And nowhere can we better turn for the purpose of our study than to the life of Blessed Mary.  There is the consummate flower of sainthood; and therefore it it best there that we can study its meaning.  And for two principal reasons can we best study it there.  In the first place because of its completeness:  nowhere else are all the elements of sanctity so well developed.  And in the second place because of the riches of the material for understanding Blessed Mary that is placed at our disposal by the labour of many generations of saints and doctors.  All that devout meditation can do to understand the sanctity of Blessed Mary has been done.

Our limit is necessarily reduced, our selection partial and our accomplishment fragmentary.  We cannot however miss our way if we follow in the steps of Holy Revelation in making love the central quality.  S. Mary’s greatness is ultimately the greatness of her love.  It began as a love of the will of God.  She appears as utterly selfless, as having devoted herself to the will of God as He shall manifest that will.  And therefore when the time comes she makes the great sacrifice that is asked of her without hesitation and without effort:  “Behold, the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.”  And all her life henceforth is loving response to what is unfolded as the content of the accepted revelation.  That is a noteworthy thing that I fancy is often missed.  It is not uncommon for one to accept a vocation as a whole, and then subsequently, as it unfolds, shrink from this or that detail of it.  But in the case of S. Mary the acceptance of the vocation meant the acceptance of God, and there was no holding back from the result of that.

That must be our guide in the pursuit of the heavenly life:  we must understand that we are not called to accept this or that belief or practice, but are called to accept God—­God speaking to us through the revelation He has entrusted to His Catholic Church.  We do not, when we make our act of acceptance, know all or very much of what God is going to mean; but whatever God turns out to mean in experience, there can be no holding back.  The note of a true acceptance of vocation is precisely this limitless surrender, a surrender without reservation.  S. Mary could by no means understand what was to be asked of her:  she only knew it was God Who asked it.  She could not foresee the years of the ministry when her Son would not have where to lay His head, followed by the anxiety of Holy Week and the watch by the Cross on Good Friday; but as these things came she could understand them as involved in her vocation, in her acceptance of God.