Excerpt from The Interior of Mary
“The kingdom of God is within you.” Luke 17 : 21
“From the moment of the incarnation, Mary possessed within herself the author of grace. How close a union! There is none more intimate in the order of nature, than that of a mother with the child of her womb.
Mary was already habituated to the practice of interior recollection, but how different the recollection in which she was now absorbed, a recollection of which she had not previously even an idea! She constantly enjoyed the presence of God, but how imperfectly in comparison with the present privilege, which authorized her to say, “God is really within me, he is more intimately present to me than I am to myself, and as my life is his, so his life is also mine.”
Hitherto she prayed habitually, but now, it is Jesus Christ himself who prays in and with her, so that her prayer is one with the prayer of the Word incarnate. She has no need to transport her thoughts and affections beyond their own sphere, in order to find her God, for she possesses him in herself. Union with him has become in one sense her natural condition, the same divine Being who reposes from eternity in the bosom of the Father, dwelling in time in her chaste womb. This last remark includes all that can be said of the interior of Mary, and nothing remains but to confess it incomprehensible.
As soon as Mary became Mother of God, she disappeared altogether from her own eyes. Her finite nature was engulfed in the immensity of the self-existing Being she possessed in her womb, and as a drop of water is lost in the wide expanse of the ocean, so was she absorbed in the abyss of the Divinity.”
Each Christian soul can follow this example of the Blessed Mother. At the moment of Baptism, the Church teaches that the Holy Spirit descends into the soul to establish a dwelling place.
The soul, filled with sanctifying grace, enjoys God’s true presence-the indwelling Trinity, an interior castle where one can remain with God.
In other words, the three divine Persons are present in the soul that is in the state of grace, so that it may know Them by faith and love Them by charity. Let us follow Our Lady’s example, and make it our goal to cultivate a habitual, loving awareness of God’s indwelling presence in our soul!
Take a moment to prayerfully consider the words of St. John: “If any one love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and will make our abode with him.” (John 14 : 23)
