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