historical beginning. This is what is meant in essence by supernatural.

Theotókos is the sign or index of supernaturality, the guarantee of hope in the sanctification of our souls, the resurrection of our bodies and our glorious entrance into the everlasting paradise of the Holy Trinity. The Nestorian concept of the hypostatic union, as a kind of alliance between two persons, left Christ simply another natural phenomenon; and the condemnation of this grievous error was a resounding reaffirmation of the only basis of our hope in everlasting bliss. No wonder generations of faithful have saluted Mary in the Salve Regina as “our life, our sweetness and our hope.”

L ike Christ in every way, St. Francis was like Him above all in being a son of Mary. Completely conformed to Mary in his heart, he came to be conformed to Christ Crucified even in his body. Such was the spiritual itinerary that took St. Francis to the loftiest heights of holiness.

Rivers of ink have been spilled over St. Francis. And yet it would not be right to begin this new series of articles about the bond between the Mother of God and the Saints with anyone other than this especially beloved son of Hers. Indeed, if St. Francis is the closest to Jesus’ Heart, as Our Lord Himself revealed to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, he is surely also the closest to Hers, since Mary’s Heart is so perfectly united to that of Christ.

Nor do I worry that I am wasting paper by writing about this exceptional man, to whom we can apply—in virtue of the realization of every mystery of the life of Christ in his flesh— what St. John wrote about the Lord: “There are many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (Jn 21: 25).

Furthermore, considering that several works about him aretruly lamentable (such as those of Paul Sabatier and of his sympathizers even today), it is necessary to set the record straight. The effects of their vision of St. Francis are widespread and evident. To them, he’s a charismatic figure and a free thinker oppressed by the ecclesiastical authorities, which, to boot, are almost always presented as a sort of mafia. This vision is part of a modern romantic mentality that’s replete with Protestant ideas and by now trite and tedious. It’s a mentality that desires to see in individuals what is not there, and in the final analysis always has the goal—even if sometimes it’s concealed by the context of eliminating the Catholic Church.

What concerns us here is setting the record straight on St. Francis’ catholicity, his faithfulness to the Pope, and above all his Marian spirit. He is the one who took up the patristic conception of the relation between the Church and Mary and gave it new expression in the title “Virgin made Church.” This humble and submissive man was also accustomed to call the Church Mother. His devotion to Our Lady, the Mother of mankind, kept him closely united to the Church. Indeed, the title he formulated for the Virgin extends Mary’s Divine Maternity of Christ to all men, as the Mariologist Fr. Stefano Manelli affirms, in that we become sons of God and of Mary through the maternity of the Church.

If, as we have said, all of the mysteries of Christ are realized in St. Francis, it is because in the first place “The Mystery,” namely the Incarnation, is realized in him: like Jesus, he was substantially the son of the Virgin Mary, a perfect image of the Mother. Let us consider St. Francis when he was already mature in his vocation, eighteen years after his conversion. At that time he was making a lent in honor of St. Michael the Archangel, praying and fasting on La Verna, the mountain he consecrated “to the honor and glory of God and of His glorious Mother, the Virgin Mary.” St. Bonaventure narrates the episode: “Early in the morning of the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, as he was praying in a secret and solitary place on the mountain, he beheld a seraph... There appeared between his wings the form of One crucified... Yet to behold Him thus fastened to the Cross pierced [Francis’] soul like a sword of compassion and grief” (Major Life, Chapter XIII). Just before this, the holy Doctor says that St. Francis was “wholly transformed by the sweetness of compassion into Him Who, of His exceeding charity, was pleased to be crucified for us.” He was now completely conformed to Mary. To appreciate this, we need only consider the effect that the vision of Christ Crucified had on him. For us it is a sweet comfort in tribulations to look at a crucifix. But for the Blessed Virgin on Calvary, it was precisely the sight of Her crucified Son—as Fr. Faber affirms— that pierced Her soul with a sword of sorrow. “The vision, disappearing,” continues St. Bonaventure, “left behind it a marvelous fire in his heart, and a no less wonderful sign impressed on his flesh.”

"What concerns us here is setting the record straight on St. Francis’ catholicity, his faithfulness to the Pope, and above all his Marian spirit. He is the one who took up the patristic conception of the relation between the Church and Mary and gave it new expression in the title “Virgin made Church.” This humble and submissive man was also accustomed to call the Church Mother."

It is a singular fact that blood often issued from the wound in Francis’ side. This symbolizes in a particular way Mary’s martyrdom, which took place in Her Heart and from there extended to Her entire body. And just as from the side of Christ the Church was born, so from Francis’ side was born the Franciscan family, of which he was essentially “mother.” This becomes clearer if we recall the parable that the Lord once inspired the Saint to recount, after the Pope had commanded him to pray to God and ask Him to manifest His will regarding the poverty proposed by St. Francis. A poor and beautiful woman was taken to wife by a king, who had many sons by her. When they grew up, their mother sent them to their father, who admired their handsomeness. When he learned that they were his sons, he took them into his court. St. Francis then said to the Pope: “I am that poor woman whom God in His mercy has loved and honored, and through whom He has begotten legitimate children. The King of kings Himself has told me that He will provide for all the sons He wills to raise up through me; because if He cares for strangers, He will also do so for His own children... for evangelical men who deserve His favor” (Legend of the Three Companions, 51). He was that poor woman made beautiful by her Lord, after the image of the Immaculate, the poor Virgin of Nazareth and Mother of the Son of the Most High.

St. Francis, moreover, was not a priest but a deacon, and during Holy Mass the deacon stands beside the priest to serve him, as minister of the chalice. Mary too stood beside Her crucified Son to receive the blood from His side and unite it to Her tears, as the fount of salvation for mankind.

From the time of the Saint’s conversion, numerous episodes reveal not only the Blessed Virgin’s special care for him, but also his devotion consisting in imitation and conformation. He was completely conformed to Mary in his heart that he might be conformed to Christ Crucified in his body. Such was the spiritual itinerary that took St. Francis to the heights of holiness.

T he subject of the Madonna and Child has been used innumerable times in sacred art. From a doctrinal point of view, the image is a tangible sign of the reality of the Incarnation, the mystery upon which the Church is founded.

Certainly the most common subject of the visual arts in religious matters has been the Madonna and Child. From a human and natural point of view the attraction is understandable. But from a doctrinal and spiritual perspective, its importance cannot be understated as it reflects the fundamental principle of our relationship with God.

Most of us have heard the tradition that St. Luke was the first iconographer of the Madonna and Child. As the preeminent evangelist of

In the eight and ninth centuries there was a terrible persecution of the Church from the Eastern Empire because of the use of holy images Iconoclasm (image breaking) as it was known, was inspired both from without the Church by Islamic doctrine, and from within by these remnants of the Nestorian heresy. A creeping and omnipresent contempt for matter, and the denial that God could actually have something to do with it underlay the heretical destruction of images of Christ, His Mother and the saints.

Protestantism was in part a Neo-Iconoclasm, but whereas the old Iconoclasm was a breaking of the image of the incarnate Christ, the new brought a destruction of the visible Church. The problem here is that the Church and Christ go together like Madonna and Child.

No wonder then, that the word "mother" (Latin = mater) comes from the word "matter" (materia). The relationship of Mother and Child in the mystery of the Incarnation and the representation of that reality through the visual arts testifies to that essential Catholic truth that God has chosen to bring us grace through the instrumentality of the visible Church and the visible world.

And this means that not only do we have the seven Sacraments, and the sacramentals of the Church, like icons, but we have the number less material creatures as the vestiges (foot prints) of God.

The work of the artist, sacred or pro fane, is to be an instrument of actual grace, a subcreator, who may "smuggle" the higher spiritual truths into the material and sometimes hostile world. The iconographer understands this role, and his subjects literally bridge heaven and earth. The secular artist may not understand, but his craft is itself a path through beauty to God. May the Madonna teach us to see her Child, and the world around us, with her eyes.