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 to tell what pleasure and delight we give her, for thus often we revive the remembrance both of her exalted dignity and of the beginning of mankind's redemption through her. Thereby we also commemorate that Divine and perpetual bond by which she is linked with Christ in His joys and sorrows, in His humiliation and triumph, in ruling men and helping them unto their eternal destiny.

“If we owe it to Christ that He has communicated in a certain manner to us the right that belongs to Himself of calling and having God as Father, we likewise owe to Him the right He has most lovingly communicated of calling and having Mary as Mother. Now, since nature itself has made the name of mother the sweetest name and in her has established the pattern, as it were, of tender and provident love, our tongue can scarcely express, though pious souls can truly feel, the intense flame of benevolent and active love that burns in the heart of Mary—in her who has been given to us not by men, but by Christ, as our Mother.

“And much more does she know and clearly see all our needs—what helps we need in life; what dangers, public and private, threaten us; in what straits and evils we are oppressed, how keen especially