Part IV : How to give thanks to the Mother of God : Chapter 9 : § 2.4-6

Chapter 9 : Devotion – an eighth 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).

Notre Dame des Grâces, Cotignac (Poggi, 2020)

§ 2. Second sign of devotion : to approach the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar frequently and with every tender affection

 4   The second reason relates to how it was love of His Mother that first caused the Saviour to think of instituting this wonderful Sacrament. It may well be the case that another reason He instituted the Sacrament was for the consolation of His disciples whom He was leaving in this world, and to mitigate their sorrow arising from His absence after His Ascension into Heaven. This is how all the Holy Fathers understand those words which are reported by St Matthew[1]: Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world. I am nevertheless in no doubt that He was more motivated to provide consolation for His Mother than all the others since His absence would be more distressful to her alone than all the rest together. From this it follows that we are extremely indebted to her since it was out of consideration for her that the Sacrament was instituted. We might add here the devout and holy reflection of a contemporary Doctor[2], who said that: 

When for love of us the Son of God took up His abode for the first time within the womb of the Virgin and she showed Him such honour and love, He was so delighted that, in order to experience this joy again He introduced a way of returning there and of renewing in a certain manner the mystery of His Incarnation which had given him such satisfaction and pleasure. Through this means He would make possible that which Nicodemus had considered to be impossible : for a man when he is old to enter a second time into his mother’s womb[3].

For He entered therein as many times as His Mother received Communion and no one, I believe, can doubt that she received Communion every day in accordance with what was then the custom of the Church. We are told this expressly by an anonymous author quoted by Metaphrastes[4]:

She approached the divine mysteries every day, he says, and frequently received in Communion the same body of her Son that she had borne in her womb before giving birth to Him. 

Footnotes

[1] Matt. xxviii. 20.

[2] Salazar in 9 Prov., nº 133.

[3] Nicodemus saith to him: How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter a second time into his mother's womb, and be born again? John iii. 4.

[4] Symeon Metaphrastes: the principal compiler of the legends of saints in the Menologia of the Byzantine Church; active in the second half of the 10th century.

 5   We now come, however, to a third reason which will make us realise how our dear Mother is linked to this divine Sacrament in a special and fitting way, obliging us to show her our grateful devotion : it is because in the Sacrament we truly receive her own substance, so that what we receive is her flesh and her blood. This follows since, as we have said so many times, the flesh of the Son is the flesh of the Mother. This is what St Bernardine of Siena[1] meant when he said that: 

All the beauty and dignity of the Church’s Sacraments have their perfection in the flesh of the Virgin inasmuch as all the other Sacraments look towards the Sacrament of the Eucharist as towards their final end and for this reason it is known as the Blessed Sacrament par excellence.

Now, the Blessed Sacrament contains the precious body of the Son of God, a body formed from a part of the Mother’s substance. The Greeks in their Liturgy have a ceremony which is slightly different to our own in relation to the Host which is to be consecrated. They do not carry Hosts onto the Holy Altar already prepared and divided, as we do, but they take one from a loaf in the middle of which you can see a small image of the crucified Saviour, almost the same size and shape as our Catholic hosts. They call this image the mark and seal of the oblation, because it is this part alone which the priest cuts and removes for use in the offertory and consecration. The rest of the bread is kept until the end of Mass for distribution to those who have not received Communion (just as we distribute blessed bread) and they call this the Benediction or Blessing, when this unconsecrated bread is distributed in place of the sacred Body to those who have not received it. The Patriarch St Germanus[2] was inspired to say in this connection that:

The loaf from which the host is taken may be seen as a figure of the Virgin Mary, from whose womb was taken this divine body having the substantial form of God made man.   

Even though through this separation may result in a hypostatic change in which He subsists separately, the flesh and the substance are nevertheless the Virgin’s, no more nor less than the host’s substance is part of the loaf. Our glorious Patriarch St Ignatius received a sweet grace of consolation whilst he was reflecting upon this truth, which we can read about in certain notes where he recorded the graces and heavenly illuminations that he received. 

I was considering, he says, how the Son and the Mother share naturally the same flesh and the same blood, or at the least how the Son is a part of the Mother’s substance; and consequently how at Communion I receive the most sacred flesh not only of the Son but also of the Mother; and how he who approaches the Sacrament in a holy and worthy manner is united with and is made one flesh with the Son and with the Mother, since according to the maxim of the Philosophers : Things which are identical to a third one are identical to each other[3]. 

Footnotes

[1] Tom. I, Serm. 61.

[2] De Mystic. contemplat. rerum Eccles.

[3] Quae sunt eadem uni tertio, sunt eadem inter se.

 6   This third reason has a very solid foundation not only because this adorable body with which we are nourished in the Blessed Sacrament was originally formed from the flesh and blood of the Virgin Mother (constituting its prime matter) and by virtue of her action (operating as efficient cause), but also because of what certain learned Doctors[1] teach with a high degree of probability, namely that : 

The Saviour never lost this first and original substance which He received from His Mother at His conception; He still has it in Heaven and this is what they give us in Holy Communion, along with what was added after conception through nourishment and natural growth. 

Philosophers and Physicians agree that natural heat and other causes acting upon our body from without all gradually use up what they call its radical moisture[2], meaning that first and original substance for the replenishment of which we have to take food. They nevertheless add that this substance is so strong and enduring that it is never entirely lost except perhaps in extreme old age, which seems more or less certain in the case of bones and cartilage with their firm constitution. Indeed there are certain reputable Doctors who deny completely that, under the effect of natural heat or other similar causes, man can ever lose the first flesh which he receives from his father and mother. Concerning the opinion of such writers, my own view is that this continual destruction of the radical moisture, of which so many Philosophers and Physicians speak, should not be regarded as a destruction of substance but as an alteration of the accidents associated with the qualities proper to life’s operations. Accordingly, the food which we consume serves only to repair these accidents or to enable man to grow to his natural size.

Footnotes

[1] S. Bernard. Senens., sup. citat. ; Suar., t. II, 15, III p., d. 1, sect. 3 ; Spin., c. 8, nº 23 et 24, etc.

[2] radical moisture (‘humidum radicale’) was understood to be the ‘natural moysture’ or ‘fundamental juyce of the body, whereby the natural heat is nourished and preserved, as the flame in a Lamp is preserved by oyle’. For more, see S.T. Pt.I. Q119.

 

© Peter Bloor 2025 

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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.

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.