Salesian Literature

Chapter 14  :  The glorious Virgin died of a love that was utterly gentle, tranquil

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On the one hand, our Lady is said to have revealed to St. Mechtilde that she died from no other ailment than a vehement assault of divine love; but St. Brigid and St. Damascene assert, on the other, that she died a most peaceful death.  And both accounts are true.

 

For the most part, the saints experienced many different unexpected symptoms of love before they happened to die of it – many transports, many onsets, many ecstasies, much pining, many pangs.  It seemed that their love only brought about their happy deaths with much exertion and after repeated attempts.  This was owing to the weakness of their love – not fully perfect as yet – which was unable to continue its activity with equal steadiness.

 

With the blessed Virgin it was totally different.  Charity increased in her pure heart moment by moment, gently, peacefully, continuously, without any undue emotion, any tremor, any stress at all.  It was like the dawning of a perfect day – no successive jolts, but only an awareness that is scarcely perceptible of a spreading, constantly increasing brightness; we can see the brightness growing, but so evenly that we notice no interruption, no division, no stages in its progress.  Indeed no, Theotimus; we are not to imagine any vehement emotion in the charity of that Virgin’s maternal heart.

 

Love, of its nature, is gentle, gracious, peaceful, tranquil.  If it does sometimes make a sudden onset, if it jolts the heart, that is because it encounters resistance.  But where the avenues to the soul are open to it, where there are no obstacles, when there is no opposition, then it advances peacefully, and with an enchantment that is unsurpassed.  Thus it was that charity took that holy Mother’s virginal heart by storm, yet without strain, without violence, since it met with not the slightest resistance or obstacle.

 

Charity’s development and growth were immeasurably greater in her soul than in all other souls together – but it was a development infinite in gentleness, peace, stillness.  No, she did not faint away, from love or pity, at the foot of her Son’s cross; though she experienced there the most intense, most agonizing thrill of love you could possibly imagine.  Extreme though this onset of love was, nevertheless it was at once strong but gentle, powerful but still, active but peaceful – while its ardour was acute but delicate.

 

The glorious Virgin, since she shared the common lot of human wretchedness – with the exception of whatever leads to sin – made good use of this for practising the virtues of fortitude, temperance, justice, prudence, poverty, humility, patience, pity.  These virtues were a help to charity, providing many opportunities of strengthening it by constant activity, ever moving forward. In our Lady, for all her Martha’s earnestness and concern, her Mary’s concentration on the token of her Saviour’s love was never distracted: she had chosen her Son’s love, and nothing deprived her of it (cf. Lk. 10:42).

 

Consequently, the blessed Virgin’s death was gentler than you can ever imagine.  Her Son allured her by the fragrance of his perfumes (cf. Cant. 1:3), and she slipped away after them, longing to be gathered to his embrace.  Despite her deep love for her body – so holy, so pure, so lovable as it was – she left it easily, unresistingly.

 

Love, at the foot of the cross, brought that immaculate bride to the supreme sorrows of death.  It was only fitting, therefore, that death should afford her, at the last, the paramount delights of love.

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