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Text quoted in French by Réné Laurentin (in Maria, Ecclesia, Sacerdotium, Nouvelles Éditions Latines, Paris 1952, pp. 309-311) and translated into English by John Wijngaards.
“ One admires Abraham who was ready to immolate his son, but this son was only human; and see here a mother who immolates her son who is truly God and who prefers her quality as priestess to that of her being a mother: ‘He put the priest before the father’, as Zenon said.” 3e Sermon sur la Purification, l.c. p. 352.
“Mary performs her sacrificial functions in two ways: in one way, which is more indirect and less specific, by her providing the sacred victim . . . . and in a more direct, immediate and noble way by concurring with Jesus in this precious sacrifice. While offering the same victim of propriation that belongs to her on the title of her motherhoood . . . . she has become his priestess by offering her divine Son to God for the salvation of the world and thus meriting grace and glory for us by means of this sacrifice, not with the perfect merit and justice which only belongs to Jesus Christ, but with an imperfect merit, a merit of goodwill.” 3e Sermon sur la Purification, l.c. p. 370.
“As Psalm 21,11 says: ‘I am projected on to you from
birth’, and as we read in Hebrews: ‘I have been exposed from the womb
of my mother’. Jesus says: ‘I have been exposed to you, presented,
dedicated, abandoned, handed over and offered by my mother ever since I left
her womb and from the moment of my birth.’
That is why St. Cyprian
tells us that, having taking him in her hands, Mary put Jesus on the straw and
the cloths as if she were exposing him and handing him over to God, so that God
could fulfil in him the rigorous demands of his will. She dedicated him to all
the suffering and death which God wanted that her Son suffer for the salvation
of people.
That is why St. Epiphanius calls her both priestess and altar.
I call her priestess because she has immolated her Son and I call him altar
because she has immolated him a thousand times in her heart dedicating him
voluntary to his death.
The Virgin has therefore often exercised the
functions of her priesthood and of her mediation by offering her Son to God as
victim for our reconciliation.” 3e Sermon sur la Purification, l.c. p.
372.
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