St. Ambrose: "See in her the pattern of your life"

“LET Mary’s life be for you like the portrayal of virginity, for from her, as though from a mirror, is reflected the beauty of chastity and the ideal of virtue. See in her the pattern of your life, for in her, as though in a model, manifest teachings of goodness show what you should correct, what you should copy and what preserve…. She is the image of virginity. For such was Mary that her life alone suffices for the instruction of all.”

~St. Ambrose: De Virginibus, 2, 6.

L'Innocence,
by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1893.