451 part ii: meditations for more solemn feasts the grieving, the tempted, and the depressed. You are gentle to all, sweet to all. If only I could express how sweet I comprehend you to be! The entire Christian world experiences and tastes your sweetness and draws from it, but cannot express it. Therefore, O clement and loving and sweet Virgin! Show unto us Jesus, the blessed fruit of your womb, reconciled with us today and gracious in the hour of death. After Holy Communion 1. “I came forth from the mouth of the Most High” (Sir 24:3). Consider, that the Blessed Virgin came forth from the mouth of the Most High, that is, she was promised by an oracle of God even to our first parents, when He foretold that the fault, of which the woman was the culprit, would be blotted out by means of another, better woman. He said to the serpent: “I will put enmities between you and the woman … she shall crush your head” (cf. Gen 3:15). Since that time when the divine command was broken in Paradise, all men became friends of the infernal serpent, and, indeed, enemies of God. The Most Blessed Virgin alone was hostile to the devil from her very beginning since she was conceived without original sin. She, therefore, crushed the head of the serpent both at her beginning and when she gave birth to the Savior of the world. As for you, be on your guard lest you contract worse stains than the original stain if you make yourself a friend of the serpent; if, I say, you do not refuse conversing with the tempter of your soul and dwelling on sinful thoughts. 2. “I ordained that an unfailing light should arise in the heavens” (Sir 24:6). Consider and think with devotion about how the Most Blessed Virgin contributed not an insignificant help for the rise of the uncreated Sun, so that the people, who had walked in darkness, may see a great light (cf. Is 9:1). Undoubtedly, she prayed to God that He would bestow the promised Messiah as soon as possible, and that He would send a “Light to the revelation of the Gentiles” (cf. Lk 2:32) [DRB].
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