Mary Prepares Her House for the Lord

The Feast of The Most Holy Name of Mary was inserted into the General Roman Calendar in 1684 by Pope Innocent XI, in order to commemorate the victory of the Battle of Vienna by the Christian armies, who fought under her patronage against the Turks.  The following excerpt is taken from a sermon on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary by St. Aelred (d. 1167), the abbot of the Cistercian abbey at Rievaulx, in Yorkshire, England.

“ ‘Jesus entered a certain village and a woman named Martha received him into her house, and her sister Mary was there’ (Luke 10, 38-39).  You have, in the Gospel, of the great happiness of these two women: truly, brothers, the great happiness of Martha, who received such a Guest as this, who ministered to him and was occupied in his service; and the great happiness of Mary, who recognized the excellence of this Guest, and heard his wisdom, and tasted its sweetness.  Thus does the Evangelist say that our Lord Jesus Christ entered a village and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house and ministered to him.  She had a certain sister named Mary, who, as soon as Jesus entered the house, ran and sat at his feet and heard the sweetness of his words.  She was so intent on his words that she cared for nothing, whether something else was going on in the house, or whether someone else was speaking, or even that her sister was working.  For, which one of you, if our Lord were on earth and wished to enter unto him, would not rejoice with wonderful and ineffable joy?  What should we say, brothers?  Should we despair of his coming because he is not on the earth now in bodily form?  Indeed, we should prepare our ‘houses’ and he will come to us in our work more surely than if he came in bodily form.  Without doubt, these two women were blessed because they received him with their souls.  For, that time many received him in bodily form, but because they did not receive him in their souls, they remained wretched.  Now, the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose glorious Assumption we celebrate today, without doubt was blessed because she received the Son of God, but even more blessed is she because she received him into her soul.  I lie, if the Lord did not say so himself.

“Yesterday it was read how a certain woman said to our Lord: ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that nursed you’ (Luke 11, 27).  And the Lord said: ‘Rather, blessed is the one who hears the word of God and keeps it.’  Therefore, brothers, we should spiritually prepare a ‘certain village’ so that our Lord may come to us.  I say this confidently, for unless the Blessed Mary had prepared this ‘village’ in herself, he would not have entered into her womb, nor the Lord Jesus into her soul, nor would this Gospel be read today on her festival.”