The Crown of Excellence : Chapter 9 : § 2.8-9

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

Fruitfulness, the second blessing of the Mother of God

 8   Do you have the heart to contemplate[1], without shedding tears, the disconsolate daughter of Jephte, the war leader? She was a young woman aged around eighteen to twenty who was forced to die before her time as a result of a rash vow made by her impulsive father. She asked for a two months stay of execution and here we see her almost at the end of this period. She spent this time with some of her most faithful companions in the woods, telling her troubles to the oak and cyprus trees. She is the very image of death itself, for her rosy colouring has faded away, her cheeks are drawn, her eyes are sunk and haggard, her whole body looks weak, her strength has dissipated, her countenance has fallen and her voice is dying away – as though she were in the final stages of death. If you asked her what she is doing in these woods, she would reply that she is arranging for her funeral while still alive.

According to one reputable Historian[2], this used to be the practice in pagan antiquity with virgins who abandoned their service of Jupiter for a worldly life. Clement of Alexandria[3] says this was also the case with with those pupils of Pythagoras who abandoned Philosophy. 

If you would press her for a fuller reply, she would say that she mourns her virginity[4], not through having lost it (for she was a most prudent girl with an excellent reputation) but for the condemnation she believed she would receive from her family. She is not so much distressed by the thought of dying as by leaving no posterity, which she considers to be a tribulation much worse than death itself. She is convinced she will be viewed as a tree that dies fruitless and that there will be no memory of her, just as though she had never existed. She believes she will incur the greatest opprobrium possible in her nation – namely, barrenness. This is what is making her feel sick at heart.

Footnotes

[1] Judic. xi.

[2] Strabo., lib. XVII.

[3] Lib. V Stromat.

[4]  she mourned her virginity in the mountains. Judic. xi. 38.

 9   It is indeed true that barrenness was held in great ignominy among the Jews, so much so that the most Holy among them experienced powerful and painful feelings about the condition. I do not wish to examine here whether they were right or wrong about this, saying only it is undeniable that fruitfulness is a good thing. The unfortunate thing is that it can only come to fruition through the loss of something infinitely greater. There is one Phoenix[1] in the world, and one MOTHER OF GOD uniquely remarkable for all her great qualities, who had issue but without losing her virginity.

A thing unparalleled both before her and after her, says St Cyprian[2], and something never before heard of – the harmonization of these two qualities in one person: virginity and fruitfulness.

Accordingly, as Mother she was granted the fulness of grace and as Virgin she received a glory which is beyond our conception, namely bearing within her body and her soul the corporeal and the spiritual presence of the Saviour.

In this she was uniquely blessed among women, says St Augustine, never to have known man and yet to bear a man in her womb.

In this she was uniquely blessed among women, says St Peter Chrysologus[3], for having preserved the honour of her purity and for having acquired the glory of motherhood; for having added to the crown of her virginity the grace of her fruitfulness; for having been made mother by the operation of the Holy Ghost without ceasing to be Queen of chastity.

In this she was uniquely blessed among women, says the venerable Bede[4], for having been Mother and Virgin at the same time, and for having had as her only son God Himself – a privilege which was due only to her fruitful virginity.

Footnotes

[1] A person or thing of unique excellence or matchless beauty; a paragon. OED.

[2] Serm. de Nativit.

[3] Serm. 43.

[4] T. VII Homil. in Evang. Missus est.

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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