22 May, Antonio, Cardinal Bacci: Meditations For Each Day

Mary, the Source of Peace

1. Mary is surrounded by an atmosphere of peace. The countenance of the Virgin-Mother reflects the serenity of her soul. She was conceived free from original sin and endowed with every grace and with every supernatural gift. There was no struggle in her between good and evil, for this conflict is the effect of concupiscence. She never experienced the rule of sin of which St. Paul complains. “I see another law in my members,” says St. Paul, “warring against the law of my mind and making me prisoner to the law of sin that is in my members. Unhappy man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Rom. 7:23-25) It was quite otherwise with Mary. Her lower inclinations were completely subject to her spiritual faculties, which were in their turn perfectly submissive to the commands and inspirations of God. Nevertheless, while she enjoyed complete interior harmony, Mary had to endure external conflict and suffering. Holy Simeon foretold that the sword of sorrow would pierce her heart. In fact, her life was altogether interwoven with hardship, want and suffering until, eventually, she knelt at the foot of the Cross on which Jesus was dying for the love of mankind and offered the divine Victim for our salvation. At the last moment, however, torn with sorrow though she was, she did not depart in the slightest from her spirit of perfect acceptance of God's will. Consequently, her peace of soul was never diminished or extinguished. Let us learn from her to accept everything from God's hands, both the tiny pleasures which brighten our lives from time to time and the humiliations, sufferings and death which it pleases God to keep in store for us.

2. If we wish to possess this true peace which only God can give, we must control and regulate the movements of our passions when they rebel against the soul. In other words, as St. Augustine says, our lower appetites must obey our reason, and this in its turn must be subject to its author, God. (De Serm. Domini, 1, 2) Real peace can only come to us as the result of the hard and constant labour of subordinating our passions to right reason and our reason to God. "And this is the peace," Augustine writes, "which God gives on earth to men of good will; this is the most perfect wisdom." (Ibid.) We have found from sad experience that sin and the free play of the passions cannot give us real peace, because “there is no peace to the wicked.” (Is. 48:22) When by the grace of God and the assistance of Our Lady we have subdued our rebellious inclinations, it is necessary for us to go further and abandon ourselves completely into the hands of God, asking Him for a spirit of absolute conformity to His will on all occasions. This is the price which we must pay to enjoy that peace which the world cannot give and which God gives only to those who do His holy will in all things. (Cf. John 14:27) It may seem that the way to acquire this peace is very difficult, but there is no other way. Let us pray to Our Lady. She has won peace and victory for the Church on many occasions; for example, against the Turks at Lepanto in 1571, and at Vienna in 1683. In the same way she will obtain for us, her children, interior peace of soul, the greatest treasure which we can possess on earth.

3. Mary, my most sweet Mother, in your immaculate soul there reigned that true peace which is nourished by God's grace and by complete obedience to His will. Obtain for me from your Son, Jesus, victory over my evil inclinations and resignation to the sufferings of life and to death itself. Then, following your holy example, may I also be able to acquire that interior peace which will one day be perfect and everlasting in Heaven. Amen.