Saint Francis de Sales
The
Assumption

When Our Lord came into this world, He sought the lowest place there was (Eph. 4:9) and He found none lowlier in humility than the Virgin. Now He raises her up to the highest Heaven in glory. She gave Him a place according to His desire. Now He gives her one according to His love, exalting her above the cherubim and seraphim.
But let us look at the remainder of the sentence we have chosen for our subject. Who is this coming up from the desert flowing with delights, leaning upon her Lover? (Ps. 8:5) It says that this holy Lady, coming up from the desert flowing with delights, is leaning upon her Lover. This is the last word in all the praises that the Church holily gives to the saints, and above all to the Virgin. For we always refer them to the honor of her Son by Whose strength and virtue she ascends to receive the plenitude of delights. Have you not noticed that the Queen of Sheba, in bearing so many precious things to Jerusalem, offered them all to Solomon? Ah, all the saints do the same and particularly the Virgin. All her perfections, all her virtues, all her happiness are referred, consecrated, and dedicated to the glory of her Son, Who is their source, their author and finisher (Heb. 12:2): Soli Deo honor et gloria —To the only God be honor and glory. (1 Tim. 1:17) All returns to this point.
The honor borne to the Mother, being referred to the Son, renders magnificent and illustrious the glory of His mercy
If she is holy, who has sanctified her if not her Son? If she is saved, who is her Saviour if not her Son? “Leaning upon her Lover”: All her felicity is founded on the mercy of her Son. You would name Our Lady a lily of purity and innocence? Yes, she is that in truth. But this lily has its whiteness from the Blood of the Lamb in which she has been purifi ed, like the robes of those who have washed them white in the Blood of the Lamb. (Apoc. 7:14) If you call her a rose because of her most excellent charity, her color will be only the Blood of her Son. If you say that she is a column of smoke, sweet and pleasing (Ps. 3:6), say at once that the fire of this smoke is the charity of her Son; the wood is His Cross. In brief, in all and through all she is leaning upon her Lover. It is in this way, O Christians, that we must be jealous of the honor of Jesus Christ, not like the adversaries of the Church who think they honor the Son by refusing the honor due to the Mother. On the contrary, the honor borne to the Mother, being referred to the Son, renders magnificent and illustrious the glory of His mercy.
To witness to the purity of intention of the Church in the honor she renders the Virgin, I present to you two contrary heresies which are opposed to the just honor due to Our Lady: The one, by excess, named Our Lady a goddess of Heaven and offered her sacrifice, and this was maintained by the Collyridians; the other, by default, rejects the honor Catholics pay to the Virgin, and this was held by the Antidicomarites. Errors always go to extremes and are contradictory to each other.
The Church, which always takes the royal road and holds to the middle course of virtue, combats the one no less than the other. Against the one, she declares that the Virgin is only a creature, and henceforth we ought not offer her any sacrifice. Against the other, she asserts that, nevertheless, this holy Lady, since she is the Mother of the Son of God, should be recognized as deserving of special honor—infinitely less than that of her Son, but infinitely greater than that of all other saints. To the one she reveals that the Virgin is a creature—but so holy, so perfect, so perfectly bound, joined and united to her Son, so much loved and cherished by God that, in truth, one can love the Son rightly only when for love of Him one has a very great love for the Mother, and when for the honor of the Son he pays highest honor to the Mother. But to the other, she says: Sacrifice is the supreme honor of latria, which must be offered to God alone as Creator—and do you not see that the Virgin is not the creatrix but only a creature, although a very excellent one?
For myself, I am accustomed to saying that in a certain manner, the Virgin is more a creature of God and of her Son than is the rest of the universe. God has created in her many more perfections than in all the rest of His creatures, since she was more redeemed than all the rest of humankind, inasmuch as she was redeemed not only from sin but from the power and even the inclination to sin. To purchase the liberty of a person who was to be a slave before she becomes one is a greater grace than to purchase it after she is in captivity. Thus, far are we from attempting to make any one to-one comparison of the Son with the Mother, as our adversaries believe—or pretend to believe in order to convince the people that we do.
In short, we call her beautiful, and beautiful far beyond all other creatures—but beautiful as the moon (Ps. 6:10), which receives its brightness from that of the sun, for she receives her glory from that of her Son. The thorn called aspalatus, says Pliny, is not of itself odoriferous, but if the rainbow touches it, it leaves it with an odor of incomparable sweetness. The Virgin was the thorn of that bush, flaming but not burned, which the great Moses saw: In the burning bush which Moses saw we acknowledge your holy virginity (Ex. 3:2), says the Church. And assuredly, of herself, she was not worthy of any honor, she was without fragrance. But since that great Arc of Heaven, that great sign of the reconciliation of God with men, (Gen. 9:13-17) came to rest little by little on this holy thorn—first by the grace of her Conception, then by her Motherhood, making Himself her true Son and reposing in her precious womb—its sweetness has become so intense that no other plant has ever had so much: sweetness which is so pleasing to God that the prayers which are perfumed by it are never rejected or useless. But the honor she receives always returns to her Son, from Whom she received her fragrance.

Her Son is our Mediator, (1 Jn. 2:1) she, is our Mediatrix—but in a very different manner, as I have said a hundred times. The Saviour is the Mediator of justice, for He intercedes for us, exposing the right and reason of our cause. He produces our just claims, which are none other than His Redemption, His Blood, and His Cross. He acknowledges to His Father that we are debtors, but He shows that He has paid for us. But the Virgin and the saints are mediators of grace. They pray for us that we may be pardoned—all through the mediation of the Passion of the Saviour. They themselves have nothing to show by which we may be justified but entrust themselves to the Saviour for this. In brief, they do not join their prayers to the intercession of the Saviour, for they are not of the same quality, but to ours.
If Jesus Christ prays in Heaven, He prays in virtue of Himself; but the Virgin prays only as we do, in virtue of her Son, but with more credit and favor. Do you not see that all returns to the honor of her Son and magnifies His glory?
All the faithful ought to invoke her and obey her. These are the two primary honors we can render her
That is why in order to honor Our Lord all antiquity greatly honored His Mother. Look around Christendom: Of three churches, two are under the patronage of the Virgin or are outstanding for the devotion of the people toward her. The daughters of Sion see her. (Ps. 6:9) The daughters of Sion, the souls of the faithful, the people, have considered her and have praised her for her blessedness. And queens have praised her. (Cant. 6:9) Not only the people, but the most illustrious personages: prelates, doctors, princes, and monarchs have praised and magnified her. Just as birds begin to chirp at daybreak, each in his own melody, so all peoples stir themselves to celebrate her honor as she herself has prophesied, saying: All ages to come shall call me blessed. (Lk. 1:48) Consequently, all the faithful ought to invoke her and obey her. These are the two primary honors we can render her and she has invited us to render her them.
I find that Our Lady spoke to people only twice according to the account of the Gospel: once when she greeted Elizabeth (Lk. 1:40)—and there is no doubt but that at that time she prayed for her, for greetings of the faithful are made by prayer. The second was when she spoke to the servants at the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee, and at that time she said only: Do whatever my Son tells you. (Jn. 2:5) These two acts comprise the exercise of charity and the will of the Virgin regarding us—to pray for us, and consequently, we ought to invoke her with great confidence. In all dangers, in all tempests, “Look at this star of the sea, invoke her.” With her favor, your ship will arrive at port without disaster and without shipwreck.
But if you want her to pray for you, listen to her second word by obeying her commandments. Now her commandments are, in a word, that you do the will of her Son: Do whatever He tells you to do. O Christians, do we desire that the Virgin should hearken to us? Hearken to her. Do you desire that she listen to you? Listen to her. With all her heart and with all the weight of her affections as well, she asks that you be obedient servants of her Son.
One day Bethsabee came to David with many acts of obeisance and reverence in order to make a request and petition. In the end, she asked only that her son Solomon be king after his father and succeed him to the throne. (1 Kings. 1:16-17). This Virgin, O people, asks of you above all, as the most certain demonstration of your devotion to her, that you have her Son for the King of your heart and soul, that He reign in you, and that His commandments be carried out. Do this, O people, as your duty, for your salvation, and for the love of Our Lady, who, as you have seen,
remained for some years yet on earth after the Ascension of her Son. After some time she died of the death of her Son—that is to say, of love. But she did not remain dead for any length of time but was raised up and came up from the desert of this world into Paradise, where she is enthroned above all creatures—and all this for the greater glory of her Son! For this, she prays for us and asks us to be His faithful servants.
O most sacred and most happy Lady, who is in the heights of the Paradise of felicity, alas, have pity on us who are in the desert of misery. You are in the abundance of delights, and we are in the abyss of desolations. Obtain for us the strength to carry our afflictions well and always to be supported by your Lover, the only support of our hopes, the only recompense of our labors, the only medicine of our ills.