The Reverence due to the Blessed Virgin.
Note:
I. The singular beauty and purity and steadiness of character which are manifested in those passages of St. Mary's life which come before us in the Gospels. (1) The first point I will mention is, the remarkable faith with which she received the annunciation from the angel of the wonderful event which was to take place; her words are very simple and very full of faith, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word." (2) Again, the manner in which, as we read, Mary pondered in her heart the various events of the Lord's childhood, which seemed to point out her Son as being greater than even she herself had suspected, is worthy of notice, as being precisely that which befits religious character of the highest order. (3) The same religious discretion marked her conduct on the occasion of her losing sight of Jesus on their return from Jerusalem when He was twelve years old. His answer might well add to His parents' perplexity, and His mother does not seem to have understood it; but she did not forget the saying because she could not understand it; on the other hand, she kept it in her heart.
II. But it is not her own excellence which specially exalts the Blessed Virgin; it is the honour which was put upon her, independently of all merit of her own. We need not flinch from according to St. Mary the honours which belong to her. "All generations shall call me blessed," says the text; and we must have dull hearts if we do not so account her; and as we honour the Apostles because they were very near to, and much honoured by, the Lord, without asserting that they have any actual relation to God which we may not have, so may we rightly honour the Virgin Mother of Christ, without any extravagant views of her nature as being different from, or higher than, our own. While we reverence St. Mary as one of the first of saints, while we call her blessed, and think her the most highly honoured of the human race, we shall still feel no temptation in our hearts to worship her, provided we have our whole souls filled with the contemplation of the Saviour Jesus Christ.
Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons,2nd series, p. 294.
References: Luke 1:46. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxvi., No. 1614.Luke 1:46; Luke 1:47. Ibid.,vol. x., No. 606; Preacher's Monthly,vol. x., p. 133.Luke 1:46-55. Preacher's Monthly,vol. i., p. 42.Luke 1:48. Ibid.,vol. vi., p. 157. Luke 1:49-50. Homiletic Magazine,vol. xii., p. 327.