Chapter 10 : Mortification – a ninth feature of the gratitude we owe the Mother of God
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) |
§ 2. Various practices of Mortification
Vigils
3 A second practice of mortification is to go without sleep for a period in order to focus on prayer and the contemplation of heavenly things. I have described elsewhere[1] how this featured in the city of Constantinople where crowds of Christian people flocked every Wednesday to the Church of the Holy Virgin[2] which was in the Metalworkers’ Market and every Tuesday to Our Lady the Guide (or the Hodegetria[3]) where the Empress Pulcheria was frequently first among those coming for the vigils and other devotions.
The Chronicles of the Grande Chartreuse[4] relate how in the time of Guy, the fifth Prior of this Monastery and the Superior General of the Order, there was a lay brother noted for his simplicity but also for his heavenly wisdom and his singular devotion to serving the MOTHER OF GOD. He would frequently meditate upon her great dignities and qualities whilst others in the monastery were taking their much-needed rest. The sworn enemy of all good could not bear this, however, and interrupted his sleep at various times. On one occasion, he sent a band of demons into his cell during the night disguised as wild boars. They gave every appearance of wanting to devour him there and then but they did not have the courage to go near him. Next a terrible giant made his appearance and, reproaching the others for their cowardice, he threatened to dismember him with an iron hook that he brandished in his hand. The poor man felt all was lost and his only recourse was to seek the help of God and the Mother of goodness, who suddenly came to his rescue. Having put the wretched demons to flight, she took him once more under her protection, told him the service he offered her was most pleasing and, in token of her love, she gave him three pieces of advice worthy of such a teacher, namely : he was to choose the worst portions of meat at meal times, he was to dress in the simplest of clothes and he was to prefer manual work as being most fitting for his vocation. After following this advice most carefully for the rest of his days, he died in the odour of sanctity.
Footnotes
[1] Part III, ch. 7, § 3.
[2] This would seem to be the Church of Theotokos Chalkoprateia (also known as St. Mary of Chalkoprateia), named from a copper/bronze-workers’ market in the city.
[3] Hodegetria : “she who shows the way”.
[4] The Grande Chartreuse is the mother house of the Carthusian religious order. It is located in the Chartreuse Mountains, north of the city of Grenoble in France.
Mortifying the flesh with the cilice and other disciplines
4 A third practice is to mortify the flesh by means of the cilice[1] or other similar disciplines. These have always been highly esteemed by the Saints as being most reliable means for making progress in virtue, taking the view that they were offering themselves to His divine Majesty as so many victims of love.
Footnotes
[1] cilice : haircloth, sack-cloth, originally made from goats’ hair. Cf. I was clothed with haircloth. I humbled my soul with fasting / induebar cilicio; humiliabam in jejunio animam meam : Ps. XXXIV. 13.
Mortification of the passions
5 Above all this, however, the Holy Virgin prizes most highly the interior mortification of the passions and the disordered motions of the soul. This is a battlefield where honour is truly to be won and where she can derive more glory than from any chastisement of the body. The saintly Bishop of Beauvais relates the following story[1]:
There was once a certain nobleman who was making his way to a tournament due to be held in Normandy. He sought lodgings for the night in the house of a poor man whose misery so blinded him as to hand over to the young man one of his daughters who had taken a vow of virginity. This was in order to obtain money to relieve his poverty. Never was there found a creature in greater distress than this poor girl seeing herself reduced to such an extremity. She spared nothing in her attempts to bring about a change of heart on the part of this man into whose power she had been delivered. Nothing, however, served so much to win him over than her supplications in the name of Mary – which was also her own name – and the fact that it was a Saturday, which is particularly dedicated to the MOTHER OF GOD whom she begged to protect her honour and to give her the means of keeping the promise that she had made to God. Not only did the nobleman respect the justice of her prayer, but he escorted her the following day to a monastery where she had for long sought entry, supplying for the love of the MOTHER OF GOD whose name she had invoked the necessary sum of money required for her dowry as a bride of Christ. The Virgin Mother was not lacking in gratitude for what he did because when he met his death two days later during the tournament, she revealed to one of her faithful servants that he had died in grace and she had obtained for him the remission of his sins out of consideration for what he had done a little while earlier out of love of her.
Footnotes
[1] Vincent. Bellov., lib. VII, c. 102 et 103.
6 As an aid to practising mortification of the passions, a certain practice has been developed recently which is gentle in the way it works and works well because it is gentle. Here is a summary : each day whenever a temptation presents itself which you are able to resist, regard this victory as a flower you can pick and which will form part of a bouquet of such flowers you will present to the Virgin at the hour of your death, obtaining through the offer of this gift her graces and those of her Son at this all important hour. To help you fulfil the duties involved in this exercise, you should make use of a little notebook with lined pages and which has for its title: A bouquet of flowers I have gathered each day of my life. I picked the first flower [on such and such a day of such and such a month in the year – being the [nth] year of my life.
At the end of each day before going to bed, you should indicate with a cross any flower you picked during that day, or with two or three crosses if you achieved more than one victory over yourself. If you allow opportunities for overcoming yourself to pass by, then you should indicate this on the page for that day with a zero, meaning none. You should continue this way right to the end. As those who have practised this devotion will attest, it is remarkable how the displeasure that comes from writing zeros operates gently upon the mind so that it becomes attentive to the more important occasions of temptation, providing an opportunity for a victory which is beautiful and pleasing in the eyes of your Holy Mother.
[End of Chapter 10]
© Peter Bloor 2025
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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.
He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded: and they that work by me, shall not sin. They that explain me shall have life everlasting. Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) xxiv. 30-31.
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