Domus Aurea!

Ave Maria! Earlier this week I reflected on Tolkien's observation that "All that is gold does not glitter" (here and here). There are a few chosen souls, however, whose entire lives have been so continually and carefully burnished by the grace and love of God that they have become gold that doesn't just glitter but simply dazzles. There is one in particular who arises like the dawn, fair as the moon and as resplendent as the sun (Song of Songs 6:10). Did the psalmist anticipate her when he exclaimed, "With you is the fountain of life, and in your light, we see light" (Psalm 36:10)? It is Our Lady! Mary, who carried in her womb "with love beyond all telling" our Lord Jesus Christ, who is forever the light of the world! Ave Maria, Domus Aurea! Hail Mary, House of Gold!

Again I turn to Bl. John Henry Cardinal Newman, this time to his Meditations on the Litany of Loretto, which include a reflection on Mary, the house of Gold.

Mary is the "Domus Aurea," the House of Gold

Why is she called a House? And why is she called Golden? Gold is the most beautiful, the most valuable, of all metals. Silver, copper, and steel may in their way be made good to the eye, but nothing is so rich, so splendid, as gold. We have few opportunities of seeing it in any quantity; but anyone who has seen a large number of bright gold coins knows how magnificent is the look of gold. Hence it is that in Scripture the Holy City is, by a figure of speech, called Golden. "The City," says St. John, "was pure gold, as it were transparent glass." He means of course to give us a notion of the wondrous beautifulness of heaven, by comparing it with what is the most beautiful of all the substances which we see on earth.

Therefore it is that Mary too is called golden; because her graces, her virtues, her innocence, her purity, are of that transcendent brilliancy and dazzling perfection, so costly, so exquisite, that the angels cannot, {16} so to say, keep their eyes off her any more than we could help gazing upon any great work of gold.

But observe further, she is a golden house, or, I will rather say, a golden palace. Let us imagine we saw a whole palace or large church all made of gold, from the foundations to the roof; such, in regard to the number, the variety, the extent of her spiritual excellences, is Mary.

But why called a house or palace? And whose palace? She is the house and the palace of the Great King, of God Himself. Our Lord, the Co-equal Son of God, once dwelt in her. He was her Guest; nay, more than a guest, for a guest comes into a house as well as leaves it. But our Lord was actually born in this holy house. He took His flesh and His blood from this house, from the flesh, from the veins of Mary. Rightly then was she made to be of pure gold, because she was to give of that gold to form the body of the Son of God. She was golden in her conception, golden in her birth. She went through the fire of her suffering like gold in the furnace, and when she ascended on high, she was, in the words of our hymn,

Above all the Angels in glory untold, / Standing next to the King in a vesture of gold.

Bl. John Henry Cardinal Newman
Meditations on the Litany of Loretto, for the Month of May

Mary, Virgin of Advent, help me to yield in obedience and faith as you did to the burnishing of God so that I too may shine with His everlasting radiance. Amen.