Part III : The Crown of Goodness : Chapter 2 : § 2.1-2

She is the source of eternal happiness for her chosen children

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)

§ 2. The MOTHER OF GOD is the principle of predestination and eternal happiness for all the Elect

 1   Following St Ambrose[1] and St Peter Chrysologus[2], St Bonaventure[3] considers the words of Psalm CXXVI where it is written that[4]: The inheritance of the saviour are the children which His father gave Him as reward for His works, children, I am saying, who are at the same time the fruit of the virginal womb. He states that:

The Redeemer of our souls is the fruit of the Blessed Virgin’s womb and all the elect are the fruit and the children of this only begotten Son, they are for this reason children of the Virgin’s most sacred womb, where they have all been conceived.

All the Holy Fathers speak in the same way, providing cogent and powerful reasons. 

Footnotes

[1] 2 Pet. I. 10.

[2] See, e.g., 1 Thess. ii. 12. & Hebr. ii. 10.

[3] Rom. xi. 33.

[4] Rom. xi. 33.

 2    They say, firstly, that in the 20th and 21st chapters of the Apocalypse, the Virgin is mystically called the book of life[1] and the book of the Lamb[2]. The venerable Prelate of Salamis[3] calls her the incomprehensible book making it possible for the world to see and read the Word of the Eternal Father. St John Damascene[4] declares that:

This is the new book prepared by the Creator of all things, that He might write therein the Word who proceeds eternally from Him and who abides eternally in His bosom; this is achieved by the operation of the Holy Spirit, as by a living quill; it is a book which has been entrusted to a most wise and understanding man (St Joseph) but which was not, however, ever opened by him.

The venerable Archbishop of Candia sums up the idea when he speaks to her as follows[5]:

Thou art the living book of the divine Word who, wordlessly and silently, was written in thee with the quill of the Holy Spirit;

This is no less in conformity with reason than with the manner the Greeks have of speaking for they give the name of virgin paper and mother of the little lamb[6] to the membrane[7] where the little infant is formed. I say this is in conformity with reason because since the Son of God is properly given the name of the Word and the utterance of the Father, why would the matrix[8] where He is received and wherein He grows not be called the book of the Word, since a book is nothing less than the instrument whereby we preserve the word for fear that it simply vanishes in the air? The Apostle[9] had every reason to describe the work of the Incarnation as God speaking to us by His Son, inasmuch as through this work He has manifested His Word – the thought that He kept hidden within Himself – incorporating it and joining it to flesh, just as we ourselves manifest our interior thoughts outside of ourselves by joining them to a voice detectable to the senses and, as St John Chrysostom says:

making the interior word, which was within us and not detectable to the senses, heard by its sound and seen when written down on paper.

This being so, why should we not call the Holy Virgin God’s scripture since we can see that, just as thought and the interior word can be heard when formed and articulated by the voice, so too it can be perceived in writing when, making use of ink (of whatever colour), we write it down on paper? Why should we find any difficulty in giving the name of book to the instrument where this word is received in a manner perceptible to the senses? And since this word is nothing less than the word of life, what is to prevent us from calling this same book the book of life?

Footnotes

[1] Apoc. xx. 12 & 15.

[2] Apoc. xxi. 27.

[3] S. Epiph., Serm. de S. Maria Deip.

[4] Orat. 1 de Nativit. Virg.

[5] Orat. 2 de Dormit. Virg.

[6] Agnina. Subst.: agnīna, ae, f. lamb.

[7] Membrane: "Membrana" was the most commonly used name in antiquity not only for membrane proper (i.e., in an anatomical sense), but also for parchment and vellum. Latin authors qualified the word by identifying its source as, for example, in membrana agninae (see 6. above).

[8] matrix: uterus, womb, mother. DMLBS.

[9] [God] ...In these days hath spoken to us by his Son: Hebr. i. 1-2.

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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