Part IV : How to give thanks to the Mother of God : Chapter 4 : § 5.15-16

Chapter 4 : Love – a third feature of the gratitude we owe the Mother of God

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)

§ 5. The fifth sign of love: Having a tender and fervent love for her dear Son

 15   What happened one day to St Peter of Verona (commonly known as St Peter the Martyr), deserves to be mentioned here.

This great servant of God was in the Convent of St John the Baptist near Rome and was in an elevated state of contemplation. This resulted in a visit from St Agnes, St Catherine and St Cecilia who spoke with him about heavenly things for such a long time and so audibly as to draw the attention of a Religious who was passing by. He assumed Peter was talking with ordinary women and was so scandalised that he later accused the Saint in a plenary meeting of their Chapter, providing all the details of what he thought had been happening. Peter was at first surprised by this delation and for some time was uncertain what to do, whether to remain silent or to prove his innocence of the charge which had been made more through lack of prudence than through malice. On the one hand, he felt he was under an obligation to prevent the scandal  which might be occasioned to weak minds by this conversation he was alleged to have had with the women. On the other hand, he saw that it would not be possible for him to defend himself without revealing the extraordinary favours that he had received from God and which he judged were not yet to be made publicly known. Saints have their own way of doing things and follow paths unknown to the wisdom of the world. The Prior, aware of the great virtue of the accused man, was nevertheless unable to deny the solid evidence for the charge and the tacit confession of the accused himself. He judged the incident to have arisen from ill-considered naivety which nevertheless deserved some punishment. Accordingly, he did not impose a severe sentence but nevertheless gave him an exemplary punishment by sending him to their Convent in the March of Ancona. There he was to be placed in a cell and forced to give satisfaction for the bad example he had given.

Peter spent some time there with great courage and in marvellous spirits, considering the honour he was receiving from his Master whose Cross He had been given an opportunity to share. As time went on, however, the daily inconveniences he suffered and the increasingly harsh reproaches he received every day started to shake his constancy, producing a weariness within him and even a revulsion at his condition. Accordingly, one day while he was on his knees before the Crucifix, his eyes bathed with tears and his heart aching with sadness, he gave way to his feelings and began to complain to his adorable Saviour, remonstrating that He knew he was innocent and that the time had now come to show this; that the favours he had received from His goodness should not work to his prejudice in this manner, and finally that the bad reputation he now had was contrary to any idea of serving His Majesty. Then he heard the Saviour speaking to him from the Cross:

“And what about me, Peter...what have I done to be nailed to this Cross? Learn from my example to suffer injuries and insults since what thou art enduring is nothing compared to what I have suffered for thee.”

At first, these words troubled the servant of God but eventually they filled him with such a spirit of calm and a willingness to suffer that no amount of insults and mockery were then too much for him. For the love of Jesus and following His example, he so treasured the contempt he endured that he would have not have swapped it for the greatest happiness of Kings, nor even for the keenest satisfactions of the Saints.

Loving Jesus with strength

 16   While I have been delving into our discussion about imitating Jesus, I have not noticed that we have been touching on that love which is strong and courageous, ranked third by St Bernard and higher the others. In the end, great sufferings are like the final carats of love purified and refined in the furnace of patience – and patience hath a perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, failing in nothing, in the words of the Apostle St James[1]. The chaste Spouse does not esteem her ability to love[2] if she does not attain the perfection of this love, which is strong as death, jealousy as hard as hell, the lamps thereof are fire and flames. Many waters cannot quench charity, neither can the floods drown it. This is the Master’s trait which God hath presented to all his best friends, as the masterwork of their fidelity ; it is the trial through which all the Saints have wanted to pass, as through a uniquely testing way of tempering pure love. It is what made them resolve to unite themselves eternally with the Cross, to take on all manner of labours in a close embrace, and to feel they had not repaid love unless with pain for pain, blood for blood and life for life.

St Catherine of Sienna administered the discipline to herself using an iron chain three times daily , each time taking an hour and a half. She did this so vigorously that it caused blood to flow and she said it was to repay Him who had shed all His blood for her. 

 As the executioners were ripping the flesh of St Eulalia  with iron hooks, she urged them on, saying: 

 “Be vigorous and spare me not! What you are doing is the only way of carving deeply into my heart the love and sufferings of the most adorable Jesus.”

This is what she said and it was true, since the pious Gerson observed most aptly in this connection that: 

No one feels more keenly in his heart the love and passion of the Saviour of the world than someone whom He has honoured by making him undergo something similar for the love of Him. 

This is the approach found in what St Paul wrote to the Macedonian Churches when he did not ask them to preach fine sermons, or to think delicate thoughts about their Crucified Master's suffering, but rather to feel keenly within themselves what He had suffered for their sake.  

Footnotes

[1] James i. 3-4. 

[2] Cant. viii. 6-7.

© Peter Bloor 2025 

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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.

He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded: and they that work by me, shall not sin. They that explain me shall have life everlasting. Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) xxiv. 30-31.