Saints’ Quotes Praising Mary, The Mother of God

As Catholics, we have 2000 years of saints’ quotes praising the Mother of God.  While their quotes do not carry the same weight as sacred scripture, they do tell us what holy men and women on earth, who are now in heaven, thought about the Blessed Virgin Mary.  The takeaway from reading these quotes is that we should all imitate them in this endeavor.  After all, Jesus was subject to His mother for thirty years before starting His public ministry. If we are to imitate Christ in our own lives, then asking Mary to be our own mother as well is a great way to start. If Marian devotion was the lens that the saints used to focus on Jesus in their lives, then why don’t we as well? We live in very dark times, but turning to Mary will lead us into the  light of her son, Jesus.

Mary in Scripture

Genesis 3:15 says that there will enmity between THE WOMAN and Satan. Luke 1:46 says that Mary’s soul magnifies the Lord, which then makes Jesus larger, clearer, and more focused in our lives. For sure, Mary’s soul is still very much alive, as are all souls in heaven. John 19:27 Jesus says to his disciple (we are ALL disciples of Christ),  “Behold YOUR mother.”  Revelation 12:17 says that we are her children if we obey the commandments and bear testimony that Jesus is the messiah.

Quotes From the Saints

St. Augustine

“Him whom the heavens cannot contain, the womb of one woman bore. She ruled our Ruler; she carried Him in whom we are; she gave milk to our Bread.”

St. Louis Marie de Montfort

“Satan, being proud, suffers infinitely more from being beaten and punished by a little and humble handmaid of God, and her humility humbles him more than the Divine power; and, secondly, because God has given Mary such a great power against the devils, that, as they have often been obliged to confess, in spite of themselves, by the mouths of the possessed, they fear one of her sighs for a soul more than the prayers of all the Saints, and one of her menaces against them more than all other torments.”

“God has never made or formed but one enmity; but it is an irreconcilable one, which shall endure and develop even to the end. It is between Mary, His worthy Mother, and the devil,—between the children and the servants of the Blessed Virgin and the children and instruments of Lucifer. The most terrible of all the enemies which God has set up against the devil is His holy Mother, Mary. He has inspired her, even since the days of the earthly Paradise, though she existed then only in His idea, with so much hatred against that cursed enemy of God, with so much industry in unveiling the malice of that old serpent, with so much power to conquer, to overthrow, and to crush that proud impious rebel, that he fears her not only more than all Angels and men, but in some sense more than God Himself. It is not that the anger, the hatred, and the power of God are not infinitely greater than those of the Blessed Virgin, for the perfections of Mary are limited, but it is, first, because Satan, being proud, suffers infinitely more from being beaten and punished by a little and humble handmaid of God, and her humility humbles him more than the Divine power; and, secondly, because God has given Mary such a great power against the devils, that, as they have often been obliged to confess, in spite of themselves, by the mouths of the possessed, they fear one of her sighs for a soul more than the prayers of all the Saints, and one of her menaces against them more than all other torments.”

“God the Father gathered all the waters together and called them the seas or maria [Latin, seas]. He gathered all His grace together and called it Mary or Maria . . . This immense treasury is none other than Mary whom the saints call the ‘treasury of the Lord.’ From her fullness all men are made rich.”

St. Bernardine of Siena

“You must know that when you ‘hail’ Mary, she immediately greets you! Don’t think that she is one of those rude women of whom there are so many-on the contrary, she is utterly courteous and pleasant. If you greet her, she will answer you right away and converse with you!“

“If God did not destroy man after his first sin, it was on account of his singular love for this holy Virgin, who was destined to be born of this race.  I have no doubt but that all the mercies granted by God under the old dispensation were granted only in consideration of this most Blessed Lady”

St. Bernard of Clairveaux

“O Blessed Mary, whoever loves you honors God; whoever serves you pleases God; whoever invokes your holy name with a pure heart will infallibly receive the object of his petition.”

“Go to this Mother of Mercy, and show her the wounds which thy sins have left on thy soul; then will she certainly entreat her Son, by the breast that gave him suck, to pardon thee all. And this divine Son, who loves her so tenderly, will most certainly grant her petition”

“Mary is that happy ark, in which those who take refuge will never suffer the shipwreck of eternal perdition”

“Remember that it has never been heard of in any age, that any sinner who turned to you was rejected by you. I am a miserable sinner, but I turn to you and trust in you.”

“As breathing is not only a sign but even a cause of life, so the name of Mary, which is constantly found on the lips of God’s servants, both proves that they are truly alive, and at the same time causes and preserves their life, and gives them every succor.”

St. Maximillian Kolbe

“Never be afraid of loving the Blessed Virgin too much. You can never love her more than Jesus did.”

“The conflict with Hell cannot be maintained by men, even the most clever. The Immaculata alone has from God the promise of victory over Satan. She seeks souls that will consecrate themselves entirely to her, that will become in her hands forceful instruments for the defeat of Satan and the spread of God’s kingdom.”

”Jesus honored her before all ages, and will honor her for all ages. No one comes to Him, nor even near Him, no one is saved or sanctified, if he too will not honor her. This is the lot of Angels and of men.”

St. Thomas Aquinas

“Mary means Star of the sea, for as mariners are guided to port by the ocean star, so Christians attain to glory through Mary’s maternal intercession.”

Blessed Bartolo Longo

“My only desire is to see Mary, who has saved me and who will save me from the clutches of Satan.”

St. Hilary of Poitiers

“No matter how sinful one may have been, if he has devotion to Mary, it is impossible that he be lost.”

St. John Vianney

“Only after the last judgment will Mary get any rest; from now until then, she is much too busy with her children.”

St. Bonaventure

“O truly immense and admirable goodness of our God, which has been pleased to grant thee, O sovereign Mother, to us miserable sinners for our advocate, in order that thou, by thy powerful intercession, mayest obtain all that thou pleasest for us. O wonderful mercy of our God, who in order that we might not fly on account of the sentence that might be pronounced against us, has given us his own Mother and the patroness of graces to be our advocate”

“As the moon, which stands between the sun and the earth, transmits to this latter whatever it receives from the former, so does Mary pour out upon us who are in this world the heavenly graces that she receives from the divine sun of justice”

St. Augustine

“Mary, having merited to give flesh to the divine Word, and thus supply the price of our redemption, that we might be delivered from eternal death; therefore she is more powerful than all others to help us to gain eternal life”

St. John Chrysostom

“Hail, Mother of God and of us all, ‘heaven,’ where God dwells, ‘throne,’ from which our Lord dispenses all grace, ‘fair daughter, Virgin, honor, glory and firmament of our Church,’ assiduously pray to Jesus that in the day of judgment we may find mercy through thee, and receive the reward prepared by God for those who love him”

St. Padre Pio

“May the Most Holy Virgin, who was the first to practice the gospel perfectly and in all its severity, even before it was proclaimed, spur us on to follow closely in her footsteps.”

“Love our Lady and make her loved; always recite the Rosary and recite it as often as possible.”

“Love the Madonna and pray the Rosary, for her Rosary is the weapon against the evils of the world today. All graces given by God pass through the Blessed Mother.”

“How many time I have entrusted to this Mother (the Virgin Mary) the painful anxieties of my heart. And how many times she has consoled me. With what great attention she accompanied me to the altar this morning. It seemed to me that she had nothing else to think about but me, filling my heart with holy sentiments. I felt a mysterious fire in my heart, which I could not understand. I felt the need to put ice on in in order to extinguish the fire that was consuming me.”

St. Anthony Mary Claret

“A son of the Immaculate Heart of Mary…is a man who unceasingly expends himself to light the fire of divine love in the world. Nothing stops him.”

St. John Paul II

“From Mary we learn to surrender to God’s Will in all things. From Mary we learn to trust even when all hope seems gone. From Mary we learn to love Christ her Son and the Son of God!”

“Through Mary, we come to her Son more easily.”

St. Alphonsus Liguori

“Mary has been called an ark more spacious than that of Noah. For only two animals of every kind were brought into the ark of Noah. But under the mantle of Mary, the righteous and sinners all find their place.”

St. John of Damascus

“Behold, all generations will call you blessed, just as you have said. You are the royal throne that angels surround, seeing upon it their true King and Lord. You are a spiritual Eden, holier and more divine than the Eden of old. For that Eden was the dwelling of the mortal Adam, while the Lord himself came from heaven to dwell in you. Noah’s ark foreshadowed you, for you held the seed of the new world. You brought forth Christ, the salvation of the world, who destroyed sin and its angry waves. Just as Jacob saw the ladder bringing together heaven and earth, so you are placed between us, and have become the ladder of God’s communion with us, of him who took upon himself our weakness, uniting us to himself, and enabling us to see God.”

Our Lady of Guadalupe to St. Juan Diego

“Am I not here, I, who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not the source of your joy? Are you not in the hollow of my mantle, in the crossing of my arms? Do you need anything more? Let nothing else worry you or disturb you.”

“Behold YOUR Mother.”

To consecrate yourself to Jesus through Mary, click here .