1807 – 1870 AD
Antonio María Claret was Archbishop of Santiago and founder of the Congregation of the Sons of the heart of Mary, known as the Claretians.
Text quoted in French by Réné Laurentin (in Maria, Ecclesia, Sacerdotium, Nouvelles Éditions Latines, Paris 1952, pp. 403) and translated into English by John Wijngaards.
Mary’s first task was that of being a priest
“Mary could not escape from Calvary because God had given her the mission to remain there as priest, victim and mediatrix. She had to stay on Calvary, next to the cross and in the heart of her Son. She stood up straight on Calvary and undertook her function as priest. She stood next to the cross and fulfilled the role of a victim. She stayed in the heart of Jesus and acquitted herself of the task of mediatrix: strong in her first task, faithful to her second, devoted in her third . . .
It had been written in heaven and on earth that the great victim would not have been accepted . . . if his Mother had not offered him on the top of Golgotha. For she had to fulfill her first task, that of being a priest.” Copiosa y vera collección de panegíricos, Rome 1860, vol. 3, pp. 390-391.
