Raphael's first and pure master-piece, " The Marriage of The Blessed Virgin."
Mary, become the wife of the blameless and high-minded man thus selected by Providence, went to reside in her ancestral home at Nazareth. It is six months after the message delivered to Zachary in the temple — that he shall be given a son to be called John. He shall be great before the Lord . . . shall be filled with the Holy Ghost before his birth. He is the precursor of the Messiah, who shall herald the approach of the long-expected Saviour and point Him out, walking the earth in our flesh. The "fulness of time" has come. From before the throne of the Highest the same angelic messenger descends to announce tht accomplishment of what is God's work above all others.
"The Angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, to a Virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David, and the Virgin's name was Mary. And the Angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; Blessed art thou among women; who, having heard, was troubled at his saying, and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be."
" The lowly maiden, among the many graces with which her soul overflowed, above all, possessed humility. She was alarmed, not so much by the presence of the angel, as by the reverence with which he addressed her. The divine favors already lavished upon her have not begotten pride. It is a characteristic of Christian sanctity, that its possessors, while intensely grateful to the Divine Goodness for every favor in the natural and supernatural order, are still most painfully conscious of their own shortcomings. The nearer God lifts them to Himself the more exalted becomes their ideal of moral perfection, the more severely do they compare what they are at the present moment, with what they might and ought to be. But the dignity that awaits Mary, singular and incommunicable as it is, had never entered into the visions of attainable holiness presented to her mind by the Spirit of God.
"The Angel calms her fears by announcing the object of his mission. She is divinely chosen in the eternal counsels to be the mother of the long-promised Redeemer, Jesus. I/e shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord shall give to Him the throne of David, His father, and He shall reign in the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end." The youth of Mary, her voluntary or enforced poverty, and her having placed herself as an affianced bride under the protection of a kinsman, . . . have not deadened in her bosom the yearning for the appearance of the Orient from on High,' the longing for the restoration of her own royal house. Patriotism and religion were intended by God to be one undivided and absorbing sentiment in the breast of every Hebrew woman as well as man. The daughter of David, then, must have been thrilled by the Heaven-sent assurance of the resurrection of David's line, of the coming glory and eternity of the new kingdom. But that it should be through son of hers overwhelms her. Genuine humility is not littleness of soul: it merely gives the soul an intense feeling of the distance which exists between what our own will has made us, and what God wills us to be. It is, therefore, at bottom, a vivid sense of the deficiency of one's own will in conforming with the Divine. But when it becomes clearly known to the humble soul that God requires of her the sublimest efforts of self-sacrifice, her very humility being a supernatural and irresistible tendency toward accomplishing His purpose, she puts forth a strength and a magnanimity all divine o doing what is most heroic and most painful.
"Did the divine light which must have flooded that favored soul on this occasion — unique in the whole economy of the supernatural government — enable Mary to perceive that, to become the Mother of the Second Adam she must fulfil the part of the Second Eve? that His triumph must be through suffering; that His diadem was to be a crown of thorns, and His death that of an executed criminal, the horror and abomination of His own and of all civilized peoples? If so, her acceptance of such motherhood meant a share in all this shame and torture of soul. Thus was humility satisfied; it should have its sublimest satisfaction in the cross, in her companionship with the Crucified.
" Light having been given her to understand the operations of the Divine Power, and the scruples both of her humility and her purity having been removed by the words of the Angel, she bows herself to the Divine Will, and accepts the awful responsibilities of Mother of the Redeemer. Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done unto me according to thy word. And the Angel departed from her. " (Heroic Women of the Bible and the Church.)
She was related on her mother's side, at least, to Elizabeth and Zachary, the parents of the Baptist, whose approaching birth the Angel had revealed to her. Probably these noble relatives had been the comforters of Anna in her widowhood, and the consolers as well of Mary herself in the first period of her orphaned life. Her first thought is to visit their privileged home. It was a long journey to the southern extremity of Juda, and over perilous roads. But the Spirit who henceforth is the very soul of that Blessed Mother's soul, is one of generosity; and Mary goes on her way rejoicing. She is the Ark of the New Covenant, bearing over the mountains and through the valleys of Judaea, not the manna put within the former ark by Moses together with the Tables of the Law. Here is He, who is the true Bread of Life, the Divine Law-Giver, the very "Angel of the Testament" Himself. And as Mary crosses the threshold of Elizabeth, John feels the presence of Jesus; at the approach of "the Bridegroom," His "Friend" is quickened with the pulses of a new life. His mother "cried out with a loud voice . . . Blessed art thou among women! . . . And whence is this to me that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?" . . .
Mary, unwilling to deny what has been revealed to her saintly kinswoman, only thinks of referring the homage paid to herself to Him from whom every perfect gift descendeth. The light of prophecy floods her soul, as the future ages are spread out before her, and she pours forth the strains of the sublime song, which has ever since been the hymn of Christian triumph and thanksgiving:
"My soul doth magnify the Lord,
And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour!
Because He hath regarded the humility of His handmaid;
For behold from henceforth all nations shall call me Blessed.
For He that is Mighty hath done great things to me.
And Holy is His name."
"Three months did Mary abide with Elizabeth, not seeking the public eye, but both of them communing with God in prayer, in obedience to the Holy Spirit who filled them; and increasing in their own souls the zeal for His glory and for the salvation of His people. So entirely does Mary trust to the divine wisdom to dis« close the secret of her heart, that, on her return to Nazareth, she makes no mention of it to Joseph. She is rewarded for her absolute trust: an angel is sent to this prudent and God-fearing man to apprise him of the Treasure lying hidden beneath his roof. He is thenceforth to be the faithful steward in God's family on earth, guarding and cherishing the two Beings in all creation the most precious in the sight of Heaven — that exalted Mother and her
