If you had not received this privilege, if you were not the Mother of God, the angel would not have set out on the journey to Nazareth to pay you homage, Christians would not call upon you. A whole series of unfortunate consequences would have resulted from that. The life of faith would be less attractive, to persevere in it would not be easy. We would have less courage in our hearts, the purity of our ideals would suffer. A piece of beauty would fade from the liturgy, there would be fewer masterpieces in art, and the hope in the souls of Cistercian monks would weaken. (…) Even if I had nothing but these two words, I could pray for hours. Mother of God, how simply it sounds – and how full it is! I know that when I repeat these words, I am putting my skin on the line, I confess my whole faith. I am a Catholic. I have accepted as my own all those naive – or bold – assertions of the Catholic Creed, the truths of faith that some people would rather not talk about. If I want to love and serve Mary, the Mother of God, then I certainly cannot rely on the current hesitant and fearful approach to Christian life.
(Father Jerome /1907–1985/, monk of the Trappist monastery in Sept-Fons,
Prelude to the Angelic Greeting)
