The Crown of Excellence : Chapter 11 : § 2.6-7

Chapter 11 : The Tenth Star or Splendour of the Crown of Excellence of the Mother of God

Continuing our translation of the 1845 reprint of Fr François Poiré's Triple Crown of the Mother of God (1643 French edition).

Notre Dame des Grâces, Cotignac.(Poggi, 2020)

Mary is the Miracle of Glory

§ 2. The wondrous singularities in her Assumption and the glory of her triumph 

The third remarkable feature of Mary’s triumph

 6   While we have been discussing the Assumption, the Holy Virgin has continued her progress and, almost without our noticing it, she makes her entrance into Heaven. So here we are now observing the reception she received from the most blessed and glorious Trinity – the last remarkable feature. St Ambrose once noted that[1]:

when the Emperor Theodosius entered into Heaven, the Angels deputed to receive him asked him what he had done on earth.

Consider in truth how wonderfully the Holy Virgin would have been able to answer this question, had decorum not rendered it unseemly to ask her; or, to put it better, had her own modesty not prevented her from answering! Consider what manner of Panegyric her beloved Son might have delivered in her honour! Imagine what He might have said of her who was alone judged worthy to draw Him down from Heaven, to give Him our human nature, to raise Him and to serve Him for so long? Of her who, after Himself, had been the principal instrument for the reparation of men, to whom all men therefore are obliged for being re-established in grace and their eternal happiness? 

It was not however fitting for someone of her status to be asked such a question and her merits were in any case sufficiently known. In the very instant she entered Heaven, one of the foremost Archangels in Paradise called out as best he could in the language of Heaven, echoing how the Herald once spoke when the King of the Scythians came out of his palace on the occasion of major solemnities : Let everyone prostrate himself before the sovereign’s Majesty.

After this first act of homage, she was led into the presence of the most holy Trinity. It was then that the Father of eternal mercy lowered His Royal head towards His beloved daughter and opened the barriers which had until then held back the floods of His love, inundating her blessed soul with indescribable happiness and sweetness. It was then too that the loving kindness of the glorious Holy Spirit, having no longer any reason to hold back, revealed to His chaste Spouse what blessed happiness was hers to have such a Lord for her Spouse. It was then that Her dear Son revealed to her there was no longer anything preventing Him from honouring His Mother exactly as He would wish. It was then that the Trinity in all its immensity revealed to the heavenly court the treasures of glory prepared though all eternity for her who was to be the Miracle of Glory and the Wonder of Grace. It was then that she was shown to her Royal throne, as I shall describe later, and first of all the Angels, and after them the dear souls forming the flock of the first fruits of Jesus Christ, approached in orderly files to do her reverence, to lay their crowns at her feet and to recognize her as their Lady and their Sovereign.

Footnotes

[1] Orat. in funere Theodosii.

 7   It is perhaps possible, however, that Heaven would find offensive my stammering attempts to describe that of which it is presumptuous for me to speak, inasmuch as I am using human words to present those things which partake of divine honour and to rely upon my limited human understanding of the majesty of this triumph.

Most Holy Virgin, I beg pardon of thee if my efforts have here been found wanting. If it pleaseth thee, do thou blame the weakness of my mind which hath sought to convey all the magnificence of which it is capable despite its shortcomings, so as to offer thee a footstool[1] for thy glory and in honour of thy greatness.

Footnotes

[1] footstool: the French text has marchepied, a synonym for escabeau, which is used to translate the Vulgate's scabellum, which the Douay-Rheims translates as footstool. See. e.g., Ps. CIX. 1. & Isai. LXVI. 1.

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The Vladimirskaya Icon. >12th century.

SUB tuum præsidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen.

 

 

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam. 

© Peter Bloor 2024