The Crown of Excellence : Chapter 4 : § 2. 3-5

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 she has with the Eternal father as Daughter of His Son

 3   If you choose to consider Mary as being the firstborn or eldest Daughter of Jesus, then you could call her the Eternal Father’s Grand-daughter.

The close relationship she has as Spouse of His Son

 4   In looking at her as Spouse of the Saviour (which is my main focus here), we must bear in mind her title as beloved Daughter of the Eternal Father. Perhaps this may be what she herself meant in words already quoted from Solomon’s Book of Proverbs: The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways[1]. In Sacred Scripture, to possess can mean quite specifically to have a son or a daughter. We find this in the case of Eve; she was the first of all mothers and after giving birth to a firstborn son (Cain) who was the first to be born of a woman, she cried out: I have gotten a man through God.[2] It seems to me that the Holy Virgin expresses this more clearly further on in Proverbs. We find in our version the following translation: I was with him forming all things[3]; the author of the Chaldee Paraphrase writes: I was at his side, nourished by him, no more nor less than His dearest daughter. From that point on, He regarded me as the woman who was to have the honour of marriage by virtue of being the future Spouse of His only-begotten Son. I was destined to keep company with Him, to assist Him, serve Him and to make Him the father of a countless multitude of children. The Patriarch Abraham saw this in an enigmatic similitude, in terms of a line of descendants surpassing in number the stars of Heaven and the grains of sand on the seashore.[4] This explains why Mary could with justice address to God the words of Jeremiah: Thou art my father, the guide of my virginity,[5] for henceforth she was already promised, or at least prepared for His only-begotten Son.

Footnotes

[1] Prov. viii. 22.

[2] Gen. iv. 1.

[3] Prov. viii. 30.

[4] 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

[5] Jer. iii. iv.

 5   This union is beyond our comprehension and so elevates the Holy Virgin as to make her Daughter of God not only through adoption (as I stated above) but in a certain sense by nature. The law[1] confers this benefit on her since it states that a son’s wife becomes the daughter of his father, calling this a natural union. As a consequence, the law forbids marriage between collateral relatives within this degree of affinity. The admirable St Augustine sums this up, saying all that needs to be said:[2]

Since if the husband and his wife are as one flesh, you cannot and must not consider your son’s wife to be anything other than your own daughter.

This undoubtedly explains why in the Canticle of Canticles the Spouse calls His Bride His sister and she calls Him her brother, as both belonging to the same father, indeed as both being as one body. The pious Emperor Matthew Kantakouzenos wrote a tender Commentary on the Canticle of Canticles, one product of his retirement from the world and his devotion towards the MOTHER OF GOD. In this commentary[3], while speaking in the person of the Eternal Father, he calls her His beloved Daughter, born of His own substance.

[1] Nurus, et privigna filiæ loco sunt. [a daughter-in-law and a step-daughter are to be regarded as daughters, with whom there can be no conubium] § Affinitatis, instit. de Nuptiis, § Solut. matrim., l. Quia 2, et l. Rei. § finali.

[2] Lib. II contra Pelagium, c. 61..

[3] In illud, Equitatui meo assimilavi te, etc.

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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