Chapter 14 : How we Are duty-bound to love, honour and serve 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) |
In Part I of this work, I have aimed to focus on those splendours and excellent qualities which pertain to the MOTHER OF GOD in herself, rather than those which are attractive because of the way they affect our own interests. I shall continue with this principle in our last chapter where my aim is to explain briefly how we are duty-bound by her qualities to love her, to honour her and to serve her.
§ 1. We are duty-bound to love her
I am not minded at this point to compile a list of considerations which should make people love the holy Virgin. I prefer to invite anyone to think of all the things he might wish for in a person and then show me any object of love that could be desired in a mere creature which is not found in her to perfection. If he seeks beauty, let him remember that we have earlier[1] seen her described as the most pleasing amongst all the daughters of Jerusalem, and we have wondered at her divine countenance as being the seat, so to speak, of all graces. If he seeks someone endowed with riches of nature, then he needs to know that the MOTHER OF GOD is the very idea and embodiment of this : no other proof is needed for this beyond what we learned from the holy Doctors when we were discussing this question[2]. If he is looking for the fruits produced from a beautiful soul as from a good tree, let him read what I wrote upon that particular subject[3] and there he will find reasons to love most cordially her on whom God has showered gifts so liberally. If he is attracted to virtue as by a powerful magnet, then he has only to read our discussion[4] to learn that the virtue of this Lady soars routinely higher than the royal eagle does when it leaves the little songbirds far below. There is here so much reason to wonder at her exceptional humility, her total purity, her gentleness, her kindness and the great work she accomplished, which seems to win first prize amongst the most coveted virtues. Does he look for nobility[5]? That of the sacred Virgin (I am speaking in temporal terms) has more honour and glory than has ever been seen; as far as the spiritual dimension is concerned, people can be sure that the union she has with the three persons of the most Blessed Trinity which we discussed earlier[6], raises her in an ineffable manner far above anything in creation. If a person is uncertain and prefers to follow the example of others, he will see going before him the most excellent of all ages, and he will notice all the great minds in the world so taken with loving her that the greatest regret that they have is to have loved too little. What more could be desired than that?
Footnotes
[1] Chap. 6.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Chap. 10.
[5] Chap. 6, § 1.
[6] Chap. 1, 4, 5.
§ 2. We are duty-bound to honour her § 3. We are duty-bound to serve her
Consider how the desire to be highly esteemed put a certain idea into the head of one of the most ambitious men in recorded history. I am referring to Aman[1] who was truly inflated with pride and, with the aim of quickly propelling himself to a position of the highest honour, advised Assuerus as follows: the man whom the king desireth to honour, ought to be clothed with the king's apparel, and to be set upon the horse that the king rideth upon, and to have the royal crown upon his head, and let the first of the king's princes and nobles hold his horse, and going through the street of the city, proclaim before him and say: Thus shall he be honoured, whom the king hath a mind to honour[2].
It is true that ambition cruelly blinded him, making him presume so much about his own merit as to persuade himself that he was the only person on whom Assuerus would want to grant such favour; but he did not miscalculate in the judgement that he made when linking true honour to the esteem in which the sovereign held a person, persuading himself that it is reasonable for all the world to respect him to whom the king communicates the signs of royalty. If I am told that a prince can be mistaken and award gifts more from his own inclination than because of someone’s merit, I can agree with this but it should be at the very least accepted that we owe this respect to the judgement that God in his infallible wisdom makes about this person – that we should hold her worthy of honour since He honours her Himself. This maxim forms the basis of my conviction that there is no sort of honour that the MOTHER OF GOD does not merit. God, who is the foundation of all equity, honoured her so much that:
• He reserved for her from all eternity the foremost place and the most honourable status amongst mere creatures;
• He raised her to a union with Himself, the highest point of greatness that can be imagined;
• He shared with her, moreover, His glory in having for His Son a God consubstantial and equal with Himself;
• He showered her with graces and favours without measure, whilst conferring them on others in a proportionate way according to His goodness;
• He preserved her alone from the general corruption of the human race, making her known as the rose amidst the thorns; and
• He placed upon her head the Royal Crown and gave into her hands the power of ruling over all in His domain.
What, therefore, could we possibly say if we were to refuse to honour her? Would we not need a heart of stone not to be moved even by the authority of God himself? When we come to consider that not only did He wish to honour her personally, but that He gave an express commandment to all in creation to do the same; when we see the princes of heaven accept their duty of submission to her; when we see venerable antiquity and all the princes in the world and the nobility in all ages prostrate themselves before her; when we see all the religious Orders acknowledge her everywhere and proclaim her to be Queen of heaven and of earth; and when we see all the nations and provinces vie with each other to see who can show her great devotion – can we presume that God should be ignored in making known His will about this, or can we blame the faithful obedience of all the people who follow God’s will?
Conclusion: A man must have lost his rational power of judgement if he does not submit his own judgement to that of God; and he must have lost all human feeling if he refuses the veneration due to her whom we call with good reason the Daughter of the Father, the Mother of the Son and the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, the wonder of all nature, the prodigy of grace, the summit of all glory, the centrepiece of the works of God, the endpoint of all His plans, the image reflecting His perfection, the Dowager of Heaven, she who dispenses God's favours, she who is all beautiful, she alone who is without spot or stain, she alone who is holy, she alone who is pleasing in every respect to Him who placed His own heart within her.
To the one and the other be honour and glory forever and ever.
Footnotes
[1] Esther: v. & vi.
[2] Esther vi. 7-9.
§ 3. We are duty-bound to serve her
To serve her? And why not? She deserves this from us, reason commands it, the Angels serve her, men study ways of serving her and God Himself does not disdain to serve her. Yes – she does indeed deserve this, and it seems to me that the twelve whole chapters I wrote to establish this truth would have been worth little if those who took the time to read them have not been persuaded of this truth. Yes – reason commands this because she deserves it and because God, who is the first rule of right reason, also wishes it. We know this because of the convincing evidence of so many miracles that He performed over the space of fifteen hundred years, setting our hearts on fire with a desire to serve Our Lady. We know, too, that the holy Angels serve her and our faith in this respect is supported by the writings we have studied. If only our sight were sufficiently purified, we would see the respect they show her in Heaven: watching her eyes, or looking for a movement of her hand or some other indication of her wishes, and then executing her instructions in the twinkling of an eye. As for those worthy men of good will, we spent a little while considering them earlier and found that they were all over the world, doing everything they could not only to serve her but to encourage others to serve her too. Finally, what more could we say on this question than noting how God Himself went so far as to serve her, and that He did this with a joy and promptitude altogether divine?
To Thee be honour and glory for ever and ever, God of sovereign Majesty, for having given us so many ways and means of honouring and serving her who chose to be thy humble handmaid as her first title of honour, and especially for having deigned to stoop down to our level so as to give us an example in Thine own person of how to honour and serve her. In order to follow the path of my Lord and my master, I would crave, most Holy Lady, for a heart just like the one sought by the young King Solomon: wider than the ocean and vaster than the Empyrean; and I would want to use all its capacity in order to love thee, to honour thee and to serve thee. If this is not possible, then I kneel at thy feet in all humility, and from the bottom of my heart I offer thee all the honour and service that have been rendered unto thee since the beginning of the world :
- by the Blessed Spirits;
- by all the descendants of the first man;
- by all those whom thou has the most tenderly cherished;
- by those who made a special profession of loving thee and honouring thee; and
- especially by the actions of infinite merit which thy beloved Son used for this purpose.
I desire to serve thee in every conceivable way so as to please thee, and allow me to offer this service to thee as from myself alone. Please accept this little offering from the hand and the heart of one of thy children who owes thee so much; and, so that it may be pleasing to thee, make the heart that is offering it to thee be in every way what thou wouldst wish it to be.
[End of PART I]
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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 2025
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