The Blessed Birth of Mary Immaculate: The Mystical City of God by Blessed Mary of Agreda, Part 3

The Blessed Birth of Mary Immaculate: The Mystical City of God by Blessed Mary of Agreda, Part 3
.
336. On the eighth day after the birth of the great Queen multitudes of most beautiful angels in splendid array descended from on high bearing an escutcheon on which the name of MARY was engraved and shone forth in great brilliancy. Appearing to the blessed mother Anne, they told her, that the name of her daughter was to be MARY, which name they had brought from heaven, and which divine Providence had selected and now ordained to be given to their child by Joachim and herself. The saint called for her husband, and they conferred with each other about this disposition of God in regard to the name of their Daughter. The more than happy father accepted the name with joy and devout affection. They decided to call their relatives and a priest and then, with much solemnity and festivity, they imposed the name of MARY on their Child. The angels also celebrated this event with most sweet and ravishing music, which, however, was heard only by the mother and her most holy Daughter. Thus was the divine Princess named by the holy Trinity: in heaven, on the day of her nativity, and on earth, after eight days. This name was written in the list of other names, when her mother presented herself at the temple according to the law, as I will relate further on. This was the birth, like to which none had been before, and the like of which cannot again happen in mere creatures. This was the most blessed birth of which nature was capable, for by it an Infant came into existence, whose entrance into the world was not only free from all impurities of sin, but who was more pure and holy than the highest seraphim. The birth of Moses was celebrated on account of the beauty and handsomeness of the infant (Exod. 2,2); all his beauty was only corruptible and apparent. But O how beautiful is our great Child! O how beautiful (Cant. 7, 6)! She is entirely beautiful and most sweet in her delights, since She is possessed of all grace and beauty, without being wanting in any. The laughter and the joy of the house of Abraham was the birth of the promised Isaac (Genes. 21, 6), conceived in a sterile womb, but this joy was great only because it foreshadowed and was derived from the birth of our infant Queen, toward which all this joy of Abraham was only a step. If that birth was so admirable and full of joy for the family of the Patriarch because it was a foreshadowing of the birth of sweetest Mary, heaven and earth should rejoice at the birth of Her, who gave a beginning to the restoration of heaven and the sanctification of the world. When Noah was born, his father Lamech was consoled (Genes. 5, 29), because in that son God had provided a progenitor of the human race in the ark and assured a restoration of the blessings, which the sins of men had forfeited. But all this happened merely as a type to foreshadow the birth of this Child, who was to be the true Reparatrix, being the mystical ark, which contained the new and true Noah, and which drew Him down from heaven, who was to fill with benediction all the inhabitants of the earth. O blessed birth! O joyful nativity! The most pleasing to the blessed Trinity in all the ages of the past, the joy of the angels, the relief of sinners, the delight of the just, and the singular consolation of all the holy souls in limbo!
.
337. O precious and rich Pearl, that didst come forth to the light of the sun, still enclosed within the rough shell of this world! O sublime Infant, who, though scarcely noticed by terrestrial eyes in the material light, yet in the eyes of the highest King and his courtiers, excellest all that is not God in dignity and grandeur! All
generations bless Thee, all the nations recognize and praise thy grace and beauty! Let the earth be made illustrious by thy birth, let mortals be rejoiced because their Mediatrix is born, who will fill up the vast emptiness of original sin. Let thy gracious condescension toward me be blessed and extolled, who am the most abject dust and ashes. If Thou givest me permission, O my Lady, to speak in thy presence, I will propose a doubt which occurred to me in describing the mystery of thy most admirable and holy birth, namely: regarding an act of the Almighty at the hour of thy coming forth into the material light of the sun.
.
338. And this is the doubt: How are we to understand thy being raised in thy body by the hands of the holy angels into the empyrean heavens and to the vision of God? For according to the teaching of the holy Church and her doctors, heaven was closed and as it were interdicted to man, until thy most holy Son should open it through his life and death, and until He himself, as Redeemer and Chief, should enter it on the day of his admirable Ascension, He being the first one for whom these eternal portals were to be opened after their being closed up by sin?