The Blessed Virgin from The Fountain of Catholic Wisdom

Continuing my transcription of chapters from the Catholic Fountain of Wisdom we turn to The Blessed Virgin: All Glory Be To God!

The Catholic Church is accused of adoring the Blessed Virgin and giving her divine honor, and placing her before and above her Redeemer in the work of man's Redemption, and salvation.
In other words, the Church is charged with being guilty of the heinous and abominable crime of idolatry.
This accusation is false, wicked and cruelly unjust.
The Church abhors the sin of idolatry and has labored for centuries to destroy it from the face of the earth, and she teaches that the Blessed Virgin is a mere creature and that Christ is her Redeemer as well as of all the other children of Adam; [the Church teaches] that she is a creature, it would be a damnable sin to adore her [as God] or give her divine honors; [the Church teaches] that there is an infinite distance between God the Creator and a mere creature; [the Church teaches] that God is infinite perfection and that creature is finite and that to God alone should reserved supreme worship and divine honor and adoration.
And hence of God alone we ask grace and mercy, but of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints we only ask the assistance of their prayers.
But we honor the Blessed Virgin, because she is the Mother of Jesus Christ our God and Redeemer, because she is the type most perfect creature that ever issued from the hands of God.
But the honor we pay to her is not the supreme honor due to God [alone], but the lesser and infinitely different honor which is due to even the most perfect creature.
We call her blessed because she herself, inspired by the Holy Ghost, prophesied that all generations should call her blessed.
God honored her when he hailed and greeted with being "full of grace," and as having God with her in a special manner. And surely it is right and proper to honor her whom God Himself so much honored.
Besides, in honoring her we but honor the gifts and graces which God so abundantly bestowed upon her and which crowned her with honor and glory.
We also pay an inferior honor to the Saints because they are the friends of God, and thus do we, in accordance with the injunction of the Psalmist, praise God in His Saints.
As the moon shines by the reflected light of the sun, but does not dim its light [by reflecting it], nor does the moon rob the sun of the effulgence of its rays, so the Blessed Virgin and the Saints shine by reflecting the glorious light of God's beauties and perfections, that is, by His grace and His gifts.
But instead of diminishing the honor and glory which are essentially God's, they but serve to increase and intensify it.
Of God we ask mercy and pardon, but only ask the Saints to pray for us. Is there any harm in this? Was it wrong for Saint Paul to ask the prayers of his disciples, and, if not, how can it be wrong for us to ask the prayers of the Saints reigning with God in glory?
It is on this principle of invocation and intercession that we actin daily life.
Witness persons wanting government appointments asking the influence of respected friends of the government.
It is of the Blessed Virgin that the inspired writer spoke of when he exclaimed “Who is she that cometh forth like the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible like an army in battle array!” Saint John in the Apocalypse (12:1) describes her as “clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.”
Even Protestant poets, inspired by faith as well as poetic genius paid er the highest tributes of reverence and honor. Thus Wordsworth sings: ?“Woman whose virgin bosom was uncrossed,?By the least shade of thought to sin allied,
Woman above all women glorified,
Our tainted nature’s solitary boast,
Pureer than foam on central ocean tossed,
Fairer than eastern skies at daybreak strewn
Before her wane begins on heaven’s blue coast,
Thy image falls to earth, yet some I ween
The suppliant knees might bend?As to a visible power in which doth blend
All that was mixed and reconciled in thee;
Of mother’s love with maiden purity
Of high with love, celestial with terrene.”