Blessed Mary by virtue of the first embrace of God which had freed her
from sin. Our tragedy is that we have almost universally lost the first
engagements of the Spiritual Combat before we have at all understood
that there is any combat. The circumstances of life of child and youth
are such that we become familiar with sin before we have the
intelligence to understand the need of resisting, even if we are
fortunate enough to have such an education as to awaken a sense of sin
as opposition to God. There is nothing more appalling than the tragedy
of life thus defiled and broken and put at a disadvantage before it even
understands the ideals that should govern its course. When the vision of
perfection comes and we face life as the field where we are to acquire
eternal values, we face it with a poisoned imagination and a depleted
strength. Our battle is not only to maintain what we have, but to win
back what we have lost.

Under such conditions there is much consolation in learning that we do
not fight alone but have the constant help and sympathy of those who are
endued with the strength of perfect purity. Their likeness to us in
that they have lived the life of the flesh assures us of their
understanding, and it assures us too of their active co-operation. We
cannot understand the saints standing outside human life and from the
vantage point of their achievement looking on as indolent spectators.
The spectacle offorded by the Church Militant must call out the active
intercession of all the saints; but especially do we look for helpful
sympathy from her who is our all-pure Mother, whose very purity gives
her intercession unmeasured power. She is not removed from us through
her spotlessness, but by virtue of her clearer understanding of the
meaning of sin and of separation from God that it brings her, she is
ready to fly to the help of all sinners by her ceaseless intercession.