Homily #080402 ( 09min) Play – We must always defend the prerogatives of Christ by defending the prerogatives of His Mother. In early Christianity the Mother of God was always seen as the exemplar extraordinaire – should it not be like this today?
Ave Maria! Mass readings
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HOLY MOTHER OF GOD

MARY, you are the Mother of God because you are the Mother of Jesus Christ, the true Son of God. You could not be the Mother of His divine nature, which has existed before all time and from all eternity, but you brought forth Jesus after He had assumed human nature in you.

The Archangel Gabriel recognized this dignity of Divine Motherhood when he said, “The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee; and therefore the Holy One to be born of thee shall be called the Son 01 God” (Luke 1,35). And Elizabeth exclaimed, “And how have I deserved that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1,43)

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Since God was pleased to choose you as His Mother because of your humility, help me to be truly humble of heart, that like you, I may be pleasing to God and may deserve to be exalted in heaven. Banish all pride and vanity from my heart and let me ever seek the glory of God in all things.

MARY, to understand how great you really are as Mother of God, I would have to understand the greatness of God Himself. Your dignity surpasses that of all saints, for they are only God’s ser?vants, while you are His Mother. No. angel or saint could ever say to Jesus, “You are my Son,;’ Your dignity on that account is nearly infinite, since-you are so closely united with the infinite Good. God could not create a greater Mother than His own. Conscious of this dignity, you exclaimed, “Henceforth all gen?erations shall call me blessed” (Luke 1,49).

Sweet Mother of God, I admire your dignity, which was the greatest ever bestowed upon a human being. Each day of my life I wish to thank God for the graces and privileges He has bestowed upon you to make you what you are.

MARY, because you are the Mother of God, I can pray to you with full confidence. Jesus would hardly refuse you any request that was in keeping with God’s will, for if He grants the request of the Saints, who are only His servants, how can He refuse His own Mother whom He loves so tenderly? I am sure Jesus is pleased to have you ask Him for anything, since He wants to be generous to us for your sake. Is not this in some measure a reward for the human nature you have given him?

Mother of God, since God was pleased to choose you as His Mother, and since He was very generous to you in making you worthy of this dignity, I con?fidently hope that He will be generous to me if you pray for me. I entrust my salvation to your care. Never let me fail to invoke your intercession in all my needs, for Jesus will refuse you nothing because we both can call you “Mother.”

Fr. Lawrence Lovasik

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?Such is the ineffable union existing between Jesus and Mary: she is His Mother;? He is her Son. This union is indissoluble and as Jesus is at the same time the Son of God, come to save the world, Mary is intimately associated in this vital mystery of all Christianity. All her greatness is founded on this special privilege of her divine Motherhood.

Blessed Columba Marmion

We recall that Mary’s mediation is essentially defined by her divine motherhood. Recognition of her role as mediatrix is moreover implicit in the expression “our Mother,” which presents the doctrine of Marian mediation by putting the accent on her motherhood…. In proclaiming Christ the one mediator (cf. 1 Tim. 2:5-6), the text of St. Paul’s Letter to Timothy excludes any other parallel mediation, but not subordinate mediation. In fact, before emphasizing the one exclusive mediation of Christ, the author urges “that supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for all men” (2:1). Are not prayers a form of mediation? Indeed, according to St. Paul, the unique mediation of Christ is meant to encourage other dependent, ministerial forms of mediation…. In truth, what is Mary’s maternal mediation if not the Father’s gift to humanity?…Mary carries out her maternal role in constant dependence on the mediation of Christ and from him receives all that his heart wishes to give mankind.
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Pope John Paul II – Audience Oct 1, 1997

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September 8th: Nativity of Mary,

the CAUSE OF OUR JOY

Causa nostrae laetitiae, ora pro nobis

Cause of Our Joy, may my greatest happiness be to possess the love and grace of God; my greatest glory to be a disciple of Jesus and a child of yours. I rejoice in this happiness and exult in this glory. Let not human pride and worldly desires keep me from perfect devotion to you and your Son.

PRAYER

Lord Jesus Christ, Father of mercies and God of all consolation, grant in Your loving kindness that we who joyfully venerate on earth Mary, Your most pure Mother, as our comforter, may deserve to enjoy with her the unending happiness of heaven. Who live and reign forever. Amen.

Fr. Lawrence Lovasik

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THE HOLY NAME OF MARY

Our salvation begins when an archangel speaks the name of Mary. To be Christian is to carry on that Annunciation unceasingly. Saint Louis de Montfort wrote that “the salvation of each individual is bound up with the Hail Mary.” This prayer that names the holy name of the Mother of God brought to a dry and barren world .the Fruit of Life. It will cause the Word of God to take root in the soul and bring forth Jesus. The holy name of Mary bears such power because of the unique bond between Mother and Son. ?When God sent his Son born of a woman, he instituted a once and for all order of salvation in which the union of Mother and Child stands at the center” (Romanus Cessario). To accept the divine privilege of speaking the name of Mary is to participate in that saving union.

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This is the Divine order and it is unchanging. Remark that this order was not meant only for the day when the Incarnation took place; it still conti?nues as regards the application of the fruits of the Incarnation to souls. Why is this? Because the source of grace is Christ, the Incarnate Word; but as Christ, as Mediator, He remains inseparable from the human nature which He took from Mary. “God ha?ving once willed to give Jesus Christ to us by the Blessed Virgin, and the gifts of God being without repentance, this order never changes. It is and ever will be true that having received through her charity the universal princi?ple of all grace, it is still through her that we receive the divers applications of grace in all the different states which compose the Christian life. Her maternal love having contributed so much to our salvation in the mystery of the Incarnation, which is the universal principle of grace, she will eternally contribute to it in all the other ope?rations which are only dependent on this mystery”, says Bossuet. Let us li?kewise quote these words of Pope Leo XIII: “Of the magnificent treasure of grace brought to us by Christ, nothing. according to the eternal designs is to be distributed to us except through Mary. Hence, it is through her we must go to Christ, almost in the same way as through Christ we approach our Heavenly Father”.

The second reason, which is very closely related to the preceding, is that no one has more influence than the Mother of God in obtaining grace for us. In consequence of the Incarnation, God is pleased to recognise the credit of those who are united to Jesus, the Head of the Mystical Body (not however in such a manner as to derogate from the power of His Son’s mediation but on the contrary to extend and exalt it) this credit is so much the more powerful according as the union of the saints with Christ is the more intimate. “The nearer a thing approaches to its principle”, says St. Thomas, “the more it expe?riences the effects produced by this principle. The nearer you come tto a furnace, the more you feel the heat which radiates from it”. The holy doctor adds: “Now, Christ is the principle of grace since, as God, He is the Author of it, and, as Man He is the ins?trument of it; and the Blessed Virgin being the nearest of any creature to the Huma?nity of Christ, Christ having taken this human nature from her, she has received from Him higher graces than any creature”.

“But each one receives from God (it is still St. Thomas who is speaking) grace propor?tionate to his providential destination. As Man, Christ was predestined and elected in order that, being the Son of God, He might have power to sanctify all men, therefore He, and He alone, was to possess such plenitude that it might overflow an all souls: of this fulness we all have received. The fulness of grace received by the Blessed Virgin had for its end to bring her nearer than any other creature to the Author of grace; so near, indeed, that she enclosed in her womb the One Who is full of grace, and in giving Him to the world by bringing Him forth, she, so to speak, gave grace itself to the world, because she gave Him who is the source of it”, In giving us Je?sus, Mary has given us the very Author of life. The Church sings this in the prayer after the antiphon to the Blessed Virgin, during Christmastide, when celebrating Christ’s Birth. “By whom we have been made worthy to receive the Author of life”.

If therefore, you wish to draw largely from the fountain of Divine Life, go to Mary; ask her to lead you to this fountain for she it is, more than any other creature, who will bring you near to Jesus. That is why we so justly name her: “Mother of Divine grace”.??Jesus alone is the one Mediator;? but who more surely than Mary will lead us to Him, who will have more power to render Him propitious to us than His Mother? She has, moreover, received from Jesus Himself a special grace of maternity towards His mystical body. That is the last reason why devotion to the Blessed Virgin is so profi?table for souls. Christ, having received human nature from Mary, associated His Mother with all His mysteries from the offering in the Temple to the immolation on Calvary.

Now, what is the end of all Christ’s mysteries? To make of Himself the example of all our supernatural life, the ransom for our sanctification and the source of all our holiness; to create for Himself an eternal and glorious fellowship of brethren like unto Himself That is why Mary, like a new Eve, is associated with the new Adam; but much more truly than Eve, Mary is the?”Mother of all the living”, the Mother of all who live by the grace of her Son. This association was not only outward. Christ, being God, being the omnipotent Word, created in the soul of His Mother the feelings she was to have towards those who being born of her and living by His mysteries, He willed to constitute His brethren. The Blessed Virgin, for her part, enlightened by the grace abounding in her, responded to this call of Jesus by a Fiat of entire submission and in union of spirit with her Divine Son. In giving her consent to the Divine proposition of the Incarna?tion, she accepted to enter into the plan of the Redemption in a unique capacity; she accepted, not only to be the Mother of Jesus, but to be associated in all the mission of the Redeemer. To each of these mysteries of Jesus, she had to renew this Fiat full of love until the moment whenshe was able to say: “All is consummated”, after having offered at Calvary, for the world’s salvation, this Jesus, this Son, this Body she had for?med, this Blood which was her own. At this blessed hour, Mary entered so deeply into the mind of]esus that she may truly be called Co-redemptress.?Like Jesus, she, at this moment, achieved the act of love of bringing us forth to the life of grace.

Mother of our Head, according to the thought of St. Augustine, in bea?ring Him corporally, she became spiritually the Mother of all the members of this Di?vine Head. And because here below she is thus associated in all the mysteries of our Redemption, Jesus has crowned her not only with glory, but with power. He has placed His Mother at His right hand that she may dispose of the treasures of eternal life by a unique title – that of Mother of God: ‘The queen stood on Thy right hand. (Ps. 44:10).

Full of confidence, let us then say to her with the church: “Show thyself a Mother: Mother of Jesus by thy influence with Him; our Mother by mercy towards us. May Christ receive our prayers through thee, this Christ Who, born of thee to bring us life, willed to be thy Son”.

Who, indeed, better than she knows the Heart of her Son? We find in the Gospel a splendid example of her confidence in Jesus. It is at the feast at Cana. She is there with Jesus and she is not so absorbed in contemplation as to know nothing of what is passing around her. The wine begins to fail. Mary notices the confusion ofher hosts; she says to Jesus: “They have no wine”. We here recognise the heart of a mother. What of those “mystics” who would not have wanted to think of the wine! And yet what are they in comparison with the Blessed Virgin? Urged by her kindness, she asks her Son to come to the aid of those whose embarrassment she sees. Our Lord looks upon her and only says: Woman, what is to me and to thee? But she knows her Jesus. She is so sure of Him that she says at once to the servant: “Whatsoever He shalt say to you, do ye”, and indeed, at the word of Christ, the amphorae are found to be filled with excellent wine.

What shall we ask of the Mother ofJesus, if not that, before and above all, she will form Jesus within us by communicating her faith and love to us? All Christian life consists in forming Christ within us and making Him live in us. This is the idea of St. Paul. Now where was Christ first formed? In the Virgin’s bosom, by the operation of the Holy Ghost. But, say the Holy Fathers, Mary first bore Jesus by faith and love, when, by her Fiat, she gave the awaited consent: she conceived in her spirit before conceived in her body. Let us ask of her to obtain for us this faith that will make Jesus dwell in us, for this love which will make us live by the life of Jesus. Let us ask of her that we may become like to her Son; there is no greater favour we can ask her, neither is there any she more wishes to grant us. For she knows, she sees that her Son cannot be separated from His mystical body; she remains so united in heart and soul to her Divine Son that, now in glory, she only desires one thing, and this is that the Church, the kingdom of the elect, bought with the Blood of Jesus, should appear before Him, as a “glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle, but … holy and without blemish”. (Eph 5:27)

Therefore, when we speak to the Blessed Virgin, let us do so united with Jesus and say:? “The Incarnate Word, your Son has said: All that you do to the least of Mi?ne, you do it unto Me. I am one of the least of the members of your Son Jesus; it is in His name I come before you to implore your?help”. In refusing petitions thus made, Mary would be refusing Jesus something.

Let us, then,go to her with full confidence. There are souls who go to her as to a Mother, confiding to her their interests, laying before her their sorrows and difficulties, having recourse to her in all their needs and temmptatiins, for eternal enmity exists between the Virgin and the devil; with her heel, Mary crushes the head of the infernal serpellt. (Gen 3.15) On every occasion, such souls as I have spoken of deal with the Blessed Virgin as children with a Mother; they will go before one of her statues to tell her what they want. But this is childishness, you may say. Perhaps it is, but has. not Christ said: “Unless you become as little children, you shall not enter into thi” kingdom of heaven?” (Mt 18:13), let us, moreover, ask Our Lady that, from the Humanity of her Jesus Who possesses tne fulness of grace, grace may be poured forth abundantly upon us, so that by love may become more and more conformed to this beloved Son of the Father, Who is her Son. It is the best request we can make her. Nothing pleases Mary more than to hear it proclaimed that Jesus is her Son, and to See Him beloved by all creatures.

The Gospel, as you know, has only preserved a very few words of the Blessed Virgin. I have just reminded you of one of these words, that which was said to the servants at the marriage feast at Cana: “Whatsoever my Son shall say to you, do ye”. (Jn. 2:5) This word is like an echo of the word of the Eternal Father: “This is my beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased: hear ye Him”. (Mt 17:5; 2 Pet 1;17) We can apply to ourselves this word of Mary: “Do all that my Son shall say to you”. That will be the best fruit of this conference; it will be, too, the best form our devotion towards the Mother of Jesus can take. The Virgin Mother has no greater wish than to see her Divine Son obeyed, loved, and exalted. Jesus is the Son in whom she, like the Eternal Father, is well pleased.

Blessed Columba Marmion OSB: Christ, the Life of the Soul

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November 21st: The Presentation of Mary in the Temple

Ven. Mary of Agreda “The Mystical City of God’ (abridged) on HER PRESENTATION IN THE TEMPLE

The three years’ time decreed by the Lord having been completed, Joachim and Anne set out from Nazareth, accompanied by a few of their kindred and bringing with them the true living Ark of the covenant, the most holy Mary, borne on the arms of her mother in order to be deposited in the holy temple of Jerusalem. The beautiful child, by her fervent and loving aspirations, hastened after the ointments of her Beloved, seeking in the temple Him, whom she bore in her heart.

This humble procession was scarcely noticed by earthly creatures, but it was invisibly accompanied by the angelic spirits, who, in order to celebrate this event, had hastened from heaven in greater numbers than ordinary as her bodyguard, and were singing in heavenly strains the glory and praise of the Most High. The Princess of heaven heard and saw them as she hastened her beautiful steps along in the sight of the highest and true Solomon. Thus they pursued their journey from Nazareth to the holy city of Jerusalem, and also the parents of the holy child Mary felt in their hearts great joy and consolation of spirit.

They arrived at the holy temple, and the blessed Anne on entering took her daughter and mistress by the hand, accompanied and assisted by Saint Joachim. All three offered a devout and fervent prayer to the Lord; the parents offering to God their daughter, and the most holy child, in profound humility, adoration and worship, offering up herself. She alone perceived that the Most High received and accepted her, and, amid divine splendor which filled the temple, she heard a voice saying to her: “Come, my beloved, my spouse, come to my temple, where I wish to hear thy voice of praise and worship.”

Having offered their prayers, they rose and betook themselves to the priest. The parents consigned their child into his hands and he gave them his blessing. Together conducted her to the portion of the temple build­ing where many young girls lived to be brought up in retirement and in virtuous habits, until old enough to assume the state of matrimony, It was a place of retirement especially selected for the first-born daughters of the royal tribe of Juda and the sacerdotal tribe of Levi.
Fifteen stairs led up to the entrance of these apartments. Other priests came down these stairs in order to welcome the blessed child Mary. The one that had received them, being according to the law one of a minor order, placed her on the first step. Mary, with his permission, turned and kneeling down before Joachim and Anne, asked their blessing and kissed their hands, recommending herself to their prayers before God. The holy parents in tenderest tears gave her their blessing; whereupon she ascended the fifteen stairs without any assistance. She hastened upward with incomparable fervor and joy, neither turning back, nor shedding tears, nor showing any childish regret at parting from her parents.  To see her, in so tender an age, so full of strange majesty and firmness of mind, excited the admiration of all those present.

The priests received her among the rest of the maidens, and Saint Simeon consigned her to the teachers, one of whom was the prophetess Anna. This holy matron had been prepared by the Lord by especial grace and enlightenment, so that she joyfully took charge of this Child of Joachim and Anne. She considered the charge a special favor and of divine Providence and merited by her holiness and virtue to have her as a disciple, who was to be the Mother of God and Mistress of all the creatures.

Sorrowfully her parents Joachim and Anne retraced their journey to Nazareth, now poor as deprived of the rich treasure of their house. But the Most High consoled and comforted them in their affliction. The holy priest Simeon, although he did not at this time know of the mystery enshrined in the child Mary, obtained great light as to her sanctity and her special selection by the Lord; also the other priests looked upon her with great reverence and esteem. In ascending the stairs the child brought to fulfillment, that, which Jacob saw happening in sleep; for here too were angels ascending and descending: the ones accompanying, the others meeting their Queen as she hastened up; whereas at the top God was waiting in order to welcome her as His daughter and spouse. She also felt by the effects of the overflowing love, that this truly was the house of God and the portal of heaven.

Mary’s presentation was celebrated in Jerusalem in the sixth century. A church was built there in honor of this mystery. The Eastern Church was more interested in the feast, but it does appear in the West in the 11th century. Although the feast at times disappeared from the calendar, in the 16th century it became a feast of the universal Church.

As with Mary’s birth, we read of Mary’s presentation in the temple only in apocryphal literature. In what is recognized as an unhistorical account, the Protoevangelium of James tells us that Anna and Joachim offered Mary to God in the Temple when she was three years old. This was to carry out a promise made to God when Anna was still childless.

Though it cannot be proven historically, Mary’s presentation has an important theological purpose. It continues the impact of the feasts of the Immaculate Conception and of the birth of Mary. It emphasizes that the holiness conferred on Mary from the beginning of her life on earth continued through her early childhood and beyond.

Comment:

It is sometimes difficult for modern Westerners to appreciate a feast like this. The Eastern Church, however, was quite open to this feast and even somewhat insistent about celebrating it. Even though the feast has no basis in history, it stresses an important truth about Mary: From the beginning of her life, she was dedicated to God. She herself became a greater temple than any made by hands. God came to dwell in her in a marvelous manner and sanctified her for her unique role in God’s saving work. At the same time, the magnificence of Mary redounds upon her children. They, too, are temples of God and sanctified in order that they might enjoy and share in God’s saving work.

THE PRESENTATION OF MARY:  Commemorated November 21

It stands to reason that Almighty God’s selection of the Virgin Mary to be the Mother of God was not a random selection.

In his wisdom, God selected not from the nobility but from the humble, thoroughly devout, daughter of equally devout parents whose names were Joachim and Anna. Tradition has it that Anna, childless for many years, reached a point in her life when just short of despair she prayed in earnest that God grant her a child with a promise that should her wish be fulfilled she would pledge the child to his holy Temple. It did not matter to Anna that the child granted her by God was a girl and, faithful to her word, she presented her daughter, given the name of Mary, to the holy Temple at the age of three, on the 21st of November.

She remained in the house of God for twelve years, emerging at the age of fifteen with a purity and wholesomeness found in no other creature of God. By the time she had been released to her parents, the saintly Mary was not only a flawless maiden but in her twelve years had acquired the lore and religion of the deepest scholars, something usually denied a female child of those days.

So much has been written of the Lord’s mother that the concern here is for a glimpse into her life as a human being. The Virgin Mary is looked upon by Orthodoxy as “Panagia,” which translates into the all-encompassing saint. Greek Orthodox Christians need but one name and that name is “Panagia,” carrying the full impact on the Christian faith as no other name can regardless of the language. The beginnings of Christianity were not the scattered remnants that somehow merged into a smattering, of ideologies. By divine intent the great religion of Christ stemmed from a tight circle which spread itself out as the greatest of human experiences.
To begin with, the high priest entrusted with the care of Mary was Zacharias, who in turn was the father of St. John the Baptist, referred to as the prefiguration of the Messiah and the man who was to baptise Jesus Christ…

Our Lady’s parents, Sts. Anne & Joachim, presented her in the temple when she was a small child. From her earliest years Mary led a life of prayer. She said “yes” to God’s will. “We wish to love the Lord Jesus with the heart of the Immaculate, receiving Him and thanking Him with her acts; thus, even if we should neither feel nor understand it, in fact we will honor the Lord Jesus with her heart, with her acts; or to speak more exactly, it will be she who through us loves and praises Jesus. We are but her instruments”

(St. Maximilian Kolbe).

The Presentation of Mary in the Temple

To understand what she was like then,
you have to imagine yourself in a place
in which columns affect you;
where you can retrace stairs
where arches full of danger
bridge the chasm of a space
that remained within you,
because it had been made, towering,
of such pieces that you can no longer
remove them from yourself lest you demolished yourself.
If you have reached that state, if everything within you
is stone, wall, ramp, view, curve, then try
to remove the big curtain in front of you
with both hands:
it sparkles of very noble things
and surpasses your breath and touch.
Up, down, palace built upon palace,
Railings stream wider from within railings,
and surface above surface on such edges
that vertigo, as you can see, grasps you.
Clouds of incense diffuse what is close,
but still the most distant aims right
inside of you with its straight rays –
and now, when the glow from clear bowls
of flame plays on slowly approaching robes:
how can you bear it?

She, however, came and raised her eyes
to view all this.
(A child, a little girl among women)
Then she ascended silently, filled with confidence,
towards the spoiled luxury which made way for her:
For that is how much everything that men built had
already been exceeded by the praise within her heart;
by the desire to give herself to the signs within her:
The parents wanted to lift her up,
the looming figure with the bejeweled chest
seemed to receive her:
But she passed through everyone,
small as she ways, slipped from every hand
into her destiny, which, higher than the hall,
was ready, and heavier than the temple.

Composed by Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Gerald Augustinus)

Ave Maria Meditations

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Ave Maria Meditations

The infant Christ is the whole Christ. Christ was not more God, more Christ, more man, on the Cross than He was in His Mother’s womb. His first tear, His first smile, His first breath, His first pulsation in the womb of His Mother, could have redeemed the world. In fact, Christ chose the life of growth and work and suffering, and the death on the Cross which we know; but by His own choice all this was to depend on a human being giving herself to Him in His infancy, giving her own humanity to the actual making of that Infant’s humanity and giving Him her life in which to rest.

If every person in whom Christ lives at all, in whom He is an Infant – which means anyone whose soul is alive at all- surrendered themselves to Him, resting in Him so that He might rest in them, in each one of them the world’s redemption would begin as it began in Mary, the Mother of God. Christ is formed in us, and we are formed into Christ, when we rest in Him and He rests in us.            

During Advent Christ rested In Mary – still, silent, helpless, utterly dependent. The Creator trusted Himself to His creature. He trusted to her the expression of His love, the expression of God’s love for the world and of His love of His Father, just as the work of His love would be trusted to us, in His life in us.

He was dumb; her voice was His voice.

He was still; her footsteps were His journeys.

He was blind; her eyes were His seeing.

His hands were folded; her hands did the work of His hands.

His life was her life; His heartbeat was the beating of her heart.

This was a foreshadowing of what the Incarnation would mean for us; for in us, too, Christ rests as He rested in Mary. From the moment when the Christ-life is conceived in us, our life  is intended for one thing, the expression of His love, His love for God and for the world.

Our words are to be the words that He wants to speak;

we must go to wherever He wants to go,

we must see and look at whatever He wants to see and look at;

the work that our hands do must be the work that His hands want to do,

our life must be the living of His life,

our loves the loving of His heart.

But there is the other aspect of Christ’s Advent. While He remained hidden in Mary, His rest was a tremendous activity; He was making her into Himself, making Himself from her. From her eyes He was making the eyes that would weep over Jerusalem, that would shine upon the wild flowers, that would close in death and open on the morning of Resurrection.

From her hands He was making the hands that would heal and raise the dead and be nailed to the Cross. From her heart He was making the heart whose love would redeem the world.

The same thing occurs when, allowing the Infant Christ to rest in us, we wait patiently on His own timing of His growth in us, and give Him just what He asks, the extremely simple things that are ourselves – our hands and feet, our eyes and ears, our words, our thoughts, our love. Not only does He grow in us, but we are formed into Him.

(From Caryll Houselander: Wood of the Cradle; Wood of the Cross)

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