Part III : The Crown of Goodness : Chapter 3 : § 1.1-2

Chapter 3 : The Second Star or Splendour of the Crown of Goodness of the MOTHER OF GOD

She is a loving Mother for her 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)

The first element of the praise which the Holy Spirit gives to the Blessed Virgin, in the passage which we were considering earlier[1], is that she is the Mother of fair love. In truth, He could not have spoken more appositely since he highlighted the foremost quality and the most outstanding attribute of a Mother. Accordingly, let us take pleasure in our consideration of this rich and delightful subject  Wherein we shall see the mother of fair love and steady the origin, the effects and the qualities of this love.

Footnotes

[1] I am the mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope.  Ecclesiasticus (Sirach): xxiv. 24.

§ 1. The Holy Virgin is the Mother of fair Love : the origin of this Love

 1   The learned Pausanias, whilst giving a speech on love during a banquet held by Plato, taught that there are two Mothers of Love : one being a daughter of Heaven, the other of earth. The former is always conscious of her origins and her ancient nobility; the latter is  of a base origin and easily debases herself. The former pays no regard to the body and forms an indissoluble union with the spirit; the latter is unable to raise her thoughts or to establish friendship otherwise than with her body. The former is the Mother of heavenly and divine love; the latter, of a love which is earthly and human. The former is Mother of Spiritual love; the latter, of sensual Love. In short, as the former is the Mother of fair Love, so the latter is the Mother of what is ugly and vile. Let us set aside this profane woman, since we have before us the true Mother of fair love, who is none other than the most holy Virgin, as is attested by the Holy Spirit Himself. We shall understand this much better if we study the birth and origin of this fair love. 

 2   Socrates, in ancient times considered a genius of moral Philosophy, investigates the question of what may properly be given the name of beautiful or beauty. His ideas are recorded in three different discussions of his disciple Plato[1].  Here is a summary of what amounts to a lengthy investigation:

Beauty is nothing other than an emanation or a ray from the pleasing face of God. When it falls upon any created nature, it gives it a certain aspect, a lustre and brightness of grace; or, if you prefer, it is a circle of light which proceeds from the divine face, source of all beauty, and after passing through the creature returns to its origin.  

Just as when the golden rays of the Sun strike the moist clouds, leaving his image imprinted therein, namely the rainbow, in the same way the Son of wonder faces His Father, returning all that He is and rendering homage to His beauty. Plato goes on to say: 

this circular movement, inasmuch as it comes from God as from its point of origin, is called Beauty; inasmuch as it delights and carries away the feelings in our hearts, it is called Love; and inasmuch as it returns to its source as to the place of its rest, it may properly be called Pleasure.  

If we gather these beautiful thoughts together, we can say that fair Love is that which proceeds from God as from the fountain of all Love and all Beauty, returning to Him as to its centre and its final end. From this it follows : 

    • that the Mother of fair Love would be she who, more abundantly than all other women, has drawn deeply from this living source of Love and Beauty to distribute it generously to her beloved children, and by this means to unite them to the origin of all Beauty and of all Love; and

    • that the Mother of fair Love par excellence would be she who, more than all the other mothers in the world together, would love her dear children with a heavenly and divine love, forasmuch as she is more closely conjoined and united with the principle of fair Love than all the others together.   

There can be no doubt about this if we only recall ideas we have already explored and remember that she is the Daughter of God, the Mother of God, and the Spouse of God; the Daughter of the Father, the Mother of the Son and the Spouse of the Holy Spirit; this means to say that she is the Daughter of Love, the Mother of Love, and the Spouse of Love.  Banish all earthly thoughts as I declare the birth of fair Love in the Mother of the same, since here we have a Love for which God is the beginning and the end, and the object of this Love is the Virgin of Virgins. 

Footnotes

[1] In Hippias Major, the Symposium and Phædrus.

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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