Chapter 5 : The Fourth 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).
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| Notre Dame des Grâces, Cotignac.(Poggi, 2020) |
§ 2. How the Holy Ghost prepared the Glorious Virgin to be His worthy Spouse
1 During the time of Assuerus[1], maidens from all his subject provinces[2] were hand-picked to spend one night with him. The preparations for this began one year in advance, incorporating every conceivable artifice that might help their desire to please the Sovereign with their fragrant beauty. Consider then what greater reason there is to acknowledge how Mary, who was to be the peerless Spouse of the Holy Ghost, would have been prepared in every suitable way for Majesty such as this. This being so, is it not clear that it was the Holy Ghost Himself alone who was able to provide her with what was necessary, adorning and enriching His Spouse as would be most fitting? This was the view of Blessed Peter Damian and the pious St Bernard:
The Virgin was made, announced and prepared by the Holy Ghost[3].
Indeed, more than eight hundred years before them, Dionysius of Alexandria had said[4]:
that the tabernacle of the Holy Ghost, which is to say the Holy Virgin, had not been fashioned by human hands but had been made and set in place by the same Holy Ghost. Yes, that it was the Holy Ghost who, in the womb of His Blessed Mother, had given His help to her natural body which was as though dead and incapable of conceiving; who at the same time had sanctified her and adorned her with His gifts; and who had served her as Teacher and tutor.
Footnotes
[1] Commonly identified with Xerxes I, emperor of Persia.
[2] In the days of Assuerus, who reigned from India to Ethiopia over a hundred and twenty-seven provinces. Esther i.1. See also Esther ii. 2-4.
[3] Damianus, serm. 2 de Nativit. B. Virg. ; S. Bern., Serm. 2 in Missus.
[4] Epist. adversus Paulum Samosatenum apud Turrianum in Hopplotheca.
2 The Holy Ghost showed His loving and assiduous care in a most particular way when He led Mary into the wilderness to speak to her heart, at a time when He had prepared for her a permanent and fixed abode in His own house. This is what He Himself says through His Prophet Osee[1] and this is what the Church sings[2]. In accordance with a commandment from heaven, Mary’s parents had consecrated her to God as a Nazarite before she was even conceived. When she reached the age of three, they presented her in the Temple to serve the divine Majesty until such time as God decreed otherwise. After she had thus been received miraculously into the Temple, she stayed for twelve years in God’s Sanctuary where no-one was permitted to enter except the High Priest and even he could go in only once a year.
This part of Mary’s life-story could perhaps seem a little hard to believe were it not for the common agreement among the ancient Fathers which means rejecting it would be an act of foolhardiness. The following writers have endorsed the account clearly and unambiguously: the blessed Evodius[3], the first Patriarch of Antioch after St Peter, St Gregory of Nyssa[4], St Andrew of Jerusalem[5], Archbishop of Candia (Crete); St Germanus[6], Patriarch of Constantinople; George[7], Archbishop of Nicomedia; Symeon Metaphrastes[8], whom the Greeks are wont to call the Master and whom they honour as an equal of St John Chrysostom, of St Gregory and St Basil, and whom the Council of Florence granted the title of Saint and Doctor of note; St John Damascene[9], the Eastern emperors Leo (known as the Wise)[10] and Matthew Cantacuzenus[11]; the historians Nicephorus[12], Glycas[13], and many more, without mentioning modern writers[14]. Here is what is written in the Menologion[15] of the Greeks for the 21st of November:
The celebration of the entry of the MOTHER OF GOD into the Temple when her father and mother , three years after her wondrous birth and in accordance with a promise they had made, lead her to the Temple and presented her to the Priests. They received her and in obedience to God’s command they lodged her in the the most secret place within the Temple where the High Priest alone would enter once every year. There, they allowed her to live a life of retreat and voluntary solitude.
Footnotes
[1] See, e.g., I will allure her, and will lead her into the wilderness: and I will speak to her heart. Osee ii. 14; and I will espouse thee to me for ever: and I will espouse thee to me in justice, and judgment, and in mercy, and in commiserations. And: I will espouse thee to me in faith: and thou shalt know that I am the Lord. Osee ii. 19-20.
[2] In Tabernaculo suo habitare facit eam. He shall make her to live in His Tabernacle. See 16 occurrences in Breviarium Romanum (1931). .
[3] In Epist. apud Nicephorum, lib. II Hist., c. 23.
[4] Orat. in diem Natalis Domini.
[5] Orat. 1 de Dormit. B. Virg.
[6] Orat. de Oblatione B. Virg.
[7] Orat. de Oblatione B. Mariæ.
[8] Orat. de Ortu et Dormit. Deiparæ.
[9] IV Fidei orthod., c. 15.
[10] Orat. de hoc festo citata in Menolog. Græcorum.
[11] In illud Cant. 2 : Introduxit me in cellam vinariam.
[12] Lib. I Hist., c. 18.
[13] III parte Annalium.
[14] Vide Canis., lib. I de B. Virg., c. 13 ; A Castro, Hist. Deiparæ, c. 3 ; Vincentium Ricardum in lo-cum cilatum Cantacuzeni.
[15] A hagiographical collection of a type compiled in the Byzantine Empire from the 9th cent. onwards, in which the saints' lives, usually of substantial length and often interspersed with homilies or verses, are arranged in the order of the dates on which their subjects are commemorated. OED
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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.
The Vladimirskaya Icon. >12th century.
Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam.
© Peter Bloor 2024
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