Book Snippets

It was not fitting that Mary, the first-born daughter of God, should ever be the slave of Lucifer

1 min • Digitized on February 5, 2022

From The Glories of Mary, page 337
By St. Alphonsus Liguori

First Point.—In the first place, it was fitting that the eternal Father should create Mary free from the original stain, because she was his daughter, and his first-born daughter, as she herself attests: “I came out of the mouth of the Most High, the first-born before all creatures;” [Eccli. xxiv. 5.] for this passage is applied to Mary by the sacred interpreters, by the holy Fathers, and by the Church herself, on the solemn festival of her Conception.

Whether she be the first-born on account of her predestination, together with her Son, in the divine decrees, before all creatures, as the school of the Scotists will have it; or the first-born of grace, as predestined to be the mother of the Redeemer, after the prevision of sin, according to the school of the Thomists, all agree in calling her the first-born of God; which being the case, it was not meet that Mary should be the slave of Lucifer, but that she should only and always be possessed by her Creator, as she herself asserts: “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways.” [Prov. viii. 22.] Hence Mary was rightly called by Dionysius, Archbishop of Alexandria: “One and sole daughter of life;” diifering in this from others, who being born in sin, are daughters of death.