Part II : The Crown of Power : Chapter 7 : § 3.8-10

Chapter 7 : The Sixth Star or Splendour of the Crown of Power of the MOTHER OF GOD

She rules and guides the Church

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)

§ 3. The care taken by the MOTHER OF GOD in conserving and propagating the faith

Her opposition to the Mahommedans

 8   We now turn our attention to the Mohammedans, one of the most terrible scourges ever to have afflicted the kingdom of the Saviour. The Church will be forever indebted to the Blessed Virgin for the help and assistance she has offered in thousands of encounters with them. I will demonstrate later[1] how the whole of Spain would be come to be indebted to her for the freedom which she now enjoys, since it was through her mediation they were delivered from the betrayals, the wickedness and the continual rebellions of the Saracens. For now, however, I would like to share with you something we might do well to remember that happened around sixty or more years ago. 

Father Gaspar Berze, who was once the right-hand man of Saint Francis Xavier, was based for a time in Hormuz. One day he was inspired by Heaven, as events will show, to carry out an extremely daring action. He assembled a group of small children who were learning the catechism and formed them up into a procession. With a cross at the head of the procession,  he led this band of holy innocents straight to the Saracens’ mosque. Once he had arrived there, he hoisted the standard of salvation on the highest point of the building. This so astonished the infidels that they immediately left the building and fled on foot. In order to ensure that posterity would realise this had been achieved through the intervention of the Queen of Heaven, Father Berze converted the mosque into a church which he named Our Lady of Victory, showing that, after God, it was to her alone that this great victory belonged.

We shall discuss elsewhere[2] the Battle of Lepanto, a victory bringing more benefits to Christendom than had been seen for a thousand years.

Footnotes

[1] Part III, ch. 7, § 2.

[2] Ibid.

 9   You will however permit me to recall the prowess of the great and invincible St Louis. Experience has shown that the devil is the very prince of dissemblers and the more the devil is made to suffer, the greater his mockery becomes.

Jean, sire de Joinville, was a seneschal[1] from the Champagne region who was accompanying the king on his journey to the Holy Land. He wrote a life of St Louis in which he describes how one day he was given permission by the king to go on pilgrimage to Our Lady of Tortosa[2] in Tripoli. Amongst several miracles that were performed in his presence, he saw a man possessed of the devil who was lead before the image of Our Lady. As prayers began in earnest for the man’s deliverance, the devil began to speak, saying that Our Lady was not there at the moment but she had gone into Egypt to help the king of France and the Christians who were arriving that very day in the Holy Land to fight against wickedness.

I am not going to dwell upon this testimony and still less upon the nonsense uttered by this wicked spirit. Putting the mockery to one side, however, it was indeed the case that on this very day they had arrived in Egypt and no one could deny that King Louis, in view of his devotion to the MOTHER OF GOD (as I shall explain below[3]), would have experienced her help thousands of times in various encounters and necessities.

Footnotes

[1] seneschal : An official in the household of a sovereign or great noble, to whom the administration of justice and entire control of domestic arrangements were entrusted. In wider use: a steward, ‘major-domo’. 

[2] The Cathedral of Our Lady of Tortosa in Tartus (now in Syria); built in 1123 by Crusaders, it is now a museum and still stands on what is believed to be the site of the original sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin that was dedicated by Saint Peter.

[3] Part III, ch. 7, § 5.I

Her opposition to the Pagans

 10   What can we say about the pagans other than to note how:

• idolatry was expelled from Europe Asia Africa and part of America;
• their oracles were silenced; 
• their temples were cast down, their altars overturned, their idols were  smashed and dragged ignominiously through the streets; and
• the one true God was recognised in places where the demon had previously been worshipped.

For all this, honour is due to the Saviour of the world but, after Him, it is also due to His blessed Mother who moved heaven and earth to plant the standard of her beloved Son everywhere she could. St Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, made mention of this in his address to the Council of Ephesus nearly twelve hundred years ago. If I wanted to include evidence taken from the Ecclesiastical History and the writings of the Holy Fathers, it would increase the length of this work considerably. I shall therefore stick with our century in which we see the way was opened to the Gospel in a great number of countries where it had never been heard before and in many others where the memory had become almost extinct. It is as clear as day that those whose happy lot it was to carry the light of the truth to the newly discovered lands, only ever marched under the colours of the MOTHER OF GOD. Evidence of this is the beautiful Church dedicated to her in the port of Goa, where all those who disembark and who then scatter far and wide to cultivate the vine of the Saviour, still go to this day to present their petitions. There they receive their orders from the Lady-General of God’s armies so as to be confident when they come to engage with the enemy. Evidence of this is also found in the Virgin’s banners under which her armies march in battle array. Evidence is provided too by the extraordinary piety of the viceroys who, for the most part, believed they could make no progress if they did not always have in their tents an image of the Queen of Heaven, if they did not have recourse unto her each and every time they began a new undertaking, and if they did not always cause her to be borne at the head of their armies.

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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