21
as a reference to the union between Christ and his Bride, the Church. 71 However, some
theologians have expanded the analogy to describe Mary as the enclosed garden or hortus
conclusus, 72 wherein man’s mystical union with the living God manifested in the Incarnation. St.
Louis de Montfort says of the Blessed Mother:
Mary is the sealed fountain and the faithful spouse of the Holy Spirit where only he may
enter. She is the sanctuary and resting-place of the Blessed Trinity where God dwells in
greater and more divine splendour than anywhere else in the universe, not excluding his
dwelling above the cherubim and seraphim. No creature, however pure, may enter there
without being specially privileged. 73
Mary, praised by the Church as the New Eve, is the Woman who encloses within her femininity
the par adise wherein the relationship between God and man is redeemed and sanctified in Christ.
Mary, the Mother of the Church, is the preeminent hortus conclusus, whose body and very
person became the paradise where divine communion is restored.
When viewed against the backdrop of the Genesis account, the Annunciation becomes
the place where the mystery of creation reaches its fullest revelation, a scene often depicted in a
garden in the work of famous artists such as Fra Angelico. Here, the Angel Gabriel bowed in
reverence at the threshold of the mystery of creation glimpsed through the transparent soul of the
“full of grace.” 74 In his apostolic letter, On the Dignity and Vocation of Women, St. John Paul II
refers to the state of Mary’s body and soul as the “‘fullness of grace’…[that] also signified the
fullness of ‘what is characteristic of woman,’ of ‘what is feminine.’ Here we find ourselves, in a
sense, at the culminating point, the archetype, of the personal dignity of women.” 75 In this hortus
71
The Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. “Fathers of the Church, Epistles (Cyprian of Carthage), Epistle 73,” New
Advent, accessed May 27, 2018, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/050673.htm.
72
Merriam-Webster, s.v. “hortus conclusus,” accessed May 31, 2018, https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/hortus%20conclusus
73
Louis de Montfort, Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, EWTN, introduction, sec. 5,
accessed May 27, 2018, https://www.ewtn.com/library/Montfort/TRUEDEVO.HTM.
74
Luke 1:28.
75
John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, sec. 5.