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).
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| Notre Dame des Grâces, Cotignac.(Poggi, 2020) |
She is singularly blessed
§ 3. The Holy Virgin is uniquely blessed among the just and the friends of God
5 Turning now to the fertility of the promised land, we will find marvellous things have been written about it. It was not without good reason that Moses spoke plainly to the people of God in his Canticle of the favour they would receive from God, who would take them in His arms and carry them as though on horseback[1] to this sumptuous habitation. They would be nourished there by the good things of the earth and by blessings from Heaven, for this was the home He would provide for them, in the foremost and most pleasing situation in the world. It is a place that the Prophet Isaiah compares to a cornucopia or to a pot of oil[2]. A place that the historian Josephus calls a divine stretch country[3] which all who have seen compare to Heaven.
According to Aristeas in his letter on the translation of the Septuagint, it is a place which, without mentioning the countless commodities arriving by sea, is not lacking in anything that could make the land lush and fertile. A place where all the blessings of other lands are gathered together: the palm trees of the Idumaeans; the silks of the Seres; the lemons, melons and orange trees of the Babylonians; the gardens of the Hesperides, sugar canes from Brazil, flowers from Enna, manna[4] from Calabria, grapes from Cyprus and Corinth, wheat from Sicily, ambergris from the Ocean, cinnamon and spices from Saba, balsam from Peru, juices and gums from Arabia, game from Candia, lions from Libya, camels from Persia, ivory from India, mines in the North and the South, sweet air from the winds of the West[5], and streams and rivers like those in Thessaly. In short, everything scattered in abroad different lands was gathered here by the generosity of God.Brocard went to the Holy Land out of curiosity and wrote[6] that it was a place where the good things of the earth are plentiful and may be had with very little effort and labour, where the vines and trees for the most part bear fruit twice, and where the fields in the countryside are resemble the gardens of other lands. It is a place, in short, where the richness of the land can be gauged from the sheer number of the inhabitants.
I shall focus now on what Sacred Scripture says of this land. Before the Israelites entered the territory, it was held by seven different nations, there were various kings and princes, and when David held a census in his kingdom, he found there were fifteen hundred thousand men bearing arms. According to traditional reckoning, these would be around one quarter of the whole population which would accordingly amount to six million souls in a small stretch of land no bigger than Flanders.
When I try to consider the rich fertility of the earth uniquely blessed by God – which is the glorious Virgin – I am only too aware that I can scarcely conceive let alone express in writing its fruitfulness. How in truth would it be possible to describe the number, the excellence and the merit of her thoughts, her words, her actions all divine, worthy fruit from such a fertile plot, from ground in such a fortunate situation, gently irrigated and regarded with such favour from on high? How to portray the holy encounter between the celestial ploughman’s diligence and hard work on the one hand, and the goodness of this blessed land on the other? Suffice it to say that there could never be found anything elsewhere that she has not freely given to her master in her generosity. At fitting times and seasons, she offered Him the purity of Angels, the faith of the Patriarchs, the patient endurance of the Prophets, the fulfilment of the Apostles, the love of the Martyrs, the strength of the Confessors, the fruitfulness of the married, the chastity of Widows and the purity of Virgins. But over and above all this, she offered Him the fruit uniquely desired by Heaven and longed for by all the nations of the earth, a fruit with no peer in all the regions on which the sun rises and sets.
Footnotes
[1] In thy strength thou hast carried them to thy holy habitation. Exod. xv. 13.
[2] Isai. v. 1. Note the Vulgate text: in cornu filio olei. Literally, in the horn, the son of oil.
[3] Lib. V Antiq.
[4] A dried, sweet exudate or gum produced by various plants.
[5] The French text has air des Atlantides, “air of/from the Atlantides,” another name for the Hesperides who were also known as the Nymphs of the West.
[6] Lib. de Terra sancta.
6 Can you not already make out this chosen cluster of grapes carried away from the Holy Land on a pole by the two spies, namely Josue and Caleb[1]? St Ambrose[2], St Augustine[3], St Jerome[4], St Prosper[5], Abbot Rupert[6] and St Bernard[7] recognize in the grapes a figure clearly representing the Saviour of the world, who was crucified for the world like a cluster of grapes crushed in a wine-press. In the words of St Gaudentius, Bishop of Brescia[8], He is
the exquisite fruit with which the hearts of the faithful are nourished and strengthened, both in this present life and that which is to come.
This cluster of grapes is found in the middle of the Old and the New Testaments; by it we may easily judge the excellence of the land of the living that has been prepared for us.
Footnotes
[1] Num. xiii. 24-25.
[2] Serm. 62 de S. Cypriano.
[3] Serm. 200 de Tempore.
[4] Ad Fabiolam in mansione decima quinta.
[5] Parte II de Prædic., c. 9.
[6] In c. 13 Num.
[7] Serm. 44 in Cant.
[8] Tract. XVI.
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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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