The Beatitudes and the Virgin Mary

Earlier this week, I was praying the Rosary and meditating on the Luminous Mysteries. As part of the Third Luminous Mystery (i.e. the proclamation of the kingdom), I usually meditate on the Beatitudes. As I was working my way through the Hail Mary, especially the words which echo those of St. Elisabeth “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the Fruit of thy Womb”, the connection with the Beatitudes (Matt 5:3-11) dawned on me.

Blessed is the Fruit of thy Womb – Our Lord Jesus is the ultimate fulfilment of the Beatitudes because He is the Source of all blessing, the One from Whom all blessings flow. In this way, the Beatitudes find their fullest meaning in the Lord Jesus Christ.

But it was not only the Fruit of the Womb that St. Elisabeth said was blessed. In order to grow, a fruit requires a tree...and so in order to become a man, God needed Mary. Which is why St. Elisabeth's first beatitude was directed towards Mary – “Blessed art thou among women...”.

If the tree is blessed, so too is the fruit...and vice versa. In this way, if the Fruit of the Womb is blessed, then so too is Mary, from whose womb our Lord was made Incarnate. But Mary’s blessedness is of an infinite kind because she bore the Infinite and Divine Son of God. So Mary is not just blessed...she is MOST blessed because she is God’s greatest creation – the New Eve, spared from original sin so that she could give birth to the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

Since our Lord Jesus came to us in the Incarnation through the Virgin Mary; so too His blessings flow to us through her. And just as the Incarnation was all from God’s grace, we only obtain the blessings that Christ spoke of in the Beatitudes only by God’s grace. All we need to do is humbly ask. And the surest way of obtaining them is by asking through Our Lady because it is also through her that God pours out His grace upon us. Having recourse to Our Lady, and following her example, she will always, always, ALWAYS lead us to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Blessed art thou Mary, poor in spirit; teach us to be poor in spirit so that we might obtain the kingdom of heaven;

Blessed art thou Mary, you who mourned and suffered with our Saviour; comfort us in our affliction;

Blessed art thou Mary, most meek of all God’s creatures and Queen of Heaven and Earth; teach us to be meek that we too can share in this inheritance;

Blessed art thou Mary, most righteous; grant us a deep hungering and thirsting for righteousness so that we might be filled from above;

Blessed art thou Mary, most merciful; pray for us that we might obtain God’s mercy;

Blessed art thou Mary, most pure in heart; intercede for us before the face of God that we might grow in purity;

Blessed art thou Mary, lover of peace and handmaid of the Lord; teach us to love one another that we may be worthy to be called thy children and the children of our God;

Blessed art thou Mary, persecuted for the sake of righteousness; help us to seek first God’s kingdom without fear of the persecution that will come our way;

Blessed art thou Mary; reviled and falsely accused on Our Lord’s account; teach us to rejoice in our persecutions that we might be made worthy of the reward of heaven together with thee and all of God’s Saints.