Thursday, February 16 : Saint Theodore the Studite

In my view it was to Mary that the blessed prophet Joel was speaking when he exclaimed: “Fear not, O land! Exult and rejoice! For the Lord has done great things in you” (2:21). For Mary is a land: that ground on which Moses, the man of God, heard the command to remove his sandals (Ex 3:5), an image of the Law now replaced by grace. She is also that land on which, through the Holy Spirit, he was built up of whom we sing that he “fixed the earth on its foundations” (Ps 104[103]:5). She is a land which, without being sown, brings forth the fruit that feeds all flesh (Ps 136[135]:25). A land on which the thorns of sin have never sprung up; to the contrary, she has given birth to him who pulled it up by the roots. And she is a land that is not cursed as the first one was to bring forth a harvest of thorns and thistles (Gn 3:18), but on whom rests the Lord’s blessing and who bears in her breast a “blessed fruit” as holy scripture says (Lk 1:42) (…) Rejoice, O Mary, house of the Lord, earth trodden by the footsteps of God. (…) Rejoice, O paradise more happy than the garden of Eden, where every virtue has been seeded and where the tree of Life has grown.

Roman Extraordinary (Tridentine) Daily Readings – rosary,team