The Mother of Christ: or The Blessed Virgin Mary in Catholic Tradition, Theology, and Devotion

Saints and Doctors of the Church have expressed their inability to write worthily of the great Mother of God. It will, therefore, be readily understood that when the Provincial of the English Province of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer suggested to me that I might publish an English book on our Lady, my first feeling was one of shrinking from the task. "Whoso would celebrate the Holy Virgin and Mother of God," wrote Basil of Seleucia, "will find abundant materials for praise. But I, knowing mine own weakness to be unequal to the mightiness of the reality, have for a long time refrained from very awe. For I have not my lips purified with coal from heaven, like Isaias who saw the Seraphim, nor have I, like the divine Moses, the feet of my soul bared of their covering." Many another great servant of God has expressed himself after a similar fashion before writing about our Lady. How dare I, then, attempt that for which Saints have professed themselves unworthy? But other thoughts rushed to my aid. I might not lightly shrink from that which came to me thus, by way of obedience. A wish from such a source should be enough. Whatever might be the subject on which one might be asked to write by one's Superiors in Religion-to wait for a direct command would be unseemly. And when the subject was the Blessed Virgin, the temptation would have been great, however strong my consciousness of my unworthiness, even had the opportunity come to me in any other manner. For it is a happiness to acknowledge that, by a special mercy of God, notwithstanding all my sins and shortcomings, I have from boyhood up always loved and trusted His Blessed Mother.