Chapter 10 : The Ninth 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) |
Mary is the Queen of virtues
We have spoken of grace and there is no better time to discuss the virtues of the Holy Virgin than now for virtues are, as it were, the daughters of grace. I have no intention of going too deeply into this subject or of discussing in detail each of her extraordinary virtues. It would in fact require an entire book to satisfy readers, not just by writing of what there is, nor of what can be said but passing beyond these. For the time being, I am happy to say a few general words about the excellence of her virtues. Those looking for greater detail will find them touched on in various discussions and, specifically, in the last Treatise where there is a Chapter on Imitation.
§ 1. The MOTHER OF GOD has in truth been the Queen of Virtues
3 Enough of enigmas, let us say plainly and simply that the holy soul of the glorious Virgin had every virtue that she was capable of having. By this, I mean she had the theological virtues, the moral virtues, and the acquired and infused virtues – whether those which are such by nature or simply by accident. In short, she was not wanting in anything that might ennoble a heart that was altogether heavenly. I do not intend to present proof, since the only ones who doubt it are the impious, and I have no wish to debate with them.
I will say, moreover, that:
• she possessed these virtues in the highest and most excellent degree possible for a simple creature;
• her acts resulting therefrom were the noblest fruit of virtue ever seen, after those of her Son;
• they were accompanied by everything necessary to make them perfectly pleasing to God; and
• they were conceived through the co-operation of motives which were the most sublime and worthy of God ever to emerge from a created being.
4 If called upon here to provide proof, I would firstly make use of the apposite words of St Gregory of Nyssa which, although spoken in a different context, address this point just as I should wish:
Just as we see that a fire burns with a clearer and cleaner flame when it takes hold of wood that is suitably dry, so that it rises straight upwards in the centre; so too we see that the Holy Spirit, having found a beautiful soul and a generous heart like Mary’s, more sublime than all the hearts in the world, works miracles of virtue therein and raises this heart in a mysterious manner to the very heights of perfection.
I would point to the heights her grace ascended, as shown above, and I would describe the harmonious accord of this grace with charity, serving her royal soul as an interior principle from which heroic actions and divine virtues sprang up continually. I would repeat what has been said concerning the most particular protection received from God, and of the repeated knockings at the door of this holy Temple with the call to perform acts of holiness worthy of His Majesty dwelling therein. I would say to you that everything in her was holy and, unaffected by any of those impediments to virtue which the rest of us experience to our great disadvantage, she made incredibly quick progress in the acquisition of virtue, becoming swifter and stronger as a result of her previous actions. I would show how all the habits of virtue and holiness infused in her soul from the beginning, having all been excellent and continually increased by their own effects, were incapable of producing actions which were common and base but were directly engaged in performing works worthy of their pedigree.
It seems to me that these and other considerations would be capable of persuading anyone of the incomparable value of the virtues of the MOTHER OF GOD. I am however, content to continue now with what has been said by a number of authoritative and worthy Doctors.
5 The first of these is the humble Idiota[1], who writes as follows[2]:
Most glorious Virgin, thou art all fair and there is no stain in thee; thou art all fair through the perfect beauty of thy graces and virtues; thou art all fair in thine own Conception, since thou wast made just to be the temple of the Most high; thou art all fair in the Conception of the divine Word, the splendour of the glory of the Father. In thee may be found as much beauty as virtue and, furthermore, after thy most blessed Son thou hast been granted these with more perfection than any other creature. There never was anyone like unto thee and there never will be any who come close to thee. All the virtues, both those belonging to the contemplative life and those proper to the active life, are present together in thee so as to make of thee a cause of wonder and astonishment to all creatures. Those virtues serving the active life have purified thy will and the others have enlightened thine understanding with a light to which we may not aspire.
Thou art not lacking the purity of the Angels, nor the patience of the Martyrs, nor the abstinence of the Confessors, nor the innocence and humility of the Virgins; in short, thou hast gained the glory of all the virtues, O most glorious Virgin; what is still more, thou hast not possessed them in a mediocre way but in thee they attain their plenitude and their perfection. Above and beyond all this, so that thou mayest be brought to completion, there have been added all the natural qualities, all the spiritual graces and all the heavenly gifts that can raise a soul to the highest point of honour before God. The difference between thy contemplations and ecstasies, on the one hand, and the thoughts of other people may be likened to the difference between the delight of one who drinks a delicious wine that he sought out and the reaction of someone who has only the scent of its bouquet.
Footnotes
[1] A nom de plume, possibly used by Raymundus Jordanus (10th cent.)
[2] Contempl. de B. Virg., c. 2.
6 St Antoninus, Archbishop of Florence, follows Albertus Magnus on this point and remarks perceptively that
there never were virtues like unto those of the MOTHER OF GOD for, being between those of the Blessed and those still on their journey here below, they had all the perfections of both. Like the denizens of Heaven, they no longer feared opposition or change; and like those of the people in the Church militant they were still able to merit favours and rewards.
Eutychianus, Patriarch of Constantinople, lived at the beginning of the sixth century. He composed a Prayer on the remarkable repentance of the Theophilus (of whom I shall speak later[1]). If you count his words, he said less but if you weigh them carefully, I am sure you will find the balance tips in his favour:
The MOTHER OF GOD, being altogether holy and most venerable, merits every honour and praise. For she alone is chaste, she alone is pure, she alone is free from any stain of body and soul, she alone trusts with hope in the Lord, and she alone has all the other virtues.
St John Damascene[2] says the same after him, and St Gregory of Neocaesarea[3] a long time before them both. It seems to me these great men could go no further and the human mind could not raise the merit of the Holy Virgin’s virtues any higher than to repeat what the Sacred Scriptures say of God : that He alone is good, He alone just, He alone immortal and so on with regard to His other attributes. On this subject, I invite you to be patient and wait for the second Treatise[4] where I aim to show, God willing, how and why we can attribute to the Virgin Mother that which belongs to God alone.
Footnotes
[1] Tract. II, c. 9, § 8.
[2] Orat. 2 de Nativit. Virg.
[3] Orat. 1 de Annuntiat.
[4] Cap. 5, § 6.
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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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