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).
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| Notre Dame des Grâces, Cotignac (Poggi, 2020) |
§ 2. The MOTHER OF GOD is the principle of predestination and eternal happiness for all the Elect
3 St Thomas[1], along with Theologians who came before and after him, locates in God a book of life wherein are written the names of all the Elect in characters which cannot be erased. First of all is the Saviour as Head of all the others, and after Him in order of merit come all those who are to have a share in the glory that He has acquired for us through His passion. They say, moreover, that this book is nothing other than the divine intelligence[2], in which God reads and knows as in a book the details of all those to whom he is to give eternal life, which alone merits in an absolute sense the name of life. It is a property of knowledge to write down, to portray and to depict in the intelligence that which the knowledge proposes. Just as when we want to remember something, we look to read what is recorded in our understanding, as in a book what we have written therein; in the same way, God has needs only cast His eyes over His divine intelligence so that He can read therein the names of His Elect as in a sealed book. Written in large characters on the spine of the book are the following words which are referred to by St Paul[3]: the Lord knoweth who are his. In this way, the knowledge of life that God has of His own is the writing[4] or book of life; and because it is nothing less than the substantial, rational and personal knowledge of God (to use the language of the Theologians), it follows that it is at one and the same time the production of the Eternal Word, in whom and through whom the Father knows in a single act all things. It follows that in conceiving eternally His Word, the Father knows, conceives and marks in this way all the predestined in His divine intelligence.
Footnotes
[1] I p., q. 24. The Book of Life.
[2] intelligence: one etymology suggests derivation from Latin intelligere, inter + legere: to read, to pick out words, from PIE root *leg- (see etymonline).
[3] 2 Tim. ii. 19.[4] The French text has écriture here, reflecting the Latin scriptura which the Douay-Rheims translates as “writing,” as in verses such as Ezech. xiii. 9.
4 Can you not see now that I have good reason to say, along with the Holy Fathers, that the Virgin is the book of life by communication of title, since she conceives within herself the same Word in whom are contained all the Predestined and in whom they have true life? For just as the Father gives Him being and divine life, in the same way the Mother grants Him being and human life: the Mother by her accidental word, the Father conceives and begets Him by His substantial Word. The Father conceives Him in an invisible and intellectual manner in His divine intelligence; the Mother, in a visible and physical manner in her sacred womb. Because He conceives a Word in such a way that He begets a Son, the intelligence of the Father is within the Sacred Scriptures likened unto the Mother’s womb; and the Mother’s womb, conceiving a Son who is the Word of God, is likened unto the Father’s intelligence. Following on from this but going somewhat further, I am saying that as the Father, in conceiving eternally His Word, conceives with Him and through Him all the elect; so too the Virgin, by conceiving temporally the same Word, she conceives in the same way all the Predestined. As the Father through this eternal conception is the first cause of their being granted life, in the same way the Virgin, through this temporal conception, is a secondary cause of their being given this same life. For by this divine conception they are through all eternity in the understanding of the Father; in the same way, through human conception, they are placed temporally within the womb of the Virgin. As within the understanding of the Father, the uncreated and intellectual Word is the book, the idea and the visible cause of predestination; in the same way, within the womb of the Virgin, the Incarnate and corporal Word is the book, the idea and the visible cause of Predestination. No one can be numbered amongst the predestined if he is not with the uncreated Word in the understanding of the Father, which is the first book of life; no one can be numbered amongst the Predestined if he is not with the Word incarnate in the womb of the Virgin, the second book of life. Accordingly, I conclude that each of them is the book of life, that is to say the understanding of the Father and the womb of the Virgin. The former is simply and in an absolute sense the book of life; the latter is the book of the Lamb by reason of the flesh that the Saviour took from her. Of each of them it is said in the above-mentioned verse from the Apocalypse[1] that no one will enter into the heavenly Jerusalem except for those whose names are written in the book of life and in the book of the Lamb. The prophet Ezechiel[2] moreover, threatens sinners that their names will not be written or registered in the book of the House of Israel, which is the worst of all possible misfortunes.
Footnotes
[1] There shall not enter into it any thing defiled, or that worketh abomination or maketh a lie, but they that are written in the book of life of the Lamb. [Apoc. xxi. 27]
[2] They shall not be in the council of my people, nor shall they be written in the writing of the house of Israel, neither shall they enter into the land of Israel. Ezech. xiii. 9.
5 In the second place, and approaching the subject from a different angle, I am saying that the Word incarnate is the salvation, the happiness and the principle[1] of the predestination of the Elect. It is only through the Virgin that God gives us His Word incarnate, and He therefore does not give salvation and predestination for the Elect except through this same Virgin. Moreover, when the sacred Humanity was united personally with the divine Word, the Predestined were at the same time and by the same mystery united and joined to God by that same Word. Accordingly, since the union of the sacred Humanity with the Word was not done except in and through the Virgin, so too the union of the Predestined with God was not done except in and through the same Virgin. Moreover, as the union of the Humanity with the Word was accomplished through the willing consent of the Virgin and with an understanding of the mystery which was taking place within her – when through contributing her substance she uttered the all powerful Fiat that all ages had been waiting for – in the same way, the union of the Predestined with God, a consequence of the union of the Word with the flesh, was not accomplished except with the same Virgin’s understanding of the cause and her free consent, through contribution of the same substance by the same Fiat and through the application of the same will for the salvation of all the Predestined.
Footnotes
[1] In the sense of that from which something originates or is derived; a source, an origin. (OED I.1.a).
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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
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