Part II : The Crown of Power : Chapter 6 : § 5.7-8

Chapter 6 :  The Fifth Star or Splendour of the Crown of Power of the MOTHER OF GOD

She is the Mother of the world to come and Redeemer of our race

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)

§ 5. The third reason that the Holy Virgin has the right to be considered as the Co-Redemptrix of men and the Mother of the world to come

The third reason: She suffered along with her Son

 7   The sixth and final way we have of measuring the extent of her grief takes into account the duration of her spiritual martyrdom. According to the pious Abbot Rupert, the most sacred virgin spoke in the following words:

Do not imagine that my martyrdom was confined to the short time during which I saw my Son ill-treated, mocked, crowned with thorns, scourged, crucified, given wine to drink mingled with gall and, after his death, laid in the sepulchre. This was indeed the time when the sword of sorrow pierced my soul, but it had been planted there long before, because having received the gift of prophecy at the moment I became His Mother, I knew what He would have to endure. This meant that whilst bearing Him in my womb, cradling Him in my arms, breastfeeding him and nursing Him whilst He was a baby, I could always see His suffering and His death that were to come. From this, it is easy to understand how long I was the Mother of sorrow.

She revealed more about this one day to St Bridget[1] when she said that:

her sorrowful pains did not come to an end with the death of her Son, because during all the time she lived after His death she made frequent visits to the holy places around Jerusalem and in this way she continually kept alive the memory of that sad day, reopening the wounds she received.

On another occasion[2], the Holy Angel who was instructing her said: 

It was not without good reason that the MOTHER OF GOD was compared to a rose; for by this symbol was signified that, growing among thorns, as she advanced in years the thorns which surrounded her grew stronger and pricked her more roughly. 

This agrees with what the same MOTHER OF GOD revealed one day to St Elizabeth, daughter of Andrew King of Hungary. Here are the words of St Bonaventure[3]: 

Our Lady was having a conversation with the holy widow and spoke as follows : My dear daughter, thou dost perchance imagine that it was without pain or labour that I received all those graces that God granted me; thou wouldst be mistaken for, with the exception of the grace of my first sanctification, I never received any favour from God except through the effort of great labour, with continual praying, most ardent longings, with profound devotion with much weeping and with a great spiritual affliction. I needed these continually as I tried to please Him in every way I could.

She went on to say:

Thou canst take rest assured, my dear daughter, that no grace comes down into the soul except through the channel of prayer and with mortification of the body. 

This agrees, moreover, with what the same MOTHER OF GOD said to St Mechtilde, when she told her that:

God had sent her many tribulations but she had supported them with great humility and without showing her feelings to the outside world.

Footnotes

[1] In Lament. : Vulnera Christi morientis erant vulnera Matris dolentis.

[2] Serm. in Signum magnum.

[3] Lib. I Moral., c. 5.

 8   Several doctors, considering this question from the perspective of the sanctuary, say that the pains of the most holy Virgin exceeded by far those experienced by women in childbirth. St John Damascene[1] and St Bernard[2] state that:

God, who had preserved her from the pains of labour when she was giving birth to the Saviour, gave them back to her with interest at the foot of the Cross, where He made her experience far worse travails. She felt torn apart inside, her heart being pierced and cut into pieces by the sword of sorrow.

St Bernard adds:

There is nothing that can be compared to the suffering she experienced, and all that can be said is that the affliction she endured was just what anyone might expect such a Mother would suffer for the loss of such a Son. 

The devoted servant of the Virgin, St Bernardine[3], made an excellent point with regard to this:

Her pain was so extreme and exceeded so many bounds that, were it to be divided up amongst all creatures capable of receiving it, there would be enough to make them all die.

From this it becomes clear that it was only through a miracle that she was kept alive when assailed by the power of so many different types of pain and torment. For this reason, the Holy Fathers have no difficulty in calling her a martyr; but what am I saying, a martyr? The Blessed Deacon St Ephrem[4] calls her the honour of Martyrs; Sophronius[5], Saint Ildephonsus[6] and St Bernard[7] call her more than a martyr, and the Universal Church gives her the title: Queen of Martyrs.

Footnotes

[1] Lib. IV de Fide, c. 15.

[2] In Lament. B. Virg.

[3] T. I, Serm. 61, art. 3, c. 2.

[4] Orat. de Deipara.

[5] Serm. 2 de Assumpt.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Serm. in Signum magnum.

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The Virgin of Tenderness. >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 2025

Part II : The Crown of Power : Chapter 6 : § 5.5-6

Chapter 6 :  The Fifth Star or Splendour of the Crown of Power of the MOTHER OF GOD

She is the Mother of the world to come and Redeemer of our race

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)

§ 5. The third reason that the Holy Virgin has the right to be considered as the Co-Redemptrix of men and the Mother of the world to come

The third reason: She suffered along with her Son

 5   We have been considering ways to measure the immensity of the Holy Virgin’s grief and we now come to the fourth and main way, which relates to the pains and the bitterness of the Saviour’s passion. St Bernard[1] summarizes this well when he says:

The wounds of the dying Son were the wounds of the suffering Mother.

Elsewhere, he says[2]:

Could we really bring ourselves to believe that the Son could suffer a bodily death without His Mother undergoing death in her soul; or that the love which had no equal would allow the Son to suffer so much without the Mother’s love, which came closest to it, being given a share in the greater part of the pains He was enduring?

This has always been my belief thanks in part to the painters and sculptors who, in seeking to represent what I have just mentioned, sometimes portray the Mother with the Son on the one Cross. They aimed  to show in this way what their paintbrush or chisel could not express concerning the spiritual martyrdom of the Mother. For those who understood the image correctly, it represented the way in which these two suffered on one Cross and with one and the same pain.

Just as we see, says the pious pope St Gregory[3], that in some musical instruments certain strings are adjusted in such a way that when one is plucked another may be heard without being touched;  in the same way, the Holy Virgin’s soul was in such harmony with that of her Son that she experienced everything that He was forced to suffer. The thorns which pierced the adorable Saviour's head penetrated deep into the Virgin’s heart; when the Son was whipped on His back, the Mother felt her heart being scourged; the nails in His hands and feet caused wounds in her spirit; the lance which opened up in a painless way the side of the Redeemer who was now dead tore open the anguished Mother’s breast; and the Cross to which the Son’s body was nailed also bore the Mother’s soul. To sum up: the Son’s body felt no blow or injury, however slight, that did not touch the Mother’s soul.

This idea is found reflected in what the holy Virgin once revealed to the blessed widow St Bridget[4], making use of a vivid image:

It was just as if someone had one half of her heart outside the body, and the other inside; Whenever the part on the outside was wounded, this would cause pain to be felt by the part inside – we could in fact say that this was the same pain. Similarly, when my only Son (who was like my hear) suffered on the outside it was impossible for me not to feel deeply the pain on the inside.

She also added that:

Just as feelings and impressions are exchanged more readily between the heart and the parts closest to it, in the same way, because her Son was so close to her, the pains He suffered were imprinted in the depth of her soul; and just as blood poured from all the veins of her Son, so streams of grief and sorrow poured forth unceasingly from her heart. Further to this, just as when the Son, on seeing His Mother afflicted in this way, suffered much more from the pain and suffering He could see she was enduring than from his own torments; in the same way, the martyrdom she was enduring was as nothing compared to what the sufferings of her beloved Son caused within her.

Does this not remind you of a furnace to which lots of wood has been added and, as the wood catches fire in the furnace, it causes the furnace to grow hotter and hotter? This was exactly the same in the case of the Blessed Virgin, for when her sufferings were added into the furnace of the Saviour’s pains they caught fire and increased the suffering He felt from His wounds. The Holy Virgin herself was consumed in that furnace, being set on fire and consumed in the flames of grief and pain.

O ye Angels of peace : what torrents of tears did ye not shed when seeing the fires which from instant to instant blazed within these two breasts, and yet the floods of your tears were unable to bring any remedy! What must your feelings have been when you noticed that it was as though they were vying with one another, abandoning themselves to their suffering, and finding through the distress each of them suffered a way of helping each other in their suffering, thanks to the Saviour’s infinite actions! 

Footnotes

[1] In Lament. : Vulnera Christi morientis erant vulnera Matris dolentis.

[2] Serm. in Signum magnum.

[3] Lib. I Moral., c. 5.

[4] Lib. I Revelat., c. 35.

 6   The fifth way we might measure the immensity of her suffering relates to how great her desire was. St Ambrose[1], St Augustine[2] and St Ildephonsus[3] agree that:

Not only did she fear neither torments or death, but in fact she regarded such as a sign of singular favour; it is impossible to say what she would be prepared to suffer for the sake of this hopeful stop

The pious Arnold of Chartres expresses this so magnificently it seems impossible to improve upon his words[4]. 

She was dying, he says, without being able to die and, what is still more, she maintained her composure so well that the pain in her heart did not show upon her countenance. The cross of her soul and the gibbet of her spirit which was the altar whereon she offered up a living victim and a pleasing sacrifice, was known to God alone and to her conscience. There, she herself was a victim and she it was who prepared the pyre and lit the fire, so that you would have seen two altars raised up, one in the heart of Mary and the other in the body of Jesus; the latter immolating His body and the former sacrificing her soul. God knows if she would have wished to shed the blood of her veins as well as the blood in her heart along with her Son, and offer with Him the sacrifice of the evening[5], stretched out on the same cross and hands pierced with the same nails, fulfilling with Him in this manner the mystery of our Salvation. It was the privilege of the high priest alone to enter the sanctuary with the blood offering, and no one else could claim this prerogative, whether an angel or a man, or any other creature whatsoever. She did not, however, hold back from cooperating with Him in her own way, and the Saviour presented to the Eternal Father His own merits and desires conjointly with those of His most dear Mother. All that she requested was approved by the Son and granted by the Father; the Father loved the Son, and the Son loved His Father reciprocally. After these two loves followed immediately the love of the Mother towards both of them, in such a way that one wish alone was born from two different wills. The generous-hearted Father, the Son full of mercy, and the Holy Mother having only one intent meant that goodness, compassion and charity came together in a single embrace, with the Mother requesting, the Son offering and the Father granting; with the Son gazing upon His gentle Mother, and the Father gazing upon the Cross and the wounds of His Son. What in the whole world could there be, however great, that could be refused to such dear and precious pledges of love?

Nothing can be added to these words without the risk  of diminishing their impact in some way.

Footnotes

[1] Lib. de Institut. Virg., c. 7.

[2] Confess., c. 6.

[3] Serm. 2 de Assumpt.

[4] Tract. de illis verbis Christi in cruce : Mulier, ecce filius tuus.

[5] See, e.g., Exod. xxix. 

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The Virgin of Tenderness. >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 2025

Part II : The Crown of Power : Chapter 6 : § 5.2-4

Chapter 6 :  The Fifth Star or Splendour of the Crown of Power of the MOTHER OF GOD

She is the Mother of the world to come and Redeemer of our race

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)

§ 5. The third reason that the Holy Virgin has the right to be considered as the Co-Redemptrix of men and the Mother of the world to come

The third reason: She suffered along with her Son

 2   I will start by considering the soul of the Blessed Virgin, which served as the setting for the spiritual martyrdom that she endured. Just as wounds which affect the soul are much more dangerous than those affecting the body, so too the pains of the spirit are incomparably more severe than all the pains of the body. Those who have experienced them will confirm this and those who have not will never be able to imagine what it is like. The Blessed Bishop of Nole, Saint Paulinus[1], once wrote to St Augustine and asked him if the sword of sorrow which pierced the soul of the Virgin Mary, following the prophecy of the venerable Simeon, was in fact this interior pain of which we are speaking, and was also the iron which David[2] said had brought pain to the chaste Joseph. St Augustine replied immediately that it was[3] and that he himself recognised this as being none other than the one which, in the words of St Paul[4], divides the soul from the spirit and penetrates the most sensitive souls to their very core. 

St Anselm was one day absorbed in contemplation of this question and he spoke in the following way[5] to the Blessed Virgin, the very image of affliction:

Most holy Lady, in truth the sword of sorrow pierced thy soul and thou didst experience a grief more bitter than all the pains that thy body could have felt; for I firmly believe that the torments of the holy martyrs were light in comparison with thy sufferings which penetrated into the very depths of thy soul and filled thy whole heart. These were such that never couldst thou have borne the weight of this cross without dying unless the spirit of life and consolation – that is to say, the spirit of thy dear Son for whom thou didst endure all this – had not fortified thee, making thee understand that this storm of death would soon pass and this cruel suffering would be transformed into a triumph of glory.

The Angel who taught the Blessed St Bridget said as much[6] to her one day, revealing that:

It was by no means the least of the miracles of the Saviour’s omnipotence to have kept His Holy Mother alive amidst the terrible torments that she had endured. Under the old law’s rite[7] for the cleansing of a leper, the Priest was ordered to take two doves (as they are called by St Macarios, where we read two living sparrows), and to offer them to God in sacrifice for the leper in such a way that one was immolated and the other was then sprinkled with its blood and kept alive. In the same way, out of these two chaste doves which were offered in sacrifice on Calvary to heal the sinner’s leprosy, God was satisfied that one should die whilst the other, at the foot of the altar and bathed in the blood of the one who died, felt her heart being riven with grief and made herself ready to spend the rest of her days in weeping and groaning.

Footnotes

[1] Epist. 58 inter epistolas S. Augustini.

[2] the iron pierced his soul: Psal. CIV. 18. 

[3] Epist. 59.

[4] more piercing than any two edged sword; and reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also and the marrow : Hebr. iv. 12.

[5] De Excellentia Virg., c. 5.

[6] Serm. Angelico, c. 18.

[7] Levit. Chap. xiv.

 3   I would now like to consider the knowledge she had of her Son. It is generally agreed that the more lively a person’s spiritual faculties are, the more pain such a person will be capable of feeling. On the other hand, a dull understanding will go a long way to dull the extent of pain that is felt, especially on the spiritual level. Now, the Holy Virgin had faculties which were more lively and penetrating than any other person, with the exception only of her Son; she had more knowledge of the dignity of His person, of the indignity of the assault being made upon the Prince of Heaven and of the extreme ingratitude of men. This being so, it is impossible to conceive the impact upon her of the extreme pain resulting from these considerations.

 4   Let us move on thirdly to the love she had for her dear Son, since one of the principal rules about pain relates to the love which accompanies it : anyone who loves something ardently cannot fail to be greatly affected by its loss and it is almost impossible, without a feeling of heartbreak, to look upon a person one loves who is suffering. The greater the love is, then the greater the pain that will be felt. If I had not already discussed earlier in this work the love that the Holy Virgin had for her Son, perhaps I would have felt obliged to speak of this now but I will here only quote the words of Sophronius[1] who says:

As there never was a love like unto hers, in the same way there will never be found suffering to compare with hers; for it so overwhelmed this holy Lady’s heart that we can say with the Prophet Jeremiah[2] that she made mourning as for an only son and that she felt the loss and the pain of her soul’s beloved more than all the mothers in the world, for she loved her Son more than all the others combined.

Footnotes

[1] Epist. de Assumpt.

[2] make thee mourning as for an only son, a bitter lamentation: Jer. vi. 26. 

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The Virgin of Tenderness. >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 2025

Part II : The Crown of Power : Chapter 6 : § 4.10-11 > § 5.1

Chapter 6 :  The Fifth Star or Splendour of the Crown of Power of the MOTHER OF GOD

She is the Mother of the world to come and Redeemer of our race

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)

§ 4. The second reason that the Holy Virgin has the right to be considered as the Co-Redemptrix of men and the Mother of the world to come

 10    In the second place, some may ask why God stayed the hand of Abraham, not allowing him to complete the sacrifice that He had requested from him. Amongst the various reasons which several learned minds have put forward, St Ambrose mentions[1] (if only in passing) one which is worthy of consideration, namely:

The desire to sacrifice a son for a reason intimately connected to piety and religion is so far above the ordinary capacity of any creature that He wanted to reserve the glory thereof exclusively to Himself.

But here as elsewhere an exception must always be made for the most Holy Virgin, for she is quite exceptional in all her privileges. If God had so favoured her as to have one and the same Son with her, why would He find it difficult to join the consent of His Mother with His own, so that the gift He was making to the world might be fulfilled in the agreement of the two wills upon whom this unique gift depended? Far be it from me to have any doubts about this for, on the contrary, I am convinced along with several learned writers that it would have needed only one sign of God’s will and she would have gone further than than Abraham. She would have been ready to obey the commandment of God concerning her Son, notwithstanding that this would fill her with dread and cause a sword to pierce her heart. She would have persisted until the dying breath in all the duties and all the services that God might have asked of her, so dearly did she value our salvation and the accomplishment of the divine will. I will leave others to try and imagine anything greater and more noble than that; I am personally quite overwhelmed when I consider the capacity of her heart for love and sacrifice and it seems to me that no other mere creature could go further than this. I am aware that St Ambrose[2] raises elsewhere the question as to why God stayed the arm of his servant Abraham but did not do so in the case of Jephthe[3], but I shall pass over this in silence for now since it is not relevant to our discussion.

Footnotes

[1] Lib. de Abraham, c. 8.

[2] Lib. III de Virginibus.

[3] Judges xi. 30-40.

 11   In the third place, people may ask why Abraham’s mere willingness to offer his son so impressed God that, to hear Him speak, you would think that He was unable to find an adequate way of rewarding him which would show how much He valued the sincerity and the power of his love. He promised him victory over his enemies, that his seed would be multiplied as the stars of heaven, and as the sand that is by the sea shore, and that in his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed[1], by Him who was to raise it up in in an infinite way – the longed for Messiah. He conferred a blessing accompanied by every imaginable happiness, not only for himself but for his descendants and it seems He was still not satisfied, so greatly was He pleased by Abraham’s faith, his obedience and his love. 

Now if that is the case with Abraham, who will be able to tell us what the Virgin Mary’s sacrifice merited in God’s eyes, taking into account how it was ennobled in all the ways we have been considering? God never would allow himself to be surpassed in generosity and faithfulness, so what could He do to show His gratitude? Would you say that they perchance go too far who say that she rendered herself so pleasing to God that, not counting what what was granted to her, she merited for us through congruity[2] what the Saviour won through justice and through condignity[3]? This question will be addressed in the pages that follow.

Footnotes

[1] Gen. xxii. 16-18.

[2] congruity: congruous merit (meritum de congruo) which claims a reward only on the ground of equity. For more on condign and congruous merit, see: See The Nature of Merit (Catholic Encyclopedia).

[3] condignity: condign merit (meritum de condigno) which supposes an equality between service and return; it is measured by commutative justice (justitia commutativa), and thus gives a real claim to a reward.

§ 5. The third reason that the Holy Virgin has the right to be considered as the Co-Redemptrix of men and the Mother of the world to come

The third reason: She suffered along with her Son

 1   Several writers[1] have noted that King Solomon of old once commissioned a golden crown adorned with lilies, interlaced with a circlet of thorns coming from India which bore this motto : The Victory of Love. Makeda, the Queen of Saba (for thus was she called by the Rabbis[2]), had a long list of questions which she presented to Solomon and she asked for his interpretation of this crown and its motto. The wise Prince replied by explaining that the lily symbolised a heavenly Virgin who was to emerge from his progeny, that she would conceive and bring forth the King of Kings, who would so love his people that he would risk his life for them. Instead of a golden crown, he would be crowned with thorns but he would reign triumphant over death. As for himself, Solomon said that thenceforth he would with this crown honour the victory of the Messiah, which would be a victory of love, since it was through love that He was to offer Himself unto death for His own. 

It is true that no one ever deserved more than He did to wear the crown of love, being the Prince and the God of love, but since His holy Mother and His most chaste spouse is so like unto Him in the way that she is the Princess of love and of suffering, playing such a full part in the victorious conquests of her Son and her Spouse, I hope no one will take it amiss when I make her a crown out of her extreme sorrows and her incomparable merit. The sacrifice that the King and High Priest Jesus offered on the altar of the cross was a sacrifice that He willed and which involved in its outcome His soul, body, spirit and blood all together. This was also true of the Holy Virgin, for she did not stop at offering her dear Isaac unto death (as we have seen above), but she wished to suffer with Him for our salvation, uniting not only her will to that of her Son and her Spouse, but also her own sufferings and her cross to the cross and sufferings of her Son. It is for this third reason that she acquired for herself the glorious name of Redemptrix. This is a title that I shall try to explain by imitating the mathematicians who, being unable to give people an immediate conception of the heavenly empyrean’s immensity, use various methods to convey an idea of its greatness. Similarly, having no quick and easy way of explaining in a few words what the Holy Virgin endured, I will make use of various methods to help me convey the measure of her grief.

Footnotes

[1] Andreas Faventinus, lib. XVI Hist. Navarræ ex Cedreno.

[2] Josephus, lib. VIII Antiq., c. 8.

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The Virgin of Tenderness. >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 2025

Part II : The Crown of Power : Chapter 6 : § 4.6-9

Chapter 6 :  The Fifth Star or Splendour of the Crown of Power of the MOTHER OF GOD

She is the Mother of the world to come and Redeemer of our race

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)

§ 4. The second reason that the Holy Virgin has the right to be considered as the Co-Redemptrix of men and the Mother of the world to come

 6   Let us move on now to the last heading and consider the generosity and joy with which the Holy Virgin offered her sacrifice. In order to have any conception of it, you would need to be able to take in how she made her offering with the whole of her great and noble heart.

No one will ever love you as ardently as this Lady, says the same St Bonaventure[1], for she cherished her Son with an inestimable love and unquestionably more than she loved Herself, delivering Him up to death for our sake.

Blessed St Mechtilde describes in her book on Divine Grace[2] how one day she saw a Seraph greet the most sacred Mother of God, kneeling at her feet:

rendering her this homage in memory of the love which had consumed her and of which she had given proof by rising above every sort of human and natural reaction; remaining firm and solid amidst the mourning and shock felt by all creatures, whilst beholding with joy the terrible martyrdom suffered by her Son on the cross.

The pious Gerson[3] writes that:

At this time she chanted a hymn to herself, which he calls Heartsong, whilst gazing upon the beloved of her womb and the unique object of her love suffer for our salvation; and she offered this up with a shuddering of the spirit which rose above the anguished feelings of the flesh: This was to fulfil to the letter what is written in Scripture, that God loveth a cheerful giver[4].

The learned Bishop of Avila[5] says as much when he writes that:

During the Passion of her Son, the Holy Virgin was transported by an indescribable love seeking our salvation, arising from the ardent charity that filled her heart. When she saw Him suffering, she received a consolation impossible to describe, inasmuch as through this her hopes and wishes were more than fulfilled. On the other hand, her heart was pierced in a most real sense by the sword of sorrow. She experienced personally all the suffering of this innocent Lamb whom she had suckled and reared, and whom she loved a thousand times more than her own life.

Footnotes

[1] ISerm. 1 de Beata Virg.

[2] Lib. I, c. 56.

[3] In Canticordio, tit. II, III parte Alphab.

[4] II Cor. ix. 7.

[5] In c. 9 Deuteron., q. 4.

 7   At the same time, her soul is transported with a joy that cannot be described, along with a sorrow surpassing anything experienced by any created spirit. In Armenia you can see the river Tigris pouring into lake Arethusa[1] and passing through with such force that its waters do not mix with those of the lake. This is an image of how the consolation experienced by the Holy Virgin resulting from the deliverance of mankind maintains her spirit in a wonderful way, but without diminishing or altering in any way the grief that she felt. Another image is to consider the peak of Mount Olympus where all is peaceful and quiet whilst the foot of the mountain is shrouded in clouds and buffeted by storms and flashes of lightning. In a similar way, the higher part of this holy Lady’s soul is perfectly united to the will of God and is experiencing an ineffable sense of peace and contentment, whilst the feelings in the lower part of her soul are enveloped or rather drowned and engulfed in the bitter sorrows and troubles of death. It is not, however for us to have knowledge about these matters: this belongs only to the Mother of God and to her dear Son who, amidst the cruel pains of His passion, was transported by such an abundance of joy that He was able to rise above the scorn He had to endure and the terrible torments that afflicted him.

Footnotes

[1] Pliny Nat. Hist. vi. 31.

 8   Consider the mother of the Machabees, St Felicity and St Symphorosa, each of them mothers of seven child martyrs; consider the mothers of St Melito, St Symphorian, St Maurice, St Barulas and others who had the courage not only to watch without weeping but who gave their sons encouragement for the struggle through the masculine fortitude of their countenances and their valiant speech. In view of what they did, would it not be quite unthinkable to doubt the constancy and resolution of the MOTHER OF GOD? If the Patriarch Abraham, as a result of his heroic action in making ready to sacrifice his own son, earned the praise of the whole of posterity as well as an immortality which is preserved by the Holy Spirit in the records of Scripture, what must then be said of her who showed far more courage than the Patriarch did, in an act surpassing more fearful and cowardly spirits?

 9   Concerning the sacrifice of Abraham, however, two or three pertinent ideas come to mind. The first is that it raises a question, namely which of the two shows more courage and whose merit was greater before God : Abraham, who wished to immolate his son, or Isaac who freely allowed himself to be bound and offered himself willingly to be the victim of death? Those who raised this question[1] decide in favour of the elderly father, giving a number of reasons. The first is because Abraham cherished the life of his son more than his own, not only because he had been given to him in his old age in a miraculous manner, but he was also the only son of his beloved Sarah and he was the most highly born on earth. The second reason is that he could appreciate better than his son the importance of the latter’s life, being that on which depended the fulfilment of all the promises that God had made to him. The third reason is because for three days and nights together he had seen before his eyes a cruel vision of this death which so filled his mind, his imagination and his senses that it was impossible to find any escape from it. The fourth reason relates to the serious temptations he suffered : nature on several occasions revolted against his decision and, as is remarked by several Hebrew Doctors, the devil appeared to him in human form to make him turn away from the barbaric cruelty (as he called it), that he was going to inflict. Several writers see here an application of the words of St Paul[2] who wrote to the Hebrews that by faith Abraham offered Isaac his only son at a time when he found himself tempted. 

Innocent Isaac, the laughter of thy father and thy mother; sweet Jesus : Thou art a true victim, Thou hast been offered up for our sins : Thy Holy Mother is far from wishing to contest with Thee for the merit of Thy death and the firmness of Thy resolution; neither is it part of my plan to draw comparisons between Thy merits and hers, for I honour them as being infinite and proceeding from a divine person. But since it is known to Thee alone how far the courage and the merit of Thy grieving Mother doth extend, Thou wilt approve, it seemeth to me, that I should explain to everyone that the world hath never seen a firmness of heart like unto hers, that all the Angels were astonished and delighted thereat, and that after Thine own oblation Thy father findeth nothing more pleasing to Him than the courage and constancy of this afflicted heart of her who held firm and steady in the midst of the storms caused to her by Thy death.

Footnotes

[1] Pererius, Gen. 22. disp. 15.

[2] Fide obtulit Abraham Isaac, cum tentaretur /  By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered Isaac:  Hebr. xi. 17. 

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The Virgin of Tenderness. >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 2025

Part II : The Crown of Power : Chapter 6 : § 4.4-5

Chapter 6 :  The Fifth Star or Splendour of the Crown of Power of the MOTHER OF GOD

She is the Mother of the world to come and Redeemer of our race

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)

§ 4. The second reason that the Holy Virgin has the right to be considered as the Co-Redemptrix of men and the Mother of the world to come

The second reason: She offered her Son unto death

 4   The focus of this whole discussion so far has been on raising the merit of the Blessed Virgin’s sacrifice. In order to add some weight to the substance of our consideration, we may note that there an offering’s value and its price may be affected under the following five headings, namely: 

 
    • the person offering the sacrifice 
    • the person receiving it 
    • the offering itself
    • the hardship or difficulty involved and 
    • the love which accompanies its fulfilment.

These headings are like so many sources which pour into the heart of the most sacred Virgin, filling it with a veritable ocean of merits. Beginning with the first one, we note that the identity of the person making the offering is no small matter. God, for example, was pleased with the sacrifice of Abel but not with that of Cain. St Paul declares[1] that the Saviour’s person was such that the Eternal Father found it quite impossible to set aside the prayer that he was making. To sum up:  it is the common opinion of theologians that in this matter the satisfaction provided by the Saviour was priceless and had infinite merit. I have no intention of claiming that his dear Mother equalled Him in this respect, but I feel confident in saying that she was more pleasing to God than all other creatures taken together. Consequently, if her offering did not have infinite merit because of who she was. it nevertheless had an inestimable price and value.

Footnotes

[1] Who in the days of his flesh, with a strong cry and tears, offering up prayers and supplications to him that was able to save him from death, was heard for his reverence. Hebr. v. 7.

 5   With regard to the second heading, the person receiving the offering: I can say quite simply but in all truth that she had no less advantage than her Son, because she offered Him to the same Eternal Father to whom the Saviour offered Himself in sacrifice. I would say that the same holds true with regards to the offering itself, because what the Son offered was the same as His Mother’s offering – namely, the life of the Lamb without blemish, because the person in whom it subsisted was divine, making it infinitely pleasing to God. I am dedicating a separate section[1] to the fourth heading : the difficulty involved in the sacrifice. I would only ask pious readers to ponder on the words of three of the dearest children of the Blessed Virgin, whose hearts bleed when they explain how she had to give her consent to the death of such a son. The venerable St Bernard[2], reflecting upon the pair of turtle doves that she presented for Him on the day of her Purification[3], writes as follows:

I personally find this is quite a modest offering, since it only requires her to carry Him to the Temple then to buy Him back with two inexpensive birds; but let us show some patience here, for the time will come when this weeping Mother will not be going to the trouble of offering Him in the Temple by placing him in the hands of the old man Simeon, but she will see Him led out of the city to be immolated on the wood of the Cross. In the one case, He was redeemed with money but in the other He will redeem others at the price of His blood; the first sacrifice was that of the morning, the second will be the bloody sacrifice of the evening.

Arnold of Chartres[4], close friend of the same St Bernard, delivers a powerful message in just a few words:

Here there were not two wills, he says, nor two sacrifices, namely of the Son and the Mother; there was but one holocaust that they offered to God : He offered the blood from His veins, she offered the blood of her heart. This persuades me that they also had one result, namely the salvation of the world. 

No one should be in any doubt, adds Saint Bonaventure[5], that the Holy Virgin wanted to deliver up her Son for our salvation, or that she did so in total conformity with the will and loving intent of the Father and the Son. Love such as this must not be lightly glossed over, but rather calls upon us to ponder the honour and love we owe her by the way she freely offered her Son unto death, whom she would have been happy to redeem by suffering herself all the torments of His most bitter passion.

Footnotes

[1] In the following section (§).

[2] Serm. 3 de Purificat.

[3] Luke ii. 22-25.

[4] Tract. de Laudibus Mariæ.

[5] In I, dist. 48, q. 2.

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The Virgin of Tenderness. >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 2025

Part II : The Crown of Power : Chapter 6 : § 4.1-3

Chapter 6 :  The Fifth Star or Splendour of the Crown of Power of the MOTHER OF GOD

She is the Mother of the world to come and Redeemer of our race

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)

§ 4. The second reason that the Holy Virgin has the right to be considered as the Co-Redemptrix of men and the Mother of the world to come

The second reason: She offered her Son unto death

 1   The Holy Fathers do not stop with the first reason we have just discussed, for they are unwilling to agree that she was called Co-Redemptrix only because she brought forth the Redeemer into the world. They go further than this and, taking into account that the most Sacred Virgin was Mother and Spouse of the Father of the world to come, they acknowledge a certain power in her which, conjoined with her free and considered consent to deliver up her Son and her Spouse for us, meant that she cooperated in a very special way in our salvation and our redemption.

 

This makes me recall the incident which is recorded in the fourth book of Exodus[1] where it is written that as Moses was returning into Egypt with his wife and his children, in compliance with God’s express commandment, he found himself in an inn where an Angel approached him with a sword in his hand, threatening to kill him. His wife Sephora, seeing that her husband was in danger, intervened. Their little son Eliezer Had not yet been circumcised according to the commandment which had been given by God[2]. They were at the time in a rocky area of Arabia where the lack of iron had caused the inhabitants to file and sharpen stones to serve in place of metal razors. She took one of these and circumcised her son. When she had done this, she threw the bloody foreskin at the feet of her husband, saying to him: A bloody spouse art thou to me[3]. Some maintain that it was the displeasure she felt at seeing her son bleeding from his wound that drew from her these words showing her anger. Others believe with greater probability that it was a token of her affection, as though she were to have said to him: My dear friend, without me thou wouldst have been killed; but I saved thee, preserving thy life, for which the price was the blood of our poor little innocent son. Whether or not this is the correct interpretation, it seems to me that the Holy Virgin had far more reason than Sephora to say to our Lord that He was in truth a spouse of blood to her and that she herself could most properly be called a spouse of blood too, since she had been obliged by God’s eternal decree to deliver her Son and her Spouse unto death, and that their marriage could be consummated only through the shedding of blood.

 

Footnotes

[1] Exod. iv. 21-26.

[2] Gen. xvii. 10-14. This is the Douay-Rheims translation of the Vulgate: Sponsus sanguinum tu mihi es – A spouse of blood(s) to me thou art.

[3] This is the Douay-Rheims translation of the Vulgate: Sponsus sanguinum tu mihi es – A spouse of blood(s) to me thou art.

 2   For a better understanding of what I mean, I invite you to recall what I wrote earlier[1] about the natural power Our Lady had over the Saviour as her Spouse and of the far greater natural power[2] that she had over him as her true and legitimate Son. The divine person of the Word Incarnate never gainsaid or limited this power. She was a mother in the fullest sense and was accordingly not wanting in any of the maternal rights which the Saviour always respected, showing towards her every sort of love and compliance. Let no one try to contradict me by quoting the words that her Son spoke to her at the wedding of Cana when he said[3]: Woman, what is that to me and to thee? – for I shall reply by quoting the irreproachable authority of several learned Doctors, including St Augustine[4], Saint Gregory of Nyssa[5], Saint Gregory the Great[6], Saint Bernard[7], Saint Thomas[8] and others who maintain that these words were in no way uttered by the Saviour by way of reproach or to take anything away from the obedience and respect that He owed to His Mother, but He wanted to start giving proofs of His divinity, showing to the people present that the miracle His Mother was requesting depended entirely upon the divine nature, in which He was not subject to her. This does not apply, however, to what we are discussing, for it is impossible to deny that He held from His holy Mother both the life that He was to give up and the human nature which was to undergo suffering, and she therefore had a right over both of these. This means that no one could go against either of these without giving offence to her and violating her natural right. In consequence, when she offered this divine life and this most holy humanity she was giving something which belonged to her, with all the power that nature can bestow upon a mother.

Footnotes

[1] See previous chapter.

[2] Chap. 5.

[3] John ii. 4.

[4] Tract. XIX in Joann., et lib. de Fide et Symbolo, c. 4.

[5] Orat. in illud dictum Apostoli : Tunc erit et ipse subjectus, etc.

[6] Lib. VIII, epist. 13.

[7] Serm. 1 et 2 Dominic. 4 post Epiphan.

[8] In illud Joann.

 3   In this regard as in every other, her will and her desires were in perfect harmony with those of the Eternal Father; to such an extent that with one common accord both the Father and the Mother consented to the death of their Son, and delivered Him up for our redemption. On the basis of this understanding, the Holy Archbishop of Florence[1] applies to her the words that St Paul wrote[2] of God the Father, saying:

She spared not even her own son, but delivered him up to death for us all.

For the same reason, St Bonaventure applies to her the beautiful words of St John[3]:

For she so loved the world as to give her only begotten son for our salvation.

St Bernadine applies the words of the Church to her:

What a marvellous condescension of the mercy of the Father and Mother of blessed Jesus towards us! What an ineffable token of love by both who, to redeem the slave, have abandoned their own Son to death, all through the superabundance of love that they have for us! 

For my part, every time I think about this, I feel my heart melting at the sound of those words full of compassion that the Saviour uttered through the Prophet King, when he said: I have been cast into thine arms from my mother’s womb; or, according to the original text[4]: I was cast upon thee from the womb of my mother; forasmuch as when I was emerging from her womb, she offered me no more nor less than as a victim for reconciliation. Apart from this, I am also much taken by the wondrous coming together and holy agreement of the wills of the three parties that have been the cause of our joy: the Father as Father, as King and as Monarch over all things, giving up His Son; the Son as Sovereign Pontiff going into the Sanctuary, there to shed His blood and to sacrifice Himself; the Holy Virgin as Mother and as Spouse delivering Him up, and as one officiating at the sacrifice, presenting Him to God. The noble idea of St Bernard[5] also comes frequently to mind, shown in the following words:

God, having determined to redeem the world, placed the purchase price for the redemption in the hands of the most sacred Virgin.

This leads me think that there is much to be said for what we find taught by a number of theologians who gave serious thought to this question. Let us imagine (for we are free to conjecture about this) that the Eternal Father had not determined to will the deliverance of His Son unto death for the deliverance of sinners from their sin, then the command alone of the Mother, once given, would have been enough to make the Son do this, and to make Him do everything that He actually went on to doat the command of His Father. If this argument of St Bernard is well founded, then it opens up the possibility that an idea some well-instructed minds have proposed may well be true: that the Holy Virgin encouraged the Saviour when He felt in a state of extreme abandonment to go forward along this demanding and painful path. There are good reasons to agree with him when he says that she did this:

so that she might counteract in every way what our first Mother had done, repairing and restoring what had been lost through her sin; so that just as the first Eve had led the first of men into sin and as a consequence had brought about the ruin of his children, in the same way the second Eve would initiate the process of repair and restoration, reminding the second Adam of the compelling reasons he had to complete the work that had been begun.

Footnotes

[1] S. Antonin., IV p., tit. XIII, c. 12, § 1.

[2] He that spared not even his own Son, but delivered him up for us all. Rom. viii. 32.

[3] For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting. John iii. 16.

[4] I was cast upon thee from the womb. From my mother's womb thou art my God. Ps. XXI. 11.

[5] Serm. in Signum magnum.

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The Virgin of Tenderness. >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 2025