But whatever the inward grace and spiritual beauty of the mother of our Lord — pure and noble and saintly as she was — yet she shines chiefly by reflected light. In the celebrated picture of The Nativity by Correggio, the light is made to emanate from the Child, from which it shines in the faces of all the wondering group. This is as true to reality as it is beautiful in art — the chief glory of the mother was in her relation to her Divine Child, and it is the illumination of His countenance which casts up such a radiance into her face.
As we picture to ourselves that scene, we imagine the thoughts of that young mother concerning her child. She remembered the words of the angel, and had often pondered them in her heart; and now bends over his cradle, endeavoring to read the mystery of his fate. But her eyes were holden that she could not see it. Well was it that it was so, for amid all the signs and tokens of future glory, there were dark intimations of a period of suffering that must precede it. What meant those mysterious words of Simeon: "A sword shall pierce through thine own soul also"? The Christ was born, but to what was he born? Not to glory only, but to suffering such as the world had not known. Could the mother in that hour of happiness have foreseen all the future, her heart would have thrilled not only with rapture, but with pain. She would have seen coming to her child sorrows from which maternal love could not defend him. Could she have foreseen the trials and the bitterness of his mortal life — the agony in the Garden, the mockings and scourging in Pilate's hall, and the final scene, of which she was to be a witness — she would have turned away her eyes from the sight, and in her motherly shrinking from it might have implored the God who gave him to take him back again, ere yet he entered on a life of so much suffering.
