Rivet on the Virgin: every honor fit for the absent, short of religious worship
Rivet ends by saying that we honor the most Blessed Virgin first of all, in proportion to the very great gifts God gave her.
"If she were living among us on earth," he writes, "we would think it a great honor to take her into our home as John did and to give her every duty that children owe their parents, since she became the mother of our firstborn brother. We would speak to her with reverence, greet her with veneration, and take her most holy counsel to heart."
"But she is not living among us on earth. We neither see nor hear her, and we must not believe that she is infinite or present everywhere. She is now in heaven, having served God's purpose in her own generation, as Scripture says of her father David. So we revere and honor the most Blessed Virgin in every way that the absent can rightly be honored and glorified, except religious worship, which belongs to him alone who is present everywhere, who is almighty, and who searches hearts and minds."
"In this we obey his will when we call the Lord's mother blessed, blessed among women, and for many reasons: she believed; it was done to her as the angel had said; after bearing the Son of God she cared for him and nursed him as a baby and gave him every service of the best of mothers; she acknowledged him as her Savior even when he was crying in the cradle; she trusted his words when many spoke against him; and after a whole earthly life spent in exercises of holiness and rare piety, most pleasing to God, she fell asleep devoutly in the Lord and gave back her most holy soul to God."
"In heaven she enjoys the blessedness God promised to those who worship him, and in that chosen vessel it stands out, as God knows, even in degrees of glory, in proportion to the grace she received here. We praise such a woman, keep her memory with grateful hearts, and speak of her with reverence. We hold her up to all Christians, and above all to devout women, as a model of the virtues, and we urge everyone to imitate her in whatever is to be imitated." (Apology for the Most Holy Virgin Mary, book 2, chapter 1.)
Latin
XLI. Denique addit nos in primis Beatissimam Virginem laudare & honorare, pro ratione donorum quae a Deo accepit maxima. Quae, inquit, si nobiscum in terris versaretur, magno nobis honori duceremus eam cum Joanne tecto excipere, ei officia omnia exhibere, quae filii debent parentibus, cum facta sit mater fratris nostri primogeniti. Reverenter etiam cum ea colloqueremur, venerabundi salutaremus, & sanctissima ejus monita exciperemus. Sed quandoquidem in terris nobiscum non versatur, nec eam videmus, nec audimus, nec infinitam, aut ubique praesentem credere debemus, quae nunc in caelo versatur, postquam sua aetate inservisset consilio Dei, ut de Patre ipsius Davide scribitur; nos omnibus iis modis & rationibus, quibus absentes jure coli possunt & glorificari, Beatissimam Virginem reveremur & colimus, dempto religionis cultu, qui ei soli tribuitur, qui ubique praesens est, & Omnipotens, & qui scrutatur corda & renes: cujus in eo voluntati obtemperamus, quum matrem Domini Beatam & benedictam inter mulieres praedicamus: idque multis nominibus; quod credidit; quod ei factum sit juxta Verbum Angeli; quod Filium Dei enixa, eum infantem diligenter curavit & lactavit, eique optimae Matris officia omnia detulit; quod eum salvatorem suum agnovit, etiam in cunis vagientem; quod ejus verbis fidem adhibuit, contradicentibus multis; quod post sanctitatis & pietatis exquisitae in tota vita hac temporali exercitia Deo gratissima pie in Domino obdormivit, & sanctissimam animam Deo reddidit; quae in caelis fruitur ea beatitudine quam suis colentibus Deus promisit, eaque in vase illo selecto, pro ratione gratiae hic acceptae, etiam gradibus gloriae, prout Deus novit, eminente. Talem nos laudibus prosequimur, ejus memoriam gratis animis celebramus, de ea reverenter loquimur, eam virtutum exemplar Christianis omnibus, maxime piis mulieribus proponimus, omnesque ad ejus imitationem, in iis quae sunt imitanda, exhortamur. Apolog. pro sanctiss. Virg. Maria lib. 2. cap. 1.