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St. Bonaventure believed that knowledge begins in faith, is developed through rational understanding, and is ultimately perfected in the vision of God. He believed that the purpose of faith is to bring us closer to God, and that through the process of understanding and contemplation, we can gain a deeper understanding of God’s nature and divine mysteries. In the vision of understanding raised in faith, we are able to see the world with a deeper clarity, and to understand the meaning and purpose of our lives in a way that allows us to fully embrace our faith and live our lives in accordance with God’s will.
Ven. María de Ágreda‘s work, the Mystical City of God, related her revelations about the terrestrial and heavenly life, received directly from the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Already our heavenly Princess felt that the day of the clear vision of the Divinity was approaching and that like the harbingers of early dawn, the rays of the divine light were breaking upon her soul. Her heart began to be inflamed by the nearness of the invisible fire, which illumines but does not consume; and made attentive by this new clearness, She questioned her angels and said to them:
“My friends and lords, my most faithful and vigilant sentinels, tell me: what hour is it of my night? And when will the bright light of the day arise, in which my eyes shall see the Sun of justice which illumines them and gives life to my affections and my soul ?”
The holy princes answered Her and said:
“Spouse of the Most High, thy wished-for light and truth is near; it will not tarry long, for already it approaches.”
At these words the veil which hid the view of these spiritual substances was slightly lifted; and the holy angels became visible, showing themselves as during her first years in their own essence, without hindrance or dependence of the bodily senses.
With these hopes and with the vision of the heavenly spirits the anxieties of most holy Mary concerning the sight of her Beloved were somewhat allayed. But this kind of love seeks after the most noble Object, and without It, although enjoying the presence of the angels and saints, the heart, wounded by the arrows of the Omnipotent, will not come to rest. Nevertheless, our heavenly Princess, rejoiced by this alleviation, spoke to her angels and said to them:
“Sovereign Princes and flames of that inaccessible light, in which my Beloved dwells, why have I for so long a time been unworthy of your sight? Wherein have I been displeasing to you and failed to satisfy you? Tell me, my lords and teachers, wherein I have been negligent, in order that I may not again be forsaken by you through my own fault.”
“O Lady and Spouse of the Almighty,” they answered, “we obey the voice of our Creator and are governed by his holy will, and as his spirits, He commissions us and sends us out in his service. He commanded us to conceal ourselves during the time in which He himself withdrew from sight. But though hidden we remained present, solicitous for thy protection and defense, fulfilling his command by remaining in thy company without being visible.”
The Blessed Virgin Mary said:
It is an act of justice due to the eternal God that the creature coming to the use of reason, direct its very first movement toward God. By knowing, it should begin to love Him, reverence Him and adore Him as its Creator and only true Lord. The parents are naturally bound to instruct their children from their infancy in this knowledge of God and to direct them with solicitous care, so that they may at once see their ultimate end and seek it in their first acts of the intellect and will.
They should with great watchfulness withdraw them from the childishness and puerile trickishness to which depraved nature will incline them if left without direction. If the fathers and mothers would be solicitous to prevent these vanities and perverted habits of their children and would instruct them from their infancy in the knowledge of their God and Creator, then they would afterwards easily accustom them to know and adore Him.
My holy mother, who knew not of my wisdom and real condition, was most solicitously beforehand in this matter, for when She bore me in her womb, she adored in my name the Creator and offered worship and thanks for his having created me, beseeching Him to defend me and bring me forth to the light of day from the condition in which I then was. So also parents should pray with fervor to God, that the souls of their children, through his Providence, may obtain Baptism and be freed from the servitude of original sin.
And if the rational creature has not known and adored the Creator from the first dawn of reason, it should do this as soon as it obtains knowledge of the essential God by the light of faith.
From that very moment the soul must exert itself never to lose Him from her sight, always fearing Him, loving Him, and reverencing Him. Thou, my daughter, owest this adoration to God from the beginning of thy life; but now I desire thee to practice it in a more perfect manner, as I shall show thee.
Direct the eyes of thy soul toward the essence of God, which is without beginning and without limit, contemplate his infinite attributes and perfections. Consider that He alone is the true holiness, the highest good, the most noble object of creatures, that He alone gave being to all things and without having need of them, sustains and governs them.
He is consummate beauty without defect, He is eternal in his love, true in his words and most faithful in his promises. He it was who gave his own life and subjected Himself to sufferings for the good of his creatures without waiting for any merits on their part. Over this wide field of goodness and of benefits extend thy vision and occupy thy faculties without forgetting or wandering away therefrom. For, having obtained such a great knowledge of the highest Good, thine would be a loathsome meanness and disloyalty to forget Him, and horrible would be thy ingratitude, if, after having received an enlightenment so much above the common and ordinary, and divinely infused by faith, thou wouldst allow thy understanding and will to swerve from the course of divine love.
If at any time in thy weakness it should nevertheless happen, then quickly seek it again with all dispatch and diligence and return more humbly to the Most High to give Him honor, glory and eternal praise. Remember that thou must consider it thy special duty to do this incessantly for thyself and for all the other creatures and in this I desire thee to exert all thy diligence.
In order to excite thyself to greater efforts, confer in thy heart what thou knowest of my own conduct; how at the first sight of the highest Good, my heart was wounded with love, giving myself entirely to Him in order never to separate myself thereafter. My whole life was consumed in this and I ceased not to press forward in order to arrive at the centre of my desires and affections; for since the Object is infinite, so love can have no rest or cessation until It is attained. With the knowledge of God and the love of Him should also go the knowledge of thyself, remembering and considering thy insignificance and vileness. Advert that when these truths are well understood, repeated, and meditated upon, they will cause divine effects in the soul…
… My daughter, the inestimable treasure of the virtue of divine faith is hidden to those mortals who have only carnal and earthly eyes; for they do not know how to appreciate and esteem a gift and blessing of such incomparable value. Consider, my dearest, what the world was without faith and what it would be today if my Son and Lord would not preserve faith. How many men whom the world has celebrated as great, powerful and wise have precipitated themselves, on account of the want of light of faith, from the darkness of their unbelief into most abominable sins, and thence into the eternal darkness of hell! How many kingdoms and provinces, being blind themselves, follow these still more blind leaders until they together fall into the abyss of eternal pains, and they are followed by the bad Christians, who having received the grace and blessing of faith, live as if they had it not in their hearts.
Do not forget, my dear friend, to be thankful for this precious jewel which the Lord has given thee as a dower and a wedding gift of thy espousal with Him, in order to draw thee to the bridal chamber of his holy Church and afterwards to have intercourse with Him in the eternal beatitude. Continually exercise this virtue of faith, for it places thee near to thy last end, after which thou strivest, and brings thee near to the object of thy desires and thy love. Faith teaches the sure way of eternal salvation, faith is the light that shines in the darkness of this mortal life and pilgrimage; it leads men securely to the possession of the fatherland to which they are wayfaring.
If they do not allow it to die out by infidelity and sinfulness. Faith enlivens the other virtues and serves as a nourishment of the just man and a support in his labors. Faith confounds and fills with fear the infidels and the lax Christians in their negligence; for it convinces them in this world of their sin and threatens punishment in the life to come. Faith is powerful to do all things, for nothing is impossible to the believer; faith makes all things attainable and possible. Faith illumines and ennobles the understanding of man, since it directs him in the darkness of his natural ignorance, not to stray from the way, and it elevates him above himself so that he sees and understands with infallible certainty what is far above his powers and assures him of it no less than if he saw it clearly before him.
He is thus freed from the gross and vile narrow-mindedness of those who will believe only what they can experience by their own limited natural powers, not considering that the soul, as long as it lives in the prison of this corruptible body, is very much circumscribed and limited in its sphere of action by the knowledge drawn from the coarse activity of the senses. Appreciate, therefore, my daughter, this priceless treasure of the Catholic faith given thee by God, watch over it and practice it in great esteem and reverence.
…“the unbelievers,” neither admit that truths are revealed, nor give belief to them, like the heretics, pagans and infidels; or if they do believe them, like the Catholics, it seems as if they heard them from afar and only through the faith of others, not giving full assent to the evident truth contained therein. Thus they hold but a lifeless belief and they live like unbelievers.,,,
…Therefore, mortals cannot excuse themselves, if in spite of all these gifts, they have not made use of his grace, and if they have abandoned the inheritance of eternal life in the pursuit of momentary delights of their mortal life. No wonder that they harvest that which they have sown, and that their portion shall be in the terrible abyss of burning brimstone from whence there is no redemption nor hope of life, when once the second death of punishment has overtaken them. Although this second death is infinite in its duration, yet more wicked and abominable was the first death of their sin, into which they voluntarily precipitated themselves. For the death of grace caused by sin is opposed to the infinite sanctity and goodness of God; it offends Him, who is to be reverenced and adored. The death of infernal pains is the just punishment of these damnable souls and is the equitable retribution of his most unerring justice. Thereby this justice is exalted and proclaimed in the same measure in which it was outraged and despised by sin. Let it through all the ages be feared and adored. Amen.
Ven. María de Ágreda recalled the teachings of the Blessed Virgin Mary:
The faith of the most holy Mary was an image of the whole creation and an open prodigy of the divine power, for in Her the virtue of faith existed in the highest and the most perfect degree possible; in a certain manner and to a great extent, it made up for the want of faith in men. The Most High has given this excellent virtue to mortals so that, in spite of the carnal and mortal nature, they might have the knowledge of the Divinity and of his mysteries and admirable works: a knowledge so certain and infallibly secure, that it is like seeing Him face to face, and like the vision of the blessed angels in heaven. The same object and the same truth, which they see openly, we perceive obscured under the veil of faith.
One glance at the world will make us understand, how many nations, reigns and provinces, since the beginning of the world, have lost their claims to this great blessing of the faith, so little understood by the thankless mortals: how many have unhappily flung it aside, after the Lord had conferred it on them in his generous mercy, and how many of the faithful, having without their merit received the gift of faith, neglect and despise it, letting it lie idle and unproductive for the last end to which it is to direct and guide them. It was befitting therefore, that the divine equity should have some recompense for such lamentable loss, and that such an incomparable benefit should find an adequate and proportionate return, as far as is possible from creatures; it was befitting that there should be found at least one Creature, in whom the virtue of faith should come to its fullest perfection, as an example and rule for the rest.
In regard to the intensity or efficacy of the faith of this sovereign Princess, it is certain, that it exceeded that of the Apostles, Prophets and Saints taken together and reached the highest degree possible in a creature. It not only exceeded the faith of all true believers, but She supplied the faith that was wanting in all those that have not believed and She could by Her faith enrich them all. Thus Her faith remained firm, immovable and constant, when the Apostles in the hour of the Passion fell away; and if all the temptations, deceits, errors, and falsehoods of the world were joined together, they could not prevail or disturb the invincible faith of the Queen of believers. She, its Foundress and Instructress, would overcome them all and issue forth victorious and triumphant.
The intelligent love, with which She explicitly believed all the divine truths, cannot be expressed in words, without misrepresenting its intensity. The most holy Mary knew all that She believed and believed all that She knew; for the infused theological knowledge of the credibility of faith’s mysteries, and the understanding of this credibility, existed in the wisest Virgin Mother in the highest degree possible in a mere creature. Her knowledge was kept in a constant actuality, and by means of her memory, like that of an angel, She never forgot, that which once She had learnt. This gift and faculty of the understanding She kept in constant operation in order to exercise her deep faith; only at times, as already said, God suspended faith by other acts of the mind (No. 492, 465). Except that She was not yet a comprehensor, nothing was wanting in regard to her intelligence of the matters of faith and in regard to the clear knowledge of the Divinity. In this regard She held a position far above that of all the wayfarers and She by Herself constituted a class of such high degrees, as cannot be attained by any other wayfarer to heaven.
And if the most holy Mary, while She exercised the acts of faith and hope, was in what might be called her most ordinary and therefore the lowest degree of activity, and if in that state She excelled all the angels and saints in merits by her faith and love, what must we say of the excellence of her acts, her merits and her affections, during the time in which She was exalted by the divine power to the blessed state of highest intuitive vision and clear knowledge of the Divinity? If this is beyond the comprehension of the angelic mind, how can an earthly creature ever hope to find words to describe it? I therefore can only express the mere wish, that all mortals might come to a knowledge of the precious value of faith, by learning it from this heavenly Original, in whom faith attained its ultimate perfection and where it completely fulfilled the end for which it was created.
Let the infidels, the heretics, the pagans and idolaters approach this Mistress of faith, most holy Mary, in order to be enlightened in their falsehoods and darksome errors and in order to find the sure way toward the last end of their being. Let also Catholics approach and learn to understand the copious rewards of this virtue; let them ask the Lord with the Apostles to increase their faith (Luke 7, 5). Not that they ever can reach the faith of most holy Mary, but let them ask for the desire to imitate Her and follow Her, for by her faith She teaches us, and by her merits She helps us to obtain this virtue.
Our supereminent Lady, Mary, possesses much greater rights and titles to be called the Mother of faith and of all the faithful. In her hand is hoisted the standard and ensign of faith for all the believers in the law of grace. First indeed, according to the order of time, was the Patriarch and consequently he was ordained to be the father and head of the Hebrew people: great was his belief in the promises concerning Christ our Lord, and in the works of the Most High. Nevertheless incomparably more admirable was the faith of Mary in all these regards and She excels him in dignity. Greater difficulty and incongruity was there that a virgin should conceive and bring forth, than that an aged and sterile woman should bear fruit; and the patriarch Abraham was not so certain of the sacrifice of Isaac, as Mary was of the inevitable sacrifice of her most holy Son.
She is the One, who perfectly believed and hoped in all the mysteries, and She shows to the whole Church, how it must believe in the Most High and in the works of his Redemption. Having thus understood the faith of Mary our Queen, we must admit Her to be the Mother of the faithful and the prototype of the Catholic faith and of the holy hope. And in order to conclude this chapter, I will add, that Christ, our Redeemer and Teacher, as He was a comprehensor and as his most holy soul enjoyed the highest glory and the beatific vision, had no necessity or occasion for faith, nor could He in his own actions give us an example of this virtue. But what the Lord could not do in his own Person, He did in the person of his most holy Mother, constituting Her as the Foundress, the Mother and the example of faith in his evangelical Church. And thus on the day of universal accounting this sovereign Mistress and Queen shall in an especial manner assist her most holy Son in the judgment of those, who, in spite of such an example, have not believed during their stay on earth.
In my soul there was an ardor of hope, such as is possible only to those who have apprehended its object in faith and tasted it by experience; no tongue and no words can describe or express its intensity.
Besides, in order to spur thee on still more, consider and deplore with heartfelt sorrow the unhappiness of so many souls who are images of God and capable of his glory, and who through their own fault are deprived of the true hope of enjoying it. If the children of the holy Church would pause in their vain occupations and would take time to consider and weigh the blessings of unerring faith and hope, which separates them from darkness and which, without their merit, distinguishes them from the followers of blind unbelief, they would without doubt be ashamed of their torpid forgetfulness and repudiate their vile ingratitude.
But let them be undeceived, for most terrible punishments await them; they are most detestable in the sight of God and the saints, because they despise the blood shed by Christ for the very purpose of gaining them these blessings. As if all were only a fiction they treat with contempt the blessings of truth, hastening about during their whole life without spending even one day, and many of them not even an hour, in the consideration of their duties and of their danger. Weep, O soul, over this lamentable evil, and according to thy power work and pray for its extirpation through my most holy Son. Believe me that whatever exertion and attempt thou makest toward this purpose shall be rewarded by his Majesty.