Out of love for this privileged child, the Redeemer hastened His coming into the world. Precisely because she did not judge herself worthy to be the handmaid of the Mother of God, she was chosen to be such a mother. With the fragrance of her virtues and with her powerful prayers, she drew the Son of God into her virginal womb.
That is why her divine Spouse called her a turtledove: “The voice of the turtledove is heard in our land” (Song 2:12); not only because, like the turtledove, she always loved solitude, living in this world as in a desert, but because, like the little turtledove that is always moaning through the countryside, Mary was always sighing, taking pity on the miseries of a lost world and begging God to grant redemption for all.
With how much more fervor than the prophets did she repeat, while in the temple, their supplications and sighs so that He would send the Redeemer: “Send forth, O Lord, the Lamb, the ruler of the earth” (Is 16:1). “Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain down the Just One” (Is 45:8). “O that thou wouldst rend the heavens, and wouldst come down!” (Is 64:1).
In a word, she was the object of God's delight upon contemplating this little virgin always aspiring to the highest perfection like a column of incense enriched by the fragrance of all virtues, as the Holy Spirit describes her: “Who is she that goeth up by the desert, as a pillar of smoke of aromatical spices, of myrrh, and frankincense, and of all the powders of the perfumer?” (Song 3:6). In truth, says Sophronius, this young maiden was the garden of delights of the Lord, where all kinds of flowers and all the fragrances of virtues were found.
For this reason, Saint John Chrysostom asserts, God chose Mary to be His mother because He did not find on earth a virgin more holy or more perfect than Mary, nor a place more worthy to dwell than her sacrosanct womb.
Saint Bernard says in a similar way: “There was no place on earth more worthy than the virginal womb.”
Saint Antoninus affirms that the Blessed Virgin, in order to be chosen and destined for the dignity of Mother of God, had to possess a perfection so great and consummate that it would completely surpass the perfection of all other creatures: The supreme perfection of grace is to be prepared to conceive the Son of God.
Just as the holy child Mary offered herself to God in the temple promptly and entirely, so let us on this day present ourselves to Mary without delay and without reserve, and let us pray that she offer us to God, who will not refuse us seeing that we are offered by the hands of her who was the living temple of the Holy Spirit, the delight of her Lord, and the chosen mother of the eternal Word. And let us expect every kind of good from this sublime and most grateful Lady, who rewards with great love the honors she receives from her devotees, as can be gathered from the following example.
Saint Alphonsus Liguori