Part II : The Crown of Power : Chapter 6 : § 6.5-7

Chapter 6 :  The Fifth Star or Splendour of the Crown of Power of the MOTHER OF GOD

She is the Mother of the world to come and Redeemer of our race

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)

§ 6. The extreme humility which may be seen in the way she helped to restore fallen men 

The fourth misfortune: enslavement

 5   Adam and man’s fourth misfortune may be called enslavement and captivity. St Peter declared[1] that the man who allows himself to be conquered is by right the prisoner of war and the slave of his conqueror. The man might object to this law, saying that he had not been taken in the course of a real war but only captured by trickery and through betrayal. For having disobeyed the commandment of his Lord, however, he would deserve to be placed under the power of Satan, who even if he is not a legitimate conqueror, is at least to be considered as executing the justice of God to whom the man was indebted in love and obedience. This raging foe, who is the king of all the children of pride, in this way slowly gained power over man by exploiting his prisoners' weaknesses and cowardice. From being a simple gaoler who was himself shackled in irons, he became the Prince of this world[2]. He inflicted upon men the most ferocious tyranny imaginable, loading upon them continual afflictions. As the prophet David remarked[3], he will exact from them usury upon usury, and for each sin that a man commits, he will be made to pay a thousandfold over, and be made to pay for fifty others too, swelling in this way the capital owed with interest so as to keep him more and more enslaved.

Footnotes

[1] For by whom a man is overcome, of the same also he is the slave. II Pet. ii.19.

[2] John xiv. 30; see also: And he said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them. If thou therefore wilt adore before me, all shall be thine. Luke iv. 5-7.

[3] Ps. LXXI. 14.

The fifth misfortune: imprisonment and darkness

 6   The fifth of man’s misfortunes was imprisonment in the darkness at the bottom of a pit where this proud tyrant held him so as to prevent his escape. The darkness there was so total that the prophet Isaiah refers to this place as the region of the shadow of death[1]. The darkness is nothing less than the dense cloud of ignorance in which a man’s understanding is shrouded the first time he falls into sin. The darkness becomes even more opaque and suffocating after his frequent relapses, so that increasingly he plunges more deeply into the stinking quagmire of sin. This is the reason for the deep and terrible misery in which his heart and mind continually languish. Poor Tobias the elder[2] once said there was no more happiness left in the world for him once he had lost his sight and the ability to enjoy heaven’s gentle light; in the same way, the wretched sinner is cut off from the sun and condemned to live in a darkness worse than that endured by the Cimmerians[3], where he can receive neither joy nor consolation in the midst of his misery. What hope could he have had for these? On the one hand, he had deserved to lose God’s loving presence and on the other he found himself delivered into the hands of the most vicious and inhuman tyrant imaginable.

Footnotes

[1] The people that walked in darkness, have seen a great light: to them that dwelt in the region of the shadow of death, light is risen. Isai. ix. 2.See also Matt. iv. 16.

[2] Tobias (Tobit) ii.

[3] A people fabled by the ancients to live in perpetual darkness. 1871 There the people dwell, Of the Cimmerians, in eternal cloud and darkness. W. C. Bryant, translation of Homer, Odyssey vol. I. xi. 267.

The sixth misfortune: despair at being unable to escape

 7    Man’s last misfortune is one which puts the seal on all the rest: his despair at not being able to escape from the consequences of his sin. For even if he had shed tears continually, seeking a release from this dreadful condition, it was beyond his power to escape; and even if every creature had done this, they would not have achieved anything. To those who swallow sin like water and go along with hell’s temptations without any fear whatsoever, I say in all sincerity that they should  seriously reflect upon what we have been saying and realize how easy it is to go down the path leading to death, but how difficult it is to escape. The Sage had every good reason to say that he who reflects upon this thought several times each day would never ever want to hand himself over to such a cruel enemy. In the name of the Lord, if the infinite mercy of the Redeemer Had not melted before the sight of our miseries, we would have been obliged to endure them for all eternity. Is it necessary to state that whoever ends up in this misfortune after understanding this question more clearly,  must be someone who has no feeling of compassion for himself and no sense of humanity towards Him who was to redeem us at such a high price? What could be the end result of such disdain and of such a profound forgetfulness of one’s salvation, other than than to be abandoned by Him whose every grace was looked upon with scorn and whose blood of the New Testament was trampled under foot? Do not engage in this risky game if you are not willing to pay back the principal together with interest; and whoever is so rash as to go against God, let him remember that He did not spare the Angels of Heaven, any more than the head of our race, whom he had so generously enriched with every sort of natural gift and supernatural favour. Just as it would be a tremendous act of folly for such a person to imagine that he was dearer and more precious to God than those we just mentioned, it must follow that he has lost his wits if he thinks he could ever escape with a better reckoning than they were given. 

While thoughtful readers reflect upon this point which is so important, I am now returning to the glorious Virgin.

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The Virgin of Tenderness. >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 2025

Part II : The Crown of Power : Chapter 6 : § 6.1-4

Chapter 6 :  The Fifth Star or Splendour of the Crown of Power of the MOTHER OF GOD

She is the Mother of the world to come and Redeemer of our race

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)

§ 6. The extreme humility which may be seen in the way she helped to restore fallen men 

 1   Dear Lord, what a simple thing it is for man to lose everything, but how hard it is to repair this loss! The brief moment required for a man to be lost may be compared to how quickly water can be spilt on the ground, or a crystal glass broken into pieces; but it would be easier to gather up every last drop of this spilt water, or to repair the broken glass than it would be for man to restore himself to the state he was in before he fell. It took no more than a fleeting instant for the first man to bite into the apple, but was there ever any act that would endure longer in its consequences or which was punished more severely? 

It seems that we need to discuss this question in order to understand the Holy Virgin’s title of Reparatrix[1] and to appreciate the obligations we have to her who helped her Son in His work of repair and restoration. If we do not understand the depth of the misfortunes into which we fell, we shall fail to recognise how much we have benefited when the work of restoration drew us out of these depths. I shall, however, treat this question fairly briefly because I realise the importance of sticking with our theme.

Footnotes

[1] Reparatrix (Fr. Réparatrice) : she who restores to state of grace or innocence, restorer, redemptrix [DMLBS]. Cf. Pius XI, Encyclical Miserentissimus Redemptor (AAS 20 [1928] 178): "May the most gracious Virgin Mother of God look kindly, she who, because she gave us Jesus the Redeemer, nourished him, and at the Cross offered him as a victim, by reason of her mysterious union with him and utterly singular grace, became and is piously called the Reparatrix."

Six misfortunes consequent upon the sin of Adam. 

The first: God’s disgrace[1]

 2   To begin with, it is clear that the first misfortune Adam brought upon himself and his descendants, as soon as he had sinned, was to suffer the disgrace of God. I have always shared the opinion of Philo the Jew[2], of St Eucherius[3] and of St Gregory the Great[4] (along with several others) who taught that the death with which our first parents were threatened and which was to fall upon their heads as soon as they had sinned, consisted principally of God’s disgrace, even though this was not the only consequence. What sort of death could we possibly imagine more dreadful than this? Even if you portray the body’s death in the most frightening way possible, it is as nothing compared with that suffered by the soul since it is deprived of its life and its spirit, which is none other than God’s grace. This death produces a stench in the soul worse than all the charnel houses in the world, rendering the soul useless as far as meritorious actions are concerned. It leads to rotting and dissolution from the results of sin and vice; it makes the soul become the quarry[5] of demons and the food of worms frenetically gnawing away at the inside. Men must be sure to remember this bitter and dreadful sort of death above anything else whatsoever that could cause them bitterness and fear. For just as the man having God for his friend has no reason to fear anything whatsoever, in the same way there is nothing more alarming and terrifying than to have God as an enemy.

Footnotes

[1] God’s disgrace:  the disgrace God inflicts. See disgrace 1a in OED for this older usage.

[2] Lib. II Allegoriarum legis Mosaicæ.

[3] Lib. I Comment. in Genesim.

[4] Registri, lib. VI, c. 195.

[5] 1938 : a quarry is a reward of entrails, etc., which is given to the hounds on the hide of the dead beast.[OED]

The second misfortune : the curse

 3   The second misfortune followed closely after the first and it was the curse which struck him like a thunderbolt. This curse was not confined to the person of the criminal nor even to his descendants but  affected the whole earth which was to support and nourish him, and also all things in the universe which still suffers even till now, as Saint Paul says[1], and which will suffer always from pains comparable to the labour pains of childbirth, until the day comes when they are completely delivered of sinful man whom they bore as in their wombs. This is an unmistakable sign of the extreme wrath of God since, in order to avenge Himself on man, He went for everything having any connection with him, treating him like someone who is the head and source of a crime of lèse-majesté, whose race is to be exterminated and whose home is to be razed to the ground, without leaving anything that belongs to him, lest the very air be infected by his sin.

Footnotes

[1] For we know that every creature groaneth and travaileth in pain, even till now, Rom. viii. 22.

The third misfortune: loss of the inheritance prepared for him

 4    The third misfortune was the loss of the inheritance which God had prepared for him and which can be seen in the degrading banishment he suffered when ignominiously cast out of the earthly Paradise. It was in truth pitiful to see the Prince and head of our race departing in this way. What a spectacle it was to contemplate him who a short while previously had been 

    • lord of the most beautiful place in the world, 

    • able to command with unlimited power all the animals, 

    • vested royally in his beautiful robe of innocence, 

    • casually conversing with God and the Angels, 

    • dwelling in the midst of the delights provided by the earth, the heavens and the waters, without any effort or labour on his part, 

    • destined to people the earth with a holy posterity who, without knowing either suffering or death, would have passed from this sweet life to a better and eternal one, 

now suddenly fallen away from his noble state, degraded and declared unworthy, disavowed by all his subjects, forced along with his wife to take leave of this garden of pleasure, taking nothing with them except the poor lambskin which God in his pity had given them to wear! 

Poor Adam, what is to become of thee, disgraced in this way and banished from the presence of God, having drawn down upon thyself His hatred and indignation? Thou knowest not yet the full consequences of His just anger, but thou wilt have time enough to experience the full weight of His arm as all creatures revolt by way of vengeance against thy disobedience, seeing in thee only a rebel against the commandments of the Creator who is theirs as well as thine. The Angels who once protected and respected thee will withdraw and become the ministers who execute the decrees pronounced against thee. Thou needest only to turn around to see behind thee the avenging Cherub, whose zeal is a thousand times more fearful than the flaming sword he wields to keep thee out of paradise. It is now time for thee to bid an eternal farewell to this blessed place, for now thou art condemned with pickaxe and spade to work the earth which would otherwise have supplied thee effortlessly with all that thou couldst desire. 

Farewell to this beautiful Paradise, farewell to this blessed plot, farewell to the tree of life, farewell to peace and rest, farewell to pleasure, farewell to the Blessed Spirits, farewell to the gentle colloquy with thy Father, farewell to His friendship and farewell to His protection – for Adam may now expect only hardship, tribulation, labour, drought, famine, war, plague and other similar consequences of the wrath of Him who was so unworthily sinned against by man.

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The Virgin of Tenderness. >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 2025

Part II : The Crown of Power : Chapter 6 : § 5.9-10

Chapter 6 :  The Fifth Star or Splendour of the Crown of Power of the MOTHER OF GOD

She is the Mother of the world to come and Redeemer of our race

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)

§ 5. The third reason that the Holy Virgin has the right to be considered as the Co-Redemptrix of men and the Mother of the world to come

The third reason: She suffered along with her Son

 9   From everything that we have considered up until now, my first conclusion is one shared by several learned doctors, taking due note of:

    • the excellent qualities of the most sacred Virgin, who offered her Son for our redemption;

    • the love, affection and the greatness of the courage with which she offered Him as a sacrifice;

    • the quality of her gift-offering;

    • the extremity of her suffering;

    • how these were united with those of the Saviour, who offered them personally on the Cross, along with His own, for our salvation; and 

    • the pleasure that the Eternal Father took from this. 

We are taking nothing whatsoever away from the Saviour, nor from the sublime nature of the salvific undertaking, when we say that with her Son (although to a much lower degree), the redemption of men was something that she herself merited, along with the whole panoply of graces included in the economy of our salvation. To this end, she received a prevenient gift of great blessings and graces, enriched with so many favours and ennobled with so many prerogatives, as we saw earlier. The blessed St Anselm[1] made this very clear when he said:

By the holiness most pure and the purity most holy of her most generous heart, she was raised in an incomparable manner over all holiness and purity, and for this reason merited the title of the fallen world’s most worthy Redemptrix.

Later he adds[2]: 

She alone amongst all other women merited being the Mediatrix of so many blessings.

St Bernardine of Siena[3], applied to her the words from Ecclesiastes : All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea doth not overflow[4]. He words this felicitously as follows:

This immense sea of graces does not overflow except so as to pour its favours on all the children of grace and salvation.

Her title of Redemptrix leads to this necessary conclusion, as will be shown more fully later on when I explain how there is no grace coming from God to men that does not pass through the hands of Mary.

Footnotes

[1] De Excellentia Virg., c. 9.

[2] Quæ tantorum beneficiorum sola præ cunctis effici meruit mediatrix.

[3] T. III, Serm. VI, art. 3, c. 4.

[4] Eccles. i. 7.

 10   My second conclusion is that God alone understands perfectly the greatness of this favour she has received and to what height of glory He has raised the Holy Virgin. The Blessed St Anselm[1] tried to understand why God did not make use of a Seraph for the redemption of man, and he made the following pertinent observation:

Apart from the fact that a Seraph did not have the qualities necessary for such an undertaking (which would require almost infinite strength), there was another consideration – namely, that if He had given this honour to a created spirit, He would have been obliged to share His glory with the Seraph; and although He was the Creator of man, He would be allowing the glorious title of Redeemer to be borne by another, and in consequence man’s affection would be divided, giving a certain part to the One who had created him, whilst reserving the better part for him who had recreated and redeemed him. Sharing in this manner would be far removed from the greatness of God and His desire that the heart and love of His creature should be His and His alone. 

This conclusion not only finds much support in Sacred Scripture and in the experience we ourselves have of the way God rules, but it also shows us in a wonderful manner just how highly He esteemed the Holy Virgin. That which He had never wanted to share with any other creature whatsoever, He was pleased to grant to the Mother and Spouse of His dear Son, placing on her head the Redemptive Crown, which is the greatest glory which can be given to a creature. This is always to be understood as greatest after that of MOTHER OF GOD,  her unique title which prevents me from being surprised at all her others, inasmuch as we cannot wonder at any favour He might grant to her, for it was to her that He subjected His own Son, who is equal in all things and consubstantial with Him. Having received such a superabundance of divine charity, the Holy Virgin became accepted into the family of the most Holy Trinity. In consequence, the Father accepted that what He had granted to this Daughter of His could be effective by going ,as it were, outside the household; in a similar way, the Son wants her to receive all possible honour and blessings; and the Holy Spirit seeks out every conceivable way to elevate her in dignity. 

Thus will she be honoured whom it pleased God to raise up.

Footnotes

[1] Lib. IV de Fide, c. 15.

[2] In Lament. B. Virg.

[3] T. I, Serm. 61, art. 3, c. 2.

[4] Orat. de Deipara.

[5] Serm. 2 de Assumpt.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Serm. in Signum magnum.

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The Virgin of Tenderness. >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 2025

Part II : The Crown of Power : Chapter 6 : § 5.7-8

Chapter 6 :  The Fifth Star or Splendour of the Crown of Power of the MOTHER OF GOD

She is the Mother of the world to come and Redeemer of our race

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)

§ 5. The third reason that the Holy Virgin has the right to be considered as the Co-Redemptrix of men and the Mother of the world to come

The third reason: She suffered along with her Son

 7   The sixth and final way we have of measuring the extent of her grief takes into account the duration of her spiritual martyrdom. According to the pious Abbot Rupert, the most sacred virgin spoke in the following words:

Do not imagine that my martyrdom was confined to the short time during which I saw my Son ill-treated, mocked, crowned with thorns, scourged, crucified, given wine to drink mingled with gall and, after his death, laid in the sepulchre. This was indeed the time when the sword of sorrow pierced my soul, but it had been planted there long before, because having received the gift of prophecy at the moment I became His Mother, I knew what He would have to endure. This meant that whilst bearing Him in my womb, cradling Him in my arms, breastfeeding him and nursing Him whilst He was a baby, I could always see His suffering and His death that were to come. From this, it is easy to understand how long I was the Mother of sorrow.

She revealed more about this one day to St Bridget[1] when she said that:

her sorrowful pains did not come to an end with the death of her Son, because during all the time she lived after His death she made frequent visits to the holy places around Jerusalem and in this way she continually kept alive the memory of that sad day, reopening the wounds she received.

On another occasion[2], the Holy Angel who was instructing her said: 

It was not without good reason that the MOTHER OF GOD was compared to a rose; for by this symbol was signified that, growing among thorns, as she advanced in years the thorns which surrounded her grew stronger and pricked her more roughly. 

This agrees with what the same MOTHER OF GOD revealed one day to St Elizabeth, daughter of Andrew King of Hungary. Here are the words of St Bonaventure[3]: 

Our Lady was having a conversation with the holy widow and spoke as follows : My dear daughter, thou dost perchance imagine that it was without pain or labour that I received all those graces that God granted me; thou wouldst be mistaken for, with the exception of the grace of my first sanctification, I never received any favour from God except through the effort of great labour, with continual praying, most ardent longings, with profound devotion with much weeping and with a great spiritual affliction. I needed these continually as I tried to please Him in every way I could.

She went on to say:

Thou canst take rest assured, my dear daughter, that no grace comes down into the soul except through the channel of prayer and with mortification of the body. 

This agrees, moreover, with what the same MOTHER OF GOD said to St Mechtilde, when she told her that:

God had sent her many tribulations but she had supported them with great humility and without showing her feelings to the outside world.

Footnotes

[1] In Lament. : Vulnera Christi morientis erant vulnera Matris dolentis.

[2] Serm. in Signum magnum.

[3] Lib. I Moral., c. 5.

 8   Several doctors, considering this question from the perspective of the sanctuary, say that the pains of the most holy Virgin exceeded by far those experienced by women in childbirth. St John Damascene[1] and St Bernard[2] state that:

God, who had preserved her from the pains of labour when she was giving birth to the Saviour, gave them back to her with interest at the foot of the Cross, where He made her experience far worse travails. She felt torn apart inside, her heart being pierced and cut into pieces by the sword of sorrow.

St Bernard adds:

There is nothing that can be compared to the suffering she experienced, and all that can be said is that the affliction she endured was just what anyone might expect such a Mother would suffer for the loss of such a Son. 

The devoted servant of the Virgin, St Bernardine[3], made an excellent point with regard to this:

Her pain was so extreme and exceeded so many bounds that, were it to be divided up amongst all creatures capable of receiving it, there would be enough to make them all die.

From this it becomes clear that it was only through a miracle that she was kept alive when assailed by the power of so many different types of pain and torment. For this reason, the Holy Fathers have no difficulty in calling her a martyr; but what am I saying, a martyr? The Blessed Deacon St Ephrem[4] calls her the honour of Martyrs; Sophronius[5], Saint Ildephonsus[6] and St Bernard[7] call her more than a martyr, and the Universal Church gives her the title: Queen of Martyrs.

Footnotes

[1] Lib. IV de Fide, c. 15.

[2] In Lament. B. Virg.

[3] T. I, Serm. 61, art. 3, c. 2.

[4] Orat. de Deipara.

[5] Serm. 2 de Assumpt.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Serm. in Signum magnum.

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The Virgin of Tenderness. >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 2025

Part II : The Crown of Power : Chapter 6 : § 5.5-6

Chapter 6 :  The Fifth Star or Splendour of the Crown of Power of the MOTHER OF GOD

She is the Mother of the world to come and Redeemer of our race

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)

§ 5. The third reason that the Holy Virgin has the right to be considered as the Co-Redemptrix of men and the Mother of the world to come

The third reason: She suffered along with her Son

 5   We have been considering ways to measure the immensity of the Holy Virgin’s grief and we now come to the fourth and main way, which relates to the pains and the bitterness of the Saviour’s passion. St Bernard[1] summarizes this well when he says:

The wounds of the dying Son were the wounds of the suffering Mother.

Elsewhere, he says[2]:

Could we really bring ourselves to believe that the Son could suffer a bodily death without His Mother undergoing death in her soul; or that the love which had no equal would allow the Son to suffer so much without the Mother’s love, which came closest to it, being given a share in the greater part of the pains He was enduring?

This has always been my belief thanks in part to the painters and sculptors who, in seeking to represent what I have just mentioned, sometimes portray the Mother with the Son on the one Cross. They aimed  to show in this way what their paintbrush or chisel could not express concerning the spiritual martyrdom of the Mother. For those who understood the image correctly, it represented the way in which these two suffered on one Cross and with one and the same pain.

Just as we see, says the pious pope St Gregory[3], that in some musical instruments certain strings are adjusted in such a way that when one is plucked another may be heard without being touched;  in the same way, the Holy Virgin’s soul was in such harmony with that of her Son that she experienced everything that He was forced to suffer. The thorns which pierced the adorable Saviour's head penetrated deep into the Virgin’s heart; when the Son was whipped on His back, the Mother felt her heart being scourged; the nails in His hands and feet caused wounds in her spirit; the lance which opened up in a painless way the side of the Redeemer who was now dead tore open the anguished Mother’s breast; and the Cross to which the Son’s body was nailed also bore the Mother’s soul. To sum up: the Son’s body felt no blow or injury, however slight, that did not touch the Mother’s soul.

This idea is found reflected in what the holy Virgin once revealed to the blessed widow St Bridget[4], making use of a vivid image:

It was just as if someone had one half of her heart outside the body, and the other inside; Whenever the part on the outside was wounded, this would cause pain to be felt by the part inside – we could in fact say that this was the same pain. Similarly, when my only Son (who was like my hear) suffered on the outside it was impossible for me not to feel deeply the pain on the inside.

She also added that:

Just as feelings and impressions are exchanged more readily between the heart and the parts closest to it, in the same way, because her Son was so close to her, the pains He suffered were imprinted in the depth of her soul; and just as blood poured from all the veins of her Son, so streams of grief and sorrow poured forth unceasingly from her heart. Further to this, just as when the Son, on seeing His Mother afflicted in this way, suffered much more from the pain and suffering He could see she was enduring than from his own torments; in the same way, the martyrdom she was enduring was as nothing compared to what the sufferings of her beloved Son caused within her.

Does this not remind you of a furnace to which lots of wood has been added and, as the wood catches fire in the furnace, it causes the furnace to grow hotter and hotter? This was exactly the same in the case of the Blessed Virgin, for when her sufferings were added into the furnace of the Saviour’s pains they caught fire and increased the suffering He felt from His wounds. The Holy Virgin herself was consumed in that furnace, being set on fire and consumed in the flames of grief and pain.

O ye Angels of peace : what torrents of tears did ye not shed when seeing the fires which from instant to instant blazed within these two breasts, and yet the floods of your tears were unable to bring any remedy! What must your feelings have been when you noticed that it was as though they were vying with one another, abandoning themselves to their suffering, and finding through the distress each of them suffered a way of helping each other in their suffering, thanks to the Saviour’s infinite actions! 

Footnotes

[1] In Lament. : Vulnera Christi morientis erant vulnera Matris dolentis.

[2] Serm. in Signum magnum.

[3] Lib. I Moral., c. 5.

[4] Lib. I Revelat., c. 35.

 6   The fifth way we might measure the immensity of her suffering relates to how great her desire was. St Ambrose[1], St Augustine[2] and St Ildephonsus[3] agree that:

Not only did she fear neither torments or death, but in fact she regarded such as a sign of singular favour; it is impossible to say what she would be prepared to suffer for the sake of this hopeful stop

The pious Arnold of Chartres expresses this so magnificently it seems impossible to improve upon his words[4]. 

She was dying, he says, without being able to die and, what is still more, she maintained her composure so well that the pain in her heart did not show upon her countenance. The cross of her soul and the gibbet of her spirit which was the altar whereon she offered up a living victim and a pleasing sacrifice, was known to God alone and to her conscience. There, she herself was a victim and she it was who prepared the pyre and lit the fire, so that you would have seen two altars raised up, one in the heart of Mary and the other in the body of Jesus; the latter immolating His body and the former sacrificing her soul. God knows if she would have wished to shed the blood of her veins as well as the blood in her heart along with her Son, and offer with Him the sacrifice of the evening[5], stretched out on the same cross and hands pierced with the same nails, fulfilling with Him in this manner the mystery of our Salvation. It was the privilege of the high priest alone to enter the sanctuary with the blood offering, and no one else could claim this prerogative, whether an angel or a man, or any other creature whatsoever. She did not, however, hold back from cooperating with Him in her own way, and the Saviour presented to the Eternal Father His own merits and desires conjointly with those of His most dear Mother. All that she requested was approved by the Son and granted by the Father; the Father loved the Son, and the Son loved His Father reciprocally. After these two loves followed immediately the love of the Mother towards both of them, in such a way that one wish alone was born from two different wills. The generous-hearted Father, the Son full of mercy, and the Holy Mother having only one intent meant that goodness, compassion and charity came together in a single embrace, with the Mother requesting, the Son offering and the Father granting; with the Son gazing upon His gentle Mother, and the Father gazing upon the Cross and the wounds of His Son. What in the whole world could there be, however great, that could be refused to such dear and precious pledges of love?

Nothing can be added to these words without the risk  of diminishing their impact in some way.

Footnotes

[1] Lib. de Institut. Virg., c. 7.

[2] Confess., c. 6.

[3] Serm. 2 de Assumpt.

[4] Tract. de illis verbis Christi in cruce : Mulier, ecce filius tuus.

[5] See, e.g., Exod. xxix. 

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The Virgin of Tenderness. >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 2025

Part II : The Crown of Power : Chapter 6 : § 5.2-4

Chapter 6 :  The Fifth Star or Splendour of the Crown of Power of the MOTHER OF GOD

She is the Mother of the world to come and Redeemer of our race

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)

§ 5. The third reason that the Holy Virgin has the right to be considered as the Co-Redemptrix of men and the Mother of the world to come

The third reason: She suffered along with her Son

 2   I will start by considering the soul of the Blessed Virgin, which served as the setting for the spiritual martyrdom that she endured. Just as wounds which affect the soul are much more dangerous than those affecting the body, so too the pains of the spirit are incomparably more severe than all the pains of the body. Those who have experienced them will confirm this and those who have not will never be able to imagine what it is like. The Blessed Bishop of Nole, Saint Paulinus[1], once wrote to St Augustine and asked him if the sword of sorrow which pierced the soul of the Virgin Mary, following the prophecy of the venerable Simeon, was in fact this interior pain of which we are speaking, and was also the iron which David[2] said had brought pain to the chaste Joseph. St Augustine replied immediately that it was[3] and that he himself recognised this as being none other than the one which, in the words of St Paul[4], divides the soul from the spirit and penetrates the most sensitive souls to their very core. 

St Anselm was one day absorbed in contemplation of this question and he spoke in the following way[5] to the Blessed Virgin, the very image of affliction:

Most holy Lady, in truth the sword of sorrow pierced thy soul and thou didst experience a grief more bitter than all the pains that thy body could have felt; for I firmly believe that the torments of the holy martyrs were light in comparison with thy sufferings which penetrated into the very depths of thy soul and filled thy whole heart. These were such that never couldst thou have borne the weight of this cross without dying unless the spirit of life and consolation – that is to say, the spirit of thy dear Son for whom thou didst endure all this – had not fortified thee, making thee understand that this storm of death would soon pass and this cruel suffering would be transformed into a triumph of glory.

The Angel who taught the Blessed St Bridget said as much[6] to her one day, revealing that:

It was by no means the least of the miracles of the Saviour’s omnipotence to have kept His Holy Mother alive amidst the terrible torments that she had endured. Under the old law’s rite[7] for the cleansing of a leper, the Priest was ordered to take two doves (as they are called by St Macarios, where we read two living sparrows), and to offer them to God in sacrifice for the leper in such a way that one was immolated and the other was then sprinkled with its blood and kept alive. In the same way, out of these two chaste doves which were offered in sacrifice on Calvary to heal the sinner’s leprosy, God was satisfied that one should die whilst the other, at the foot of the altar and bathed in the blood of the one who died, felt her heart being riven with grief and made herself ready to spend the rest of her days in weeping and groaning.

Footnotes

[1] Epist. 58 inter epistolas S. Augustini.

[2] the iron pierced his soul: Psal. CIV. 18. 

[3] Epist. 59.

[4] more piercing than any two edged sword; and reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also and the marrow : Hebr. iv. 12.

[5] De Excellentia Virg., c. 5.

[6] Serm. Angelico, c. 18.

[7] Levit. Chap. xiv.

 3   I would now like to consider the knowledge she had of her Son. It is generally agreed that the more lively a person’s spiritual faculties are, the more pain such a person will be capable of feeling. On the other hand, a dull understanding will go a long way to dull the extent of pain that is felt, especially on the spiritual level. Now, the Holy Virgin had faculties which were more lively and penetrating than any other person, with the exception only of her Son; she had more knowledge of the dignity of His person, of the indignity of the assault being made upon the Prince of Heaven and of the extreme ingratitude of men. This being so, it is impossible to conceive the impact upon her of the extreme pain resulting from these considerations.

 4   Let us move on thirdly to the love she had for her dear Son, since one of the principal rules about pain relates to the love which accompanies it : anyone who loves something ardently cannot fail to be greatly affected by its loss and it is almost impossible, without a feeling of heartbreak, to look upon a person one loves who is suffering. The greater the love is, then the greater the pain that will be felt. If I had not already discussed earlier in this work the love that the Holy Virgin had for her Son, perhaps I would have felt obliged to speak of this now but I will here only quote the words of Sophronius[1] who says:

As there never was a love like unto hers, in the same way there will never be found suffering to compare with hers; for it so overwhelmed this holy Lady’s heart that we can say with the Prophet Jeremiah[2] that she made mourning as for an only son and that she felt the loss and the pain of her soul’s beloved more than all the mothers in the world, for she loved her Son more than all the others combined.

Footnotes

[1] Epist. de Assumpt.

[2] make thee mourning as for an only son, a bitter lamentation: Jer. vi. 26. 

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The Virgin of Tenderness. >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 2025

Part II : The Crown of Power : Chapter 6 : § 4.10-11 > § 5.1

Chapter 6 :  The Fifth Star or Splendour of the Crown of Power of the MOTHER OF GOD

She is the Mother of the world to come and Redeemer of our race

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)

§ 4. The second reason that the Holy Virgin has the right to be considered as the Co-Redemptrix of men and the Mother of the world to come

 10    In the second place, some may ask why God stayed the hand of Abraham, not allowing him to complete the sacrifice that He had requested from him. Amongst the various reasons which several learned minds have put forward, St Ambrose mentions[1] (if only in passing) one which is worthy of consideration, namely:

The desire to sacrifice a son for a reason intimately connected to piety and religion is so far above the ordinary capacity of any creature that He wanted to reserve the glory thereof exclusively to Himself.

But here as elsewhere an exception must always be made for the most Holy Virgin, for she is quite exceptional in all her privileges. If God had so favoured her as to have one and the same Son with her, why would He find it difficult to join the consent of His Mother with His own, so that the gift He was making to the world might be fulfilled in the agreement of the two wills upon whom this unique gift depended? Far be it from me to have any doubts about this for, on the contrary, I am convinced along with several learned writers that it would have needed only one sign of God’s will and she would have gone further than than Abraham. She would have been ready to obey the commandment of God concerning her Son, notwithstanding that this would fill her with dread and cause a sword to pierce her heart. She would have persisted until the dying breath in all the duties and all the services that God might have asked of her, so dearly did she value our salvation and the accomplishment of the divine will. I will leave others to try and imagine anything greater and more noble than that; I am personally quite overwhelmed when I consider the capacity of her heart for love and sacrifice and it seems to me that no other mere creature could go further than this. I am aware that St Ambrose[2] raises elsewhere the question as to why God stayed the arm of his servant Abraham but did not do so in the case of Jephthe[3], but I shall pass over this in silence for now since it is not relevant to our discussion.

Footnotes

[1] Lib. de Abraham, c. 8.

[2] Lib. III de Virginibus.

[3] Judges xi. 30-40.

 11   In the third place, people may ask why Abraham’s mere willingness to offer his son so impressed God that, to hear Him speak, you would think that He was unable to find an adequate way of rewarding him which would show how much He valued the sincerity and the power of his love. He promised him victory over his enemies, that his seed would be multiplied as the stars of heaven, and as the sand that is by the sea shore, and that in his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed[1], by Him who was to raise it up in in an infinite way – the longed for Messiah. He conferred a blessing accompanied by every imaginable happiness, not only for himself but for his descendants and it seems He was still not satisfied, so greatly was He pleased by Abraham’s faith, his obedience and his love. 

Now if that is the case with Abraham, who will be able to tell us what the Virgin Mary’s sacrifice merited in God’s eyes, taking into account how it was ennobled in all the ways we have been considering? God never would allow himself to be surpassed in generosity and faithfulness, so what could He do to show His gratitude? Would you say that they perchance go too far who say that she rendered herself so pleasing to God that, not counting what what was granted to her, she merited for us through congruity[2] what the Saviour won through justice and through condignity[3]? This question will be addressed in the pages that follow.

Footnotes

[1] Gen. xxii. 16-18.

[2] congruity: congruous merit (meritum de congruo) which claims a reward only on the ground of equity. For more on condign and congruous merit, see: See The Nature of Merit (Catholic Encyclopedia).

[3] condignity: condign merit (meritum de condigno) which supposes an equality between service and return; it is measured by commutative justice (justitia commutativa), and thus gives a real claim to a reward.

§ 5. The third reason that the Holy Virgin has the right to be considered as the Co-Redemptrix of men and the Mother of the world to come

The third reason: She suffered along with her Son

 1   Several writers[1] have noted that King Solomon of old once commissioned a golden crown adorned with lilies, interlaced with a circlet of thorns coming from India which bore this motto : The Victory of Love. Makeda, the Queen of Saba (for thus was she called by the Rabbis[2]), had a long list of questions which she presented to Solomon and she asked for his interpretation of this crown and its motto. The wise Prince replied by explaining that the lily symbolised a heavenly Virgin who was to emerge from his progeny, that she would conceive and bring forth the King of Kings, who would so love his people that he would risk his life for them. Instead of a golden crown, he would be crowned with thorns but he would reign triumphant over death. As for himself, Solomon said that thenceforth he would with this crown honour the victory of the Messiah, which would be a victory of love, since it was through love that He was to offer Himself unto death for His own. 

It is true that no one ever deserved more than He did to wear the crown of love, being the Prince and the God of love, but since His holy Mother and His most chaste spouse is so like unto Him in the way that she is the Princess of love and of suffering, playing such a full part in the victorious conquests of her Son and her Spouse, I hope no one will take it amiss when I make her a crown out of her extreme sorrows and her incomparable merit. The sacrifice that the King and High Priest Jesus offered on the altar of the cross was a sacrifice that He willed and which involved in its outcome His soul, body, spirit and blood all together. This was also true of the Holy Virgin, for she did not stop at offering her dear Isaac unto death (as we have seen above), but she wished to suffer with Him for our salvation, uniting not only her will to that of her Son and her Spouse, but also her own sufferings and her cross to the cross and sufferings of her Son. It is for this third reason that she acquired for herself the glorious name of Redemptrix. This is a title that I shall try to explain by imitating the mathematicians who, being unable to give people an immediate conception of the heavenly empyrean’s immensity, use various methods to convey an idea of its greatness. Similarly, having no quick and easy way of explaining in a few words what the Holy Virgin endured, I will make use of various methods to help me convey the measure of her grief.

Footnotes

[1] Andreas Faventinus, lib. XVI Hist. Navarræ ex Cedreno.

[2] Josephus, lib. VIII Antiq., c. 8.

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The Virgin of Tenderness. >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 2025