the-glories-of-mary

348 GLORIES OP MART.
are worthy of note, that Mary was conceived
without sin, so that the divine Son might be con
ceived without sin. Not that Jesus Christ
could be capable of contracting sin, but that he
might not suffer the opprobrium of having a
mother infected with sin, and a slave of the dev
il.
The Holy Spirit says, that the honor of the
Father is th glory of the Son, and the dishon
or of the Fat ler is the shame of the Son.* And
St. Augusth e says, that Jesus preserved the
body of Mary from being corrupted after death,
since it would have dishonored him if
corrup
tion had destroyed that virginal flesh from which
he had clothed himself.f Corruption
is the re
proach of the human condition, from which the
nature of Mary was exempted, in order that Je
sus might be exempt from it,
for the flesh of Je
sus is the flesh of Mary. Now, if it were a dis
honor for Jesus Christ to be born of a mother
whose body was subject to the corruption of the
flesh, how much greater would be the shame had
he been born of a mother whose soul was cor
rupted by sin! Moreover, as it is true that the
flesh of Jesus is the same as that of Mary, in
guch a manner (as the saint himself here adds)
that the flesh of the Saviour after his resurreo-
* Gloria enim homlnls ex honore patris sui, et dedecus fllii pater
tine honore. Eccli. iii. 13.
t Putredo namque humanae est opprobrium conditionis, a quo cum
Jesus sit alienus, natura Marias excipitur; caro enim Jesu caro
Varitt est Serin, de Ass. B. V.