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).
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| 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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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 Virgin of Tenderness. >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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