Our Lady of the Angels Academy - Angelican Yearbook (Enfield, CT)

Page 13 text:

SISTER MARY VIRGINIA, C.S.S.F. Secretarial Subjects O CRYSTAL FOUNTAIN of Faith, SISTER MARY EVELYN, C.S.S.F. French, Music bathe our minds with the eternal truths! O FRAGRANT LILY of all holiness, captivate our hearts with your heavenly perfume! O CONQUERESS of evil and death, inspire in us a deep horror of sin which makes the soul detestable to God and a slave to hell! YOU ARE ALL BEAUTIFUL, O MARY! You are the GLORY, you are the JOY, you are the HONOR of our people! (Excerpts from the Marian Prayer By Pope Pius XII) SISTER MARY ANGELIC Business Subjects SISTER MARY DOLOR I A, C.S.S.F. English, Journalism SISTER MARY ARCHANGELA, C.S.S.F. Latin, Music SISTER MARY LAURETTA, C.S.S.F. Religion, Dramatics

Page 15 text:

Mary, God’s Mother and Ours Mary is called Mother. And when is Mary not a mother? Every letter of that word mother” spells loyalty, sacrifice, and love. It speaks of days of anxious watching and loving care, of generous giving and compassionate affection. A mother’s heart is a divine creation. No one but God could have thought of mother¬ hood. No one but God could have given us a mother. So wonderful a creation is motherhood that God Himself determined to have a Mother. And Mary was this Mother. By God’s grace then Mary possesses the singular privilege of divine Motherhood. All the qualities of Christ’s body, the dispositions and graces of His character are derived from His human Mother. He was like Mary in form and feature. The light of her eyes shone in Him, the smile of His lips was as the smile of His Mother, and the inflection of His voice was like the echo of her own. The qualities of His human soul and human heart were instilled in Him from the mind and heart of His Mother. And God knowing that His only Son would derive from this Mother all that was human in Him, made that Mother to the measure of the greatest of the children of men. And when we say that Mary is the Mother of God we have exhausted the measure of her dignity. When that is said, all is said. It resumes and includes everything. Every honor is contained for Mary in the title of Mother of God. It is an immense prerogative for her to possess with the Heavenly Father a mutual Son. If Christ is like His Mother in the order of nature, she is, without doubt, like Him in the order of grace, and grace has its source in Him. Mary then is what she is because of Christ. She is the Mother of Jesus in the flesh; she is the Mother of His members in the Spirit. Motherhood consists above all in the communication of life. Mary fulfilled this function of motherhood in giving life to Jesus, Our Saviour, and in giving to us, her children, the spiritual life of our souls. Motherhood has a two-fold aspect: physical and spiritual. Just as physical motherhood is not confined to conception and childbearing but must continue in the rearing and education of the child until it can fend for itself, so too spiritual motherhood is not merely that of conceiving and giving birth to the life of their souls. The role of motherhood must be prolonged until the supernatural life is beyond all the dangers that assail it. In God’s plan, such is the function of Mary’s spiritual motherhood in regard to men. Such too is the role of all who enter into life through her. In this plan every young miss, every woman must co-operate with Mary, just as she would have shared, in God’s original plan, in the role of Eve. Every young miss, every woman is to be a source of life, sharing with others what she received. She must be a transmitter, a source of supernatural life to all with whom she comes in contact, and in order to transmit that life, she must first possess it. She must be a spiritual mother, and that she cannot be unless she moulds herself on the virginity and the Maternity of Mary. She must, like Mary, consecrate all there is of woman in her to God. O Mother of my life, let my heart die to every life and live of thy life. Let my life be animated by thy spirit and inflamed with thy love, that together with thee, it may forever bless, love, and praise Him Who is life essential, the first and sovereign principle of all life, whose infinite desire it is to communicate life to all men.” 11