Part II : The Crown of Power : Chapter 2 : § 2.4 & § 3.1-3

Chapter 2 : The First Star or Splendour of the Crown of Power 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).

She alone had the power of drawing down to earth the divine Word

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

§ 2. The first quality of the Holy Virgin which drew down the divine Word : an ardent desire for the Incarnation.

 4   For my part, I can find nothing to compare with the Holy Lover and her insatiable desire as set out in the Canticle of Canticles. We need to remember that it is the Holy Spirit who is speaking here, and who is using human words to describe the divine motions of the most sacred Virgin who, with the tenderest feelings in her heart, is calling to her heavenly Spouse and the Spouse of all beautiful souls. Who would not be moved to hear her speak of her Beloved, and to consider the praises that she lavishes on Him? Sometimes she describes Him from head to foot, at other times she tells Him how all the righteous love Him[1], but she more than all the rest; here, she insists that He draw her after Him, and she assures Him that she will immediately be followed by a host of holy souls who will make themselves available to serve Him; there, she asks him to tell her where He takes his repose at noon[2], so that she may find Him at whatever cost. After a certain time, you will see that she recollects herself and accuses herself of showing insufficient respect; but in the end, love wins the day. She says that she does not know what to do and that she can no longer consider her heart to be her own since He has stolen it and brought her into to the cellar of wine[3]. She calls upon all the blessed spirits to be so good as to teach her about her Beloved, without whom she can no longer live; and with that, she utters a thousand protestations that once she holds Him she will never let Him go[4], but He will be like a bundle of myrrh[5] and she will always have Him before her eyes. Sometimes her longings reduce her to a state of such great languor that if there were not immediate recourse to remedies, she would swoon and collapse into the arms of her attendants. In short, there is no type of vow that she does not make, nothing that she does not consider doing to find Him for whom she sighs, and to receive from His sacred mouth the divine kiss[6] of the Incarnation and the sure guarantee of their future marriage.

Oh love most wonderful, cries Saint Bernard[7], Oh love altogether on fire! How mysterious are thy ways! Oh love that so filleth her soul that she hath no thoughts other than thee! Oh love which hath no interest for anything other than thee, which is satisfied with thee alone, which throweth off the traces, which cannot live without thee, which wanteth nothing to do with moderation, discretion, restraint, or what is proper. Thou dost triumph in thyself and thou dost rejoice in thy servitude. Just take a moment to think upon this lover and see she how she hath thoughts only for her love; how her tongue, her heart and her mind have been given over completely to Him, as though she liveth and breatheth only for Him.

These are the words of the holy Doctor, but they represent the ardent feelings of the peerless Virgin who is swooning or even dying, as it were, from the desire she has in her heart: for she cannot wait to see the hour when Heaven’s promises are fulfilled and that we have a God among us; for she alone is to contribute more to this realisation than all created spirits taken together.

Footnotes

[1] Cant. i. 3.

[2] Cant. i. 6.

[3] Cant. ii. 4.

[4] Cant. iii. 4.

[5] Cant. i. 12.

[6] Cant. i. 1.

[7] Serm. 79 in Cant.

§ 3. The second quality of the Holy Virgin which drew down the divine word: Virginity 

 1   I have already shown in Part One[1] what power the virginity of the most sacred Virgin exerted, enabling her to win the grace of the Holy Spirit. Now, the chaste Spouse addresses her words to the Spouse of the lilies, as appears in the Canticle: My beloved to me, and I to him[2]; to which I will add the following words: My Beloved, who feedeth among the lilies, waiting till the daybreak, and the shadows retire[3]. According to the interpretation of the pious Emperor Matthew Kantakouzenos, this means:

waiting for Him to show Himself unto men, by clothing Himself with their flesh: this, properly speaking, is the day that is desired.

Whilst the world was awaiting this blessed day, the Heavenly Spouse searched the countryside for lilies with which to bedeck Himself: but in vain, for this ancient land had scarcely any. Only on Mount Zion, in the holiest place in the world (which was called for this reason the Holy of Holies), could be found a lily of unparalleled beauty, capable of being multiplied in the thousands and of filling a whole garden, which is in fact what came to pass. For the King of Heaven, having noticed this Lily, could not hold back from going for a closer look, to contemplate it and to savour its fragrance. As soon as He saw it, He picked it and transplanted it in a better location, with such a happy outcome that it immediately began to multiply so abundantly that there were enough to fill the Church. Thenceforth, they could be seen all over the hills and valleys; thenceforth, the Blessed Spirits experienced feelings of happiness towards men; thenceforth, they dealt with them as with their companions and their brothers; thenceforth, they fell in love with holy virginity, after they had seen it consecrated in the person of the Word incarnate and His most venerable Mother.

Footnotes

[1] Chap. 5.

[2] Cant. ii. 16.

[3] Cant. ii. 16-17.

 2   I would not go so far as to number virginity among the most excellent virtues of the Virgin which caused the son of God to come down on earth unless on the one hand, this wondrous quality did not deserve this and on the other, I did not feel I had the support of the Holy Fathers who honour her virginity so highly as to place it among the foremost of her qualities. Saint Andrew of Jerusalem, following the idea that we were considering a little earlier, says that[1]: 

this altogether celestial flower gave off a fragrance so pleasing that the divine Word instantly dispatched the Angel Gabriel to preserve it for him.

In your judgement, would it not have been more striking if he had said what we were saying, that God descended in person to pick this flower? Saint Gregory of Nyssa approaches the question from another angle, saying that:

the Eternal Word came down not in a chariot of fire like Elias, nor on a flying ship, but borne on the wings of virginal purity and integrity.

But why am I praying in aid these external authorities, since this truth is made known to us by the irreproachable testimony of the divine Spouse Himself, who is able to answer for Himself better than any other? The blessed Saint Bridget, calling God as witness to her fidelity, claims to have heard one day the Saviour  speaking to His glorious Mother as follows[2]: 

My most beloved Mother, thou art the beautiful Dawn who with thy pleasing light hast brought forward and drawn the true Sun of the world, none other than my divinity; a Sun who found nothing comparable to thee on earth, causing him to desire thee, to set thee on fire with His love, and to illuminate thee with His light above all creatures. Thus through thee, all the darkness of the world was dissipated, and the heavens received a new brightness. I am telling thee in unambiguous terms that thy purity pleased me incomparably more than that of the purest spirits, and that it was like a magnet attracting my divinity, so as to set thy heart on fire with divine love, and so that God might be conceived in thy womb, that men might be drawn out of the darkness which enveloped them, and that the Angels might receive the joy that they had been awaiting. As a consequence of this, I tell thee and promise thee that none of thy requests will ever be ignored, and that whoever makes use of thy name and thy credit in order to obtain pardon from me, will be successful provided only that he repent sincerely of his sin.

Footnotes

[1] Serm. de Annuntiat.

[2] Lib. I Revelat., c. 50.

 3   I understand well enough that the word of the King of Heaven is worth on its own more than any other testimony I might propose; nevertheless, the pious Abbot Guerric[1] has written such a beautiful meditation on the mystical throne of Solomon that I cannot pass over it in silence. I have already shown elsewhere[2] that this throne was one of the most remarkable prefigurements of the holy Virgin, and I have nothing further to add about this except what pertains to the question of her virginity, which the Doctor maintains is symbolised by the ivory of which this throne was constructed.

If you give serious thought to the way this Royal throne was planned and constructed, he says, you will find that everything about it is most wonderful and supports the opinion you will have already conceived of the wisdom of this great Monarch, who was himself responsible for the design. For my part, however, what I admire more than anything else is the precious ivory, or better perhaps to say the ivory beyond price of the virginal chastity which was so pleasing to the King of Heaven, seated on the Cherubim, that He chose it for His throne and the place of His repose. How this ivory must be truly beautiful and dazzling, since this great Prince, for whom it is just as easy to find solid gold and precious stones, preferred this to the most sought-after metals. How it must remain cool, never giving way to any disordered emotion! How solid it must have been, since it was not in anyway damaged or affected by childbirth! How white it is must be, since it received the whiteness of the eternal light! In short, just as Solomon out of all his treasures and amongst the rarest materials that he had collected from all corners of the world, did not find anything which seemed to him preferable to ivory; in the same way God, amongst all His rational creatures found none more pleasing to serve for Him as a throne than the Virgin, a throne altogether wondrous, since according to the testimony of Scripture itself, there was no such work made in any kingdom[3]. It is a throne beyond compare since the Angels cannot cease contemplating the holy humanity of the Saviour formed and fashioned from a piece of this divine ivory. Consequently, blessed is the womb of ivory, from which this humanity most pure was created, a humanity which will be for the redemption of souls, the astonishment of Angels, the seat of sovereign Majesty, the throne of power, the bread of immortality, the medicine to heal sin, the restoration of health, which all those who draw near received immediately because of the power which goes out of it[4]. Once again, blessed is the womb which bore thee, O sweet Jesus; and blessed is the chastity of the virginal breast which provided nourishment for such a remarkable work; blessed is the ivory which pleased the King of all purity in such a powerful way that thenceforth He always wanted to keep His most precious oils in vessels of ivory – meaning that He wanted to place His most exquisite favours in those souls whose lives recommended themselves to Him through their love of chastity.

Those are words taken from the meditation of the pious and eloquent Abbot.

Footnotes

[1] Serm. de Annuntiat.

[2] Part I, ch. 5.

[3] 3 Kings (1 Kings). x. 20.

[4] And all the multitude sought to touch him, for virtue went out from him, and healed all.  Luke vi. 19.

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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 2025