Our tainted nature's solitary boast

However much we may want to regard Mary as just like ourselves and talk of her as our sister in faith, she is still unique: As William Wordsworth (1770-1850) expressed it:

Our tainted nature’s solitary boast

When the Angel Gabriel was sent from God, one might think of him as it were a Divine laser beam seeking out the one place and the person where the heavenly blessing might rest again. There might be something of the restoration of the Garden of Eden. As at the dawn of Creation, God looked on his own work and said: It is good, so might he now look on his lowly handmaid and might begin the work of a New Creation.

She would be the sweet benediction that would herald all the Divine blessings of the Saviour. The curse placed on the earth-- the dust and the sweat of the Fall would be taken away and the dew of a heavenly blessing would be showered on the earth. Blessed are you among women; Blessed are you the first fruits of the whole Christian harvest.

Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792-1822 put it so beautifully:

Sweet benediction in the eternal Curse!
Veiled light of this lampless universe,
Thou moon above the clouds