CHAPTER IV. The Dignity and heroic Virtues of St. Joseph. SECTION I. The dignity of St. Joseph. St. Joseph is exalted above all God's Saints; and ranks next to the Blessed Virgin Mary herself. THE dignity of a Saint may be estimated from the designs of God in his regard; from his relations with the Almighty, and from the place destined for him to fulfil in the scheme of Redemption. Thus in the Old Law, Abraham is elevated on a high pinnacle of sanctity because he was destined to be the father of God's people; Moses is regarded as a great Saint, because he was chosen by God to give the Divine Law to the Jews; Melchisedech is honoured, because his sacrifice was a figure of the great sacrifice of the New Law; King David, the model of the repentant sinner, is singled out for special honours, because God inspired him to sing His praises in hymns and canticles. In the New Law, the twelve Apostles are held up to the admiration and veneration of the world; and why? Because of the dignity of the Apostolate; because they were chosen by God to be the preachers of His Word, and the foundation stones of His Church. St. Peter is raised pre-eminently above the other Apostles; because Our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ chose him to be the rock on which He built His Church; because he was the divinely appointed head of the Sacred College; and because on him and his lawful successor, the Saviour of the world conferred the unique privilege of Infallibility in teaching the Universal Church. St. John the Baptist is held in special honour by the Church and was sanctified in his mother's womb, because his mission was to point out to the world the long-expected Messias"Behold the Lamb of God." The dignity, and hence the sanctity of the Blessed Virgin, were unspeakably exalted beyond that of all the Saints and Angels put together, as the learned Suarez teaches; because her relations with God were of a higher order, and because she entered more fully and intimately into the scheme of man's Redemption. No relationship is nearer to a son than that of mother. Jesus Christ is the Son of Mary; the Sacred Body of Jesus, the Precious Blood by which mankind was redeemed, had their source in the Immaculate Heart of Mary. To use the words of St. Augustine, "The flesh of Christ is the flesh of Mary; and although it was raised to greater glory in His Resurrection; yet it still remained the same that was taken from her."* The essence of the dignity of the Blessed Virgin consists in her intimate relation with the Saviour of the world, in the one title, Mother of God. "It is this awful title," writes Cardinal Newman, "which both illustrates and connects together the two prerogatives of Mary-her sanctity and her greatness. It is the issue of her sanctity; it is the source of her greatness. What dignity can be too great to attribute to her who is so closely bound up, as intimately o with the Eternal Word, as a mother is with her son ? What outfit of sanctity, what fulness and redundance of grace, what exuberance of merit, must have been hers, on the supposition that the Fathers justify, that her Maker regarded them at all, and took them into account when He condescended not "Caro Christi est Mariæ, et quamvis gloria Resurrectionis fuerit magnificata, eadem tamen mansit quo assumpta est de Maria." (Serm. de Assum., c, v.) |