A Devout Marian Scholar

If we were limited to calling St. Lawrence of Brindisi either a great Marian scholar or a great lover of the Blessed Virgin Mary, it would be hard to make a choice. In him scholarship and devotion went together. His Mariale, consisting of 84 sermons, is the outstanding Mariological work of his time. His personal devotion to Mary and his love for her were the outstanding features of his own life.

St. Lawrence was a profound theologian as well as a Scripture scholar, so that when he spoke of Mary, he always stood on rock-solid ground of Catholic doctrine. His own heart-felt 1ove and devotion came to him as gifts of his youth. They deepened and intensified as his studies gave him greater acquaintance with the plans of God for Mary and how these affected men. St. Lawrence of Brindisi explained more clearly than any writer before him the fundamental principle of Mariology, which is the divine maternity. All Our Lady’s privileges, offices and glory are related to the unique fact that she is the Mother of God.

With St. Lawrence this fundamental fact took on a special meaning and beauty in light of the absolute primacy of Christ. Since you cannot separate mother and child, Mary was included in the divine decree of the universal primacy of Christ. If Christ was first in the plan of God as the Model and Head of all creation, then Mary must have been included in this same decree. This concept paves the way to a sweeping view of creation and of the re-creation that came with Redemption, in which Christ and Mary always act together and are viewed together.

St. Lawrence viewed Christ and Mary as inseparable in God’s plans. Therefore Our Lady is in all ways similar to Our Lord. Christ and Mary are considered as a pair In securing the Redemption, as Adam and Eve were in man?s fall.

Through the first woman and the first man the world was condemned; through the second Man and the second woman it was saved. Thus the principle of our reparation corresponds wonderfully with the principle of our ruin. As then a demon in the bodily form of a serpent was sent by the devil to lead Eve astray, who was at that time both a virgin and espoused to a man, so an angel was sent by God in bodily guise to Mary, likewise a virgin and spouse. And as Eve, by giving ear to the serpent, became the origin of our fall, so Mary-by believing the angel-became the origin of our restoration. The former inaugurated sin and death; the latter inaugurated grace and life. Through the former we lost the earthly paradise; through the latter we gained the heavenly paradise. (Mariale, p. 91)

On her own plane as a creature, acting with free will, yet associated with Christ by the divine maternity, Mary joined in the sacrifice on Calvary. The Blessed Virgin Mary’s association with Christ in the Redemption has often been spoken of. Less heard of and so perhaps more striking are St. Lawrence’s thoughts on her association with her Son in the universal primacy. “Every gift, every grace, every good that we have and that we receive continually, we receive through Mary. If Mary did not exist, neither would we, nor would the world.? Such words as these of St. Lawrence reveal a mind that saw the beauty of Mary everywhere, logically following from the original divine decree.

St. Lawrence attributed everything to Mary: his vocation, his restoration to health as a student, his knowledge of Hebrew, all his successes. He always went to her in all his needs. When made General of the Order, he first went to Loreto, his favorite shrine, and he went there again at the conclusion of his term. In fact, he thought nothing of making a trip to Loreto or to other shrines of the Blessed Virgin, taking a few days detour and set?ting aside the time from his many occupations.

He said the Rosary and the Office of the Blessed Virgin daily from his student days onward, he fasted every Saturday in her honor, and from 1610 on he had an indult to say her votive Mass every day except on the chief feasts of the year. He often sang her hymns while he was walking along. In his later years especially, the mere mention of Mary’s name was apt to send him into a state of rapture in which he would lose track of what was happening about him. St. Lawrence used to bless the sick with the words, “May God deliver you through the names of Jesus and Mary.” His favorite blessing for the friars was, ?May the Virgin Mary bless us with her loving Child!”

The Mariale

The life of St. Lawrence of Brindisi can be called a Marian canticle of the heart. His Mariale can be called a canticle of the mind. It was not composed as a tract, but its 84 sermons form a complete Mariology, including material on the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption, which were defined only cen?turies later.