Devotion to Our Lord in the Womb: The Divine Nine Months

Devotion to Our Lord in the Womb embraces a distinct and separate stage in the history of the Incarnation, writes English author and Jesuit priest Henry James Coleridge. Our Lord's life in the womb of His Blessed Mother, he adds, is a part of His infinite condescension which calls for a corresponding devotion. Beginning with the Annunciation itself and ending on the eve of the Nativity, it covers the whole unborn life of Our Lord. This portion of His human existence is the period of His greatest humiliation and self-abasement. It is only natural that those who take up this special devotion should find themselves consoled and assisted in a wonderful degree by the practices and contemplations associated with it.

In this abridgment of the 1885 edition, Coleridge identifies the Incarnation as the greatest work of God. Indeed, he writes, it may be considered as the crown and completion of the creation of the universe. Christ was sent to earth for the redemption of mankind, and for their instruction in the manner of serving God perfectly. The eye of faith can see from the early life of Christ many holy and tender lessons of humility, obedience, silence, recollection, dependence, and other virtues.

The devotion to the infancy of Christ throws light on the position of the Blessed Mother in the Kingdom of her divine Son, His dependence on her and union with her, the immensity of her graces, and the supreme perfection of her virtues. Among other things, the author also discusses the preparation of St. Joseph for his high and special office in the accomplishment of the Incarnation and all that followed from it.

Excerpts from The Nine Months:

"...Mary cannot have either the fulness [of grace] which is infinite and which sheds itself on all creatures without exhausting itself, nor can she have the imparted grace of the fulness which was in our Lord as Man, in Him alone without measure. In the same way she could not have been so full of grace as not to be able to receive more, or to increase in grace, nor, with regard to the fulness of truth of which St. John speaks, could she in her mortal life, have had that in such a manner as to know all things, nor did she behold God as He is, in the way in which the saints in glory behold Him. Her plenitude of grace was the plenitude of a pure creature, and therefore immeasurably distant from that which is in God and in our Lord. When the Angel addresses her as full of grace, he must be understood as implying that she was as full of grace, as she could be full. And the Saints and Fathers tell us that she was thus so full of grace, as that she could have had no greater fulness, unless she had been herself united to the Godhead, as was the Humanity of her Son. The reason for this is the simple principle, that she had been raised, or was to be raised, to a dignity than which no higher, under God, can possibly be conceived, the dignity of the Mother of God."

"The object of the Incarnation was the Redemption of the world. If Mary the Mother of God was raised so high in the favor of God in order that she might be fit, to be the conscious and willing instrument of this great work of the Incarnation, it stands to reason that her influence and power with God, which of necessity correspond to her graciousness in His sight, must be exercised in favor of those for whom He became her Son, and that she must have the office of being the patroness and advocate of all those for whom He was to die. As our Lord made Himself our Brother by taking flesh in her most pure womb, our relation to her as His brethren must be that of children, and thus the holiest and tenderest of ties that can exist between creatures, that of Motherhood and Sonship, binds us to her and her to us by a bond that nothing can sever. When she ceases to be the Mother of Jesus Christ she will cease to be our Mother through Him."

"The first quality which the Angel attributes to our Lord is greatness. He was to be great on account of His Person, the Person of the Son of God in Human Nature. From this greatness of His Person flows the greatness of His Sanctity and of His Power. And moreover, His greatness belongs in a special manner to the perfect accomplishment of that work. His work involved the revelation of His Father and the declaration of the truths of salvation and faith by word of mouth, and thus He is great in word. No man ever spake as He spake, as was said of Him by those who were sent to apprehend Him. He was to teach the greatest and most sublime truths in the most efficacious and marvelous manner. Moreover, He was to confirm His words by works. In the first place, His works were to go before His words. That is, the example of every most perfect virtue which He taught was to be preceded by His most perfect practice of that virtue. In the second place, He was to confirm His words by showing the Divine authority with which He spoke. 'No man, ' said Nicodemus to Him, 'can do the works which Thou doest, unless God be with Him.'"

"With Eve the question of obedience or disobedience counted for nothing, with Mary nothing counted but the motive of obedience. Obedience was the one virtue by which it pleased God to test His children in the Garden of Paradise. Obedience was the appointed virtue by which the world was to be redeemed by the Son of Mary. The obedience of Mary was not the cause of our redemption, but it was the forerunner of the obedience of our Lord, and it made the Incarnation possible in the manner in which God had decreed it. The disobedience of Eve was not the cause of the ruin of the human race, because we fell in Adam, not in his wife. But the disobedience of Eve led to the disobedience of Adam, by means of which we all fell, only to be redeemed by the Son of her who said, 'behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to thy word.' Eve was persuaded to doubt the word of God, daring to hope that it should not be with her and Adam according to His word. Mary believed the word of God sent to her by St. Gabriel, and obeyed at once and with the most perfect faithfulness."

• Explains why a devotion to the life of our Lord in the womb is spiritually beneficial.
• Offers a detailed discussion of the Annunciation that examines the meaning of the words of St. Gabriel and what they tell us about Mary as the ideal woman chosen by God. This commentary explains why the praise lavished upon Mary over the centuries by saints and writers of the Church of her immense dignity, faith, and virtue is justified.
• The advantages of being born of, and raised by, a woman (His mother) in contrast to Adam whom God created by different means.
• Explains to the degree possible by human reason the great mystery of the Conception of Jesus by the work of the Holy Spirit and His dual divine and human nature.
• In discussing at length Mary's fiat, the author contrasts Our Lady's faithful role in our redemption with Eve's defiant role in our ruin and compares this instance with Adam's disobedience and the obedience of Christ leading up to His crucifixion.
• Lists the many virtues the Son of God displayed in humbling Himself by taking on our humanity as an infant to redeem the world.
• A lengthy discussion of the role the Visitation played in salvation history with special emphasis on the gifts received by St. Elizabeth and her son St. John.
• Mary's Magnificat is examined in detail not only as an expression of her thoughts but also as sentiments shared by a thankful Church and a redeemed humanity.
• After several insights on the birth of St. John, the author examines the royal lineage of Jesus whose kingdom will deliver us from our enemies and bring about salvation to his people among other related matters from the commentary of St. Zachary in Luke's gospel.
• In the final chapter, the author speculates upon what it must have been like for Mary and Joseph in the last few months before the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.