Part II : The Crown of Power : Chapter 5 : § 1.1-3

Chapter 5 : The Fourth Star or Splendour of the Crown of Power of the MOTHER OF GOD

She was the Spouse and the Companion of the Saviour

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)

As the Saviour advanced in years, so too did His goals; and just as when He was very small (as we saw earlier) He required the help and assistance of a Mother, a Nurse, and a Teacher, in the same way He now required the company of a Spouse, not only for His own needs, but also to help in His ministry, as well as for the good of all His subjects, as will become readily apparent in the following pages.

§ 1. The Holy Virgin is in truth the Spouse of the Saviour

 1   Please do not consider it offensive to modesty when you learn that she whom a little earlier you were considering in her role as Mother and Nurse should now become the Spouse of her own Son. Remember that here it is a question of God and the Virgin of Virgins and since everything between them is altogether divine, so too our thoughts must be entirely celestial. You should be aware that the pious Hugh of St Victor had seen this difficulty before you, and here is how he speaks in a sermon which he composed for the Assumption:

What wonder can this be, that the Son of the Mother should also be the Spouse of the Virgin, and that the creator of virginity should at the same time be the fruit of fecundity! What dost thou say, divine Lover, of the fact that she who didst conceive Thee as Mother is also Thy beloved? How can these two states be reconciled? I understand clearly enough, replies the learned doctor, she is Thy beloved on account of her virginity and Thy Mother on account of her fruitfulness. As Mother she first of all engendered Thee, and then from her and Thee together was born Thy Church, which is also glorified for being Virgin and Mother conjointly. In being born, Thou didst take from Thy Mother the substance of infirmity, and in dying Thou didst leave to Thy Spouse the Sacrament of incorruption, showing Thyself in both of these to be a lover truly exceptional.

Do not imagine that it was only recently that the Christian Church has spoken this way, since more than twelve hundred years ago St Augustine[1] and St Peter Chrysologus[2] declared that the Holy Virgin was the only woman who merited the status of being Mother and Spouse at the same time. It was nearly thirteen hundred years ago that Saint Epiphanius[3] numbered amongst those miracles that Heaven worked in Mary that of the nuptial couch, her true Spouse being Jesus Christ; that he called her[4] the Mother of the celestial Spouse; that he said the Angel Gabriel had prepared her for the Saviour, her divine Spouse; and that he applied to her the words of the Canticle of love[5], where the Holy Spouse calls her His Sister and His Spouse. Indeed, to go even further back, more than fourteen hundred years ago, St Gregory of Neocaesarea observed[6] that:

The Holy Archangel had been sent to the Blessed Virgin who was indeed betrothed to Joseph, but was kept for her principal Spouse: Jesus Christ.

Footnotes

[1] Serm. 35 de Sanctis.

[2] Oral. 140.

[3] Orat. de S. Deipara.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Thou hast wounded my heart, my sister, my spouse: Cant. iv. 9.

[6] Orat. 5 in Annuntiat.

 2  The Holy Fathers of the centuries which followed all spoke in a similar vein. St Bonaventure called her the Spouse and the Mother of the Eternal King; the blessed St Agnes, in a revelation made to Saint Bridget, spoke of her as having the three excellent qualities of Daughter, Mother and Spouse of the Redeemer. The learned English Archdeacon[1] declared:

She was indeed the Spouse of the Saviour, having received from Him the pledge of Celestial graces, having been joined with Him in a bond of love altogether divine, and having conceived by Him the fruits of countless acts of virtue.

St Bernardine of Siena observes:

Only our lord himself and the Holy Virgin are capable of understanding the tender sweetness of their holy and innocent gestures of affection to one another, she enjoying the happiness of being for Him Mother and Spouse at the same time.

Footnotes

[1] The French text does not identify this authority but inserts the following footnote: "In Hymno : Te Matrem Dei laudamus. Tu sponsa, et Mater Regis æterni."  (An adaptation of the Te deum in honour of Mary found from 12th century onwards; once ascribed to St Bonaventure. See "Te Matrem dei Laudamus:" A Study in the Musical Veneration of Mary.)

 3   I shall in due course be citing numerous other writers but I think it is important to clarify at the outset the meaning of this title by saying that the Holy Virgin is the Spouse of Our Lord differently to the way she is Spouse of the Holy Spirit. She is, moreover, Spouse of the Saviour in a way very different to other chosen souls who are called Spouses of Jesus Christ. She bears the title of Spouse of the Holy Spirit, as is remarked most oppositely by St Anselm, inasmuch as He came down upon her in His substance, acting as father and providing the formative power for the Incarnation of the divine Word. In virtue of this, the Holy Fathers have no difficulty in calling Him the Spouse of the Virgin, even according to the flesh. As for her title Spouse of the Word incarnate, it is in truth fitting for her because she was chosen by God to produce conjointly with the same Word in one and the same spirit and flesh (for that of the Son is in truth that of the Mother as the Holy Doctors agree), countless children of adoption, meaning in a general sense all the children of the Church. It is with this name that the Saviour, when speaking to this Spouse of His (as reported by the pious Abbot Rupert[1]) calls all the faithful children issuing from their marriage. 

After this, it is a simple matter to deal with the difference which is found between the Blessed Virgin and those others who are called the Spouses of Jesus Christ. Apart from the fact that the others are married in a purely spiritual sense and that, properly speaking, they cannot be said to be of one flesh with the Saviour in the way we can quite truthfully say is the case with the Holy Virgin, there is also the fact that these beautiful souls which it pleases the divine Spouse to grant the honour of approaching His mystical couch are Spouses who are to produce with the cooperation of His grace only the fruits of holy actions, or at most of a number of spiritual children intended for Heaven. It is in this sense, according to St Jerome, that we must understood what was once said by the Prophet Isaiah[2], that seven women, meaning an almost infinite number of beautiful souls under the law of Grace, would take hold of one man, meaning none other than the Saviour, to wipe out the shame of barrenness for which they suffered opprobrium under the Old Law, and to produce for Him a great number of noble and heroic deeds in the world . The case of the Holy Virgin, however, was different because she was the Spouse elect of the Saviour, chosen to help in the regeneration of all the others and chosen from the most perfect Spouses and from those most advanced in graces received from the King of Heaven, to be the Mother of all the children of salvation, without a single exception, to be the Lady with charge over all the goods of the Saviour and the Dispensatrix of all His treasures. This will be seen more clearly after we have examined the truth concerning two principal qualities which obliged Our Lord to proceed in the way He did by uniting Himself to her in an indissoluble manner.

Footnotes

[1] Tom. III, Serm. 11, art. 2.

[2] Isaiah: iv. 1.

👑       👑       👑

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