564. August 2, Our Lady of Angels

Meditations no. 495 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

God has raised the Blessed Virgin above the Angels and Saints.

The Marian feast we celebrate today has a special meaning for the children of God in Opus Dei. God chose to found the Work on October 2nd, 1928, feast of the Holy Guardian Angels. Moreover, at the very moment he received the divine seed into his heart and soul, our Father heard the pealing of the nearby bells of the church of Our Lady of the Angels.

On today’s feast, the Church directs our eyes to Mary, now present in heaven, body and soul. There she has been proclaimed Empress of the universe and Queen of both mankind and the blessed Spirits whom she exceeds in glory just as the sun outshines the distant stars. As a Father of the Church once said, No one, my Lady, is given the gift of mercy and grace except through you. Who will not say, then, that you are blessed? Who will not exalt you? Who will not praise you with all his strength, even though he will never be able to praise you as you deserve? All generations will exalt you because you are glorious and blessed, because you have received countless divine marvels from your Son.

Our Lady’s elevation above the angels is a consequence of the fullness of grace with which the Blessed Trinity adorned her, so that she would be worthy to be the Mother of God. The Divine Motherhood of Mary is the source of all the perfections and privileges with which she is endowed. Because of it, she was conceived immaculate and is full of grace; because of it, she is ever virgin, she was taken up body and soul to heaven and has been crowned Queen of all creation, above the angels and saints. Greater than she, none but God. God bestowed on our Lady supernatural treasures of grace that bore fruit as a result of her complete correspondence. Our Father, when considering that passage from the book of Revelation that shows our Lady exalted by God above all creation, said: “A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman adorned with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and a crown of twelve stars about her head.” May you and I, and everyone, be convinced that nothing perfects our personality so much as correspondence to graced

By giving the Son of God his human nature, the Blessed Virgin contributed in a singular way to the unprecedented approach of God to man.

Ever since God raised the angels to a participation in his innermost life, they have contemplated the divine essence in complete happiness. The vision of the Blessed Trinity is their life and love. We, however, find ourselves in a different situation. While on earth, we can see God only dimly, as in a mirror. Only in Heaven will we be able to contemplate Him face to face.

But in his infinite Wisdom and Mercy, God has made himself visible to our eyes through the Incarnation of the Word. The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, in order to save us, became true Man without ceasing to be true God. By virtue of the hypostatic union, Jesus could answer the apostle who asked Him to show them the Father: he who has seen me has seen the Father, God truly walked on earth among men, just as it had been foretold by one of the prophets: he was seen upon earth, and conversed with men.

All this was made possible through the Blessed Virgin Mary, who gave herself entirely to the fulfilment of the divine Will. When the Blessed Virgin said Yes, freely, to the plans revealed to her by the Creator, the divine Word assumed a human nature: a rational soul and a body, which was formed in the most pure womb of Mary. The divine nature and the human were united in a single Person: Jesus Christ, true God and, thenceforth, true Man; the only-begotten and eternal Son of the Father and, from that moment on, as Man, the true son of Mary. This is why our Lady is the Mother of the Incarnate Word, the second Person of the Blessed Trinity who has united our human nature to himself forever, without any confusion of the two natures. The greatest praise we can give to the Blessed Virgin is to address her loud and clear by the name that expresses her very highest dignity: Mother of God.

By her fiat!, our Lady brought God visibly into the world. The words of Scripture referring to the virtuous woman can be applied to holy Mary, and find in her their full meaning: She is like the merchant’s ship, she brings her bread from afar. Eternal Truth itself, the very object of the angels’ unceasing contemplation, took on our flesh and was made visible to our eyes. Through our Lady’s cooperation, the Word came to earth from his heavenly homeland. She was the graceful ship God chose to bring his Son into the world.

We are nourished with the Bread of the Angels: the Blessed Virgin’s presence in the Mass.

Divine Wisdom has marvellously disposed that, while still journeying far from our heavenly homeland, we too can nourish ourselves on the Eternal Truth. For Christ instituted the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, in which his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity are really, truly and substantially present. Every day the same Jesus, who came down from heaven by the power of the Holy Spirit and became Man in the womb of the Virgin Mary, comes down to our altars, under the appearance of bread, to nourish us on our earthly pilgrimage.

As a result of his contemplative life, centred on the mystery of the Eucharist, our founder would sometimes speak of the hidden but effective presence of our Lady whenever her Son becomes sacramentally present. Each day, when he comes down into the hands of the priest, Christ renews his real presence among us, with his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity: the same Body and Blood that he took on in the womb of the Virgin Mary. During the sacrifice of the Altar, our Lady’s participation is similar to her silent reserve when she accompanied him throughout Palestine. The Mass is an act of the Blessed Trinity: by the will of the Father, with the cooperation of the Holy Spirit, the Son offers himself up in a redeeming sacrifice. And within this unfathomable mystery we can make out, as if veiled, the most pure face of Mary, Daughter of God the Father, Mother of God the Son, Spouse of God the Holy Spirit.

Our founder pointed out two theological reasons for our Lady’s special intervention in the sacrifice of the Mass: because of her intimate relationship with the Blessed Trinity, and because she is the Mother of Christ, of his flesh and blood-the Mother of Jesus Christ, perfect God and perfect man. Jesus was conceived in the womb of Mary most holy, not through the intervention of man, but by the power of the Holy Spirit alone. In his veins runs the blood of his Mother, the blood that is offered in the sacrifice of the redemption, on Calvary and in the Mass.

Our Lady’s presence next to Jesus extends beyond the moment in which the sacrifice of the Altar is renewed. Near the end of his life our Father said, Our Lord has recently given me more light. He has let me see that, somehow, in an ineffable way, when he is present there, defenceless, even more defenceless than when He lay in the crib in Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph do not leave Him alone. Somehow, the Mother of God and the one who was a father to Him on earth are present. They are close to you! Close to us! I thank them for keeping you company! I cannot separate the Host from the Holy Family, the Family of Nazareth, which I love so much, which so moves me, and which is like the heart of our family of Opus Dei.

By a marvellous miracle, Jesus becomes present on our altars every day, hidden under the appearance of bread, in order to become our food. Today, we thank the Queen of Angels for her cooperation with the all-powerful Will of God. Holy Mary’s fiat made the Incarnation possible, and with it, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist: ecce panis angelorum / factus cibus viatorum; behold the bread of angels, become food for wayfarers. We thank our Lady with all our heart and ask her to teach us how to attend Mass and receive her Son each day with the same dispositions with which she received Him in her most pure womb.