Mary, Motherhood, and the Home

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

The perfection of all motherhood is Mary, the Mother of Jesus, because she is the only mother in all the world who was “made to order” by her Divine Son. No creature can create his own mother. He can paint a picture of his own mother, for, in the field of art, the artist preexists his product; he is a symbol of God the Creator preexisting His creatures. All art is an imitation of the Divine Artist Who, from all eternity, possessed in His Divine mind the archetypal ideas according to which He made the world in time. The most famous painting of a mother is probably that by Whistler. Once, when complimented on its beauty, he answered: “You know how it is; one tries to make one’s mother as nice as possible.”

Our Divine Lord preexisted His own Mother existentially, as Whistler preexisted his mother artistically. Every bird, every flower, every tree has been made according to an idea existing in the mind of God from all eternity. When He came into the world at Bethlehem, He was unlike anyone ever born; creation was no stranger to Him. He was like a bird that might have made the nest in which he was hatched. He came into the universe as a master into His own house or as an artist into his own studio. The universe was His and the fullness thereof.

In a particular way He created His own Mother. He thought of her before she was born, as the poet thinks of his poem before it is written. He conceived her in His eternal mind before she was conceived in the womb of her mother, St. Ann. In an improper sense, when she was conceived eternally in the pure mind of God, that was her first “Immaculate Conception.” In the Mass of that feast, the Church puts into her mouth the words from the Book of Proverbs, saying that from all eternity God had thought of her, even before the mountains were raised and the valleys were leveled.

The Lord made me his when first he went about his work, at the birth of time, before his creation began. Long, long ago, before earth was fashioned, I held my course. Already I lay in the womb, when the depths were not yet in being, when no springs of water had yet broken; when I was born, the mountains had not yet sunk on their firm foundations, and there were no hills; not yet had he made the earth, or the rivers, or the solid framework of the world. I was there when he built the heavens, when he fenced in the waters with a vault inviolable, when he fixed the sky overhead, and leveled the fountain-springs of the deep. I was there when he enclosed the sea within its confines, forbidding the waters to transgress their assigned limits, when he poised the foundations of the world. I was at his side, a master workman, my delight increasing with each day, as I made play before him all the while; made play in this world of dust, with the sons of Adam for my play-fellows. Listen to me, then, you that are my sons, that follow, to your happiness, in the paths I shew you; listen to the teaching that will make you wise, instead of turning away from it. Blessed are they who listen to me, keep vigil, day by day, at my threshold, watching till I open my doors. The man who wins me, wins life, drinks deep of the Lord’s favor; who fails, fails at his own bitter cost; to be my enemy is to be in love with death [Prov. 8: 22-36].

But God not only “thought” about Mary. He actually created her soul and infused it into a body, co-created by her parents. It was through her portals as the Gate of Heaven that He would come into the world. If God labored six days in preparing a paradise for man, He would spend a longer time preparing a paradise for His Divine Son. As no weeds grew in Eden, so no sin would arise in Mary, the paradise of the Incarnation. Most unbecoming it would be for the sinless Lord to come into the world through a woman afflicted with sin. A barn door cannot fittingly serve as an entrance to a castle.


Pagina de descarga

Book eBook Mary, Motherhood, and the Home


Fulton J. Sheen

11 febrero, 2017

update 16 agosto, 2021

Go to the Download page


More eBooks in English


Confession

Confession

Adrienne von Speyr FOREWORD Some years ago I had an experience with the sacrament of penance that I will never forget. It was a Saturday ...
Rome Sweet Home

Rome Sweet Home

Scott and Kimberly Hahn Foreword One of the beautiful and bright-shining stars in the firmament of hope for our desperate days is this couple, Scott ...
An Exorcist Tells His Story

An Exorcist Tells His Story

Gabriele Amorth AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION When the Pope’s Vicar for the Diocese of Rome, Cardinal Ugo Poletti, unexpectedly granted me the faculty of exorcist, I did ...
Theology of the Liturgy

Theology of the Liturgy

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger On the Inaugural Volume of My Collected Works The Second Vatican Council began its work with deliberation on the “Schema on the ...
Return to the Baltic

Return to the Baltic

Hilaire Belloc Return to the Baltic When I was a lad—I had not yet left school—I was taken to see at the Savoy Gilbert and ...
Images of Hope

Images of Hope

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger Foreword In the course of my years in Rome, I was invited again and again by Bavarian Radio to give meditations on ...
The Wisdom of the Poor One of Assisi

The Wisdom of the Poor One of Assisi

Eloi Leclerc Preface The most awesome sentence which has been pronounced against our times may well be this: We have lost our innocence. To say ...
The Great Heresies

The Great Heresies

Hilaire Belloc INTRODUCTION: HERESY What is a heresy, and what is the historical importance of such a thing? Like most modern words, "Heresy" is used ...
The Path to Rome

The Path to Rome

Hilaire Belloc The Path to Rome When that first Proverb-Maker who has imposed upon all peoples by his epigrams and his fallacious half-truths, his empiricism ...
Tolkien: Man and Myth

Tolkien: Man and Myth

Joseph Pearce PREFACE When Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings was voted the ‘greatest book of the century’ in a nationwide poll at the beginning ...
Lord of the World By Robert Hugh Benson

Lord of the World By Robert Hugh Benson

Robert Hugh Benson PREFACE I am perfectly aware that this is a terribly sensational book, and open to innumerable criticisms on that account, as well ...
Treatise on Purgatory

Treatise on Purgatory

Saint Catherine of Genoa INTRODUCTION Saint Catherine of Genoa was born in the Vicolo del Filo in that city, in 1447. She was of the ...
Three to Get Married

Three to Get Married

Fulton J. Sheen 1. The Differences Between Sex and Love Love is primarily in the will, not in the emotions or the glands. The will ...
Via Crucis: A Romance of the Second Crusade

Via Crucis: A Romance of the Second Crusade

F. Marion Crawford CHAPTER I The sun was setting on the fifth day of May, in the year of our Lord's grace eleven hundred and ...
The Confessions of St. Augustine

The Confessions of St. Augustine

Biography of St. Augustine BOOK ONE IN GOD’S searching presence, Augustine undertakes to plumb the depths of his memory to trace the mysterious pilgrimage of ...
Read Me or Rue it

Read Me or Rue it

Fr. Paul O'Sullivan FOREWARD "READ ME OR RUE IT" This title is somewhat startling. Yet, Dear Reader, if you peruse this little book, you will ...
The Brown Scapular, the Most Powerful Sacramental

The Brown Scapular, the Most Powerful Sacramental

Wearing the Scapular, a Form of Consecration WEARING MARY'S Scapular is a way to consecrate ourselves to Her service. Consecration sets apart a person or ...
Those Who Serve God Should Not Follow The Fashions

Those Who Serve God Should Not Follow The Fashions

1. The Mind of the Catholic Church on Modesty in Dress Often today we hear sensible people complaining about the immodesty in dress that is ...
How to Avoid Purgatory

How to Avoid Purgatory

Fr. Paul O’Sullivan Foreword Our Lord came on earth expressly to give us a perfect Redemption. He gave us a Law of Love, a Religion ...
The Story of Annette

The Story of Annette

Robert T. Hart INTRODUCTION What is related in these pages is of the greatest importance. Though the events in question took place in Germany, what ...
The Friendship of Christ

The Friendship of Christ

Robert Hugh Benson It is not good for man to be alone. -- GEN. ii: 18. THE emotion of friendship is amongst the most mighty ...
The Imitation of Christ

The Imitation of Christ

Thomas a Kempis The First Chapter Imitating Christ and Despising All Vanities on Earth HE WHO follows Me, walks not in darkness,” says the Lord ...
The Sinner's Guide

The Sinner’s Guide

Venerable Louis of Granada CHAPTER 1 The First Motive which obliges us to practice Virtue and to serve God: His Being in itself, and the ...
A Letter to the Friends of the Cross

A Letter to the Friends of the Cross

Saint Louis Mary Grignon de Montfort EXCELLENCE OF THE ASSOCIATION 1.  Friends of the Cross, you are like crusaders united to fight against the world; ...
On the Incarnation of the Word of God

On the Incarnation of the Word of God

St. Athanasius, Archbishop of Alexandria Chapter 1 Creation and the Fall In our former book we dealt fully enough with a few of the chief ...
Introduction to the Devout Life

Introduction to the Devout Life

Saint Francis de Sales Preface Dear reader, I request you to read this Preface for your own satisfaction as well as mine. The flower-girl Glycera ...
Holy Bible

Holy Bible

Holy Bible The 1983 Code of Canon Law entrusts to the Apostolic See and the episcopal conferences the authority to approve translations of the Sacred ...
The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesuchrist

The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesuchrist

Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich Introduction The following meditations will probably rank high among many similar works which the contemplative love of Jesus has produced; but ...
Time for God

Time for God

Jacques Philippe Introduction In the Western Catholic tradition the term “prayer” covers many different activities. The following pages mainly concentrate on mental prayer: prayer that ...
The Man Who Knew Too Much

The Man Who Knew Too Much

G. K. Chesterton  I. THE FACE IN THE TARGET Harold March, the rising reviewer and social critic, was walking vigorously across a great tableland of ...
0 comentarios

Dejar un comentario

¿Quieres unirte a la conversación?
Siéntete libre de contribuir!

Deja una respuesta