Chapter 9 The Eighth Star or Splendour of the Crown of Power of the MOTHER OF GOD
She commands the Church’s armies
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) |
§ 2. The Mother of God Commands His armies
1 At a propitious time, the era of heroines returns and we are permitted to catch site of a maid[1] (and what a maid!) at the head of God’s armies. We may have heard how Queen Thalestris marched at the head of three hundred thousand Amazon warriors; but here is something very different : Mary leads the troops raised by the Saviour of the world for the defence of His Church. Deborah foretold the defeat of the general Sisara whose skull was pierced through the temple with a tent peg, taking away the life of his body and skewering his head to the ground[2]; but this is also quite different from seeing how the MOTHER OF GOD vanquished and scattered thousands of millions of enemies, both visible and invisible. We can now say that whilst the bravest were resting, Mary was up and at work, and that the Mother of Israel performed wondrous exploits. We can now make it known without fear how the Lord found a new way of making war that no one had ever heard tell of before. Now we can sing in truth how a woman produced by the Hebrew people cast confusion into the house of King Nabuchodonosor. Now we can say of Mary what Solomon said of the valiant woman whose wonders he made known, namely: Many daughters have gathered together riches: thou hast surpassed them all[3]. Now we can say with the pious Peter of Blois, the Great Archdeacon of London, that:
It was not without reason that the Angel when greeting her said she was blessed among women, since amongst all of them she alone had a courage more than manly and she never experienced the weakness characteristic of her sex.
Footnotes
[1] maid : The French word used here is la pucelle, which is the one used by her contemporaries for the Maid of Orleans (St Joan of Arc).
[2] Judges iv.
[3] Prov. xxxi. 29.
2 In truth, who will not be astonished to find a woman at the head of the victorious army of the God of armies Himself, which is made up of a million blessed Spirits, countless regiments of Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins and Married women? Who will not be filled with wonderment on learning that she commands not 1,300,000 men at arms, 500,000 horsemen and 100,000 chariots, as once was the case with Semiramis[1], Queen of the Assyrians? Or 120,000 men like Boudicca, whom we might with good reason call the British Amazon? No, she is in command of the troops of the great God of battles, whose numbers are greater than the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the seashore. She is in charge of each unit, along with their quarters and their postings; she alone who is responsible for this world of spiritual warriors. Who will not be overwhelmed by the number of foes she has vanquished, the important victories that she has won and the magnificent triumphs[2] she has deserved?
Footnotes
[1] Semiramis: See, e.g., The Library of History, Diodorus Siculus (1st century BC).
[2] Boudic(c)a: sometimes known as Boadicea, d. AD 60-61. See: The Revolt of Boudica according to Tacitus (AD 56-c120).
[3] triumph : (Hist.) The entrance of a victorious commander with his army and spoils in solemn procession into Rome, permission for which was granted by the senate in honour of an important achievement in war.
3 If there are any amongst you curious to know why God wished to honour her with this role unlike anything else in the world, you should first consider the fact that He chose her for His Mother. Once this role of Mother is understood, a role which cannot be surpassed by any other, then we can no longer be surprised that He should honour her with everything that this role might require. Add to this that the glory He derives therefrom is by no means small, since through her He reveals the incomparable power of His grace which is able to accomplish great things by means of a creature so lowly (when she is considered in terms of nature alone). If we take account, moreover, of the characteristics of the enemies that are to be fought and how their dreadful pride meant they saw themselves as being above God Himself, then it was indeed fitting that they should be brought down to the dust of the earth and that they should see themselves beaten not by the omnipotence of God but by the breath of a woman drawn from the lowest level of rational creatures.
This is an idea which the Blessed St Bruno, founder of the Carthusian Order, develops perceptively and piously in his sermon on the Nativity of the Virgin where he explains the words that God addressed to his friend Job, saying to him: Canst thou draw out the leviathan with a hook, or canst thou tie his tongue with a cord? Shalt thou play with him as with a bird, or tie him up for thy handmaids?[1] He compares St Matthew’s genealogy of the Saviour to a fishing line, at the end of which is the hook covered in flesh which is the Divinity of this same Saviour hidden beneath our humanity in order to catch the devil and hold him to strict account. The person who prepared the hook and who clothed it with flesh is the Blessed Virgin, who not only accepted that she was the handmaid of the Lord but esteemed herself to be the lowliest and the least of all creatures. Nevertheless, by means of this humble handmaid, God achieved what Job would never have thought possible: for by her He hooked and landed Leviathan like a tiny fish; by her He made him the plaything of all nations (as I shall explain later). Through her, He attacked Behemoth and laid him out on the ground : Behemoth, I say, who mocked all the powers of the world; Behemoth, the King of the children of pride; Behemoth, who aimed his attacks at the highest; Behemoth, who swallowed rivers in one mouthful and thought he was strong enough to empty the Jordan[2]. In order to overcome this presumptuousness and to lay low this pride, God did not dispatch one of the great Spirits from on high but was content to send a little handmaid who trampled under her feet all these monsters of pride.
Footnotes
[1] Job xl. 20 & 24.
[2] Behold, he will drink up a river, and not wonder: and he trusteth that the Jordan may run into his mouth. Job xl. 18.
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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 Virgin of Tenderness. >12th century.
Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam.
© Peter Bloor 2025
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