The Crown of Excellence : Chapter 9 : § 2.1-3

Chapter 9 : The Eighth 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).

Notre Dame des Grâces, Cotignac.(Poggi, 2020)

She is singularly blessed

§ 2. The Holy Virgin was singularly blessed among women

 1   St Bonaventure says[1] that the glorious Archangel Gabriel, with His glorious greeting to the most holy Virgin, filled her to overflowing with blessedness, saying : Blessed art thou among women. The great St Athanasius[2] attaches considerable weight to this greeting and declares that :

Heaven echoes to its sound without ceasing and Holy Church learned from the blessed Spirits to incorporate it in the public liturgy as well as in private prayer.

In this regard, I shall follow Albertus Magnus[3] and note that there are four main ways that the word Blessing is used in Scripture : firstly, it means deliverance from some misfortune. Thus, King David the Prophet says to God[4]: Lord, thou hast blessed thy land: and in the second part of the verse he specifies the blessing : thou hast turned away the captivity of Jacob. 

In the second place, it can refer to fruitfulness. In this sense, God blesses the animals He created at the beginning of the world; similarly, in the story of Tobias, the venerable Raguel blessed the newly-weds[5], saying to them : The God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob be with you, and may he join you together, and fulfill his blessing in you.  This blessing appears in Genesis[6] and is referred to as the blessings of the breasts and of the womb. 

Thirdly, it can mean a general abundance of every kind of good thing. This was the blessing God gave to Abraham after his remarkable act of obedience that everyone knows about. It was the blessing that the Lord granted to Laban when Jacob arrived, to Putiphar the Egyptian on the arrival of the chaste Joseph and to Obededom when the ark of the Covenant came into his house. 

Finally, it can mean praise and pubic acclamation. We can understand in this sense what the people cried out to the Lord when He made His triumphal entry into Jerusalem : Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. 

These four meanings will form the basis of the following discussion where I aim to show how the Holy Virgin has been in just as many ways singularly blessed among women.

Footnotes

[1] Speculi B. Virg., c. 8.

[2] Serm. de S. Deipara.

[3] Super Missus.

[4] Psal. LXXXIV. 2.

[5] Tob. Vii. 15.

[6] Gen. xlix. 25.

Exemption from the curses pronounced against women, first Blessing of the Mother of God

 2   The Fathers are of one mind on this point, that the Holy Virgin was completely and utterly free of the common curse affecting womankind. St Bonaventure[1] says of this:

In truth, there is more, for the blessing of the Virgin halted the course of the curse that the first woman brought into the world.

Eve’s curse, says St Augustine[2], is changed into Mary’s blessing.

According to St Fulgentius, this is what the Angel Gabriel meant when he called her full of grace.

By these words[3], he says, the Angel gave her to understand that God’s anger and vengeance were going no further and out of regard for her He would now be speaking of peace and friendship.

Footnotes

[1] Speculi B. Virg., c. 12.

[2] Serm. 1 de Annuntiat.

[3] Serm. de Laudibus Mariæ.

 3   Moving on to the details, I note from the Abbot Rupert that the first woman had no sooner sinned than punishment swiftly followed, for God imposed a triple curse in response to her threefold sin. 

Having hearkened unto the father of death, she gave her consent and thereby ceased to be the Mother of the living and became the Mother of the dying. The first article of her condemnation was then pronounced[1]:  I will multiply thy sorrows in childbirth. Multiple hardships and problems shall afflict thee in thy deliveries. Disappointments, weariness and weakness will be thy constant companions; thou wilt suffer pains throughout thy body and torment from swelling; thou wilt be afflicted by the stillborn; the deformed and the disfigured will cause thee shame; the unnatural and disobedient will be the death of thee. 

For coveting the forbidden fruit in a disordered manner and for the sensual delight she took in the sight and taste of it, she was punished with the labours of childbirth and the following sentence was pronounced : in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children[2]. But this pain shall be so intense that it will cause thee to let out terrible cries and it will often take thee to the point of death. Thy confinements moreover will be the image of the filth and contamination in thy soul. 

Finally, because she was not content with sinning herself but wanted to involve her husband as well, she was made subject to him in a new way. She was told[3]: thou shalt be under thy husband's power, and he shall have dominion over thee. For thy spirit would have been stronger and more stable if thou hadst not sinned, but now it will become noticeably weaker and his will have ascendancy over thee as thy lord. As a result, he will often treat thee not as his companion but as his servant, roughly and imperiously. Behold how sin is always followed by its punishment riding pillion behind; behold too how sin’s bitter roots only ever produce unpalatable choke-pears[4]. 

Footnotes

[1] Gen. iii. 

[2] in dolore paries filios. Gen. iii. 16. Knox transl. has: with pangs thou shalt give birth to children.

[3] Gen. iii.16.

[4] The French text has poires d’angoisse [lit. ‘pears of anguish’] which are bitter tasting pears originating from Angoisse in the Dordogne. choke-pear is the English equivalent, being a name given to rough, harsh, and unpalatable varieties of the pear, used for perry. Coincidentally or otherwise, angoisse means anguish, and a pear of anguish was the nickname for an instrument of torture producing considerable pain.

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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