CHAPTER II.

VITA, DULCEDO. OUR LIFE, OUR SWEETNESS.

SECTION I. MARY IS OUR LIFE, BECAUSE SHE OBTAINS FOR US THE PARDON OF OUR SINS.

INORDER TO UNDERSTAND RIGHTLY the reason why the holy Church calls Mary our life, we must consider that as the soul gives life to the body, so divine grace gives life to the soul; for a soul without grace, though nominally alive, in truth is dead, as we find in the Apocalypse: “Thou hast the name of being alive, and thou art dead. “As Mary, then, obtains for sinners, by her intercession, the gift of grace, she restores them to life. The holy Church applies to her the following words of Proverbs: “They that in the morning early watch for me, shall find me.” They shall find me, or, according to the Septuagint, “they shall find grace.” Hence, to have recourse to Mary is to find the grace of God; for, as immediately follows: “He who finds me shall find life, and shall receive from God eternal salvation.” Listen, as St. Bonaventure exclaims here upon these words, listen, all ye who desire the kingdom of God; honor the Virgin Mary, and ye shall have life and eternal salvation.

St. Bernardine of Sienna says, that God did not destroy man after his fall, because of the peculiar love that he bore his future child Mary. And the saint adds, that he doubts not all the mercy and pardon which sinners receive under the Old Law, was granted them by God solely for the sake of this blessed Virgin.

Therefore St. Bernard exhorts us, if we have been so unfortunate as to lose divine grace, to strive to recover it, but to strive through Mary; for if we have lost it, she has found it: and hence she is called by this saint, “The finder of grace.” This the angel Gabriel expressed for our consolation, when he said to the Virgin, “Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace!”But if Mary had never been without grace, how could the angel say to her that she had found it? A thing is said to be found when it has been lost. The Virgin was always with God and with grace; she was even full of grace, as the Archangel himself announced when he saluted her, “Hail! full of grace, the Lord is with thee.” If, then, Mary did not find grace for herself, for whom did