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
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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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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