shall condemn it; because she came from the end of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here."
COMMENTARY.
Praise of the Mother of God. The pious woman who praised the Mother of Jesus is a figure of the Catholic Church, whose children love, honour and bless the Mother of God. Now, our Lord, in answering this holy person, said that all those are blessed who hear the word of God and keep it But no one, either among angels or men, ever had a faith so great, or virtues so many, as the Mother of the Redeemer. Hence her throne in heaven is above the thrones of the angels and Saints, and next to that of her Divine Son. By the woman’s praise, Mary’s own prophetical words, as uttered in the Magnificat, were partially fulfilled: “Behold, alt generations shall call me blessed."
The sin against the Holy Ghost was committed by the Pharisees in this manner, that against the dictates of reason they ascribed our Lord’s miracles to the power of the devil. They calumniated Him, saying that He was in league with the devil; whereas it was they who, by their persecution of Jesus, were serving the ends of Satan. Being full of the spirit of pride and of envy, they refused to believe in our Lord’s divine power. They wilfully and obstinately resisted their reason, which, outwardly convinced by His stupendous miracles, and inwardly illuminated by the grace of the Holy Ghost, urged them to such a belief. Rather than recognize the truth that God was with our Lord, they had recourse to the most foolish evasions and lies. This wilful resistance to God’s grace hardened the Pharisees in obstinacy and impenitence, till finally it drove them to deicide. They sinned against the Holy Ghost in a fourfold manner: they envied Jesus on account of His superior wisdom and power of working miracles; they resisted that which they knew to be true; they were obstinate in their opposition to our Lord; and they were hardened into a state of final impenitence.
Impenitence, and prayers for impenitent sinners. Our Lord says of sins against the Holy Ghost that they cannot be forgiven. This means that, when a man continually resists the grace of the Holy Ghost, he falls by degrees into a condition of soul not far removed from that of the fallen angels or devils. The devils are hardened in sin, in resistance to, and hatred of God: their perverted will is incapable of conversion, so that for them redemption is impossible. Now, so long
