[Question:]{.underline} Is the Blessed Virgin Mary divine?
[Answer:]{.underline} The word “divine” is an adjective that describes one who has the divine nature, and by consequence the prerogatives, authority and power of God Himself. Clearly the Blessed Virgin Mary is a creature, finite and limited, whose perfection and fullness of grace and predestination to be the Mother of God are received from Almighty God as gratuitous gifts, not owed to her by nature. Consequently, it would be a blasphemy to call the Blessed Virgin divine, as if to indicate that she had the uncreated and infinite nature of God Himself.
However, the greatness of the Blessed Virgin Mary consists exactly in this that while retaining her status of a creature, she is by a special grace united to the divinity in such a special way as to be the Mother of the Son, and the perfect Spouse of the Holy Ghost. It is in this sense that St. Louis de Montfort does not hesitate to call her divine, confounding thereby the small-minded, who in their effort to reduce the mystery of the Incarnation to a human way of understanding, bring the Blessed Virgin Mary down to the level of other men. Some have, indeed, questioned St. Louis’ audacious use of the title “divine” to describe the prerogatives of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and yet as a canonized saint, we know that his words are without error. We read, for example, in the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, who says in the following prayer directed towards our Divine Savior: “Thou, Lord, art always with Mary, and Mary is always with Thee, and she cannot be without Thee, else she would cease to be what she is. She is so transformed into Thee by grace that she lives no more…She is so intimately united with Thee, that it were easier to separate the light from the sun, the heat from the fire. I say more: it were easier to separate from Thee all the Angels and the Saints than the divine Mary, because she loves Thee more ardently, and glorifies Thee more perfectly than all other creatures put together.”
St. Louis de Montfort attributes to Our Lady the title “divine” to indicate that by her inseparable union with her Divine Son, a consequence of the hypostatic union and her divine maternity, she truly shares in the prerogatives, authority and the power of God Himself. It is for this reason that her prayer is said to be all powerful (Omnipotentia supplex), although she remains but a creature. St. Louis also explains this in the True Devotion: “Mary, being altogether transformed into God by grace, and by the glory which transforms all the Saints into Him, asks nothing, wishes nothing, does nothing which is contrary to the Eternal and Immutable Will of God. When we read, then, in the writings of Saints Bernard, Bernadine, Bonaventure and other, that in heaven and on earth everything, even to God Himself, is subject to the Blessed Virgin, they mean to say that the authority which God has been well pleased to give her is so great that it seems as if she has the same power as God, and that her prayers and petitions are so powerful with God, that they always pass for commandments with His Majesty, who never resists the prayer of His dear Mother, because she is always humble and conformed to His Will.”
Let us, then, not hesitate to attribute to Blessed Virgin Mary the magnificent title of “divine”, which so aptly describes the greatness of this greatest of all creatures, her prerogatives, and her power. And logical with ourselves, let us then not hesitate to consecrate ourselves totally and unreservedly to her.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.