Saturday, April 10, 2010

ORA PRO NOBIS, SANCTA DEI GENITRIX - PRAY FOR US, O HOLY MOTHER OF GOD! - click for link


Risen Christ, whose glory no mortal creature has yet contemplated, traveled through space, and in a moment he came to meet his Blessed Mother. He is the Son of God, he is victorious over death; but he is also the son of Mary. The Holy Gospel doesn't say anything about the apparition of Christ to his Mother, whereas it dwells on all the others; the reason is easy to grasp. The other apparitions were to promulgate the fact of the resurrection; this one was demanded by a son's heart and a son who was no other than Jesus himself. Both nature and grace required the first meeting, whose touching mystery is the delight of Christian souls. It didn't have to be recorded in the sacred Books; the tradition of the Fathers, starting with Saint Ambrose, was enough to transmit it to us, supposing that our hearts hadn't sensed it on their own; and when we come to ask why the Savior, who was to come out of the tomb on a Sunday, willed to do it in the first hours of that day, even before the sun had time to brighten the world, we easily adhere to the opinion of pious and learned authors who have attributed this haste of the Son of God to the hurry he felt in his heart to put an end to the dolorous expectation of the most tender and afflicted of mothers. (Dom Prosper Gueranger "The Liturgical Year- Easter Season - Easter")