Men are accustomed to celebrate the birth of their children with joy and feasting; but rather ought they to weep and give signs of grief and mourning, considering that these are born, not only destitute of merits and of reason, but moreover infected by sin and children of wrath, and therefore condemned to misery and death. But with reason do we celebrate, with feasts and universal praise, the birth of our infant Mary, for she came into this world an infant in age, it is true, but great in merits and in virtues. Mary was born a saint, and a great saint. But to conceive the degree of sanctity in which she was born, we must call to mind, in the first place, how great was the first grace with which God enriched Mary; and in the second, with how great fidelity Mary at once corresponded with God. _First Point._—Commencing with the first point, it is certain that the soul of Mary was the most beautiful soul that God ever created; indeed, next to the incarnation of the Word, this work was the greatest and most worthy of himself that the Omnipotent could accomplish in this world—a work, as St. Peter Damian terms it, which God alone excels: “Opus quod solus Deus supergreditur.” Hence it was that the divine grace did not descend upon Mary in drops as upon the other saints, but as David predicted: Like rain upon the fleece: “Sicut pluvia in vellus.”[1000] The soul of Mary was like wool, that happily imbibed all that great shower of graces without losing a drop. The holy Virgin, says St. Basil, drew into herself all the graces of the Holy Spirit.[1001] Hence she herself said by the mouth of Ecclesiasticus: My abode is in the fulness of saints: “In plenitudine Sanctorum detentio mea;”[1002] which St. Bonaventure thus explains: I have in fulness all that the other saints have in part;[1003] and St. Vincent Ferrer, speaking especially of the sanctity of Mary before her birth, said, that she surpassed all the saints and angels in sanctity.[1004] The grace of the blessed Virgin surpassed the grace not only of each saint in particular, but of all the saints and angels together, as the most learned Father Francis Pepe, of the Society of Jesus, proves, in his admirable work on the grandeur of Jesus and Mary;[1005] and he asserts that this opinion, so glorious for our queen, is now common and established among modern theologians, as Carthagena, Suarez, Spinelli, Recupito, Guerra, and others, who have avowedly examined it, which was not done by the ancients; and he further relates, that the divine mother sent Father Martin Guttierez to thank Father Suarez in her name for having, with so much courage, defended this most probable opinion, which Father Segneri asserts, in his work entitled “The Servant of Mary,” was maintained by the common consent of the Faculty of Salamanca.