She has centered all her love upon this only Son, neither does she fear loving him to excess, for this Son is God, who merits an infinite love.  And this Son is the victim whom she had voluntarily to offer to death.  Behold the most fortunate of mothers, because she is the mother of a God, but at the same time a mother most worthy of compassion, because the most afflicted; being the mother of a Son whom she saw destined to the cross from the day when he was given her for a Son!  To obey God she made the great offering of the divine life of her beloved Jesus, conquering, but with the greatest grief, all the tenderness of love that she bore him.  Saint Alphonsus Liguori "The Glories of Mary"