Greatest Sacrifice Ever Made to Eternal Father

 LISTEN Vol 3 Bk 1 Chap 22

The most prudent Mother was not unaware, that the time of her sacrifice was approaching; for her sweetest Son had already entered the thirtieth year of His life and the time and place for satisfying the debt He had assumed was at hand. But in the full possession of the Treasure, which represented all her happiness, Mary was still considering its loss as far off, not having as yet had its experience. The hour therefore drawing near, She was wrapt in a most exalted vision and felt that She was being called and placed in the presence of throne of the most blessed Trinity. From it issued a Voice of wonderful power saying to Her: "Mary, my Daughter and Spouse, offer to Me thy Onlybegotten Son in sacrifice." 

By the living power of these words came to Her the light and intelligence of the Almighty's will, and in it the most blessed Mother understood the decree of the Redemption of man through the Passion and Death of her most holy Son, together with all that from now on would happen, in the preaching and public life of the Savior. 

As this knowledge was renewed and perfected in Her, She felt her soul overpowered by sentiments of subjection, humility, love of God and man, compassion and tenderest sorrow for all that her Son was to suffer.

But with an undismayed and magnanimous heart She gave answer to the Most High:

"Eternal King and omnipotent God of infinite wisdom and goodness, all that has being outside of Thee exists solely for Thy mercy and greatness, and Thou are the undiminished Lord of all. How then does Thou command me, an insignificant wormlet of the earth, to sacrifice and deliver over to Thy will the Son, whom Thy condescension has given me? He is Thine, Eternal Father, since from all eternity before the morning star Thou has engendered Him (Psalms 109, 3), and Thou begets Him and shalt beget Him, through all the eternities; and if I have clothed Him in the form of servant  in my womb and from my own blood (Philippians 2, 7), and if I have nourished His humanity at my breast and ministered to It as a Mother: this most holy humanity is also Thy property, and so am I, since I have received from Thee all that I am and that I could give Him.” 

“What then can I offer to Thee, that is not more Thine than mine? I confess, most high King, that Thy magnificence and beneficence are so liberal in heaping upon Thy creatures Thy infinite treasures, that in order to bind Thyself to them, Thou wishes to receive from them as a free gift, even Thy own Onlybegotten Son, Him whom Thou begets from Thy own substance and from the light of Thy Divinity.” 

“With Him came to me all blessings together and from His hands I received immense gifts and graces (Wisdom 7, 11) ; He is the Virtue of my virtue, the Substance of my spirit, Life of my soul and Soul of my life, the Sustenance of all my joy of living. It would be a sweet sacrifice, indeed, to yield Him up to Thee who alone knows His value; but to yield Him for the satisfaction of Thy justice into the hands of His cruel enemies at the cost of His life, more precious than all the works of creation; this indeed, most high Lord, is a great sacrifice which Thou asks of His Mother.”

“However let not my will but Thine be done. Let the freedom of the human race be thus bought; let Thy justice and equity be satisfied; let Thy infinite love become manifest; let Thy name be known and magnified before all creatures. I deliver Him over into Thy hands before all creatures. I deliver over into Thy hands my beloved Isaac, that He may be truly sacrificed; I offer my Son Jesus, the Fruit of my womb, in order that, according to the unchangeable decree of Thy will, He may pay the debt contracted not by His fault, but by the children of Adam, and in order that in His Death, He may fulfill all that Thy holy Prophets, inspired by Thee, have written and foretold."

This sacrifice with all that pertained to it, was the greatest and the most acceptable that ever had been made to the Eternal Father since the creation of the world, or ever will be made to the end, outside of that made by His own Son, the Redeemer; and Hers was most intimately connected with, and like to that, which He offered. 

If the greatest charity consists in offering one's life for the beloved, without a doubt most holy Mary far surpassed this highest degree of love toward men, as She loved Her Son much more than her own life. For in order to preserve the life of her Son, She would have given the lives of all men, if She had possessed them, and countless more. 

Among men there is no measure by which to estimate the love of that heavenly Lady, and it can be estimated only by the love of the Eternal Father for His Son. As Christ says to Nikodemus (John 15, 13): so God loved the world, that He gave His only Son in order that none of those who believed in Him might perish; so this might also be said in its degree of the love of the Mother of mercy, and in the same way we owe to Her proportionately our salvation. For She also loved us so much, that She gave her only Son for our salvation; and if She had not given it in this manner, when it was asked of Her by the Eternal Father on this occasion, the salvation of men could not have been executed by this same decree, since this decree was to be fulfilled on condition, that the Mother's will should coincide with that of the Eternal Father. Such is the obligation which the children of Adam owe to most holy Mary.

Having accepted the offering of the great Lady, it was fitting that the most Blessed Trinity should reward and immediately pay Her by some favor, which would comfort Her in her sorrow and manifest more clearly the will of the Eternal Father and the reasons for His command. 

Therefore, the heavenly Lady, still wrapped in the same vision and raised to a more exalted ecstasy, in which She was prepared and enlightened in the manner elsewhere described, the Divinity manifested Itself to Her by an intuitive and direct vision. In this vision, by the clear light of the essence of God, She comprehended the inclination of the infinite Good to communicate His fathomless treasures to the rational creatures by means of the works of the incarnate Word, and She saw the glory, that would result from these wonders to the name of the Most High. 

Filled with jubilation of her soul at the prospect of all these sacramental mysteries, the heavenly Mother renewed the offering of her Divine Son to the Father; and God comforted Her with the life-giving bread of heavenly understanding, in order that She might with invincible fortitude, assist the incarnate Word in the work of Redemption as His Coadjutrix and Helper, according to the disposition of infinite Wisdom and according as it really happened afterwards in the rest of her life.

Then most holy Mary issued forth from this exalted rapture. But by its effects and the strength imparted through it, She was now prepared to separate from her Divine Son, who had already resolved to enter upon His fast in the desert in view of receiving His Baptism. 

Jesus therefore called His Mother and, speaking to Her with the tokens of sweetest love and compassion, He said: "My Mother, my existence as man I derive entirely from thy substance and blood, of which I have taken the form of a servant in thy virginal womb (Philippian’s 2, 7). Thou also has nursed Me at thy breast and taken care of Me by thy labors and sweat. For this reason, I account Me more thine own and as thy Son, than any other ever acknowledged, or more than any ever will acknowledge himself as the son of His mother.”

“Give Me thy permission and consent toward accomplishing the will of my Eternal Father. Already the time has arrived, in which I must leave thy sweet intercourse and company and begin the work of the Redemption of man. The time of rest has come to an end and the hour of suffering for the rescue of the sons of Adam has arrived. But I wish to perform this work of my Father with thy assistance, and Thou are to be my companion and helper in preparing for my Passion and Death of the Cross. Although I must now leave Thee alone, my blessing shall remain with Thee, and my loving and powerful protection. I shall afterwards return to claim thy assistance and company in My labors; for I am to undergo them in the form of man, which Thou has given Me."

With these words, while both Mother and Son were overflowing with abundant tears, the Lord placed His arms around the neck of the most tender Mother, yet Both maintaining a majestic composure, such as befitting these Masters in the art of suffering. 

The heavenly Lady fell at the feet of her Divine Son and, with ineffable sorrow and reverence, answered: "My Lord and Eternal God: Thou are indeed my Son and in Thee is fulfilled all the force of love, which I have received of Thee: my inmost soul is laid open to the eyes of Thy Divine wisdom. My life I would account but little, if I could thereby save Thy own, or if I could die for Thee many times. But the will of the Eternal Father and Thy own must be fulfilled and I offer my own will as a sacrifice for this fulfillment. Receive it, my Son, and as Master of all my being, let it be an acceptable offering, and let Thy Divine protection never be wanting to me. It would be a much greater torment for me, not to be allowed to accompany Thee in Thy labors and in Thy Cross. May I merit this favor, my Son, and I ask it of Thee as Thy true Mother in return for the human form, which Thou has received of me."

INSTRUCTION FROM THE MOST HOLY MARY, THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN 

“My daughter, I wish that you ponder and penetrate more and more this mystery of which you have written, so fixing it in your soul, that you will be drawn to imitate my example at least in some part of it. Consider then, that in the vision of the Divinity which I had on this occasion, I was made to comprehend the high value which the Lord sets upon the labors, the Passion and Death of my Son, and upon all those who were to imitate and follow Jesus in the way of the Cross.”

“Knowing this, I not only offered to deliver my Son over to Passion and Death, but I asked Him to make me His companion and partaker of all His sorrows, sufferings and torments, which request the Eternal Father granted.”

“Then, in order to begin following in the footsteps of His bitterness, I besought my Son and Lord to deprive me of interior delights; and this petition was inspired in me by the Lord himself, because He wished it so, and because my own love taught me and urged me thereto.”

“This desire for suffering and the wishes of my Divine Son led me on in the way of suffering. He Himself, because He loved me so tenderly, granted me my desires; for those whom He loves, He chastises and afflicts (Proverbs 3, 12). I as His Mother was not to be deprived of this blessed distinction of being entirely like unto Him, which alone makes this life most estimable.”

“Immediately this will of the Most High, this my earnest petition, began to be fulfilled: I began to feel the want of His delightful caresses, and He began to treat me with greater reserve. That was one of the reasons, why He did not call me Mother, but Woman, at the marriage feast at Cana and at the foot of the Cross (John 2, 4) (John 19, 26) ; and also on other occasions, when He abstained from words of tenderness. So far was this from being a sign of a diminution of His love, that it was rather an exquisite refinement of His affection, to assimilate me to Him in the sufferings which He chose for Himself as His precious treasure and inheritance.”

“Hence you will understand the ignorance and error of mortals, and how far they drift from the way of light, when, as a rule, nearly all of them strive to avoid labor and suffering and are frightened by the royal and secure road of mortification and the Cross. Full of this deceitful ignorance, they do not only detest resemblance to Christ's suffering and my own and deprive themselves of the true and highest blessing of this life; but they make their recovery impossible, since all of them are weak and afflicted by many sins, for which the only remedy is suffering.”

“Sin is committed by base indulgence and is repugnant to suffering sorrow, while tribulation earns the pardon of the Just Judge. By the bitterness of sorrow and affliction the vapors of sin are lessened; the excesses of the lustful and ill-tempered passions are crushed; pride and haughtiness are humiliated; the flesh is subdued; the inclination to evil, to the sensible and earthly creatures, is repressed; the judgment is cleared; the will is brought within bounds and its desultory movements at the call of the passions, are corrected; and, above all, Divine love and pity are drawn down upon the afflicted, who embrace suffering with patience, or who seek it to imitate my most holy Son.”

“In this science of suffering are renewed all the blessed riches of the creatures; those that fly from them are insane, those that know nothing of this science are foolish. Exert yourself then, my dearest daughter, to advance in this knowledge, welcome labors and suffering, and give up ever desiring human consolations.”

“Remember also that in the spiritual consolations, the demon conceals His pitfalls for your ruin and destruction, for you should know His continual attempts to ruin the spiritually inclined. The pleasures of contemplating and looking upon the Lord, and His caresses great or small, are so enticing, that delight and consolation overflow in the faculties of the mind and cause some souls to accustom themselves to the sensible pleasures of this intercourse.”

“ In consequence thereof, they make themselves unfit for other duties belonging to reasonable life of human creatures; and when it is necessary to attend to them, they are annoyed, lose their interior peace and control, become morose, intractable, full of impatience toward their neighbors, forgetting all humility and charity.”

“When they perceive within themselves a disquiet of soul and its attendant disorders, they ascribe the cause to their external occupations—those very tasks which Divine Providence has assigned for the proving of their obedience and the exercise of charity. Yet they fail to discern that the true source of their affliction lies rather in their lack of mortification, their resistance to submission under God’s providential will, and their inordinate attachment to their own self-love.”

“The demon tries to beguile them by mere desires for quiet and solitude and the secret communications of the Lord in solitude; for they imagine, that in retirement all is good and holy, and that all their trouble arises from inability to follow their pious desires in solitude.”

“All creation is full of His glory (Ecclesiastes 42, 16), and there is no void, and you live and move and have your being in God (Acts 17, 28). Enjoy your solitude whenever He does not oblige you to exterior occupations.”

“All this you will still more fully understand in the nobility of the love, which I require of you for the imitation of my Son and of me. With Him you must rejoice sometimes in His youth; sometimes accompany Him in His labors for the salvation of men; sometimes retire with Him to solitude; sometimes be transfigured with Him to a new creature; sometimes embrace with Him tribulations and the cross, following up the Divine lessons which He taught thereby; in short, I wish you to understand well, that in me there was a continual desire to imitate, or an actual imitation, of all that was most perfect in His works.”

“ In this consisted my greatest perfection and holiness, and therein I wish you to follow me, so far as your weak strength, assisted by grace, will allow. For this purpose you must first die to all the inclinations of a daughter of Adam, without reserving in you any choice of desires, any self constituted judgment as to admitting or rejecting the good; for you know not what is befitting, and your Lord and Spouse, who knows it and who loves you more than you do yourself, will decide all this for you, if you resign yourself entirely to His will”

“ He gives you a free hand only in regard to your love of Him and in your desire to suffer for Him, while in all the rest your desires will only make you drift away from His will and mine. This will surely be the result of following your own will and inclinations, desires and appetites. Deny and sacrifice them all, raising yourself above yourself, up to the high and exalted habitation of the Lord and Master; attend to His interior lights and to the truth of His words of eternal life (John 6, 69), and in order that you may follow them, take up the Cross (Matthew 16, 24), tread in His footsteps, walk in the odor of His ointments (Song of Songs 1,3), and be anxious to reach your Lord; and having obtained possession of Him, do not leave Him (Song of Songs 3, 4).”