OUR LADY OF PURITY

Day 157: October 16

Our Lady of Purity



“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on things on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Therefore, put to death your earthly parts: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry. These bring down God's wrath on those who disobey. You too were once like this, when your life was immersed in such things” (Col. 3: 1-7).

Purity is "seeking the things that are above." Purity is what makes man truly human; it is the sign that his being is not only his body, but that this (the body) has had the great gift of welcoming the spirit and being governed by the spirit. Man is an "incarnate spirit."

Purity is the distinctive sign, ontological (because it is internal and essential) and formal (because it can be seen externally), of man as a creature called to the supernatural life of Grace, called to make himself "capable of God," that is, to contain Him whom not even the entire universe can contain.

The virginal Body of Mary Most Holy is the temple par excellence of the Holy Spirit to form Jesus, the Son of God. We read in the Gospel of Luke: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you; the power of the Most High will overshadow you" (Luke 1:35). The things above, God himself in the person of Jesus, dwell in this immaculate temple.

The 20th century, the century that would be strongly marked by moral degradation, opens with two child-giants: two child-heroes. Two martyrs of purity. almost simultaneously (two years apart), two little girls, one in the Northern Hemisphere, the other in the Southern Hemisphere, will offer their lives for purity.

In the Northern Hemisphere, Saint Maria Goretti (1890-1902), murdered by someone who wanted to make her fall into sin. In the Southern Hemisphere, Blessed Laura Vicuna (1891-1904), who will offer her life to obtain from the Lord the grace to see her mother, who was a widow and had gone to live with a man, again approach the Eucharist.

In the beautiful Church of San Paolo Maggiore in Naples, owned by the Theatine Fathers, there is a painting by the Spaniard Louis de Morales (1509-1586), called Madonna della Purità. The painting was donated to the Theatine Order in 1641 by Father Diego di Bernardo y Mendoza. A copy is currently displayed in the chapel that housed the canvas (obviously called "Chapel of the Madonna della Purità"), while the original is kept in the community.

The image does not show any detail that could directly lead to the virtue of purity, except for the Virgin's humble, downward gaze. However, there are three details that indirectly lead to the beauty of this virtue: 1. The apple that Baby Jesus holds in his left hand 2. Baby Jesus' gaze 3. The symmetry of the design

Let us begin with the apple that Baby Jesus holds in His left hand. Obviously, it is the fruit that symbolically recalls original sin. We know that this sin is Sin itself; well, the Divine Child seems to place the forbidden fruit in the Heart of His Most Holy Mother to make us understand how every sin finds its solution and purification in the Immaculate Heart of Mary, that is, in Immaculateness itself.

The second element is the gaze of Baby Jesus. If you pay attention, you will notice that it is a proud gaze, a gaze that is not one of amazement and wonder as the gazes of little ones usually are, but rather one that indicates and explains. It points to the Mother and explains how She is that "solution" we spoke of before, the solution to every sin in the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin. All this in the holy pride of the Child who seems to say: how happy I am to have a Mother like this!

The third element is the symmetry of the design. Purity is order, it is the Logos that produces the cosmos. Sin is disorder; it is disobedience that produces chaos. The painting, beyond the external frame, presents a frame within the painting itself. Everything is symmetrical and everything is ordered, even down to the smallest details; at the four corners, everything is repeated symmetrically.

De Morales's painting speaks clearly to us of the beauty of purity ... indeed, it tells us that there can be no Beauty without Good, because Beauty is always the aesthetics of the True and the Good. Purity translates into beauty.

Saint Faustina Kowalska writes: “Now I understand, all virgins are distinguished by a particular beauty; a special beauty radiates from them.” (St Faustina Kowalska, Diary, 1251).

PRAYER TO OUR LADY OF PURITY

Calm, O Most Pure Mother, the wild storm of my soul, who alone have shown yourself on earth to be a haven for those navigating the evils of life. You who gave birth to the Light, enlighten, O Pure One, the eyes of my heart. You were given to us on earth as a protection, a bulwark, and a source of pride. You were given to us as a tower and a sure salvation, O Maiden Mary. Therefore, we no longer fear our enemies, we who devoutly magnify you. Amen.


St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"As soon as we get a good inspiration, from whatever gift of the Holy Spirit it may come, we reverently take it and then present and entrust it to Mary, like the most precious seed which can germinate only in her."

(Ascension, trans. Louis Caputo, Vocationist Fathers, New Jersey, 1997, p. 375)

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