The first house is Eve in a state of innocence, beautiful, comely, innocent, wise; the second house is the Virgin Mary, lowly and mortal. But do not grieve, O sinners: Great shall be the glory of this last house more than of the first. The first killed us, the last gave us life. The first led us to death, the last to life. The first is the creation of God, the last the Mother of God. The first is the world’s destruction, the last the world’s salvation.
Do you suppose that the Virgin suffers only a slight loss if you say that she was the captive of sin for only a moment? That she was a daughter of perdition, subject to an evil spirit, infected by the universal stain? How did she bruise the devil’s head, if she was first bruised by it? God forbid, God forbid, that we should impute such a stain to the glory of our sinful nature!
The Virgin is called an unspotted mirror (Wis 7:26). For just as a mirror contains two things, glass and lead, which allow it to reflect a likeness, so the Virgin contains the glass of purity and the lead of humility, by virtue of which the visible likeness of God the Father appeared in her in the flesh. Bernard says: the royal Virgin rises above all.
The most holy Virgin is first in worthiness. Anselm says, Nothing is equal to you, O Lady, nothing is comparable; for all that exists is either above you, and this is God; while that which is below you — and that is everything — is not God.
How was the Virgin created from the beginning? The answer: It does not say from the beginning of time, but as a condition of manner; not that she was created from the beginning, but that she followed the manner and condition of creatures who were created first and from the beginning, because they were without defect and sin.
For as the sun surpasses all the lights of heaven by virtue of its distinguished renown, so Mary surpasses all rational creation, after the Son, by the splendor and fairness of virtue and grace. And the moon under her feet. For every defect, and whatever weakness or corruption that exists, is beneath the Virgin, who rises above and surpasses creatures by virtue of a certain most excellent loftiness beyond all others; so that the moon may rightly be said to be under her feet.
AnaStpaul 