Perfect Beauty and Purity

Sister Mary Jean Dorcy, O.P., offers the following reflection. She is a prolific writer and illustrator for children's literature.

When we think of beauty, we think of something having light and color and form of perfect proportions, with no stained or twisted part to mar the whole. It does not matter whether the word “beauty” means to us a mountain, or a flower, or a person, or even a beautiful melody; perfection must be in it…. Mary’s soul is the most beautiful thing in God’s creation. It was shaped and designed as the masterpiece of the One who planned the sunsets, placed the mountains, bounded the seas, and jeweled the skies. All the beauty, all the grace that a creature is capable of possessing are hers….

Saint Paul speaks of the body as the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19). We know that because of the body’s great dignity as the abiding place of an immortal soul, it should be held in reverence, kept pure, and becomingly clothed. How much more is it to be expected that the Blessed Virgin, who was God’s earthly temple in a way that no other creature could ever be, would be all beautiful and radiant with the utmost in human perfections….

A church or temple is different from any other sort of building; something within you responds to a church as it does to no other structure. You do not feel like genuflecting when you go into a store, no matter how beautiful it may be, and no building which has a purely business purpose has any power to command your reverence. But almost instinctively, as you enter a Catholic church where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved, you know that here is something which is very great—something which gives meaning to the building, something which directs your thoughts upward…. This gives us the position of Catholics with regard to Mary…. As the temple of God, she commands our special reverence and love…. She is a magnificent tabernacle housing an infinite Guest….

 
Original sin was a black cloud of evil, a voluntary blackout with which the human race, in the person of Adam, closed our souls against the light of grace…. In Mary’s soul, there was never a shadow of a cloud to shut out the grace of God. The light of his grace streamed in upon her unobstructed. The radiant colors of all the virtues were found in the clear crystal of her purity.