accompanied by the divine Word, increases like the vine supported by a lofty tree?[1042] Many grave theologians teach, that the soul which possesses a habit of virtue, whenever she corresponds faithfully with the actual graces which she afterwards receives from God, always produces an act equal in intensity to the habit she possesses; so that each time she acquires a new and double merit, equal to the aggregate of all the merits before acquired. This increase, as they say, was granted to the angels in the time of their probation; and if it were granted to the angels, who shall say that it was not also given to the divine mother while she lived on this earth, but especially in the time of which I am speaking, when she remained in the womb of her mother, and was certainly more faithful than the angels, in corresponding with grace? Mary, then, during all that time was redoubling continually that sublime grace, which from the first moment she possessed; for, corresponding with all her power and perfection in every act she performed, at every successive moment she redoubled her merits. Hence, if, in the first moment, she had received a thousand degrees of grace, in the second she had two thousand, in the third four thousand, in the fourth eight thousand, in the fifth sixteen thousand, in the sixth thirty thousand; and yet we have only reached the sixth moment. But multiply in this way for a whole day, multiply for nine months, and consider what treasures of grace, of merits, and of sanctity Mary brought into the world when she was born.