Chapter 8 : The Seventh Star or Splendour in 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) |
Mary’s soul was unique in being totally free of any sin
§ 3. That the Holy Fathers say that the MOTHER OF GOD was incapable of sin, and how this is to be understood
The second principle : Mary continually shows a most ardent love of God
THE SUPERNATURAL LOVE OF THE HOLY VIRGIN
15 St Ildephonsus[1] actually compares the Holy Virgin to iron, which
when it is taken out of a fire where it has been left for a long time, is so red-hot and glowing that it looks as though it has had a change of nature and has turned into fire.
St Ivo, Bishop of Chartres[2], says almost the same as St Ildephonsus, namely:
being so intimately united with God who is a consuming fire, it followed necessarily that what He is by nature she became by grace and charity.
St Bernard, reflecting[3] on her being in the heart of the Sun as described in the Apocalypse[4], declares:
It is impossible that her own soul was not pierced by the fiery rays of divine Love shooting forth everywhere from the true Sun of Justice.
These Fathers have as their aim only to make us appreciate the sublime level of her unceasing contemplation which was accompanied by acts of love to which she never permitted any interruption. By means of these she was continually rising above herself and uniting herself in an incomprehensible manner to the principle of Holy Love. Now, you may ask me how she could cope with all this whilst remaining continuously fired up with never a moment of relaxation, not even in the domestic chores that filled her day. My answer to this question is to point you to the burning bush of Moses which was on fire and in flames but was not burnt. I share on this the thinking of the same St Bernard who said :
Put off from thy feet the shoes of thy base and common thoughts; for this vision whereon thou doth gaze is wondrous and this ground is altogether holy. God hath preserved the bush in the midst of flames without it being burnt; He hath in a similar manner infused the soul of the Virgin with an extraordinary capacity, and He giveth support to her imagination, along with all her spiritual and corporeal faculties, which He draweth to Himself with such gentleness that through them everything seemeth altogether natural to Mary.
We should not be astonished by this since we are speaking here of the MOTHER OF GOD, who had so many other privileges even higher than this that we can have no reason to question it.
Footnotes
[1] Orat. 1 de Assumpt.
[2] Serm. de Nativit.
[3] Serm. in Signum magnum.
[4] Cap. 12.
16 Let us now move from fire to water, and from the effects of the one to the violence of the other. Here is how the Holy Virgin speaks in Ecclesiasticus[1] about her love : I, like a brook out of a river of a mighty water; I, like a channel of a river, and like an aqueduct, came out of paradise. They say that this is a reference to the mighty river Euphrates which swells with the waters it receives from tributaries and surges onwards with such power that it breaks through dikes, sweeps away embankments and all obstacles in its path, there being nothing capable of halting it. There is little to add to what St Augustine has to say on this, and after him, St Bernard and St Bonaventure[2]:
The God of love made His abode within her for the space of nine months; it would therefore be an injustice to Mary were anyone to doubt that her blessed womb did not thereby become a womb of love and her heart be transformed into the tender affection of charity.
This means we should not consider the Holy Virgin so much as a soul blazing with charity but as becoming charity itself which sets on fire with love all it encounters.
Footnotes
[1] Eccli. xxiv. 41.
[2] Speculi Virg., c. 14.
17 How can anyone talk now of sin when it comes to a love so ardent, or find coldness amid such fires of charity? With us, it is the norm for sin to gain entry and remain in us through the slothfulness of our lives; but in this divine heart there is no more likelihood of finding lukewarmness than of finding ice in the middle of the volcanoes of Sicily.
We can only conclude from what has been said that we must banish all thought of associating sin with the Holy Mother. As for those Lilliputians who in the darkness of their ignorance make so bold as to raise such questions, we should tell them that they will receive such a welcome that they will curse the hour they embarked on such a foolhardy undertaking.
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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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