This is what the charity that burns in the Heart of the Mother of Love is called, that is, it is a very ardent charity, and a Heart fiercely ablaze with the heavenly fire of divine love.

“It is a fire so ardent, that all its flames are like thunderbolts which strike fear into the infernal powers, which rout them, and which drive them far away.

“St. Bernardine of Siena says: ‘Yes, the most ardent charity of the divine Heart of Mary was terribly formidable to the demons, and kept them so far away from her that they dared not look at her’.

“It is therefore with good reason that our glorious Virgin is clothed with the sun, that is to say, she is clothed with the flames and ardours of charity, there being nothing in her that is dark, obscure or lukewarm; but being all surrounded, penetrated and filled with the lights and fervours of heavenly love.

“St. Augustine says: ‘Charity has its arrows and it also has its wounds, and these are wounds which do not give death, but life and a very sweet life; which do not kill, but raise the dead.’

“I am wounded by love; it is the Blessed Virgin who speaks, in whose Heart divine love has so exhausted and unleashed all its arrows that it has not left the slightest trace in this virginal breast, says St. Bernard, that is not completely scarred by its divine wounds. ‘Such is the life of each one, says St. Augustine, what is his love.

“The divine love, says St. Dionysius the Areopagite, puts the divine lovers in a continual ecstasy, not allowing them to remain in themselves, but transporting them into their beloved, and making them live with his life, so that they can say with St. Paul: ‘I live, not I, but it is Jesus Christ who lives in me.’

“If the true lovers of Jesus are not their own, nor in them, nor alive for them, but are alive in Jesus, for Jesus, and of the life of Jesus, what is to be said and thought of the Mother of Jesus, whose Heart was more inflamed with his love than the hearts of all the Angels and Saints?”