Mary's Virtues: She Shows Us the Way

In his classic work True Devotion to the Mary, St. Louis de Montfort lists the “ten principal virtues of the most Holy Virgin Mary. They are:

Profound humility
Lively faith
Blind obedience
Continual prayer
Universal mortification
Divine purity
Ardent charity
Heroic patience
Angelic sweetness
Divine wisdom

By meditating upon and imitating Mary’s virtues we will learn to love Jesus with the heart of Mary. In the spirit of St. Teresa of Calcutta’s own Marian spirituality, we can ask Mary to loan us her virtues and the love of her Immaculate Heart so that we can love Jesus as Mary does, and through this “borrowing” she will reproduce her same virtues in us. Let’s learn about the ten principal virtues of Mary in the list above.

1.     Profound humility

Rick Warren, a well-known evangelical Protestant pastor and author is quoted to have said, "Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less." Humility is the virtue of seeing yourself as God sees you, not through the eyes of the world or other people. Humility recognizes that every good within us and around us is God's gift and every good thing we do is only possible by pure gift of God, and therefore the humble soul desires to conform itself to that which pleases God alone without concerning itself what the world or others think.

Mary is the one and only creature in all of creation that never thought of herself or her own needs and wants. She was the only creature (besides Adam and Eve prior to the fall) who had a perfect understanding of how God viewed her and the only creature who only did that which pleased Him in all her actions. She accepted the role she was asked to assume by the Angel Gabriel not only as she responded "behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to your word" (Luke 1:38) but at every single moment of her life., even as an unborn infant in her mother's womb! This reality is described in the writings of Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta, the Little Daughter of the Divine Will, a mystic and victim soul who lived from 1865-1947 in Corato, Italy. Luisa lived for 64 years bedridden and consuming only the Holy Eucharist and wrote The Book of Heaven about living in the Divine Will, and several other writings including The 24 Hours of the Passion and The Blessed Virgin Mary in the Kingdom of the Divine Will. In this book Luisa's describes how Mary, by virtue of the gift of the Immaculate Conception, was fully united with the Divine Will even as a tiny human infant in her mother's womb.

Mary was fully aware that being found pregnant before formally moving in with Joseph, her betrothed, would be scandalous and could result in her being stoned to death, but she said yes to becoming the mother of the Messiah because God wanted it, she trusted Him in all things, and she understood that ultimately salvation would come to humanity through the Word becoming flesh. Tradition and the writings of Catholic mystic St. Anne Catherine Emmerich tell us that Mary was taken to the temple by her parents, Saints Joachim and Anne, and lived there from the time she was 3 years old, serving the temple priests and living a life for and in God from the time she was a toddler. According to Emmerich, Mary lived a hidden life of poverty for Jesus in her home at Nazareth for 30 years, doing ordinary tasks to care for Jesus and Joseph, not thinking twice about any other possibilities or wants because she knew this was the life God wanted for her and that was all that mattered. Immediately after hearing she would be the mother of the Savior of the world, she did not consider her own needs but hastily went to help her older cousin Elizabeth with her pregnancy and childbirth. Here she was just told she was to become the mother of the Lord, the Incarnate Word, and she forgot herself entirely to serve her cousin. Everything she ever did was in consideration of what God wanted and what others needed, and she recognized that this great honor bestowed upon her was not her own doing but a gift from God. She did not belittle herself, she proclaimed the greatness of God and the glory that her own soul gave to Him in her Magnificat:

            "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. For      He has            looked upon his handmaid's lowliness. Behold from now on will all ages call me    blessed. The   Almighty has done great things for me, and Holy is His Name." (Luke 1:46-49).

These are not the words of someone who puts themselves down to seem "humble". They are words of someone who recognizes from Whom all goodness and favors come and appreciates His handiwork. Humility is the mother of all virtues, and without it growth in other virtues is very difficult. It can also be elusive to many because pride is such a strong pull in the opposite direction, and "making a name for oneself" and the "self-made man" are concepts often celebrated in the world, not giving all the glory to God. Let's pray for the grace of greater humility to see ourselves as God sees us, recognize the things that God wants to transform in us and the wisdom to cooperate with His grace. Mary, Queen of angels and saints, pray for us.

2.     Lively Faith.

Mary is the model of a lively faith. When all seems lost, her faith in God did not waiver. Even as she watched her Son dying on the cross, she continued to believe in the promises of God through the Angel Gabriel: "He will be called great and the Son of the Most High and the Lord God will give Him the throne of David His father and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end." (Luke 1:32-33). When the faith of all the other followers of Jesus failed them, Mary was the one who understood that, if Jesus had the power as God to raise Lazarus and others from the dead, that He certainly had the power to arise from the dead Himself. Mary truly believed that nothing will be impossible for God (Luke1:37) and trusted even when all seemed lost. Let us pray today for faith like Mary's so that it can be said about us as well: "Blessed is she who trusted that what was spoken to her by the Lord would be fulfilled."(Luke 1:45). When trials come, remember that Jesus told his followers: "If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'be uprooted and planted in the sea' and it will obey you." (Luke 17:6). Virgin most faithful, pray for us

3.     Blind Obedience

Mary never questioned anything that God proposed for her life. When Joseph was less than sold on taking her into his home when she was found pregnant by another means than himself, Mary didn’t argue with Joseph or try to defend herself. She told the truth about what had happened, then she took the situation to prayer and knew without a doubt that God would work it out however He saw fit to do, and she would accept the outcome without question. She waited patiently and had ultimate trust in God’s Will and was completely submissive to it. She knew that God would work it out with Joseph and would not fail her as she had obediently surrendered to what God had asked of her. And as we know, God did work it out. He came to Joseph in a dream and explained His wishes and immediately obeyed. When it was time to go to Egypt, God told Joseph, and both Joseph and Mary obeyed. When Jesus left on his public ministry, though it was painful to see Him go, Mary didn’t hold Him back for herself. When Jesus was crucified, though it broke her heart and she would rather have died herself, Mary was silent and watched in submission to God as her only Son hung dying. What courage, generosity, and love Mary had for us, knowing that what was happening to her Son would bring redemption to humanity. What a world it would be if we all had the same faith, trust, and blind obedience that Mary had. God never asks something that is not for our own good and for the flourishing of families and relationships. He is a loving Father who wants what is best for his children. Mary understood this with her whole being which is why her obedience was complete. Let us pray to Mary to ask Jesus for the grace to be obedient to God’s Will, both active and permissive, even when it is difficult and hard to understand. Gate of Heaven, pray for us.

4.     Continual Prayer.

Mary’s entire life was an offering of prayer, of saying yes. She never took her eyes off God, and she offered every thought, word, and deed to God as a pure, continuous act of love. Prayer is the doorway to God’s heart, so we can never pray to often or too much. The book titled: The Ceaseless Act of Love. I Will Think of Everything. You Think Only of Loving Me describes this kind of prayer life. The book was about the life of Venerable Sister Consolata Betrone, a Capuchin Italian mystic who lived from 1903 until 1946. Jesus spoke to her for many years, asking her to pray continuously and offer “ceaseless acts of love” from the moment she awoke in the morning until the moment she fell asleep at night. Jesus told her that His favorite simple act of love was for her to pray “Jesus, Mary, I love you. Save souls.” Our Lord said each act of love saves a soul! Even something as simple as this little ejaculatory prayer, if said with love of God. Of course, lay people have obligations and duties that must be met when living in the world. But everything we do, even the mundane things of everyday life, when offered to Jesus for love of Him, can become an act of love. Colossians 3:23-24 says: “Whatever you do, do from the heart, as for the Lord and not for others, knowing that you will receive from the Lord the due payment of the inheritance; This is how Mary lived in continual prayer—all she did was for Jesus. Jesus told Consolata that each prayer, each smile we offer to a neighbor, every act of charity done with and for Him, positively effects the entire universe, and that prayer has more power to save souls than anything we do.

In the writings of Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta, it says that we should unite everything we do to the Divine Will through prayer. By doing so, we fuse our wills to God’s and our acts fuse with the one eternal act of God, uniting our acts with everything done by Jesus, Mary, all the Saints, all the souls in purgatory, and all the angels throughout history. We can fuse our acts to the Divine Will using the prevenient act offering and by doing the rounds of Creation, Redemption and Sanctification (you can find both of these on either YouTube or www.queenofthedivinewill.org ) and by repeating our intention to fuse our will to God’s as we do everything throughout our day by simply saying “Jesus, clean with me in my cleaning, walk with me in my walking, eat with me in my eating, think with me in my thinking, pray with me in my praying, etc.” Praying this way helps us to continually think of and love Jesus in all we do all day long. According to Luisa, acts fused to the Divine Will can repair for sins of the past, present and future, and a single voice praying this way can drown out and make reparation for huge numbers of blasphemies and obscenities being shouted at the Lord all over the world! Luisa Piccareta also said that Jesus said every word read with devotion from The 24 hours of the Passion saves a soul!

The Mass is the most powerful of all forms of prayer and is the source and summit of Christian life. Mass is heaven touching down to earth; it is Jesus offering Himself to the Father on our behalf and brings the saving act of Calvary into the present, giving us an opportunity to participate in Redemption with Jesus as we offer ourselves to God in union with Him. Attending Mass with attentiveness also brings grace to every soul on earth. Receiving the Eucharist worthily and with great love transforms us into other Christs. It is Jesus offering Himself to us as food, and we become what we receive--a living host to help transform the world. And in humble adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, we offer ourselves back to Jesus in worship as our King and Lord. Jesus told Consolata that "Mankind's humble adoration of God in the Holy Eucharist will be the weight that crushes the head of Satan." These three acts complete the circle of life: God offers God to God, God offers Himself to humanity, and humanity offers itself back to God.

If every act of pure love has a positive effect on the whole universe, the opposite is true as well: sin, hatred, negativity, and acts of darkness give Satan power and draw people away from Jesus. Try not to dwell on evil as doing so gives it more power. Think of and look for good even in difficult situations and pray continually.  The Ceaseless Act of Love says that Satan used to send a woman to Mary’s door to draw her away from her contemplation of God and her daily duties. Mary would answer the door, greet her kindly with a smile, turn her away politely, and go back to her loving adoration of God in prayer. Jesus told Consolata,” the more you love Me, the happier you will be”, and “Love me continually. It doesn’t matter if your heart is made of stone or ice.” St. John of the Cross said, “The smallest act of pure love of is worth more to the Church than all works put together.” So, pray as you do everything and make everything a prayer so that everything you do, even smiling at someone, becomes an act of pure love for God. Mary, please intercede for the grace to learn to pray continually as you do and offer to the Lord all we do. Mary, Queen of the most holy rosary, pray for us.

5.     Universal mortification

In our fast paced, society of instantaneous gratification, pleasure, and plenty, the concept of mortification has nearly disappeared from the vocabulary and practices of many Christians. We are so accustomed to a life of comfort, especially in the United States, that we often don’t think about the billions of people in other places in the world who are much less fortunate than ourselves. Mortification is a process whereby we deny ourselves things that we take pleasure in so that we may master ourselves and our sinful inclinations. It is through mortification of ourselves and charity to others that we purify our hearts and develop virtue. Mortification not only helps us control our passions, but it also expands our hearts and makes them more capable of loving others and sacrificing ourselves for the sake of another. Without mortifying the senses to develop self-control, it is difficult to grow in other virtues. Mary knew the necessity of mortification well and lived a daily life of strict discipline and mortification of the senses. According to various mystics, Mary wore simple, rough fabrics of plain design and color, ate simple foods of vegetables, nuts and grains, and lived an austere life of poverty and manual work. We know these things about her from mystics who had visions of Mary’s life or visitations from the Blessed Mother herself.

Mary was a woman of deep and frequent sacrifice and knew more suffering during her life than any other creature that ever lived. Jesus, her Son and our God, is the only person who knew more suffering than Mary. Mary understood that mortification not only deepened her own union with God, but also assisted others with attaining holiness through her own good example. And she desired the salvation of souls with the same heart and mind of her Son. She never chose to do anything that would bring her personal pleasure unless it had a purpose in God’s plan and was His Will for her. Her mortification of her own needs and desires for the sake of Jesus, Joseph, and all humanity was universal and total. Except for Jesus nobody gave more for the salvation of others than Mary. Mother undefiled, pray for us.

6.     Divine Purity

Every thought, word, and action of Mary was done by, for and in God. Her heart was set totally on loving and serving Him, loving with her entire heart, mind, soul, and strength as is commanded by God in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 6:5). Other than Jesus, who was God Incarnate and therefore could never be divided in any way from His Father, Mary was the only creature to ever obey this command successfully during her entire earthly life. And even though Mary was conceived Immaculately, she could have chosen to use her own free will and sin. But she kept her will completely submitted to God from birth to death, which is why she is so highly honored by the Catholic Church. Mary was the one and only perfect disciple of Christ, and the more we give ourselves to Mary and ask for her helping in learning to love Jesus, the better we will become at doing so She will intercede with her Divine Spouse, the Holy Spirit and together they will help us recognize our faults and teach us how to repent. They will purify our hearts, minds, body, and soul so that we too can have a purity of love of God that more closely mirrors that of Mary. The name Mary means “star of the sea”. Like a star, Mary’s reflected brilliance sheds light for our journey. All that Mary is was a gift from God, which is why we call her a reflection of the Divine image. She steers us through the spiritual life using the means by which we can most easily find our way to Jesus. Allowing Mary to chart our course assures our soul will find union with her Son through the most direct, smoothest, and safest waters. Mother most pure, pray for us.

7.     Ardent Charity

Charity is the supreme virtue that animates all other virtues. It is charity that directs every other virtue to perfection. Without charity, no other virtues have value, meaning or purpose. What is charity? The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines "charity" as "the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for His own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God”. It is an infused gift that resides in the will, which means we choose whether to exercise it or not. Close kin to charity is mercy, w8hich is defined as undeserved charity.

Mary’s love of God was perfect. Her will is united completely and without reservation to God’s Will, so her charity is universal and total. Mary loves God is a way that no other creature has loved Him since the fall of Adam and Eve. Her love for humanity is also total and unreserved. Since Mary’s charity is perfect, she loves every person fully, as though each of us were her only child. One of the truest signs of the depth of a person’s love for another is their willingness to suffer for them. There is no creature ever created that has suffered more than Mary for the salvation of humanity. Because of her pure heart, the pain she feels is more intense than someone whose heart is sullied by self-love. A pure heart fully understands how a person’s sin is separating them from God and can see the full consequences of that choice. So, watching the suffering and sin of others cuts into her pure heart more deeply. If Mary could have taken Jesus’ place on the cross and still have humanity saved, she would have. But since only God could restore the broken relationship between humanity and Himself, she surrendered her will and watched in great sorrow and horror as her beautiful, perfect, innocent Son was tortured, mocked, brutalized, humiliated, and crucified for our sins. Reading the 24 Hours of the Passion by Luisa Piccarreta or the Diary of St. Faustina gives some sense of what Jesus went through for us, but really can’t describe the interior suffering that He underwent from taking our sins upon Himself, which He told both Saints was much more painful and heartbreaking than the physical abuse that he suffered. Mary is the only one who understood Jesus’ interior torments because their souls were so united that she felt them almost as much as He did. We can trust the Blessed Mother to lead us to her Son because her desire to find Him after all He went through for us is ardent. She wants every soul to love and trust Jesus like she does. Mary, Mother of Mercy, pray for us.

8.     Heroic Patience

Mary patience is hard to imagine. She has been waiting for more than 2000 years for humanity to love her Son and to appreciate all that He did and continues to do for us. She has been instructing souls all that time in the “School of Mary”, teaching them how to love God and trust His Will for their lives. Mary is the most patient mother that has ever existed or will ever exist. She never gives up on a soul in her efforts to help Our Lord perfect us in virtue. Each time we fall, she picks us back up, dusts us off, encourages us to listen to her Spouse, the Holy Spirit, tell us what we need to surrender and change to grow in virtue, and holds our hand when we approach the Lord in confession to be reconciled to Him. Mary will never tire of assisting us to learn to know and love her Son. She knows each of us intimately as her own child and as mother, she knows all our quirks and habits and the things that keep us distant or fearful of approaching Jesus. She will help us undo the knots of our life that hold us back in our Christian walk and helps us let go of things like past hurts, unforgiveness, bad habits, and behaviors that hurt ourselves and others. With the help of her Spouse, she helps to open our eyes to things that we may never have realized were sins. If we consecrate ourselves to her, she will loan us her own Immaculate Heart with which to love Jesus and her own virtues with which to learn to develop them within ourselves. And she will spend as much time and effort as it takes to get us home to her Son. A visionary once wrote that Mary says she will continue to help us for thousands of years until humanity returns to the relationship with God that existed before the fall of Adam and Eve. Mary, Help of Christians, pray for us.

9.     Angelic Kindness

Mary’s kindness makes even the most unpleasant crosses sweeter and lighter to carry. She puts joy in our step even under difficult circumstances. It is just like the times when, as a child, your mom put sugar with your medicine to make it go down easier. And her wisdom makes the path much shorter and straighter. Think of the person in your life that treated you with the most memorable kindness you have ever experienced. What did they do for you that was so memorable – greeted you with a warm, welcoming smile, maybe even hugged you, listened to you intently with great interest as you spoke about your life, were courteous and pleasant even if you may have been in a less than perfect mood, helped solve a problem or assisted with some difficult task? How did their kindness make you feel? Pretty special, right? Well multiply that level of kindness by a factor of a thousand and square it. That is the difference between ordinary kindness and that with which Mary treats her children.  It isn’t to say that she will never require anything difficult or even that she will withhold discipline if it is needed. But she offers these crosses with such a sweet, motherly, loving kindness, that one would never say no to her. This is why her intercession is so effective with Jesus. Her ardent love and her angelic kindness toward souls is irresistible. One of the Saints describes our going to Jesus alone as compared to going to Jesus with Mary’s help like this: When we go to Jesus alone, we bring Him our good deeds in a disorganized, pile that we drop at the foot of the cross. When Mary assists us, she takes our deeds, arranges them as a bouquet of beautiful flowers in a gorgeous crystal vase and places it on a golden platter, then hands that to Jesus. It is the same deeds, only she brings them to Jesus in the best possible light, each one as part of the whole arrangement, and surrounded by her love and virtues as mother. Wouldn’t you rather Mary handle things for you? Mary, cause of our joy, pray for us.

10.  Heavenly Wisdom

When walking toward Jesus without Mary, we rely on our own wisdom to choose our path which generally involves a few wrong turns, falls, going in circles or even heading backward on occasion. With Mary, her wisdom is totally in synch with the wisdom of God, so she knows how to teach us virtue with the least effort and fewest mistakes on our part. Wouldn’t you like to arrive in front of Jesus with fewer scrapes, bumps, and bruises? Then go by way of Mary.

Think of a time when you were really struggling to understand something in school. Maybe you found another student to help you understand the difficult subject or maybe you recruited the help of an older sibling or your parents or grandparents. This is how it is with Mary when we are struggling to understand the best route to take to please God and assist our neighbor. Maybe we just can’t understand why something we like doing is bad for our souls or keeps us from loving God the way we should. Maybe we’re struggling to grow in a particular virtue and no matter how many tests God may send to help us grow in it, we seem to fail the test each time. This is where Mary’s wisdom is so valuable. Mary’s love for God was perfect and total and her desire for our salvation is also ardent and selfless. She will do anything to help us learn to love God our neighbor, and ourselves (i.e. she teaches us to appreciate our human dignity and infinite value as a child of God) and to grow in grace and wisdom ourselves so that we too will develop a burning desire for the things of heaven and will be willing to sacrifice our own needs for the salvation of our family, friends and neighbors. She places things into our path: people, events, books, magazine articles, even YouTube videos and Internet sites, that provide us with wisdom and understanding about matters of the faith that help us know why certain things are either good or bad for your soul. I remember coming across an Internet site when I was surfing one time called “The Apostolate of Holy Motherhood” at a time when my husband was working full time and going to school full time and traveling and I was really struggling as a new mother to raise two small children with him rarely at home. Other things she placed in my path around that time were: the Catechism of the Catholic Church as I was waiting for antibiotics at the pharmacy in Fred Meyer, a book called Meetings with Mary as I cut through the book isle in Costco that was about Marian apparitions of the last few centuries (I had no knowledge about apparitions before this except one small pamphlet a friend had given me about Medjugorje which at the time I dismissed as not credible), and a website called “One More Soul” which opened my eyes to why the Church teaches what it does about contraception. She gives us what we need to discover the road we should walk, and that kind of wisdom is indispensable in today’s world. Mary, Seat of Wisdom, pray for us.