MAY DEVOTION: UNDERSTANDING THE MARIAN TITLES IN THE LITANY OF LORETO – DAY 18: “VIRGIN MOST POWERFUL” (VIRGO POTENS)

Today, being the eighteenth day May Devotion, we are stationed around a “controversial” title of Our Lady: “Virgin Most Powerful” ( Latin, Virgo Potens). I recall that one of the faithful followers of my daily reflections on these ‘Marian titles’ said to me last week: “Well done, Padre! I’m happy to understand these invocations in the Marian litany through you. At the moment, my heart is so curious to see how you would explain the title: “Virgin Most Powerful,” – a title I have always encountered difficulty with, until then.” I am also not oblivious that some other persons are nursing similar thoughts as well. Thus, faced with the invocation “Virgin Most Powerful,” one could hastily say that only God is the most powerful and that Mary is not. Nevertheless, I will not dispute that but will invite you to kindly reflect with me scripturally and discover this most powerful virgin.

Scripture cannot deny the fact that the Almighty God Himself was the first to illustrate how powerful Our Lady is. In His Protoevangelium (First Gospel), God foretells the coming of a powerful woman who would wage war and be at constant enmity with the devil through the powers of her Offspring (Our Lord Jesus Christ): “I shall put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; it will bruise your head and you will strike its heel” (Gen. 3:15). Thus, invoking the Blessed Virgin Mary as “Virgin Most Powerful,” leads us to recognize her collaboration with our Lord Jesus Christ in defeating the devil, and power she receives constantly from Christ. This scriptural truth is still valid and succinct; however, many seem not to read or understand it.

People generally believe that the devil or satan is very powerful, because of the evils and havocs he is capable of doing, but when we illustrate the woman who fought and overcame the power of this same satan through her “Yes” to the divine plan, bearing the Most Powerful God in her womb, and living in conformity with the Will of God, as the most powerful virgin, they immediately rain down fire and brimstone, accusing Catholics of idolatry and blasphemy. Sad! Isn’t it?

It is true and undeniable that God is the source of all powers and that He alone is All-Powerful, that is, “Omnipotent.” Nevertheless, St. Paul makes us understand that such divine power can be conferred upon man: “There is nothing I cannot do in the One who strengthens me.” (Phil. 4:12-13). Mary, on her part, lived this unconditional faith every day of her life. She was faithful from Nazareth to Calvary, because she knows Him whom she has placed her trust in. Put differently; she was empowered by the Almighty to persevere in following our Lord Jesus Christ to the last. Thus, it would not be out of place to refer her as the “Most Powerful Virgin” who “can do all things” in her Son who strengthens her – “Virgin Most Powerful.”

One of Our Lady’s main powers ​​is that of intercession. She gives an example of this at the marriage feast at Cana where her intercessory power led to Jesus’ first miracle (cf. Jn. 2:1-11). Therefore, she has the power to pray for each one of us. She is a mother who takes care of each of her children. The Magnificat states that the Almighty did great things for Mary (cf. Luke 1:51). He showed the strength of His arm by subverting the logic of the powers of this world, overthrowing the powerful from their thrones. In Mary’s Magnificat, we come to see that God’s power is the strength of the poor. Mary and Joseph were from a humble social class; they did not live in any king’s court, but took the King of kings into their home. There has never been and will never be a more powerful home on earth compared to theirs. In that peripheral family, the power of salvation was cultivated discreetly.

Mary is the hope and power of the poor who live under the weight of oppressive powers. She is the mighty Virgin who believes that “God can write straight with crooked lines.” So, my dear friends in Christ, let us learn to invoke our Blessed Mother, the most powerful virgin, the powerful woman of Revelation 12, who gave birth to the powerful Saviour destined to “rule all the nations with an iron sceptre.” Therefore, in the face of all the difficulties, struggles, challenges and evils caused in our world today by the “dreaded dragon,” we need the support and strength of the most powerful virgin through the daily recitation of the Holy Rosary, etc., to continually bruise the head of the “dreaded serpent” with the powers she receives constantly from our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let us pray:
All-Powerful and ever-living God, you filled the heart of our Blessed Mother with power and might through the merits of her Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. As we seek the intercession of this “Virgin Most Powerful” by the recitation of the Holy Rosary and profound devotion to her, may humanity be consoled and empowered against the evils that surround her, and come to a fuller realization of You, the source of all power of might. Amen