God looked at the humility of his maidservant

I dare say that without her humility, Mary’s virginity alone would not have been sufficient to please God. This is the one whom I approve: the afflicted one, crushed in spirit, who trembles at my word (Is 66: 2). On the humble, he said, and not on the virgin: if Mary had not been humble, the Holy Spirit would not have rested on her.

And if the Holy Spirit had not rested upon her, he would not have made her fruitful. How, indeed, would Mary have conceived of him without his presence?

Clearly then, for her to conceive of the Holy Spirit, she herself attests that God looked at the humility of his maidservant (Luke 1:48) rather than her virginity; if indeed she pleased him by her virginity, it was by her humility that she conceived.

Hence it is evident that if virginity, too, was able to please God, it is undoubtedly due to humility first.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux