“SEAT OF WISDOM”
A CHRISTMAS MEDITATION
COLUMNIST, New York
Gaudete, gaudete!
Ex Maria
Virgine:
Gaudete!
(from Piae Cantiones, 1582)
“Round yon Virgin Mother and Child.” The image persists even
today, as Advent (more commonly known as the “shopping season”) rolls around.
Even the indifferent and the hostile tend to turn a blind eye when Silent Night is sung, for there is
something disarming about the Madonna and Child. The image hits the heart in a
rather direct way, bypassing all the intellectual, theological and
philosophical constructions by which we explore and explain the things of God.
A mother and her baby — we see them on subways, on park benches, in doctors’
offices, strolling along sidewalks. The Mother and Infant of Bethlehem are
“different” from those other mothers and babies, as far as their place in the
created order goes. Yet, as mother and child, they are so very much like all
the others. When we contemplate them, when we imagine them, when we allow the
lyrics of Silent Night to
transport us back in time, we encounter something so familiar, so easily
understood, and so fundamentally good
and inspiring, that we cannot feel alienated from it:
…Round yon
Virgin Mother and Child,
Holy Infant so tender and mild...
This warmth and
familiarity is no accident. Like all the details of God’s plan for the Redemption
of mankind, it is vital and salvific. Yes, there exist intricate verbal
constructs, woven out of imposing theological terms, used by scholars to
describe what we encounter every year on any decent Christmas card. As rational
beings, we require these constructs; we need this science that helps us to ponder and share the doctrinal niceties
and distinctions of our holy Faith. Yet, though the Doctors and Theologians
would come later — and thank God for them! — and make their contributions to
the Church, there were others, no less important in the eyes of God, actually
present when Christ was born. They were honest laborers, earning their keep in
the fields around the city. They were the first ones to hear the Good News that
the Redeemer had arrived, that He now breathed the same air they did and looked
out upon the same stars.
The “Herald
Angels” didn’t tell these shepherds to sit down and listen to a treatise on the
Incarnation. They didn’t speak of hypostatis,
the union of Divine and human natures, of the awesome meeting between Time and
Eternity that had taken place in the Virgin’s womb at the Annunciation and was
finally revealed to all in a nearby manger. After proclaiming the birth of the
Savior, the Angels gave to the shepherds the simplest of instructions: “You
shall find the Infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger.” That was all the shepherds needed to
know. Find the Infant! And where was this unique infant to be
found? The Shepherds would find Him right where the Magi did: “They found the Child with Mary His mother.”
In this portrait
of the Madonna and Child, God has given to the world a living icon of salvation—rich, serene, beautiful and complete. Nothing is lacking here. All
the great theological treatises, all the most stupendous sacred art, all the
nuances of our best religious poetry...all of it finds its basis, source,
meaning and power in this living icon: God Incarnate and His Immaculate Mother.
The vision is filled with the best paradoxes God has presented to his mortal
creatures; it is breathtaking, but familiar...exquisite, yet
ordinary...majestic and powerful, as well as humble and gentle. It is a lesson
for both the shepherd and scholar. Before it, distinctions fade and anyone with
sense in his head desires nothing more than to adore that Child and find
protection in the Immaculate hands of His Mother.
This Mother has
been hailed by countless generations as the Seat
of Wisdom. This title has a particularly strong connection to Christmas:
Mary has this title in her litany because the Son of God, who is also called in Scripture the Word and Wisdom of God, once dwelt in her, and then, after His birth of her, was carried in her arms and seated on her lap in His first years. Thus, being, as it were, the human throne of Him who reigns in Heaven, she is called the Seat of Wisdom.
(Cardinal
John Henry Newman)
God, in His
mercy, has given the world an image to cherish that does not require prodigious learning or esoteric knowledge in order to be
understood. The deepest Mystery of all creation has been chiseled into relief,
and what is the result? What is placed before us for contemplation? Nothing
other than a “Nativity scene,” Mary and
her Son.
How many
paintings by the great masters of the Renaissance depicted this very scene: The
Divine Infant seated upon the lap of the Virgin! The image is reproduced still
on Christmas cards, but how many people are aware of just what they are looking at? For what more perfect and fitting throne
can be imagined for the Son of God than His Immaculate Mother? Mary loved Jesus
with a mother’s love and gave to Him a heart that was attuned to His like no
other before or since:
The mysterious harp of King David, mentioned in several passages of Sacred Scripture, is another symbolic picture of the Holy Heart of Mary.... He [Jesus] fashioned it with His own hands; He alone always possessed it. No other fingers but His ever evoked its melodies, because her virginal Heart never vibrated with sentiments, affections or impulses other than those inspired by the Holy Ghost.
(St.
John Eudes)
Truly amazing —
indeed, miraculous — things occurred in the sacred womb of the Seat of Wisdom. Yes, Our Lady was and
remains, as St. Louis de Montfort wrote, “a mere creature fashioned by the
hands of God,” and therefore, “compared to His infinite majesty, less than an
atom.” However, when we consider her place in the created order, and the
magnitude of the spiritual gifts bestowed upon her because of that place, we
edge out into uncharted waters, for we set ourselves the task of imagining what
manner of gifts God Himself can and will bestow on the Mother of His Son.
Mary’s Immaculate Heart is one of those gifts. This is the Heart that poured
out all its love upon the tiny Infant of Bethlehem, wrapped in swaddling
clothes. This is the Heart that “never vibrated with sentiments, affections or
impulses other than those inspired by the Holy Ghost.”
That the Holy
Ghost took (and always will take) a special joy in the Blessed Virgin has been proven
so clearly and eloquently by one simple fact: Mary’s Divine Maternity. By the
power of the Holy Ghost, and with Our Lady’s full consent, God became man in
the Virgin’s womb. Mary, the “Immaculate Conception,” is, really and truly, the Spouse
of the Holy Ghost:
Among creatures made in God’s
image, the union brought about by married love is the most intimate of all. In
a much more precise, more interior, more essential manner, the Holy Ghost lives
in the soul of the Immaculata, in the depths of her very being. He makes her fruitful from the very first
instant of her existence, all during her life, and for all eternity.... The
virginal womb of Mary’s body is kept sacred for Him; there He conceives in time — because everything that is material
happens in time — the human life of the man-God.
(St. Maximilian Kolbe)
By the power of
her Divine Spouse, the “fruitful purity” of the Virgin brought forth the
Incarnate Word. As Mother of the Church, this same virginal fecundity brings
forth members of the Church, members of that Mystical Body whose Head she had
given birth to at Bethlehem. To this day, and as long as the earth lasts, the
Holy Ghost will cooperate with the Blessed Virgin in the salvation of souls
redeemed by the Precious Blood, just as He chose to cooperate with her in the
human generation of Christ:
God the Holy Ghost, who does not produce any divine person, became fruitful through Mary whom He espoused. It was with her, in her and of her that He produced His masterpiece, God-made-man, and that He produces every day until the end of the world the members of the Body of this adorable Head.
(St.
Louis de Montfort)
How much richer
does our appreciation of Christmas become, when, after giving thanks for the
coming of the God-man, we also stop to give thanks for our own “re-birth” as
heirs of the Father, children of Mary, brethren of Jesus — i.e., as members of
the Catholic Church. When we praise and render gratitude to God for Mary’s Divine Maternity (by which she bore
Jesus), we implicitly offer our gratitude for her Spiritual Maternity (by which she continually “bears” members of
the Church).
The Seven Gifts
of the Holy Ghost shine in the immaculate soul of Mary with a finely burnished glow,
and one of those gifts is Wisdom. Through this gift, Our Lady could love God
with an unfettered love. She could give her fiat
to the Archangel Gabriel at the Annunciation with a heart unfettered by doubt
or scruple. She could truly become the Cause
of Our Joy for the simple fact that her “yes” to Gabriel set in motion the
great plan of Salvation ordained by the Blessed Trinity since the dawn of time.
It is a thing well worth considering.
Our Lady would
also become, in a sense, a repository for Divine Truth. Free from the
disordered passions of original sin, Our Lady contemplated God like no one else
ever did or could. And what of her thirty years spent in familial intimacy with
Jesus? Who can number the times He spoke to her, taught her, explained to her?
Who was, and remains, closer to Our Lord than His Own Mother, she whom Bl.
Padre Pio called “the only worthy repository of His secrets”? There can be no
doubt that the Apostles placed themselves under Mary’s protection and guidance,
thereby setting an example for all to follow.
The Seat of Wisdom — a throne crafted by God for His Infant Son, a reservoir in
which the Gifts of the Holy Ghost are gathered, a sure guide and protectress
for those still making their uncertain way through this “valley of tears.” It
is somewhat humbling to think that a simple title — three words — can convey such a wealth of doctrine, of poetry, of hope. It is humbling because it makes
us think again of God’s mercy and generosity. His gifts are never
inconsequential or ordinary. Outstanding among these is the gift of Himself, lying in a manger on the first
Christmas night, and present upon Catholic altars during Mass. After this
preeminent gift comes that of the Blessed Virgin, the Seat of Wisdom, a creature so exquisite in every way that we are
forced into becoming poets if we wish to describe her. Christmas is indeed a
good time to ponder these divine bestowals:
Whom earth and
sea and sky proclaim
The Ruler of
their triple frame,
He, unto whom
their praises rise,
Within the womb
of Mary lies.
Her womb, the
seat of every grace,
Is now the
Lord’s abiding place;
That Lord to
whom the sun by day,
The moon by
night, their homage pay.
O happy Mother
that thou art,
Close underneath
thy beating heart
Lies the
Creator-God, who planned
The world he
holds within his hand.
Blest by the
herald-angel’s tongue,
O’er thee God’s
shadowing Spirit hung
And filled thy
womb — whence issued forth
The Long-desired
of all the earth.
(Hymn from The Little Office of Our Lady, attributed to Venantius
Fortunatus, 6th-Century Bishop of Poitiers)