THIRTY-FIRST DAY. — ON DEVOTION TO THE MOTHER OF GOD.
1. A more pure, excellent, or more amiable being than this glorious Virgin, was never yet created. God having, from all eternity, destined her to be the Mother of his Son, it was proper she should be embellished with every created excellence, and that her dignity and influence in heaven should far surpass the dignity and influence of all the other saints. Most justly, then, is she entitled to our veneration, respect, and esteem.
2. Let us place ourselves under her protection; let us recommend ourselves to her prayers. How great soever our wickedness, or how numerous soever our faults may have been, let us always have recourse to her, and hope through her prayers for the grace of our conversion. Her charity is so great, her interest is so powerful, that she must always plead successfully for the repenting sinner.
3. But, let us never forget, that to honour her properly is to imitate her virtues — that to persevere in sin upon the hopes of her future intercession, is equally absurd, impious, and detestable. Her hatred of this error should be always before our eyes. Her purity, her mildness, her patience, should be ever present to us.
“ Hail, full of grace.” — Luke i.
"O Name! under which no one should despair.’' — St. Anstin.
CONCLUSION.
Which may he read with great profit every Sunday.
1. As Christians, it would be very profitable for us to reflect, every morning, that we have on that day a God to glorify, a Saviour to imitate, our souls to save, our bodies to mortify, virtues to acquire, sins to satisfy for, heaven to seek after, hell to avoid.
