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Legion HANDBOOK D10944_1 26/02/2014 15:53 Page 43

CHAPTER 7 THE LEGIONARY AND THE HOLY TRINITY 43
rendering to each one of them an appropriate attention. The
Athanasian Creed is mandatory and strangely menacing in
regard to this requirement, which pro ceeds from the fact that
the final purpose of Creation and of the Incarnation is the
glorification of the Trinity.
But how can so incomprehensible a mystery be even dimly
probed? Assuredly by divine enlightenment alone, but this
grace can confidently be claimed from her to whom, for the
first time in the world, the doctrine of the Trinity was
definitely intimated. That occasion was the epochal moment
of the Annunciation. Through its high angel the Holy Trinity
thus declared Itself to Mary: “The Holy Spirit will come upon
you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you;
therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called
Son of God.” (Lk 1:35)
In this revelation all the Three Divine Persons are clearly
speci fied: first, the Holy Spirit, to whom the operation of the
Incarnation is attributed; second, the Most High, the Father of
him who is to be born; third, that Child who “will be great,
and will be called the Son of the Most High.” (Lk 1:32)
The contemplation of Mary’s different relations to the
Divine Persons helps towards our distinguishing as between
the Three.
To the Second Divine Person Mary’s relation is the one
nearest to our comprehension, that of Mother. But her
motherhood is of a closeness, a permanency, and a quality
infinitely surpassing the normal human relationship. In the
case of Jesus and Mary the union of souls was primary, and of
flesh secondary; so that even when separation of flesh
occurred at birth, their union was not interrupted but went
on into further incomprehensible degrees of intensity and
association — such that Mary can be declared by the Church
to be not only the “helpmate” of that Second Divine Person
— Co-Redemptress in salvation: Mediatress in grace — but
actually “like unto Him.”
Of the Holy Spirit, Mary is commonly called the temple or
the sanctuary, but these terms are insufficiently expressive of
the reality, which is that he has so united her to himself as to
make her the next thing in dignity to himself. Mary has been