messenger of the queen of arts 90 despise her neighbor of a lower state? Did she ever pass by a poor person with indifference? She only met with those people, who were not ashamed to show mercy and did not forget about preserving dignity. In her eyes there was nothing gloomy, nothing arrogant in her words, nothing shameless in her behavior. None of her gestures were ever lazy, her manner of walking was not careless, nor her voice brash, and therefore her entire figure was a reflection of her soul, the personification of goodness.3 Therefore, it ought to surprise no one, that the one who was predestined to be the Mother of God was she, who was adorned by God with so many virtues, that it is simply [too] hard to count them all, and surely no one among men could possess them all at once. No celestial body shines with such radiance to compare with the brightest light of the sun. This sun, dear members, is the Most Blessed Virgin, your Queen. The remaining heavenly bodies shine like lesser stars. To such a refulgence of virtues, with which the most illustrious Mary enlightens the entire world, no one [of the lesser heavenly spirits] could attain, and then what now can one say about man? But let us leave already the Parthenon and let us go to the most pure bedroom of the Virgin. They give the Virgin as wife to the Virginal Bridegroom and she does not fear at all about her virginity under the care of Joseph — she who, being obedient to the will of her parents, married Joseph. Having entrusted herself to God Himself, she entrusts and commits to the care of some sort of man this very great treasure. She did not have a shadow of doubt — she who earlier had offered the flower of virginity by a solemn vow, that hers would be the Virginal Bridegroom. She counted on this, that the one to whom she entrusted her purity would take care of it just as if it were his own. And so? To the inviolate virginity was yet added maternity. The virgin became a Mother, and having become Mother, she never ceased to be Virgin. What is more worthy of surprise: that the 3 Cf. St. Ambrose, De Virginibus ad Marcellinam sororem. These passages appear in a different order in Ambrose’s text.
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