Chapter 12 : The Eleventh 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).
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| Notre Dame des Grâces, Cotignac.(Poggi, 2020) |
She has been and is still recognized and called blessed by all generations in the world
§ 5. She was recognized and honoured by all Nations everywhere in the world
Franche-Comté
OUR LADY OF BATAN, OUR LADY OF REVOT, OUR LADY OF JUSAVANT, OUR LADY OF THE CLOISTER, OUR LADY OF BEAUPRÉ, OUR LADY OF GRAY, OUR LADY OF DOLE, OUR LADY OF MONTROLAND, OUR LADY OF VILLARSÉ, OUR LADY OF THE MOUNT, OUR LADY OF EFFONT, OUR LADY OF CUSANCE, OUR LADY OF FAVERNEY, SAINT-MARY, OUR LADY OF MONTIOUX, OUR LADY OF BAUME, OUR LADY OF CLAIRVAUX, OUR LADY OF ORNANS
58 Let us proceed to Franche-Comté as it is next to Lorraine and yields nothing to the other provinces when it comes to devotion towards the Queen of Heaven. The majority of the Churches here are dedicated to the Holy Virgin but I have concentrated on those sites which have a particular devotion. The cathedral in Besançon is called St John the Great and was re-established in 790 by Bernoin, the thirty-seventh Bishop of that city who was from the house of the kings of Austrasia. It was dedicated to the glorious Resurrection of the Saviour, to the Holy Cross, to the most sacred Virgin MOTHER OF GOD, to the Evangelist St John and to the blessed deacons St Stephen and St Vincent. It was given many beautiful relics, notably of the Holy Virgin.
In the same City there are several other places of ancient devotion, such as Our Lady of Batan and Our Lady of Revot. The Church named after Our Lady, which has been significantly arranged and decorated by Fathers of the Minim Order, has always been famous for the miracles occurring there. As it is some distance from the hurly burly of the city centre and the crowds, it is ideally suited to foster quiet devotion. This means there is never a shortage of people who come to say their prayers and to beg for the help of the most glorious Virgin. In the Jesuit Church there is an old statue of Our Lady of Montaigu and the prayers of gratitude pinned around attest to the miracles that have been performed here.
In the cloisters of the Magdalene, there is an old image of the Holy Virgin which is called Our Lady of the Cloister or Our Lady of Pity because she is holding in her arms the Saviour after He was taken down from the cross. In 1624 the whole cloister was damaged by fire but the statue was miraculously preserved, including its veil, even though the niche where it stood was reduced to ashes. This led to a wonderful increase in devotion compared with before. People go there for help with all sorts of illnesses, but especially for Quartan fevers. In the Church of the Franciscan Cordeliers, there is a Confraternity of the Conception with accounts going back more than three hundred years, although there is no evidence of its original foundation because all the documents were lost in the disaster that hit Besançon in 1575[1].
One league distant from this city is the Our Lady of Beaupré, a famous place of pilgrimage, where they keep the Holy Virgin’s girdle which was presented to the Abbey by one Archbishop of Besançon. Our Lady of Gray is a statue made from oak of Montaigu and is kept by the Church of the Capuchin Fathers. For the last eight or nine years, so many people have been coming here because of the miracles that I can truthfully say it is one of the most frequented Marian sites in Christendom. The Holy Virgin has shown how pleased she is to be honoured and served in this way because more than two thousand five hundred miracles have been reported.
Our Lady of Dole is a Church that draws attention to itself by virtue of how it stands out. The first stone was laid by Antoine de Vergey, Archbishop of Besançon. About a quarter of a league from Dole is Our Lady of Montroland, which is located on a small hill and is an ancient place of pilgrimage for the inhabitants of Franche-Comté and the adjoining provinces. Near Butier, you have Our Lady of Villarsé; near Toraise, Our Lady of the Mount; near Gy, Our Lady of Effont, founded by Thibaut de Rougemont, Archbishop of Besançon, on his return from the Holy Land; near Baume (called the Nuns[2]), Our Lady of Cusance; near Vesoul, Our Lady of Faverney, famous not only for miracles but for the Sacred Host miraculously preserved amidst flames on the very day of Pentecost, the 25th of May, 1608; near Pontalier, the church of Saint Mary in the mountains of Burgundy; by Saint-Claude, Our Lady of Montioux. These are places celebrated for their ancient Marian devotion, without mentioning places such as Baume, Our Lady of Clairvaux, Our Lady of Ornans and several others which people’s piety, blessed with favours and graces from Heaven, have for a long time made the holy Virgin famous.
Footnotes
[1] This appears to be a reference to the Battle of Besançon which took place in 1575 when Huguenots unsuccessfully attempted to sack Catholic churches and seize the city.
[2] Today known as Baume-les-Dames for the same reason, as being the site of an Abbey for religious sisters.
The Low Countries
OUR LADY OF AVIOTS & OUR LADY OF FOY
59 Let us now retrace our steps back across Lorraine and enter the Low Countries. There will scarcely be a corner there which is not marked in some way by this pious people’s devotion to the glorious Virgin. I shall in fact not be speaking about the noble Churches of Anvers, Brussels, Louvain, Malines, Arras, Saint Omer, Bruges, Cambrai, Dordrac, Térouane, Utrecht, Valenciennes or others of similar renown. Neither shall I be touching upon a great number of Monasteries which have been built there with the name of the Queen of heaven. I shall instead run through the sites most famous for the crowds of faithful who flock there and the wonders that are performed there.
Making our way to the Duchy of Luxembourg, we shall pay a visit to the beautiful and ancient Church of Our Lady of the Aviots which is in between the two famous Abbeys of Orval and Juvigny. The frequent miracles that occurred there involving still-born infants are the reason for this name[1], but the fact that pilgrims travelled some distance from all parts is proof that other miracles were also performed there by the Queen of Heaven. In the country and diocese of Liège, between the Sambre and Meuse rivers, at Pont Villette (near Marcènes) on the 12th of April 1626, a shepherd found a statue of yellowing stone attached to an old oak tree. Immediately after its discovery, miracles started to occur. The locals named the statue Our Lady of Mercy.
Near Foy, a smallholding in the barony of Celles which is part of the same diocese and region of Liege, the celebrated image of Our Lady of Foy was discovered in the month of May in 1609. Here is what happened:
There was a carpenter from Foy named Gilled de Wanlin who cut down a great oak tree to build a boat, but he found it was worm-eaten and rotten inside. This made him decide to chop it up for firewood. When he had cut it to the height of a man, he discovered inside an image of Our Lady made of whitish earth, about one foot tall and with three bars that had once enclosed it when the tree was still young. The image was taken first to the house of the man who farmed the Foy smallholding and it stayed there for six weeks. It was then placed in another oak tree and enclosed with three bars as before. Finally, the statue was placed where it is today, in a small chapel built on the same spot as the tree which had borne this wonderful fruit.
Miracles of all sorts have occurred there and continue to this day, drawing pilgrims from the whole of Christendom.
Footnotes
[1] aviot was a word used in Lorraine and adjoining areas for a still-born infant.
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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.
The Vladimirskaya Icon. >12th century.
Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam.
© Peter Bloor 2024
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