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) |
§ 6. The extreme humility which may be seen in the way she helped to restore fallen men
1 Dear Lord, what a simple thing it is for man to lose everything, but how hard it is to repair this loss! The brief moment required for a man to be lost may be compared to how quickly water can be spilt on the ground, or a crystal glass broken into pieces; but it would be easier to gather up every last drop of this spilt water, or to repair the broken glass than it would be for man to restore himself to the state he was in before he fell. It took no more than a fleeting instant for the first man to bite into the apple, but was there ever any act that would endure longer in its consequences or which was punished more severely?
It seems that we need to discuss this question in order to understand the Holy Virgin’s title of Reparatrix[1] and to appreciate the obligations we have to her who helped her Son in His work of repair and restoration. If we do not understand the depth of the misfortunes into which we fell, we shall fail to recognise how much we have benefited when the work of restoration drew us out of these depths. I shall, however, treat this question fairly briefly because I realise the importance of sticking with our theme.
Footnotes
[1] Reparatrix (Fr. Réparatrice) : she who restores to state of grace or innocence, restorer, redemptrix [DMLBS]. Cf. Pius XI, Encyclical Miserentissimus Redemptor (AAS 20 [1928] 178): "May the most gracious Virgin Mother of God look kindly, she who, because she gave us Jesus the Redeemer, nourished him, and at the Cross offered him as a victim, by reason of her mysterious union with him and utterly singular grace, became and is piously called the Reparatrix."
Six misfortunes consequent upon the sin of Adam.
The first: God’s disgrace[1]
2 To begin with, it is clear that the first misfortune Adam brought upon himself and his descendants, as soon as he had sinned, was to suffer the disgrace of God. I have always shared the opinion of Philo the Jew[2], of St Eucherius[3] and of St Gregory the Great[4] (along with several others) who taught that the death with which our first parents were threatened and which was to fall upon their heads as soon as they had sinned, consisted principally of God’s disgrace, even though this was not the only consequence. What sort of death could we possibly imagine more dreadful than this? Even if you portray the body’s death in the most frightening way possible, it is as nothing compared with that suffered by the soul since it is deprived of its life and its spirit, which is none other than God’s grace. This death produces a stench in the soul worse than all the charnel houses in the world, rendering the soul useless as far as meritorious actions are concerned. It leads to rotting and dissolution from the results of sin and vice; it makes the soul become the quarry[5] of demons and the food of worms frenetically gnawing away at the inside. Men must be sure to remember this bitter and dreadful sort of death above anything else whatsoever that could cause them bitterness and fear. For just as the man having God for his friend has no reason to fear anything whatsoever, in the same way there is nothing more alarming and terrifying than to have God as an enemy.
Footnotes
[1] God’s disgrace: the disgrace God inflicts. See disgrace 1a in OED for this older usage.
[2] Lib. II Allegoriarum legis Mosaicæ.
[3] Lib. I Comment. in Genesim.
[4] Registri, lib. VI, c. 195.
[5] 1938 : a quarry is a reward of entrails, etc., which is given to the hounds on the hide of the dead beast.[OED]
The second misfortune : the curse
3 The second misfortune followed closely after the first and it was the curse which struck him like a thunderbolt. This curse was not confined to the person of the criminal nor even to his descendants but affected the whole earth which was to support and nourish him, and also all things in the universe which still suffers even till now, as Saint Paul says[1], and which will suffer always from pains comparable to the labour pains of childbirth, until the day comes when they are completely delivered of sinful man whom they bore as in their wombs. This is an unmistakable sign of the extreme wrath of God since, in order to avenge Himself on man, He went for everything having any connection with him, treating him like someone who is the head and source of a crime of lèse-majesté, whose race is to be exterminated and whose home is to be razed to the ground, without leaving anything that belongs to him, lest the very air be infected by his sin.
Footnotes
[1] For we know that every creature groaneth and travaileth in pain, even till now, Rom. viii. 22.
The third misfortune: loss of the inheritance prepared for him
4 The third misfortune was the loss of the inheritance which God had prepared for him and which can be seen in the degrading banishment he suffered when ignominiously cast out of the earthly Paradise. It was in truth pitiful to see the Prince and head of our race departing in this way. What a spectacle it was to contemplate him who a short while previously had been
• lord of the most beautiful place in the world,
• able to command with unlimited power all the animals,
• vested royally in his beautiful robe of innocence,
• casually conversing with God and the Angels,
• dwelling in the midst of the delights provided by the earth, the heavens and the waters, without any effort or labour on his part,
• destined to people the earth with a holy posterity who, without knowing either suffering or death, would have passed from this sweet life to a better and eternal one,
now suddenly fallen away from his noble state, degraded and declared unworthy, disavowed by all his subjects, forced along with his wife to take leave of this garden of pleasure, taking nothing with them except the poor lambskin which God in his pity had given them to wear!
Poor Adam, what is to become of thee, disgraced in this way and banished from the presence of God, having drawn down upon thyself His hatred and indignation? Thou knowest not yet the full consequences of His just anger, but thou wilt have time enough to experience the full weight of His arm as all creatures revolt by way of vengeance against thy disobedience, seeing in thee only a rebel against the commandments of the Creator who is theirs as well as thine. The Angels who once protected and respected thee will withdraw and become the ministers who execute the decrees pronounced against thee. Thou needest only to turn around to see behind thee the avenging Cherub, whose zeal is a thousand times more fearful than the flaming sword he wields to keep thee out of paradise. It is now time for thee to bid an eternal farewell to this blessed place, for now thou art condemned with pickaxe and spade to work the earth which would otherwise have supplied thee effortlessly with all that thou couldst desire.
Farewell to this beautiful Paradise, farewell to this blessed plot, farewell to the tree of life, farewell to peace and rest, farewell to pleasure, farewell to the Blessed Spirits, farewell to the gentle colloquy with thy Father, farewell to His friendship and farewell to His protection – for Adam may now expect only hardship, tribulation, labour, drought, famine, war, plague and other similar consequences of the wrath of Him who was so unworthily sinned against by man.
👑 👑 👑
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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