From a sermon by Saint Thomas of Villanova, bishop:
"For a long time I have wondered and been at a loss to understand why the evangelists should have spoken at such length about John the Baptist and the other apostles, and yet told us so little about the Virgin Mary, who in life and distinction excels them all. Being at a loss, as I say, to understand this, all I can think is that it pleased the Holy Spirit that it should be so. It was by the providence of the Holy Spirit that the evangelists kept silent, because the glory of the Virgin, as we read in the psalms, was all within, and could more truly be thought of than described. The outline of her life: that Jesus was born of her, is enought to tell her whole story. What more do you seek for in the Virgin? It is enough for you that she is the Mother of God. What beauty, I ask you, what virtue, what perfection, what grace, what glory does not belong to the Mother of God?
The Holy Spirit has not described her in words, but has left her to you to picture in your own mind, so that you may understand that there was nothing she lacked of grace, perfection, or glory which could be imagined in the mind of a chaste human being, or rather that in fact she surpassed all understanding. So when she was wholly perfect, it would not have been right to describe her in part, for fear that you might think she could have lacked what had not been described. To say of the Virgin Mary only that she is the Mother of God surpasses all that can be said under God."
In Christ,
Rev. Jeffery A. Fasching
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