The Place of Mary in Cistercian Life

Virgin and Child

Master of the Female Half-Lengths Netherlandish

ca. 1525–50 Public Domain

"Cistercians have been dedicated to Our Lady from the very beginning of our Order in the 12th century. She is our life, our sweetness and our hope. She is bride, she is Mother, she is Queen, and none of these has passed from the present into mere memory. She is the sign of the Church: glorified when her full number is attained, purified from whatever is nothingness and non-being, from all the smudges and stains of the sins of her members. Whatever praise rises to her goes right through her to God, as light through a pane of glass. There is in her nothing to block the flow of the glory of God. And some day, with the help of her prayers, there will be nothing in us to block that stream of glory. May we too, in our small capacity, be windows of heaven for others, at least in our dying moment! But whether or not that happens in any perceptible way, may we be drawn more and more into the mystery of God, in Jesus, through Mary, even now. Seek, knock, ask, and it will be given to you!"

Sr. Agnes Day of Mount Saint Mary's Abbey