The Crown of Excellence : Chapter 2 : § 2.4

Chapter 2: The First Star or Splendour of the Crown of Excellence of the Mother of God

Continuing our translation of the 1845 reprint of Fr Poiré's Triple Crown of the Mother of God (1643 French edition).

Notre Dame des Grâces, Cotignac.(Poggi, 2020)

§ 2. That our Lord Jesus Christ is, by His eternal predestination, the First-born of every creature

Third title by which the Saviour is the Firstborn of every creature

 4   In the third place, He is called the Firstborn of every creature, inasmuch as He has re-established all of them, restoring the lustre and honour they had lost, and He has been made head and king of a new people whom He acquired at the price of His blood. He is called the Beginning of the ways and works of God, inasmuch as He has restored to them their first splendour and even to a higher degree than before.  This is the reason we read in the Septuagint: the Lord created me the Beginning of His ways for His ways; that is, for the restoration of His works ruined by sin. This is how it is explained by St Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria[1], St Basil[2], St Ambrose[3], St Augustine[4], St Fulgentius[5] and others.  Did St Athanasius receive special grace when he said: 

It’s exactly as if the servants of a prince were taken prisoner through their own fault; then the prince sends his own son to save them from the hands of their enemy. On the way he puts on the garb of a slave and, when interrogated about this, he replies that his father gave him this disguise to carry out his service and to bring back the prince’s servants.

Do you not already see this Father of the world to come, whom Isaiah mentions[6]? Can you not see how Zara, before emerging from his mother’s womb[7], put forth a hand and in this, says St Augustine, bore witness that the Saviour, although the head and redeemer of mankind, would come into the world only after members of His own body who would themselves still, however, receive life and movement from Him?

Do you see how Jacob, having taken the birth right from his brother Esau, and having suffered in Mesopotamia all that a man of his condition might suffer, returns home in the midst of two companies that guide him?[8] This is to show, says St Augustine[9], that He is not only the Firstborn and the head of those before Him, but also of the angelic host, so that there is only one King and only one Head in this great kingdom of the universe. Do you not recognise that brave Eliacim, son of Helcias, promised in Isaiah[10]? God calls him His servant par excellence and clothes him with his sacred robe; He strengthens him with the girdle of war; He lays the key of the house of David on his shoulder; He gives him the power to open that which none shall shut, and to shut that which none shall open; He hangs upon him glory and honour, loading him like the trunk of a sacred trophy with all the spoils of the enemies he has subjugated, or like a rack with the arms and armour of the Royal household. Do you not contemplate from afar the  Conqueror in the Apocalypse[11], crowned before going to conquer, who goes forth on the white horse of His humanity to crush the rebels and bring freedom to His own?  Forward! So that all who come before Him sing with David:[12] To the Conqueror, who grants His favour towards those who change their way of life and who will be rescued from bondage. May all sing with St Gregory of Nazianzus canticles of praise to the King of Glory, who with the point of His sword has conquered the Universe, who has gathered unto Himself all things and who has placed them all according to their rank, inasmuch as He is the King of glory and worthy of all honour.

Footnotes

[1] Locis cit

[2] Locis cit

[3] Lib. I de Fide, c. 7.

[4] Lib. I de Trinit., c. 12

[5] Lib. adversus Objectiones Arianorum.

[6] Cap. ix.

[7] Gen. xxxviii. 27-30.

[8] Gen. xxxii.

[9] Serm. 3 in Psal. xxxvi.

[10] Cap. xxii.

[11] Cap. vi.

[12] Psal. xliv.

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The Vladimirskaya Icon. >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 2024