The Crown of Excellence : Chapter 4 : § 2. 1-2

Chapter 4 : The Third Star or Splendour of the Crown of Excellence of 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)

§ 2. The Holy Virgin is called the Daughter of the Eternal Father. Her second title:

The close relationship the Holy Virgin has with the Eternal Father as Mother of His Son

 1   Let us now set our sights higher and look into the loving designs of our God for a level of filiation even more elevated than the first and one closer to what we call natural. To identify it, we need to take into account three connections the Holy Virgin has with our Lord Jesus Christ. Firstly, she is His Mother, as we discussed at some length in the first chapter. Secondly, she is His titular Daughter through redemption and this why St Bernardino of Siena[1] calls her Daughter of the Redeemer. Thirdly, she is His Spouse in a very special way which cannot be communicated to any other person. This will be addressed in the second Treatise[2] and may well be the reason the great Martyr St Ignatius of Antioch was wont to call her Mary of Jesus in his Epistles, she being totally for Jesus and of Jesus in her capacity of Mother, Daughter and Spouse all at once.

 2   This threefold cord[3] that links her and unites her indissolubly with Jesus produces the threefold tie she has to God, Father of this same Saviour and Redeemer. Concerning Mary’s first title as Mother of her only Son, Blessed Cardinal Peter Damian[4] shows there are three ways God is found in His creatures:, namely through His essence, through His action and (in a few who receive what is not normally granted to others) through the manifestation of things to come. He adds a fourth way for the Blessed Mother of His Son: through identity. St Bernard explains this as follows[5]:

God is joined to all the Saints through union with His will; but in the case of the Blessed Virgin He is also united with her flesh. This means that His own substance and Mary’s substance make one Jesus Christ who, whilst taking one of His natures from the Father and the other from His Mother, does not cease to belong entirely to the Father and entirely to the Mother.  

This conjoining is so tight that St Basil has no hesitation in saying of it that[6]:

the Virgin’s flesh was found worthy to be united to the Divinity of God’s only-begotten Son.

What infinite goodness and what an unlimited source of wonders! The Mother’s flesh is the same as that of her Son; the Son’s flesh is united to the Son’s Divinity, which is itself the Divinity of the Father. What language can now be found to explain the close relationship the Virgin Mother has with the Eternal Father? Would you call it family kinship? Or should it be called affinity[7], following St Thomas[8] and several other Doctors? What word would you choose? I think it would be wise to avoid rushing too quickly into this question and the concomitant risk of foundering.

Footnotes

[1] T. II, serm. 51, art. 3, c. 2.

[2] Cap. 5.

[3] Cf. a threefold cord is not easily broken. Eccles. iv. 12.

[4] Serm. de Nativit. B. Virg.

[5] Homil. 3 in Missus.

[6] Homil. de humana Christi generatione.

[7] affinitas: kinship, relationship (esp. by marriage), alliance [DMLBS]. affinité: Alliance par mariage. Il a espousé ma sœur. Il y a affinité entre luy & moy, les divers degrez d’affinité. Affinité spirituelle, Est celle qui se contracte par le Baptesme. Dictionnaire de l’Académie française, 1re édition (1694).

[8] II-II, q.103, art. 4 ad 2, et ibid. Cajet. affinitatem cum Deo vocant.

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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