The Crown of Excellence : Chapter 12 : § 7.1-4

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).

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

She has been and is still recognized and called blessed by all generations in the world

§ 7. How she was recognised and honoured in the Regular Orders

 1   Here we see the arrival of more military formations which the Church can deploy, with their captains and men-at-arms who say along with St Paul : For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty to God unto the pulling down of fortifications, destroying counsels, And every height that exhalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ[1]. These are the Religious Orders founded at different times in the House of God. Although each of the orders marches under its own colours and has its own uniform or habit, their hearts and their minds are all focussed on following the strait and narrow path of Evangelic perfection[2] and of attracting souls to a love of Him who redeemed them. All of them, moreover, enter into battle under the special protection of the MOTHER OF GOD, as will be shown in the following pages.

Footnotes

[1] II Cor. x. 4-5.

[2] Matt. vii. 13-14.

The first Religious

 2   The first champions who, starting from the time of the Apostles, raised the standard of Christian perfection encountered so many hardships at first and put so much effort into their calling that they had little enough time to leave memorials of what they had achieved. Such, for example, were those who first gathered together in the city of Alexandria under St Mark the Evangelist and were then forced out by a wave of persecutions. They were scattered here and there, finding followers and imitators of their way of life. Some withdrew into the desert whilst others remained in towns and cities, such as those who eventually settled 

    • in the East under the rule of St Basil

    • in Africa, under St Augustine 

    • in Italy, under St Simplicius 

    • in France, under St Martin and 

    • in various other locations 

until St Benedict arose in the West like a new Sun whose rays attracted followers from all parts of the world.

The Order of St Benedict

 3   Saint Benedict began to accumulate disciples around the year 510 and he laid the first foundations of his Order on devotion to the MOTHER OF GOD. We have proof positive[1] of this in the fact that he devoted to her one of the first six Monasteries and Churches that he built in Italy, which he called Saint Mary of Portiuncula. Later, another little church with the same name was built in imitation near Assisi, dependent on the Abbey at Monte Cassino. The Benedictines out of their charity conveyed this to the glorious Father Saint Francis at the time he was carrying out the first project of his own order, as we described earlier[2]. From this school of the great Patriarch Saint Benedict emerged people such as Saint Gregory, Saint Leo, Saint Ildephonsus, Saint Josse and other devoted servants of the glorious Virgin in their thousands, whom we will discuss at appropriate points in the pages to follow. 

For the time being, allow me to draw your attention to a beautiful example of this Order's devotion to the holy Virgin which is reported by Rupert[3], the Pius Abbott of Deutz in Germany, who was himself a religious in the Benedictine Order. When he was meditating on the words of King David the Prophet who said that holy Zion would be forever the first and the foremost amongst his joys, he pointed out how this is mystically observed in the order of the glorious Saint Benedict where there is a rule which applies generally to all the houses of the Order. This rule requires that in every cloister there should be an Oratory of the glorious Virgin and this is to be made the first station during a procession on each Sunday of the year. 

For my part, I have no doubt whatsoever that the MOTHER OF GOD has already shown her gratitude for this devotion in thousands of ways, a devotion which she herself inspired in her children for their benefit. I must confess, however, to being moved by a particular feeling of consolation when I read what the same Virgin revealed one day to her faithful servant, the blessed Saint Bridget[4]. She showed her the blessed Saint Benedict who appeared in the form of a blazing globe of light which had set the universe on fire, shedding its illumination everywhere. She then showed Saint Bridget how his successors had allowed the fire to die out and the light to be extinguished, adding that she still had three sparks left to set it alight once more so that her most beloved Son would be one day glorified just as He had been previously. This was good news indeed and my soul rejoiced all the more when I realised that the holy Virgin has begun to keep her promise in our own day, for we can see that thanks to God the first fires of the ancient fervour have been reignited in this Order. The signs are promising that what has begun so happily will not cease until the restoration has been completed everywhere.

Footnotes

[1] D. Benedicti Chronicon per Antonium d’Yepes, eo anno.

[2] § 5.

[3] Lib. VII de Divinis officiis, c. 25.

[4] Lib. III Revel., c. 21.

The Order of Cluny

 4   The springtime fervour of the Order of Saint Benedict in no way slowed down or altered as time went by. Then, some four hundred and six years after the first foundation, a holy man called Odo, having been chosen as Abbott of Cluny, set about with all his energy restoring religious discipline in his monastery. So that the orderly life that he had introduced would not be limited to Cluny, he introduced a rule that henceforth his Monastery would be regarded as the mother house of the Order and that those houses desirous of embracing the rule that he had introduced for his own Religious should recognise the Abbot of Cluny as having authority over them. In order that everyone might recognise that it was with the assistance of the MOTHER OF GOD that he was founding this new structure and that it could not survive without her, he issued an instruction that henceforth all Religious should pray the Office of the Holy Virgin every Saturday. They would not be prevented, moreover, from doing this between the Octave of the Purification until Lent, from Easter to the Rogation days, and from Pentecost until Advent. The Church Universal eventually copied this practice, as well as the commemoration of the dead the day after All Saints’ day, something which Saint Odilo, who was also an abbot of Cluny, had introduced. 

Now, if there could be found anyone who wanted to agree with the same Saint Odilo in what he wrote in his life of Saint Maiolus, that the blessed Berno (who died in the year 912 and who was the predecessor of Saint Odo), was the first Abbot to restore religious discipline in the house of Cluny, then I would not feel able to argue with him on that particular point or any conclusions resulting therefrom.

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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