Amy Richter: Mary’s Song  

“As Mary started to sing, the archangel Gabriel smiled. Of all the things humans could do with their voices, singing was his favorite. It wasn’t that their singing was always perfect — far from it. Unlike the angel choirs, whose harmonies always blended perfectly, who never lost track of the tempo, who followed the conductor with unwavering attention, so many factors affected human song.” 

John Henry Newman: The Means by Which Salvation Came 

“In Mary the curse pronounced on Eve was changed to a blessing. Eve was doomed to bear children in sorrow; but now this very dispensation, in which the token of divine anger was conveyed, was made the means by which salvation came into the world.” 

Zachary Guiliano: E.L. Mascall on the Incarnation and the Virgin 

“If Christ had ceased to be man at his ascension — and it is to be feared that only too many Christians unreflectively assume that he did — then Mary would have ceased to be his mother, our incorporation into him would be a mere fiction, and so would our relation to him.” 

Leander Harding: Mary and Christian Formation 

“St. Augustine … observed that Mary conceived in her mind and heart before she conceived in her body. Both the individual believer and the Church must retrace Mary’s response to the proclamation of the angel. … Martin Luther reiterated this teaching. Mary is not only the arch-believer but also the arch-prophet who brings not only the words of God to the world but the Word himself.”