The Virgin Mary was the creature who had the greatest intimacy with God, the one who received the most love from Him, the one full of grace. She never denied God anything, and her correspondence to the graces and motions of the Holy Spirit was always full. From her we must learn to give ourselves entirely to the Lord, with fullness of generous correspondence, in the state and vocation that God has given us, in the concrete task entrusted to us in the world. She is the example to imitate. Such was Mary," St. Ambrose teaches in this regard, "that her life, in itself, is a teaching for everyone. And he concluded: "Keep before your eyes, then, painted like an image, the virginity and the life of the Blessed Virgin, in whom is reflected as in a mirror the brightness of purity and the very strength of virtue".
Our Blessed Mother Mary corresponded and grew in holiness and grace. Having been filled with divine gifts from the first instant, to the extent that she was most faithful to the motions that the Holy Spirit bestowed upon her, she reached a new fullness. In Our Lord alone there was no increase or progress in grace and charity, because He had absolute fullness at the moment of the Incarnation; as the Second Council of Constantinople teaches, it would be false and heretical to affirm that Jesus Christ became better by the progress of good works9. Mary, on the contrary, grew in holiness in the course of her earthly life. Moreover, there was in her life an ever-increasing spiritual progress, which increased as the great events of her life here on earth approached: the Incarnation of her Son, the Coredemption on Calvary.... Assumption into Heaven.
So it happened in the souls of the saints: the closer they came to God, the more faithful they were to the graces they received and the faster they walked towards Him. "It is the uniformly accelerated movement, symbol of the spiritual progress of charity in a soul that in nothing is delayed, and that walks faster and faster towards God the closer it gets to Him, the more it is attracted by Him". So must our life be, for the Lord calls us to holiness wherever we are. And it will be precisely the joys and sorrows of life that will serve us to go ever more quickly to God, corresponding to the graces we receive. The normal difficulties of work, the dealings with the people we see every day, the small services of living together, the news we receive... must be reasons to love the Lord more and more each day. Our Lady invites us today to leave nothing hidden in the depths of our hearts that does not belong entirely to God: "Lord, remove pride from my life; break my self-love, this desire to assert myself and impose myself on others. Make the foundation of my personality to be identification with You", that each day I may be a little closer to You. Give me that haste of the saints to grow in your Love.