Mary, the "Dawn of Hope"


The Birth of the Virgin Mary, 1655, Esteban Murillo, (Louvre, Paris)

"Who is this?" asks the Holy Spirit as Mary comes into the world. "Who is this that comes forth like the dawn, as beautiful as the moon, as resplendent as the sun?" (Sg 6,10)...

She "comes forth like the dawn." Our first father was made in the image and likeness of his Creator in the full light of day (Gn 1,26). What could be more wonderful for a created being than to share the Creator's likeness?... He granted him the everlasting image but the likeness was still to be achieved: man was to become like his Creator. Yet he rejected the honor of such a privilege..., delivering himself over to death, into the darkness, along with all his descendants. Darkness covered all the earth (cf. Gn 1,2) until the coming of the Virgin. There was none who could escape the shadows, none to disperse them... but with the coming of the Virgin, dawn arose. Mary makes known the true light and, by her nativity, causes the most radiant of mornings to shine. She is the Morning Star. She is that dawn who follows or, rather, from whom is born the Sun of Justice (Mal 3,20): he who alone surpasses her in splendor...

"Yours is the day" when Adam was created, "yours the nigh." (Ps 74[73],16) when he was cast out from your light. It is you who created the dawn, that is to say the Virgin Mary, and the Sun, that Sun of Justice who arose from her virgin womb. As dawn announces night's end and signals the beginning of the day, so the Virgin put to flight the night without end and day after day she gives to earth the one who sprang from her virginity.

~ St. Peter Damian

 Via the Daily Gospel. 

Comments

  1. i have always been drawn to the Blessed Virgin since i was a little kid. more so with Jesus. but never the less, also with His Most Holy Mother.

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