But however wondrously glorious all these holy figures are, each in his own way, yet all are outshone by one, by the Queen of all angels and saints, Mary, the Mother of God. Like every creature in heaven and on earth, she too was called into existence out of nothingness. An infinite distance separates her from the Infinite, from Father, Son and Holy Ghost. And she has no grace, no virtue, no privilege, which she does not owe to the divine Mediator. Both in her natural and in her supernatural being, she is wholly the gift of God, “full of grace” (kecharitomene Lk. i, 28). There is nothing, therefore, so misguided and so preposterous as to decry the Mother of God as some “mother goddess,” and to talk of Catholicism having a polytheistic character. There is but one God, the Triune God, and every created thing lives in awe of His mystery. But this one God is a God of life and of love. So great, so superabundant is this love, that it not only raises man to its own image and likeness by the natural gifts of reason and will, but also, by the precious gift of sanctifying grace, summons him from his state of isolation to an unparalleled participation in the Divine Nature and in Its blessings, to a sort of active co-operation in the work of God, to effective initiative in the establishment of the Kingdom of God. It is the profoundest meaning and the amazing generosity of the redemption, that it raises the rational creature from the infinite remoteness of its impotence and from the abysmal ruin of its sins into the Divine Life, and thereby makes it apt—while preserving its creaturely limitations—to co-operate in the work of redemption. The Scriptures tell us that the angels in their measure shared in the work of creation, and that they gave the Law to Moses (Gal. iii, 19; Hebr. ii, 2), thus co- operating effectively in the establishment of the Old Covenant. The new creation also and the New Covenant are not perfected without the cooperation of secondary causes (causae secundae), the blessed angels and men. So the whole of redeemed humanity enters in its measure into the circle of the Divine Life. To that extent it is not only the object of the divine work of salvation, but also subject and agent in that work, although the creature, of course, remains always a creature and can co-operate in the work of salvation only through God’s power. Yet, looking at the matter as a whole, the true Kingdom, whence comes all blessing, is not God alone, not the divine “One” (hen) alone, but the “One and all” (hen kai pan) or rather the totality of all the members whom Christ, their Head, introduces into the Divine Life of God, who is fruitful in His saints.