Reflection for Sanctæ Mariæ Sabbato ~ IV. classis
Commemoratio: S. Romani Martyris
On this gentle Saturday dedicated to the Mother of God, the Church places before us the words of the sapiential book of Ecclesiasticus:
“From the beginning, and before the world, was I created, and unto the world to come I shall not cease to be, and in the holy dwelling place I have ministered before Him. And so was I established in Sion. Likewise in the beloved city He hath given me rest, and in Jerusalem was my power. And I took root in an honourable people, and in the portion of my God His inheritance, and my abode is in the full assembly of saints.” (Ecclus. 24:14–16, Douay-Rheims)
The Church, following the luminous line of interpretation from the Fathers, reads these words of the sapiential figure as mystically fulfilled in the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is the dwelling place of Wisdom incarnate, “created before the world” in the predestination of God, “ministering before Him” from the first moment of her Immaculate Conception, and finding her rest in the Beloved City—the Church—where she reigns as Queen and Mother.
St. Ambrose writes:
“In the womb of the Virgin the divine Wisdom took flesh; in her was prepared the habitation of God among men.” (De Institutione Virginis, ch. 8)
For Ambrose, Mary is not merely a passive vessel, but the living Temple whose willing faith made possible the mystery of the Incarnation. Her “root” is in “an honourable people,” for she springs from the holy lineage of Israel, yet she is herself the flowering summit of the old covenant, in whom God begins the new creation.
In the Gospel for this Mass (Luke 11:27–28), a woman in the crowd cries out with holy enthusiasm:
“Blessed is the womb that bore Thee, and the breasts that nursed Thee.” But He said: “Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it.”
Far from diminishing His Mother’s dignity, Our Lord here deepens it. St. Augustine comments:
“Mary is more blessed in receiving the faith of Christ than in conceiving the flesh of Christ. For even to be His Mother would have profited her nothing, had she not borne Him more happily in her heart than in her flesh.” (De Sancta Virginitate, 3)
In other words, Mary’s physical maternity flows from her interior fiat—her complete reception and keeping of the Word. She is the exemplar of the beatitude Christ here declares. The woman in the crowd praised the natural bond; Christ confirms and elevates the supernatural bond that is the true measure of blessedness.
St. Leo the Great, echoing Augustine, says:
“She who merited to bear the Lord of all was blessed because she kept the Word of God, not merely because she conceived the flesh of the Word.” (Sermon 25 on the Nativity)
Thus, on this Saturday, the Church holds up Mary as both Mother and Disciple—Queen of Heaven and first among the hearers of the Word. She is the living Sion in whom the Lord has chosen to dwell; her rest is in the beloved city of the redeemed; her power is in Jerusalem, which is above, “the mother of us all” (Gal. 4:26).
Today we also commemorate St. Romanus the Martyr, whose steadfast confession of Christ unto death mirrors in the Church Militant the perfect obedience of Mary. As she “kept the word,” so too did Romanus, sealing it with his blood.
May we, in honoring both the Virgin and the Martyr, learn to hear the Word of God and keep it—so that, like Mary, we may become dwelling places of Wisdom, and like Romanus, witnesses unto death.