Exemption from original sin carries with it a great many other privileges, for that sin involves a great many consequences. It causes a deterioration in soul and body, intellect, will, and every other faculty; it introduces into us ignorance, concupiscence, malice, and a propensity to every kind of evil. Even when we recover grace, many of the effects of sin still remain. The holiest of men is not exempt from weaknesses; and the greatest labour of his life is the unceasing struggle against his own semi-dormant passions. He attains success only through countless failures; and, at the best, he is but a restored and buttressed ruin. During this life, peril is never absent, victory never secure. The singular grace of God placed the Blessed Virgin on an altogether higher level. She was exempt from every one of the miseries and sad liabilities of sin from the very first. The last stage of the greatest saint's life is far inferior to Mary's first stage in grace. She began her ascent where the greatest saints left off: according to the prophet, "The mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of the mountains" (Isa. li. 2). All these exceeding graces, Mary's union with God, God's love for her, were only in proportion to the high office to which she was called; they were all required in preparation for the unexampled dignity of the Divine Maternity. The magnificence of God as exhibited in the universe which He has prepared for our habitation, exceeds all our calculations, and all our wonderful powers of investigation, and expression, and imagination even. Much more magnificent is the bounty of God in the supernatural order, and especially in that one being who is superior to all the other works of His hand. It is not only due to the Blessed Virgin, it is due to God that you should pay homage to such an exhibition of His infinite power and holiness.
