MOTHER MOST ADMIRABLE
by Fr. Albert Power S.J., M. A.

Behold thy Mother. - John xix.,

    The picture of " Mater Admirabilis," a fresco in the Sacred Heart Convent of the Trinita dei Monti, Rome, represents Our Lady, whilst still a child, in the Temple of Jerusalem, resting awhile from her daily toil of spinning. The figure is painted with a wonderful air of modesty and recollection, which are external signs of the soul's internal communion with
God. The modesty of eyes and demeanor show that the soul is enjoying the Presence of its Creator.

  Impulsiveness of manner, the absence of self-restraint, are signs of an uncontrolled heart; of a soul set on other things besides God, and clinging to trifles. Whereas, if the interior sight is radiant from gazing on God, then the bodily eyes, too, are filled with modesty and holy recollection.



Mary's Childhood.

  Here we see Mary as a child, God's chosen lily, His spotless flower, radiant with the matchless holiness of the purest of beings; the eyes of her soul have gazed intently, lovingly, longingly, on the beauty of the Divinity as no created eyes ever gazed before; her heart is flaming white with a purity unmatched in any human creature. Think, then, how gloriously beautiful, how full of exquisite modesty and recollection her face and form will be! In particular, the picture suggests, by the lily painted beside Our Lady, that we must aim at purity of life. Like the lily, our soul should stand out from its surroundings by its beauty, by its intense whiteness and delicate shape. A soul stained with sin is like a flower decayed and full of evil odors.

  The streaming sunshine it is that lifts the flowers into beauty, pouring its golden wealth upon them without stint, and filling them with the vigor of their lovely life. So the streams of God's golden graces have power to make souls live a vigorous life in the midst of corruption, and by virtue of this life to be beautiful, and to fill all about them with the perfume of their virtues. This, I say, is the result of life-intense life.

  Sin means the gradual numbing of the soul's interior activity, the deadening of its faculties, the extinction of its life. Hence a Saint's soul means a soul living an intensely active life, a soul in which the sap of grace is extraordinarily vigorous in its effects; and all that helps that life helps to purity, because purity is to the soul what the soft bloom is to the flower, what style is to literature, what perfection of form is to the statue or picture, what rich, mellow tone is in the singer; but with this difference, that this purity is God's chosen subject of delight and contemplation.

Purity of Soul.

    Purity of soul is for God all that beauty of human voice or of the masterpieces of art is to us; what the radiant, intense beauty of the Apollo Belvedere, or the Laocoon, is to the art student, or the rich notes of a great singer to the lover of music. This life, the intense life that results in this indescribable loveliness which we call Purity, is typified by the Lily of our Incomparable Mother. Will it be true to paint us after death with a white lily beside us? Does God see the white lily of purity, at present blazing with beauty in our soul?

Prayer and Work.

    Now, in order to nourish this fair flower of Paradise, which has been by God's grace transplanted into the wilderness of this world, two things are specially necessary prayer and work. And no one can ever hope to lead a pure and sinless life, to make this lily flourish, unless they pray earnestly and work diligently. The opposite of these two activities are tepidity, which hates prayer, and idleness, which shirks work. And these two things are the nursing mothers of sin, the enemies to purity of soul. When a well-educated child falls into careless ways and allows the bloom of the lily of purity to be tarnished, it comes either from neglect of prayer or from idleness. Hence we have set before us in Mary's Picture, on the one hand the Bible, which helped her to pray; on the other, the distaff *, or instrument of her industrious work.

Spiritual Hands .

    Prayer feeds on the Bible - i.e., on God's Word. Prayer means work of the soul, just as spinning means the work of the body. The intellect and will are the two hands of the soul, and it is our duty to keep them properly occupied. These
hands have to weave spiritual garments, and the material is supplied by the Bible; it is by constantly taking portions of this great mass of thought and weaving it into the texture of our lives that we pray.

  Prayer means interior activity about God, trying to think God's thoughts. That is why the Bible is here the emblem of prayer; that is why the praying people - i.e., the Saints - constantly used the Bible. And just as the hands weave garments to ward off cold, to defend the body against the inclemency of the weather, to nourish the life and warmth of the body and preserve its health, so the spiritual hands have to constantly weave garments of strong texture for the soul, to defend it against the attacks of temptation, to keep it warm and fervent amidst the blinding, piercing storms of the sinful world, to nourish its life of purity.

    If the housewife neglects her spinning and weaving, then in the winter time the cold winds find her children unprotected by double garments. So, if the soul is idle in prayer, then, when the storm of temptation comes and the winter of desolate worldliness is over the land, the soul will freeze, because it is not duly protected by spiritual garments. Therefore, Mary is our model - Mary, the child working diligently with her soul in prayer.

Idleness.

  And the body must work, too. The imagination and senses have to be kept occupied. Here, Mary is the model of children in their school days. School is a place for work. Not all work, of course; there is play also. But school is meant to train children to habits of work for their lifetime. We know that the ruin of a person's character nearly always comes from idleness or unwillingness to work. So the bankrupt, the thief, the libertine, the drunkard, every ruined career, is the result of idleness. And on the other hand, success in life is the reward of diligence. Character is chiefly developed by work. Habits of self-reliance, energy, courage, courtesy, charity all these demand a spirit of work, and are absent from the lazy and the idle. Indolence is a very dangerous fault in a person's character, if habitually and deliberately indulged in; no remedy is too severe for such an evil.

  Now, this being so, our Admirable Mother is represented with her work materials beside her. She was to be Mother of God and Queen of Heaven, yet She will work at her spinning and stitching like the humblest work-girl in the households of her native land. God will lift Her up to incomparable heights of glory and sanctity, but Mary still works quietly at her spinning. As we gaze at this lovely picture of our Child Queen, we keep repeating: stainless purity, burning prayer, incessant diligence - these constitute the history of Mary's life.

Mary's Motherhood.

    A question arises: Why is this picture of the Child Queen called Mater Admirabilis ? Perhaps the reason is this: This child, in her radiant beauty, is young in years, but she is the Mother of the Church, the Mother of the faithful, the Mother of Divine Grace. She is a child, and yet a Queen; a child, and yet the Mother of her people; a child in years, and yet a Mother in the maturity of her graces; a child in beauty and innocence, and yet a fruitful Mother on account of the souls she is already helping to eternal life. Motherhood means bringing a new human being into existence; it means the privilege of bestowing the greatest of all gifts, the gift of life. But there is motherhood in the world of grace too, when a soul helps to communicate the life of grace; and in this sense Mary is the Mother of souls, even at fifteen.

  And so she is already Mater Admirabilis, mother in a sense that no human tongue can tell or explain; mother practicing the highest and most boundless form of charity, the bestowal of spiritual wealth; mother nurturing with gentlest care the souls she is rearing up for God; mother admirable by her gentleness; admirable for her charity, for her purity, for her generosity; mother admirable in the number of her children (which include all the Saints). So no wonder we kneel reverently in Mary's presence and gaze fondly on this fair picture of our Child Queen, our Child Mother, our fairest little Monarch, whom God has given as a child to us, that we might, by her example, be led to Himself. A sinless child, fair as the morning, radiant and fragrant with God's grace, so She stands before us in order to win us for God. She is God's greatest advocate, His most eloquent preacher. She has more persuasively pleaded God's cause in the world than any other of His Saints. This child is God's most powerful ally; He owes Her more than He owes any of His Saints. The Church's beauty, the richness of her sanctity, the zeal and charity that adorn her history are chiefly the result of this child's prayer and exertion. Shall we not love her, then, and honor her with all our might?


* Distaff: A stick, with a split at the tip, to hold wool, flax etc. so that it may be spun into thread.

Text: https://dn721603.ca.archive.org/0/items/our-lady-s-titles/Our_Lady_s_Titles.pdf
Photo credit: https://fraymartinblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/21/a-mater-admirabilis/

From Wikipedia:
Mater Admirabilis is a famous 1844 fresco by Pauline Perdrau at the Trinità dei Monti convent in Rome, depicting the young Virgin Mary in quiet contemplation with a lily, books, and a spinning wheel, representing a synthesis of work, silence, and divine life; it's a significant Catholic devotion, particularly for Sacred Heart schools, with its own feast day (October 20) and association with miracles, after Pope Pius IX declared it "Mother Most Admirable" when its colors softened and blended beautifully over time.

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