Virgin Mary Quotes

“They wanted the real mother, the blood mother, the great womb, mother of fierce compassion, a woman large enough to hold all the pain, to carry it away. What we needed was someone who bled, someone deep and rich as a field, a wide-hipped mother, awesome, immense, women like huge soft couches, mothers coursing with blood, mother's big enough, wide enough for us to hide in, to sink down to the bottom of of, mother's who would breathe for us when we could not breathe anymore, who would fight for us, who would kill for us, die for us.”
― Janet Fitch, White Oleander

“Only a Woman, divine, could know all that a woman can suffer.”
― Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop

“The nativity mystery “conceived from the Holy Spirit and born from the Virgin Mary”, means, that God became human, truly human out of his own grace. The miracle of the existence of Jesus , his “climbing down of God” is: Holy Spirit and Virgin Mary! Here is a human being, the Virgin Mary, and as he comes from God, Jesus comes also from this human being. Born of the Virgin Mary means a human origin for God. Jesus Christ is not only truly God, he is human like every one of us. He is human without limitation. He is not only similar to us, he is like us.”
― Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline

“Old people, who have felt blows and toil and known the world's hard hand, need, even more than children do, a woman's tenderness.”
― Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop

“Piazzas, churches named for a teenager who gave life to the Christ. Sculptures, paintings, frescoes devoted to her holiness. But the only thing about her we remember, she was a virgin.”
― Joy McCullough, Blood Water Paint

“Catholics are frequently criticised because of the prominence and respect given to the Virgin Mary while simultaneously condemned for not giving enough prominence and respect to women.”
― Michael Coren, Why Catholics are Right

“Her (Mary's) Son first had to be the Child of the Father in order then to become man and be capable of taking up on his shoulders the burden of a guilty world.”
― Hans Urs von Balthasar, Unless You Become Like This Child

“From my journeys in southern Europe I have gained the impression that in our time the Virgin Mary is the only heavenly creature who is really beloved by millions. But I believe these millions would be uncomprehending and perhaps even offended if I were to tell them that the Virgin Mary had made a significant discovery, solved difficult mathematical problems, or masterfully organized and administered an association of housewives in Nazareth.”
― Isak Dinesen, Daguerreotypes and Other Essays

“Mary thus learns that the Most High has ever borne a Son in his bosom, and that this Son has now chosen her bosom as dwelling-place.”
― Hans Urs von Balthasar, Unless You Become Like This Child

“But we have no [Marian] apparitions cautioning the Church against, say, accepting the delusion of an Earth-centered Universe, or warning it of complicity with Nazi Germany — two matters of considerable moral as well as historical import....

Not a single saint criticized the practice of torturing and burning “witches” and heretics. Why not? Were they unaware of what was going on? Could they not grasp its evil? And why is [the Virgin] Mary always admonishing the poor peasant to inform the authorities? Why doesn’t she admonish the authorities herself? Or the King? Or the Pope?”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

“The rising influence of lay piety is particularly marked upon the Mariological controversies of the late medieval period. Two rival positions developed: the maculist position, which held that Mary was subject to original sin, in common with every other human being; and the immaculist position, which held that contrary view that Mary was in some way preserved from original sin, and was thus to be considered sinless. The maculist position was regarded as firmly established within the High Scholasticism of the thirteenth century. The veneration of the Virgin within popular piety, however, proved to have an enormously creative power that initially challenged, and subsequently triumphed over, the academic objections raised against it by university theologians.”
― Alister E. McGrath, The Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation

“And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.”
― Peter J. Tanous

“Jina la Yesu ni kubwa kuliko majina yote duniani na hata kuzimu. Lazima Shetani aliogope kuliko anavyomwogopa Bikira Maria au sakramenti za aina zote. Kumbuka, jina la Yesu halitajwi kilingeni. Linatajwa kanisani, ambapo linatajwa kinafiki. Hivyo, aliye na mamlaka ya kuaminiwa na kuabudiwa na aponyaye ni Yesu Kristo peke yake.”
― Enock Maregesi

“The North Star is the brightest star in that constellation. Stella Polaris in Latin. But did you know it was also called Stella Maris in the Middle Ages? Star of the Sea? That's actually one of the names they used to call the Virgin Mary."
Lisbeth looked at her with interest. "Really? That's exactly what she said. That little girl. She said her name was Star of the Sea."
Maya nodded. "Yes, exactly. 'Our lady, star of the sea' was one of the Holy Virgin's names.”
― Anne Østby, Pieces of Happiness: A Novel of Friendship, Hope and Chocolate

“If every man, as much as he can and as best he can, will work for justice and peace in the world, then each Christian will have at heart the request that Mary pray with us and for us, so that the peace the Lord alone can give may be granted us.”
― Pope Paul VI, Mary, God’s Mother and Ours

“I looked up again at the stained glass window. There she was, the same smile on her lips. I'm sure you were totally freaked out when they told you that you were pregnant, but at least your baby's birth is now celebrated all around the world! And so many people have been saved by you, and by your child! Then again, to be eternally known as the Virgin Mother, as if that's the only thing that gave meaning to your existence... Hey did you have any hobbies of your own? Or maybe there was a singer you were really into? You must have gotten stressed out sometimes. I mean, being called the Virgin Mother, even after your son was all grown up... And then to have him crucified like that. I can't imagine how hard that must have been. I just hope you managed to live your life the way you wanted, to take naps when you felt like it, to know yourself by a name that made sense to you...”
― Emi Yagi, Diary of a Void

“La chapelle de l’Assomption avait pour elle un attrait curieux. Elle demandait souvent qu’il lui fût premise d’aider la religieuse à décorer l’autel. Elle le faisait comme une profane, avec de mouvements vifs, le rire aux lèvres, la voix un peu trop haute, insensible à la grande Présence qui rendait la soeur si craintive et si respectueuse. Les jours du marché de la Madeleine, elle revenait à Auteuil, sa voiture remplie de fleurs; elle allait deposer les plus belles aux pieds de la Vierge. C’était un homage qu’en vraie Américaine elle voulait rendre à son sexe. Elle aimait le catholicisme parce que, disait-elle avec un sans-gêne d’hérétique, il possède une déesse et que, seul de toutes les religions chrétiennes, il a élevé des autels aux femmes.”
― Pierre De Coulevain, Eve victorieuse

“What could there be in this document written by a young girl in 1917?”
― Peter J. Tanous, The Secret of Fatima

“Annunciation: Eve to Ave

The wings behind the man I never saw.
But often, afterward, I dreamed his lips,
remembered the slight angle of his hips,
his feet among the tulips and the straw.

I liked the way his voice deepened as he called.
As for the words, I liked the showmanship
with which he spoke them. Behind him, distant ships
went still; the water was smooth as his jaw—

And when I learned that he was not a man—
bullwhip, horsewhip, unzip, I could have crawled
through thorn and bee, the thick of hive, rosehip,
courtship, lordship, gossip and lavender.
(But I was quiet, quiet as
eagerness—that astonished, dutiful fall.)”
― Mary Szybist, Incarnadine: Poems

“See ye that I have not laboured for myself only, but for all that seek out the truth.”
― Anonymous, CATHOLIC BIBLE: DOUAY RHEIMS VERSION, Verse It

“Nou goth sonne under wode—
Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.
Nou goth sonne under tre—
Me reweth, Marie, thi sone and the.”
― Anonymous

“Devotion to the Mother of our Lord in no way detracts from the adoration of her Divine Son. The brightness of the moon does not detract from the brilliance of the sun, but rather bespeaks its brilliance. The baptismal water does not detract from Christ's power of regeneration. The preaching of men does not diminish the glory of God. Never has it been known that anyone who loved Mary denied the divinity of her Son. But it very often happens that those who show no love for Mary have no regard for the divinity of her Son. Every objection against devotion to Mary grows in the soil of an imperfect belief in the Son. It is a historical fact that. as the world lost the Mother, it also lost the Son. It may well be that, as the world return to love of Mary, it will also return to a belief in the divinity of Christ.”
― Fulton J. Sheen, Three to Get Married

“He who is devout to the Mother of God will certainly never be lost.”
― Saint Ignatius

“But where, as is the case in almost all dioceses, there exists a church in which the Virgin Mother of God is worshipped with more intense devotion, thither on stated days let pilgrims flock together in great numbers and publicly and in the open give glorious expression to their common Faith and their common love toward the Virgin Most Holy.”
― Pope Pius XII, Fulgens Corona: On the Marian Year and the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception

“I still believe that marrying a virgin is better than marrying one who isn’t.”
― DON SANTO

“With the divinest word, the Virgin
Made pregnant, down the road
Comes walking, if you'll grant her
A room in your abode.”
― John of the Cross, St. John of the Cross: Poems

“Tú, que no niegas cercanía
a las más grandes pecadoras
y que en los Cielos engrandeces
al que sincero se arrepiente.
Concede a esta noble alma
que se abandonó una vez
sin sospechar que se perdía
el perdón que se ha merecido.”
― Goethe, Fausto

“Mary's "yes" is the purest example of true faith. She places her will firmly in God's hands and blindly follows. Let us look no further than Mary to find that the walk of absolute faith comes first in the surrendering.”
― Allene vanOirschot, Daddy's Little Girl: A Father's Prayer

“Look down with maternal clemency, Most Blessed Virgin, upon all your children. Consider the anxiety of bishops who fear their flocks will be tormented by a terrible storm of evils. Heed the anguish of so many people, fathers and mothers of families who are uncertain about their future and beset by hardship and cares. (Christi Matri Rosarii)”
― Pope Paul VI

“The modern woman will note with pleasant surprise that Mary of Nazareth, while being completely devoted to the will of God, was far from being a timidly submissive woman or one whose piety was repellent to others. On the contrary, she was a woman who did not hesitate to proclaim that God vindicates the humble and the oppressed and removes the powerful people of this world from their privileged positions. (Marialis Cultus)”
― Pope Paul VI