Part II : The Crown of Power : Chapter 6 : § 11.1-2

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)

§ 11. The hope of recourse : the fifth fruit of mankind’s restoration by the Blessed Virgin

 1   Try to imagine, if you can, a poor man worn out with old age, crushed by the labours of a lifetime, suffering continual aches and pains, lying ill in bed. Just look at the state he is in : abandoned by doctors, with sunken cheeks and a pinched nose, the extremities of his body turned to ice, his heart grown weak, all his senses numbed, his entire body bathed in sweat, having no pulse and showing no signs of life. If suddenly we were to see him recover, regain his strength, get up from his bed hail and hearty, and return to the vigour he enjoyed as a thirty year old, could there be any doubt that an Angel had come from the earthly Paradise and secretly brought him fruit from the tree of life, along with health, strength and youth? Now picture the world after four thousand years, bent double with the passage of time, broken by toil and suffering, overwhelmed with misery and on the point of breathing its last. If we were to see this world suddenly changed so as to have a new face and new vigour, recovering in an instant the health and strength of its youth, could we have any doubt that it had received some unexpected help from Heaven and some quite extraordinary healing which had such a rapid effect in such a short period of time? If you ask me who brought the world this cure, I will reply that it is the Blessed Virgin; and if you find that difficult to believe, just listen to St Andrew of Jerusalem[1]:

To day, he says, speaking of the feast of the Annunciation, He who created all things brings to completion what He had planned through the ages; for today, man is made anew and the world which was already hoary with age, weary and growing weak, is renewed by a spiritual youthfulness which casts out the old age of sin.

Footnotes

[1] Serm. de Annuntiat.

 2   Picture, if you prefer, a royal parterre[1] laid waste by a heatwave, suffering in a seemingly endless and terrible drought. Cast a compassionate glance upon the exquisite plants that you see wilting and falling everywhere to the ground; look at these flowers of the rarest blasted continually by the sun’s rays, these delicate plots and flower-beds losing their beauty and their greenery, these masterpieces of horticulture carefully maintained that have lost all their charm, and these beautiful borders where the plants are now fit only for the bonfire. Do not forget the poor gardener who contemplates the scene with a broken heart and is filled with despair at seeing the work of several years brought to nothing in just a few days. Then one morning, arriving with a plan to uproot and dispose of everything, he finds his plants recovered, the flowers restored to life and their natural beauty, his plots and flower beds more enchanting than ever, all his pieces of handiwork repaired, and his borders green once more – could he be in any doubt either that some Angel from heaven had applied an invisible hand to work this wonder or that a gentle rain had poured its life-giving waters into the soil, restoring and reviving the roots that were dying or half dead, causing them to bring forth new beauty and to recover what they had lost? 

If you have studied with attention this parterre deprived of life and beauty during this period of drought and barrenness, then you would have an accurate idea of the world as it was before God came to its rescue; and if you have understood the benefit it received from a gentle shower of life restoring rain, then you will have no difficulty in appreciating how obliged we all are to the MOTHER OF GOD who was sent from heaven to bring refreshment to our race, made more wretched and miserable in its sin than this garden you saw was by the scorching rays of the sun. This is the sweet thought of two great servants of the Virgin: firstly, the pious St Bonaventure[2] who says:

The arrival of Mary was just like a longed for shower of rain bringing joy to all creatures and restoring to them the ancient greenery and life they had lost;

and secondly, the learned and eloquent bishop of Ostia[3], who declares

She was the spring feeding a river which, dividing into four branches, watered not only the Paradise of pleasure, but also the whole earth[4].

Footnotes

[1] parterre (the same word in French and English): a level space in a garden occupied by an ornamental arrangement of flower beds. 

[2] Speculi B. Virg., c. 7.

[3] Petr. Dam., Serm. de Annuntiat.

[4] Gen. ii. 10.

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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