e Baptist was "filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother's
womb."(215) "He was a burning and a shining light"(216) because he was
chosen to prepare the way of the Lord.

The Apostles received the plenitude of grace; they were endowed with the
gift of tongue and other privileges(217) before they commenced the work of
the ministry. Hence St. Paul says: "Our sufficiency is from God, who hath
made us _fit_ ministers of the New Testament."(218)

Now of all who have participated in the ministry of the Redemption there
is none who filled any position so exalted, so sacred, as is the
incommunicable office of Mother of Jesus; and there is no one,
consequently, that _needed_ so high a degree of holiness as she did.

For, if God thus sanctified His Prophets and Apostles as being destined to
be the bearers of the Word of life, how much more sanctified must Mary
have been, who was to bear the Lord and "Author of life."(219) If John was
so holy because he was chosen as the pioneer to prepare the way of the
Lord, how much more holy was she who ushered Him into the world. If
holiness became John's mother, surely a greater holiness became the mother
of John's Master. If God said to His Priests of old: "Be ye clean, you
that carry the vessels of the Lord;"(220) nay, if the vessels themselves
used in the divine service and churches are set apart by special
consecration, we cannot conceive Mary to have been ever profaned by sin,
who was the chosen vessel of election, even the Mother of God.

When we call the Blessed Virgin the Mother of God, we assert our belief in
two things: First--That her Son, Jesus Christ, is true man, else she were
not a _mother_. Second--That He is true God, else she were not the _Mother
of God_. In other words, we affirm that the Second Person of the Blessed
Trinity, the Word of God, who in His divine nature is from all eternity
begotten of the Father, consubstantial with Him, was in the fulness of
time again begotten, by being born of the Virgin, thus taking to Himself,
from her maternal womb, a human nature of the same substance with hers.

But it may be said the Blessed Virgin is not the Mother of the Divinity.
She had not, and she could not have, any part in the generation of the
Word of God, for that generation is eternal; her maternity is temporal. He
is her Creator; she is His creature. Style her, if you will, the Mother of
the man Jesus or even of the human nature of the Son of God, but not the
Mot