Part III : The Crown of Goodness : Chapter 9 : § 2.1-4

Chapter 9 : The Eighth Star or Splendour of the Crown of Goodness of the MOTHER OF GOD

She is the strong and valiant defender of 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)

§ 2.  How the Holy Virgin protects her children against physical dangers and external threats 

 1   No sooner had man through his disobedience abandoned the sweet and loving protection which had accompanied the state of his first innocence than all creation turned upon him to avenge the injury he had done to their Creator. It was just as if an invisible barrier which had been holding them back was now lifted and they had received the signal to bring about man’s ruin. Henceforth the elements declared open war on him, as did everything else in the world of nature. As a result, man now faced more risks and threats than the number of hairs on his head. If God had not called a halt to this, the situation would have become dire for poor man, against whom every creature was waging a war to the death. From on high, however, God willed to limit the power He was giving them and, through the mediation of the Holy Angels and His faithful servants, He reined in the urge they felt to inflict vengeance upon man. 

 2   It is in this connection that we see how the MOTHER OF GOD renders such outstanding services to her children by taking them under the protection of her great royal mantle, as was revealed one day to the Blessed Maria de Pazzi, a Religious of the Order of St Dominic. With loving and tireless diligence, she preserves them from thousands of dangers which would almost certainly take them by surprise and overwhelm them if she did not intervene. The Blessed Spirits can only look on with astonishment at the wondrous favours she bestows and offer eternal thanksgiving to her, whilst those who receive them often have neither eyes to see them nor heart to acknowledge them as they should. This does not mean, however, that through this cloud of unknowing we cannot see occasional lightning flashes of Providence showing forth the love and care she has for her children. Anyone having the time and the opportunity to collate the examples which have come down to us through the diligence of certain writers would be able to fill many large volumes. Our Holy Mother’s protection keeps pace with the dangers that threaten us and when we take time to reflect upon this we will find no danger that men can face where she has not left signs of her goodness and the help she has given to those who have had recourse to her.

 3   She has protected them from waters and waves, from steep ravines and floods; she has preserved them from fire and conflagration; she has turned aside lightning bolts, thunderstorms and other terrible  threats of violent weather; she has rescued them from snow, from ice and other difficulties into which they have fallen; she has helped them by calming tempests and storms; she has delivered them from shipwrecks; she has stretched out her helping hand for those experiencing dangerous falls, saving them from the frightening consequences; she has kept them safe from the hands of robbers and brigands; she has broken the chains with which they were fettered and set them at liberty; she has saved them from torture and from the ultimate penalty, namely the gallows; she has prevented poison from working its effects and from the evil of contagions; she has preserved their good name and wiped away the calumnies hurled upon them; she has frustrated the efforts of their enemies and totally nullified them; she has served as their cuirass, proof against arrows, pistols, muskets, cannon and other weapons of war;  she has calmed the fiercest of wild beasts; she has reigned in runaway horses and she has caught safely in her arms those who would have been thrown or trampled; she has kept free from harm those run over by carts and carriages, by lightening their weight. To sum up : explore if you will the sky and the earth in their entirety, the seas and oceans, the vast forests and tenebrous caves, mountains and valleys, deserts and populated places, cities, towns and villages – you will learn there is nowhere under heaven where cannot be found marks attesting to the loving protection of the MOTHER OF GOD.   

Make a list of the illnesses and health problems that people can have and you will find none where she has not intervened to cure or save those who have invoked her help in their necessities. She has healed them from paralysis, apoplexy, encephalitis, epilepsy, parasitic infections, scrofula, tuberculosis, sore throat, gout, fevers, inflammations, jaundice, fractures, bruising, every sort of wound and abscess, fainting fits, cancer; headaches and pains in the chest, the stomach, the arms, the hands, the ribs, the thighs, the legs, the feet, and thousands of other health problems which can afflict the human body. She has restored sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, normal walking to the lame, speech to the mute, consciousness to the comatose and use of the senses to those where this had been lost; she has brought healing to those who were crippled or handicapped, health to those diagnosed with incurable illness and life to the dead. 

 4   It would be a simple enough matter to prove everything we have just said by giving example after example, but this would fill many volumes and so I am going to choose only two or three out of the countless accounts that have come down to us. 

Father Gregory wrote a biography of the saintly Abbot Theodore his respected master who was also Bishop of Anastasiopoulos and who died on the 22nd of April in the year 630 (as is recorded in the Roman Martyrology). Father Gregory tells us the Abbot constructed a small Church dedicated to Our Lady next to his monastery where he would frequently be seen commending his intentions to her in prayer. He became known for all sorts of saintly works and this irked a number of people who had fallen into loose living and could not put up with the way his innocent and holy life was like a secret reproach to them. They wanted him out of their sight and in order to bring about his death they gave him poison. The effect of this was that the Abbot was unable to speak or even to move for the space of three days and it was assumed he was dead; but at the end of the three days the Holy Virgin appeared to him in a dream and told him she would call to account those who had placed him in this condition. She would give him their names and explain the cause and nature of his illness. In addition to this, she told him to take three pills which she had in her hand, promising him that they would purge him completely of the poisonous bile which had spread through his body. With that she disappeared and the Saint found her remedy restored him to health. He was invited to visit his best friends and he was quite honest in telling them the cause of his illness. He could not however, bring himself to identify the guilty parties but instead prayed earnestly for them to God and to the most sacred Virgin for the rest of his days.   

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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