The Crown of Excellence : Chapter 4 : § 1. 3-4

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)

§ 1. The first title, whereby the Holy Virgin is called the Daughter of the Eternal Father

How our Lord acquired adoptive children for His Father 

 3   For a better understanding of this singular favour, we must appreciate firstly that God could have only one son, properly speaking, to whom He might communicate His nature and His substance with perfect identity. His goodness has an infinite inclination to communicate itself and it found a wonderful way to have a line of descendants surpassing in number the stars of Heaven and the grains of sand on the seashore.[1] To this end, He sent down His only-begotten Son with an order to produce spiritual children who might become by adoption what He Himself is by nature. This is what St John Damascene says.[2] The Son fulfilled this commission so perfectly that we can only bless Him and thank Him for ever. Among the other sources of grace that He bestowed on His Church, He instituted a sacrament which has the particular effect of pouring faith into our souls, along with God’s grace, charity and other heavenly virtues, together with the Holy Spirit Himself by whom we are sealed with God’s mark or character, being received and formally accepted as His children. St John, speaking of the Saviour, says that His Father sealed Him with His seal[3] and made Him His Son, communicating His being to Him from all eternity, so that He is God like Him, omnipotent like Him, eternal like Him, and in everything and in every way equal and consubstantial with Him. In the same way, but in proportion to our status as His creatures, by imprinting in our souls this royal seal He has made an authoritative declaration that for as long as we bear this mark, He will unfailingly recognize us His own.

Footnotes

[1] I will bless thee, and I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand that is by the sea shore: Gen. xxii. 17

[2] Fidei Orthodoxæ, lib. IV, c. 14.

[3] For him hath God, the Father, sealed. John. vi. 27.

How we are truly children of God

 4   Secondly, we must remember that, having being honoured with such a singular favour from Heaven, it is with very good reason that we are called children of God. This is because the divine substance of the Holy Spirit unites itself to our souls (as the Apostle says) by means of nourishment when by way of regeneration we receive the Saviour in Holy Communion. It is no wonder that we are called children of God for He regenerates us in this way and shares His own substance with us. The glorious St Denis[1] says that we receive this state and attain this degree through birth, or rather through divine generation. I am speaking here about what happens in holy Baptism and what is accepted by all the Fathers. The sacred Writers and the Holy Doctors are rightly carried away when they reflect upon the sheer immensity of this favour. Heaven, says the Prince of the Apostles[2], hath given us most great and precious promises: that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature.

I beseech ye to consider carefully the grace we receive from God the Father, says the beloved Disciple, that we should be called, and should be the sons of God.[3] 

Is there anything in the world so excellent as this, asks the great Pope St Gregory[4], that a created man should be made the son of his Creator?

It is a wondrous secret, says St Leo[5], and a gift surpassing all others, that a man should be able to call God his father, and that God should recognize him as His son.

Footnotes

[1] Cap. 2 Eccles. Hierarch.

[2] 2 Pet. i. 4.

[3] 1 Iohan. iii. 1.

[4] Homil. 6 in Ezech.

[5] Serm. 4 de Nativit.

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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