The Crown of Excellence : Chapter 2 : § 3.1-2

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)

§ 3. The relationship between the Blessed Virgin and our Lord Jesus Christ, whereby it appears that she is the Firstborn of mere creatures

 1   No, it pertains neither to nature, nor to art nor even to grace (as it normally operates) to produce a masterpiece from scratch; they need to try their hand firstly with something less advanced. The masterpiece of trees, for example, is their fruit. Before producing fruit, however, they must serve an apprenticeship in making flowers,  causing them to bloom and turn into fruit. Air practises with shaping ice before producing rock crystal. The earth does not produce diamonds, rubies and sapphires without first studying how to make Alençon diamonds and German gemstones. The sun brings forth dawn before the fullness of day; nature tries a thousand different experiments before gold is produced. The goldsmith, before crafting a piece of work for display, prepares sketches, moulds and reworks the material several times. God did not make the world such as it is now all at once; He began with a mass that was void and without form which He then brought to completion according to His plan. Before giving us the law of grace, He broke that given to Moses as though consigning it to history. 

This makes me hope that no-one will be offended if I say that God acted as follows. In order to create that masterpiece which will captivate created spirits for so long as there is a God and an eternity to contemplate Him, none other than our Lord Jesus Christ, God began with various sketches and models of ancient figures. Based on the idea He had of a God-Man, He produced His first Master stroke, namely the Mother of this same God incarnate. She came as close to His plan as would be possible for a mere creature.

 2   A kindly spirit from antiquity[1] has commented perceptively on the flower we call bindweed or campanula. He says it was a trial attempt by nature seeking a prototype for the Lily. If nature had attached the tiny filaments or golden buttons which are found in the centre of the Lily, and had made the flower firmer and more open, it could have passed for a Lily. Dare I suggest, following this learned writer, that the Blessed Virgin was God’s trial attempt at working with nature to make a Man-God? But why should I not dare to say this, since there are so many interconnections between one and the other? 

I declare before heaven and earth that I am not in any way claiming to depart from the respect I owe to the Majesty of the Word Incarnate; in this question I wish only to follow the teaching of the Catholic Church. I call upon His goodness to witness that my intention is not to reduce His Greatness so as  to elevate that of His Mother; I acknowledge no sort of subsistent Divinity in her and I see her infinitely lower than Him. I know only too well that I would never be regarded favourably by her if I tried to raise her up to the disadvantage of the King of glory, her most honoured Son, compared to whom she takes herself to be as a tiny atom, the picture of a nothing. My intention is simply to show that, except for the disproportion in everything and in every way caused by the divine person of the Saviour and what arises from this personal union, which always puts an infinite distance between Him and other creatures, the most Blessed Virgin comes as close as it is possible for a mere creature to His Greatness. She was drawn from Him as from a model and as a second idea from the plan God had through all eternity. I do not know of a better way of showing this than by presenting the parallels between her own predestination and that of her Son; in showing line by line that her Birth-right over all creatures is nothing less than a participation in and imitation of her Son’s. By doing this, I believe I am without doubt acknowledging the Majesty of Him from whom comes the first Masterpiece; I am aiming to render service to the Prince of whom she is the Mother and to the Holy Spirit whose Spouse she is. Finally, I am very encouraged to have on my side the authority of the Church which has no difficulty in honouring the Virgin with the words of Solomon[2], cited above in connection with the eternal predestination of the King of glory, Mary’s Son most dear. 

Footnotes

[1] Plin., lib. XXI, c. 6.

[2] The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways, before he made any thing from the beginning.[Prov. viii. 22]

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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