St John Eudes – The Admirable Heart of Mary

Justice of God Mirrored in the Admirable Heart of Mary

Mercy and justice resemble two sisters, inseparable and holding each other by the hand. Wherever mercy is, there also is justice; where justice goes, mercy follows. Hence King David sang to God: “Mercy and judgment I will sing to thee, O Lord.”

We have studied how divine mercy reigns and triumphs in the gentle Heart of Mary; we shall now contemplate divine justice establishing therein the throne of its glory. “In this perfect Heart,” says Richard of St. Lawrence, “mercy and justice gave each other the kiss of peace.”

In God there are two kinds of justice: the first, is distributive; the second, vindictive justice. “Distributive justice,” says St. Dionysius, “gives to each one what belongs to him, according to his rank and merit. It allots and dispenses to each thing the proportion, beauty, arrangement, good order and all other things proper to it within the bounds and limits that are just and equitable.” The chief characteristic of vindictive justice is infinite hatred of sin and a desire to destroy it in the souls of men, thereby delivering them from its cruel tyranny.

Now these two types of justice have ever held sovereign sway in the most just Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In the first place, she always rendered to God and to all God’s creatures, in a most faithful and perfect manner, what she owed to them. To God, she accorded adoration, fear, dependence, gratitude, honor, glory, praise, love and the sacrifice of all she possessed and of her very self. She observed all the Mosaic laws very devotedly and with exact obedience. She exercised respect, veneration and humility towards her parents, St. Joachim and St. Anne, towards the persons who had charge of her while she dwelt in the Temple of Jerusalem, and towards St. Joseph, her most worthy spouse. She punctually obeyed even the edicts of Emperor Augustus, though he was a pagan idolator. She held her own self in very low esteem and in great contempt, knowing she was a creature drawn from nothing and a daughter of Adam, who would have come under the curse common to all his children, if God had not preserved her from it. In a word, she faithfully practised the words of the Holy Ghost even before they were spoken by St. Paul: “Render therefore to all men their dues. Tribute, to whom tribute is due; custom, to whom custom: fear, to whom fear: honor, to whom honor. Owe no man anything, but to love one another.” This last is a debt which no one can ever finish paying.

In the second place, divine justice had so completely filled her Heart with such an unfathomable hatred for sin that this holy Virgin was always ready to undergo the sufferings of as many hells as God’s omnipotence could create rather than commit the least venial sin.

What is still more admirable, however, is that, having the same Heart and mind as the Eternal Father, according to the inspired words: “He who is joined to the Lord, is ‘one spirit,” Our Lady united her will to His concerning the Passion of her Son, and gave her consent to the painful death of her dearly Beloved so that He might destroy sin. This sacrifice demonstrates a hatred of sin greater than suffering the torments of all imaginable hells to cooperate in its destruction; for it cannot be doubted that if Our Lady had given her choice, she would have preferred all such sufferings for herself rather than see the treatment inflicted on her beloved Son at the time of His cruel and ignominious Passion.

If the Holy Heart of Mary is filled with such terrible hatred of sin that she consented to the cruel death of her beloved Son, because she saw Him loaded with the sins of men; if she readily sacrificed Him to divine justice in order to crush the mortal enemy of God and men, who can doubt that she still hates the infernal monster wherever she finds it? She hates sin to the point of sometimes uniting herself to divine vengeance in order to destroy it in souls, especially in those souls who are their own enemies to the extent of supporting evil and opposing its destruction.

They force their sweet Mother, as it were, to relinquish the tenderness of her maternal love and to participate in the severity of divine justice in order to punish the obduracy of a rebellious soul hardened in malice. O most holy Virgin, since thou hast but one Heart and one spirit with thy divine Son and since thou hast no other sentiments save His, thou dost love what He loves and thou dost hate what He hates. Hence, as Christ has an infinite hatred for sin, thou also dost hate it beyond all thought and words. Thy hatred for the infernal monster is equal to the love thou hast for God.

O Blessed Mother, thy love of thy Heart for God is infinitely greater than that of all the hearts of the angels and saints. Consequently, there is in thy Heart more hatred against God’s enemy, sin, than in the hearts of all heaven’s citizens. Make us sharers, O Mary, in this love and hatred so that we may love our Creator and Saviour as thou hast loved Him, and that we may hate sin as thou hast hated it.