Hidden Prayers of Virgin Mary

  She was a living image of Christ our Redeemer and Master. Immediately the Mistress of holy humility prostrated Herself to the ground and abasing Herself to the dust, said:

"Most high God and my Lord, behold this vile worm of the earth, acknowledging itself formed from it (Gen. 2, 7), and coming from nothingness to this existence, which I hold through Thy most liberal clemency. I acknowledge also, O highest Father, that Thy ineffable condescension, without any merits of mine, has raised me from the dust, to the dignity of being the Mother of Thy Onlybegotten. From my whole heart I praise and exalt Thy immense goodness in so favoring me. In gratitude for such great blessings I offer myself to live and labor anew in this mortal life, according to all the decrees of Thy divine will. I consecrate myself as Thy faithful servant and as the servant of the children of the Church. All of them I present before Thy immense charity and implore Thee from my inmost heart to look upon them as their kindest God and Father. For them I offer up the sacrifice of being deprived of Thy glory and peace, and of having chosen of my own free will suffering rather than joy, denying myself the vision of Thee in order to perform what is so pleasing in Thy sight." 

Read: Volume IV Book I Chapter I

Thursday, the eve of the Passion and Death of the Savior, had arrived; at earliest dawn the Lord called to Him, His most beloved Mother and She, hastening to prostrate Herself at His feet, responded; "Speak, my Lord and Master, for thy servant heareth." Raising Her up from the ground, He spoke to Her in words of soothing and tenderest love: "My Mother, the hour decreed by the eternal wisdom of My Father for accomplishing the salvation and restoration of the human race and imposed upon Me by His most holy and acceptable will, has now arrived; it is proper that now We subject to Him our own will, as We have so often offered to do. Give Me thy permission to enter upon My suffering and death, and, as My true Mother, consent that I deliver Myself over to My enemies in obedience to My eternal Father. In this manner do Thou also willingly cooperate with Me in this work of eternal salvation, since I have received from Thee in thy virginal womb the form of a suffering and mortal man in which I am to redeem the world and satisfy the Divine justice. 

Just as thou, of thy own free will, didst consent to my Incarnation, so I now desire thee to give consent also to My passion and death of the Cross. To sacrifice Me now of thy own free will to the decree of My eternal Father, this shall be the return which I ask of thee for having made thee My Mother; for He has sent Me in order that by the sufferings of My flesh I might recover the lost sheep of His house, the children of Adam" (Matth. 18, 11). 

These and other words of the Savior, spoken on that occasion, pierced the most loving heart of Mary and cast Her into the throes of a sorrow greater than She had ever endured before. For now had arrived that dreadful hour, whence there was no issue for her pains, neither in an appeal to the swift fleeting time nor to any other tribunal against the inevitable decree of the eternal Father, that had fixed the term of her beloved Son's life. 

When now the most prudent Mother looked upon Him as her God, infinite in His attributes and perfections, and as the true Godman in hypostatical union with the person of the Word, and beheld Him sanctified and ineffably exalted by this union with the Godhead: She remembered the obedience He had shown Her as His Mother during so many years and the blessings He had conferred upon Her during His long intercourse with Her; She realized that soon She was to be deprived of this blessed intercourse and of the beauty of His countenance, of the vivifying sweetness of His words; that She was not only to lose all this at once, but moreover that She was to deliver Him over into the hands of such wicked enemies, to ignominies and torments and to the bloody sacrifice of a death on the Cross. 

How deeply must all these considerations and circumstances, now so clearly before Her mind, have penetrated into her tender and loving heart and filled it with a sorrow unmeasurable! 

But with the magnanimity of a Queen, vanquishing this invincible pain, She prostrated Herself at the feet of Her Divine Son and Master, and, in deepest reverence, kissing his feet, answered:  "Lord and highest God, Author of all that has being, though Thou art the Son of my womb, I am Thy handmaid; the condescension of Thy ineffable love alone has raised me from the dust to the dignity of being Thy Mother. It is altogether becoming that I, vile wormlet, acknowledge and thank Thy most liberal clemency by obeying the will of the eternal Father and Thy own. I offer myself and resign myself to His Divine pleasure, in order that in Me, just as in Thee, my Son and Lord, His eternal and adorable will be fulfilled. The greatest sacrifice which I can make, is that I shall not be able to die with Thee, and that our lot should not be inverted; for to suffer in imitation of Thee and in Thy company would be a great relief for my pains, and all torments would be sweet, if undergone in union with Thine. That Thou shouldst endure all these torments for the salvation of mankind shall be my only relief in my pains. Receive, O my God, this sacrifice of my desire to die with Thee, and of my still continuing to live, while Thou, the most innocent Lamb and figure of the substance of Thy eternal Father undergoest Death (Heb. 1, 3). Receive also the agonies of my sorrow to see the inhuman cruelty of Thy enemies executed on Thy exalted Person because of the wickedness of the human kind. O ye heavens and elements and all creatures within them, ye sovereign spirits, ye Patriarchs and Prophets, assist me to deplore the death of my Beloved, who gave you being, and bewail with me the misery of men, who are the cause of this Death, and who, failing to profit of such great blessings, shall lose that eternal life so dearly bought! 0 unhappy you, that are foreknown as doomed! and 0 ye happy predestined, who shall wash your stoles in the blood of the Lamb (Apoc, 7, 14), you, who knew how to profit by this Blessed Sacrifice, praise ye the Lord Almighty! 0 my Son and infinite delight of my soul, give fortitude and strength to Thy afflicted Mother; admit Her as Thy disciple and companion, in order that she may participate in Thy Passion and Cross, and in order that the eternal Father may receive the sacrifice of Thy Mother in union with Thine." 

With these and other expressions of her sentiments, which I cannot all record in words, the Queen of heaven answered her most holy Son, and offered Herself as a companion and a coadjutrix in His Passion.

Read: Volume III Book II Chapter IX

It happened many times during these last days, that in order to abate somewhat the excesses of her love and in order to prevent her bosom from being forced asunder, She broke the silence of her retreat and spoke to the Lord: "My sweetest Love, highest Good and Treasure of my soul, draw me now after the sweetness of Thy ointments, which Thou hast permitted Thy handmaid and mother to taste in this world (Cant. 1, 3). My will always found its rest entirely in Thee, the highest Truth and my true Good; never have I known any other love than the love of Thee! 0 my only hope and glory! Let not my course be prolonged, let not the beginning of that much desired freedom be postponed! (Ps. 141, 8). Solve now the chains of that mortal existence, which still detains me! Let the term of my life be fulfilled, let that end come toward which I tended from the first instant in which I received my being from Thee. My dwelling among the inhabitants of Cedar has been prolonged (Ps. 119, 5) ; but all the powers of my soul and all its faculties look toward the Sun which gives it life, follow the fixed North-star that leads them on, and faint away in longing for the Good they are awaiting. 0 ye supernal spirits, by the most exalted condition of your spiritual and angelic nature, by the happiness, which you enjoy in the never-failing beauty of my Beloved, I beseech you to have pity on me, my friends. Do ye pity this stranger among the children of Adam, captive in the bonds of mortal flesh. Present to my and your Lord the cause of my sorrow, of which He is not ignorant (Cant. 5,8); tell Him that for His sake I embrace suffering in my banishment, and that I so desire it; but I cannot desire to live in my own self; and if I am to live in Him in order to preserve my life, how can I live in the absence of this, my life? Love it is, which gives my life and at the same time deprives me of it. Life cannot live without love; hence, how can I live without the Life, which alone I love? In this sweet violence I am perishing; tell me if possible of the qualities of my Beloved, for amid such aromatic flowers the swoonings of my impatient love shall find recovery!" (Cant. 2, 5).

With such and other still more fervent aspirations the most blessed Mother assuaged the fires of her spirit, that She excited the wonder of the holy angels who attended upon Her and served Her. And as they, by means of their high intelligence and heavenly science, were able to understand these excesses, they on one occasion answered Her as follows: "Our Queen and Lady, if Thou wishest again to hear us speak of the tokens of thy Beloved that we know of, consider that He is beauty itself and that He contains within Himself all the perfections beyond all desire. He is amiable without defect, delightful beyond comparison, pleasing without the least flaw. In wisdom He is inestimable, in goodness without measure, in power boundless, in greatness immeasurable, in essence infinite, in majesty inaccessible, and all His perfections are infinite. In His judgments He is terrible (Ps. 65, 5), His counsels inscrutable (Rom. 11,33), in His justice most equitable (Ps. 118, 137), in His thoughts unsearchable, in His words most true, in His works holy (Ps. 144, 13), rich in mercies (Ephes. 2, 4). Space cannot overreach Him, narrowness cannot confine Him, sorrow cannot disturb Him, joy cannot cause any change in Him; nor does He ever fail in His wisdom, or change in His will (Jas. 1, 17); abundance cannot overwhelm, or want come near Him, memory adds nothing, forgetfulness takes away nothing from His knowledge; what was, is not past for Him, and what is to come, never happens to Him; the beginning gave no origin to His being, and time will bring to Him no end. Without being caused, He causes all things (Ecc1i. 18, 1), and He has not need of anything, but all things need participation in Him; He preserves them without labor, He governs them without confusion. Those who follow Him walk not in darkness (John 8, 12), those who know Him are happy, who love and extol Him, are blessed; for He exalts His friends, and at last glorifies them by His eternal vision and intercourse (John 17, 3). This, o Lady, is the Good which Thou lovest and whose embraces Thou shalt shortly enjoy without intermission through all His eternities." Thus spoke the holy angels.

Read: Volume IV Book II Chapter XVIII