Thy Most Holy Mother

O sweet Jesus!  what dreams must thy most holy Mother have had when she slept, while her heart watched?  Did she not dream that she had thee yet in her womb, or hanging at her sacred breasts and sweetly pressing those virginal lilies?  Ah!  what sweetness was in this soul!  Perhaps she often dreamed that as Our Saviour had formerly slept in her bosom, as a tender lambkin upon the soft flank of its mother, so she slept in his pierced side, as a white dove in the cave of an assured rock:  so that her sleep was wholly like to an ecstasy as regards the spirit, though as regards the body it was a sweet and grateful unwearying and rest.  But if ever she dreamed [….] of her future greatness… or if ever, like Jacob, she saw the progress and fruit of the redemption made by her Son, for the love of the angels and of men; --… who could ever imagine the immensity of so great delights?  O what conversations with her dear child!  What delights on every side!

--St. Francis de Sales, Treatise on the Love of God, III, viii

Image source:  Leonardo da Vinci, Madonna litti, 1490-1491