A Treatise on the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin

Mary has been singularly hidden during her life. It is on this account that the Holy Ghost and the Church call her alma Mater,—Mother secret and hidden. Her humility was so profound that she had no propensity on earth more powerful or more unintermitting than that of hiding herself, even from herself, as well as from every other creature, so as to be known to God only. He heard her prayers to Him, when she begged to be hidden, to be humbled, and to be treated as in all respects poor and of no account. He took pleasure in hiding her from all human creatures in her conception, in her birth, in her life, and in her resurrection and assumption. Her parents even did not know her, and the Angels often asked of each other: Quæ est ista? Who is that? Because the Most High either hid her from them, or if He revealed any thing of her to them, it was nothing compared to what He kept undisclosed.