Already from childhood, the thought about the sinners who were running the danger of condemnation left Claret with sleepless nights. This sentiment grew up as a torrent and was the reason behind his apostolic zeal. But it did not fall into the deviation of presenting Mary as a counter-weight to the justice of God. This is a balanced synthesis and the intuition Claret grasped even before the doctrinal accuracies of the Vatican Council II.
Mercy presides over Salvation History, “Blessed be God, the Father of Christ Jesus, our Lord, the all merciful Father and God of all comfort” (2Cor 1:3).
The divine is made visible in the person of Jesus. And he willed to make it visible also in the maternal tenderness of his Mother. It is because none other than him who knows what sort of heart he has given to his creature. That´s why he has given his Mother to be ours too. But the mercy we ask Mary millions of times (“turn to us your eyes of mercy”) is nothing but the reflection that shimmers on the endless ocean of the mercy of the Trinity.
It is God who, out of his love, has created this exceptional creature who is Mary, Virgin and Mother. Mary is full of divine mercy that has made her “merciful”. She is not an gate to escape from the divine justice, but the divine mercy that soaks in the Heart of Mary and overflows to water and make fertile the arid human heart.
Among the missionaries who participate in the Claretian charism, always determined to seek the best means of evangelization, there is an ever valid text that guided the post council renewal (Document on its “Spiritual Patrimony”, 1967) which affirms, “Our Father made use of the devotion to the Heart of Mary as an effective weapon in his manifold apostolate”; and it adds in continuation, “The Claretian missionary contemplates the Virgin Mary a model….is entrusted to her maternal action….. Through this means the Claretian apostle is invested with the maternal affection, the council recognizes it as a necessary one to participate in the Mission of the Church and to cooperate in the salvation of men”.