Saint Lawrence of Brindisi states: “For Christ’s honor and glory God called the universe into existence […]. As He began to devise plans for His royal castle in this world, God foreordained Christ as the sure, strong, and firm foundation, which forever guarantees the restoration of the building, should it be damaged in the storms of time.

“And because the Architect of the world founded the construction of the world, with its being, its grace and glory, upon Christ in this way, He can love everything only for Christ’s sake. All of creation, the Church and Paradise, nature and the supernatural, is the royal banquet which God the King hosts out of love and respect for His royal Son.”

Therefore, if Christ as man, as Mary’s son, is the objective for which the world was created, then Mary, too, is the objective, in Him and dependent upon Him. The famous exegete Cornelius à Lapide comments as follows on two verses from the Book of Sirach: “I made that in the heavens there should rise light that never faileth” (Sirach 24:6).

“In the literal sense we should read: I was the reason why God created the light, the heavens, the sea, the rivers and the entire universe. For God’s creation was ordered to the purpose of justifying and glorifying the saints, a work that Christ accomplished by means of the Blessed Virgin. For the order of nature was created and established for the sake of the order of grace.

“Now because the Blessed Virgin is the Mother of Christ and consequently has become the Mediatrix of the entire order of grace established by Christ, for that same reason she became the final cause of the creation of the universe.

“For the purpose of the universe is Christ, His Mother and the saints. That means that this universe was created so that the saints might enjoy grace and eternal glory through the mediation of Christ and of the Blessed Virgin. Although Christ and Mary are parts of the universe and consequently later than the universe with regard to their material cause, nevertheless they are prior to the universe according to their final cause.

“Therefore there is a certain mutual dependence between the creation of the universe and the coming of Christ and of the Blessed Virgin. God willed the birth of Christ and of Mary in no other manner than in this world. And furthermore He did not will the existence of this world without Christ and Mary; indeed, He had created it on their account. He willed that the entire universe and also the order of grace be related and ordered to Christ and the Blessed Virgin as their fulfillment and purpose.

“Accordingly, Christ and the Blessed Virgin are the final cause of the creation of the universe, and at the same time they are its formal cause, i.e. its prototype, its original plan. For the order of grace, in which Christ and Mary assume first place, is the idea and the prototype according to which God created and arranged the order of nature and the entire universe.”

And so with astonishment we realize that even at the beginning of His work ad extra, God had Our Lady with Him. She is the first creature, chosen before the foundation of the world, so as to be, in and with Christ, the prototype, the original plan, the exemplar and final cause of all that exists.

Overwhelmed by this mystery, St. Maximilian Kolbe exclaims: “Allow me to praise you, O most holy Virgin. (…) In you alone is God worshipped incomparably more than in all His saints. For you God created the world.  For you God also called me into existence. Why is such good fortune granted me? O let me praise you, Most Blessed Virgin!