The Glories of Mary

My beloved reader and brother in Mary: Since the devotion that led me to write, and moves you to read, this book makes us happy children of the same good Mother, should you hear it remarked that I might have spared myself the labor, as there are already so many celebrated and learned works on the same subject, I beg that you will reply, in the words of the Abbot Francone, that "the praise of Mary is an inexhaustible fount: the more it is enlarged the fuller it gets, and the more you fill it so much the more is it enlarged" ("Laus Mariae fons est indeficiens, qui, quanto longius extenditur, tanto amplius impletur, et quanto amplius impletur, tanto latius dilatatur."- De Grat. Dei. lib. vii). In short, this Blessed Virgin is so great and so sublime that the more she is praised the more there remains to praise; so much so, says an ancient writer, "that if all the tongues of men were put together, and even if each of their members was changed into a tongue, they would not suffice to praise her as much as she deserves" ("Etsi omnium nostrum membra verterentur in linguas, eam laudare sufficeret nullus."-Serm. 208. E. B. App.).I have seen innumerable works of all sizes which treat of the Glories of Mary; but finding that they were rare, voluminous, or did not answer the object I had in view, I endeavored to collect, from as many authors as I could lay my hands on, the choicest passages, extracted from Fathers and theologians, and those which seemed to me to be the most to the point, and have put them together in this book, in order that the devout may with little trouble and expense be able to inflame themselves with the love of Mary, and more particularly to furnish priests with matter for their sermons, wherewith to excite others to devotion towards this divine Mother.Worldly lovers often speak of those whom they love, and praise them, in order that the object of their affections may be praised and extolled by others. There are some who pretend to be lovers of Mary, and yet seldom either speak of her or endeavor to excite others to love her: their love cannot be great. It is not thus that true lovers of this amiable Lady act; they desire to praise her on all occasions, and to see her loved by the whole world, and never lose an opportunity, either in public or in private, of enkindling in the hearts of others those blessed flames of love with which they themselves burn towards their beloved Queen.