The Mariology of Saint Anthony of Lisbon

ANTHONY of LISBON

(d. 1231)

The information about his life is drawn from the so-called legendae which multiplied even before his death, owing to the reputation for holiness that surrounded him and to the miraculous events of which he became the protagonist.

Anthony was born in Lisbon around 1195. As a very young man he entered the Order of Canons Regular of Saint Augustine and pursued his studies in Coimbra. After his priestly ordination, he transferred to the Order of Friars Minor and met Saint Francis of Assisi in person at the first Chapter of the Order. He alternated the exercise of offices in his Order with the ministry of preaching to the people, in which he achieved enormous success through the example of his holiness and the charm of his personal charisma. He was rightly called the Evangelical Doctor. He died suddenly at a young age in 1231 near Padua, only 36 years old, and was canonized the following year. In 1946 he was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius XII.

The Mariological thought of Saint Anthony of Padua was not set out in a technical and systematic way within a theology. Nevertheless, it does not lack depth and is strongly incisive, thanks to the oratorical genre in which it is expressed and through which the most original qualities of his personality emerge, namely:

For this reason, his doctrine on the Virgin can be described as a kerygmatic Mariology, because it intends to be a proclamation rather than a teaching. We can thus understand why he devoted himself to preaching and, naturally, above all to the Sermons for the Marian feasts that were celebrated at the time:

We must also add the Sermon for the Third Sunday of Lent, in which he comments on Lk 11:27: Blessed is the womb that bore you.

He applies many texts of the Old and New Testaments to Mary and frequently refers to the tradition of the Fathers and theologians who preceded him. His Mariological doctrine embraces all the mysteries of Mary’s life, with a strong insistence on the fundamental truth of the divine motherhood, in which Anthony contemplates God’s election of Mary. Some uncertainty arises regarding his attitude toward the mystery of the Immaculate Conception. In his Sermons, the passionate exhortation to admire, praise, love, and invoke the Most Holy Virgin, our Queen, refuge of sinners, the Star that guides to salvation, recurs frequently.

(Third Sunday of Lent)

The Blessedness of Mary

At that time a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him: Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked (Lk 11:27). Thus the bridegroom speaks to the bride in the Song: “your voice sounds in my ears. Truly sweet is your voice” (Song 2:14). The sweet voice is the praise of the glorious Virgin, which makes a most sweet sound in the ears of the Bridegroom, that is, of Christ, the Son of that same Virgin. Let all, therefore, and each one, raise their voice to praise blessed Mary and say to her Son: Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked.

Blessed means well increased. Blessed is he who has everything he desires and wants nothing evil. Blessed is he for whom all his desires are fulfilled. Blessed, then, is the womb of the glorious Virgin, because she merited to carry for nine months all good, the supreme good, the beatitude of the angels, the reconciliation of sinners. That is why Augustine writes: “according to the flesh we are reconciled by the Son alone. But according to the divinity we are not with the Son alone. For it is the Trinity that has reconciled us to itself, in that the Trinity caused the Word alone to become flesh”. Blessed, therefore, is the womb of the glorious Virgin, of which Blessed Augustine says in the book On Nature and Grace: “let us, then, except the Holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom, for the honor of the Lord, I wish to raise no question at all when it comes to sin. For how do we know how much more grace for overcoming sin in every respect was granted to her who merited to conceive and bear Him who, as is known, had no sin? With the exception of this Virgin, then, if all the saints could be gathered together and were asked whether they have any sin, what would they answer but what John said: ‘If we said that we have no sin, we would deceive ourselves, and the truth would not be in us’ (1 Jn 1:8)”. That glorious Virgin, on the other hand, was prevented and filled with a singular grace, so as to have as the fruit of her womb Him whom she had as Lord of the universe from the beginning.

Blessed, then, is the womb of which the Son, in praise of His Mother, says in the Song: “your womb is like a heap of wheat, encircled with lilies” (Song 7:2). The womb of the glorious Virgin was like a heap of wheat. A heap, because in her all the prerogatives of merits and rewards were gathered together. Of grain, because in it, through the intervention of the true Joseph, the grain was laid up as in a storehouse, so that all Egypt might not perish from hunger (cf. Gen 41:36). It is called triticum because, once cleaned, it is stored in granaries, or also because its grains are ground and crushed. White inside and vermilion outside, it signifies Jesus Christ who, in the cell of the blessed womb of the glorious Virgin, remained hidden for nine months and who was then ground for us in the millstone of the Cross. White for the innocence of life and vermilion for the shedding of blood. This happy womb was encircled with lilies. The lily, so called because it is as if it came from milk, signifies the virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, on account of its whiteness. Her womb was encircled, that is, fortified by the valley of humility. As for the lilies, they represent the twofold virginity, that is, the outward and the inward. That is why Augustine states: “the Only-begotten God, when He was conceived, took from the Virgin the reality of flesh. And in being born He preserved virginal integrity in His Mother”. So blessed is the womb that bore you.

Truly blessed, because it bore You, God and Son of God, Lord of the angels, Creator of heaven and earth, Redeemer of the world. The Daughter bore the Father. The poor Virgin bore the Son.

O cherubim, seraphim, angels and archangels, with faces lowered and heads bowed, reverently adore the temple of the Son of God, the sanctuary of the Holy Spirit, the blessed womb encircled with lilies, saying: Blessed is the womb that carried you. O earthly children of Adam, to whom this grace, this special prerogative has been granted, with devout faith and compunction of mind, prostrate on the ground, adore the high and lofty ivory throne of the true Solomon, saying: Blessed is the womb that bore you!

Then follow the words: And the breasts that nursed you. Of these Solomon says in the book of Parables: “As a loving hind and a graceful gazelle, may her breasts satisfy you at all times. And may you be drawn by her love forever” (Prov 5:19). Observe how the hind, according to what is said in the treatise on natural science, gives birth on a busy road, knowing that the wolf avoids beaten paths for fear of men. This beloved hind is blessed Mary, who, by grace, at the proper time and on a beaten path, that is, in a shelter, gave birth to the graceful hind, that is, the infant Son. That is why Luke writes: “She gave birth to her firstborn Son, wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for him in the inn” (Lk 2:7). So that we might receive the robe of immortality. On this text the Gloss says: “He is in need of a place in the inn, so that we may have more dwellings in heaven” (Glossa interlineare).

May the breasts of this hind, dear to the whole world, always inebriate you, O Christian, so that, forgetting all temporal things, you may turn, as one inebriated, toward those that go before you (cf. Phil 3:13). But one should be greatly surprised when he says: “I inebriate you”. And the reason is that there is no inebriating wine in the breasts, but most pleasant milk. Hear why. The Bridegroom and her Son, praising her in the Song, say: “How beautiful you are, how graceful amid delights, O beloved! Your stature is like a palm tree, and your breasts are like clusters” (Song 7:6-7). How beautiful you are in soul. How graceful you are in your body, O my Mother, my Bride, beloved hind, amid delights, that is, amid the rewards of eternal life.