The Feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary
Caryll Houselander speaks of the virginal quality of Our Lady in the book Reed of God.
”That pre-Advent emptiness of Our Lady’s purposeful virginity was indeed like those three things.
She was a reed through which the Eternal Love was to be piped as a shepherd’s song.
She was the flowerlike chalice into which the purest water of humanity was to be poured, mingled with wine, changed to the crimson blood of love, and lifted up in sacrifice.
She was the warm nest rounded to the shape of humanity to receive the Divine Little Bird.
Emptiness is a very common complaint in our days, not the purposeful emptiness of the virginal heart and mind but a void, meaningless, unhappy condition.”