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).
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| 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
7 Be that as it may, I think we can regard it as certain that the Saviour in the sacred Host truly and really has some part of the substance of the Mother which He obtained from her virginal body. In the first place, because this is the general view of Physicians, namely that there remains a small part of their mother in all men until their death. as I have just been explaining. In the second place, because even though this were not so amongst the majority of men, it would nevertheless be reasonable to believe it about the Saviour of the world, out of respect for the hypostatic union which is so perfect and so faithful that it never abandons anything which it has once taken; and even though some fine scholastic minds may raise objections over some points of detail in this, I nevertheless set great store by the common way of speaking found among the Holy Fathers who declare quite simply that the Saviour retained, even after His Resurrection, the same flesh that He had received from Mary and that He gives us this same flesh in Communion. St Augustine speaks of this in a Sermon he gave on the Virgin[1]. In another place, he says[2]:
He received His flesh from Mary and he has given us this same flesh as food for our salvation.
Peter of Blois says[3]:
The same flesh born once of the Virgin , is now consecrated in bread by the word of life.
St Bernardine of Siena, cited above, expressly declares that:
The flesh taken from the Virgin to form a body for the Eternal Word was united to Him by such a close and strong bond that whilst death had the power to separate the flesh from its own form, namely the soul, it could not separate it from the person of the Word.
In the third place I would add that even were it true that through the power of natural heat or other similar causes He had lost this first substance that He received from the Virgin, we would nevertheless have to say that He still has it in the Blessed Sacrament because this has the same body which He took unto Himself again after His Resurrection. It is in fact the teaching of St Thomas[4], St Bonaventure[5] and other great Doctors[6] that every man must take up again at the Resurrection the matter and substance from which he was first formed, whether he lost it before his death or whether he always retained it.
Footnotes
[1] Caro Christi, quamvis gloria Resurrectionis fuerit magnificata, eadem tamen mansit quæ suscepta est.
[2] In Psal. 98 : De carne Mariæ carnem accepit, et ipsam carnem Mariæ nobis manducandam ad salutem dedit.
[3] Tract. de Euchar., c. 1.
[4] VI p., d. 44, q. 1, a. 2.
[5] II p., d. 30, q. 2, a. 3.
[6] Hug. a S. Vict., p. VI de Sacram., c. ult. ; Ricard. IV, d. 44, q. 4, a. 1, etc.
8 So much for the proof of this truth that we have this sovereign gift of the most august sacrament thanks to the Holy Virgin and that all those who have a devotion for her must bear witness to it here. Let us now say a few words about the practice of receiving Holy Communion and the first is that we should never approach this sacrament without a feeling of loving gratitude towards her from whom and through whom we have received it.
Please consider, dearly beloved, says Blessed Peter Damien[1], just how much we are obliged to the Blessed Mother of God and how grateful we should be to her, after God. For we receive at the Holy Altar the same body this blessed Virgin engendered, the same that she bore within her womb, that she wrapped in swaddling clothes and that she fed at her breast; we drink her blood in the sacrament of our redemption.
No, not all the praise we could manage to give her would never equal this singular benefit of having received from her flesh and from her womb this nourishment for our souls, namely Him who said of Himself[2]: I am the living bread which came down from heaven. Let us therefore say with love and affection:
Blessed be the womb that hath given us such a fruit; blessed be the tree which bore for us this food of eternal life; blessed be the Mother who feedeth us with such wholesome bread. In truth, dear Mother, having engendered us all spiritually when thou didst engender the Son of God physically, thou didst not assign us to be fed by someone else as other mothers often do, but thou didst prefer to serve us thyself as our nursing mother, giving us the milk and honey of the children of God ; and, what surpasseth all in goodness, nourishing us with the flesh of thine own Son – indeed with thine own – so as to unite as more intimately to thee and to perfect the heavenly generation, by this means communicating entirely to us thy spirit and thy life, which is none other than the spirit and life of thy Son. What mother has there ever been who would go so far as to do this? What greater witness could we want of thy tender affection and love!
Footnotes
[1] Tom. I, Serm. 61.
[2] Joann. vi. 51.
9 The second thing I would say to you is that since our dear Mother has prepared this heavenly bread for the nourishment of our souls, she desires most strongly that we should partake of it frequently. It seems to me as if I see her on fire with motherly love, in a way that once caused divine Wisdom to cry out in a loud voice to all the corners of the universe[1]:
Come, eat my bread, and drink the wine which I have mingled for you. Your souls have great need of it for here is all your life, it is what your Mother wants most for you and she wants your hearts to be devoted to it more than all other exercises of devotion. For if you have placed your hearts at my service, what greater service can you render me than to thank and glorify the Almighty for the great things He hath done to me? And what gratitude could be more noble than that which you offer through His own Son, when after you have received Him you offer your thanks to Him in my name? What more pleasing service could there be than to honour my Son – your God and mine – and how could you honour Him more than in His own body that He has left you in this most august Sacrament? You show your devotion towards the other Saints by visiting their relics, kissing them and honouring them, and you lament that Paradise has taken from you the relics of my own body; but you must cease to complain, for here you have the living body of my Son, who is flesh of my flesh, a part of my substance and the focus of all my love and affection; make Him the centre of all yours too. If you would unite your hearts to mine, then come to my Son with whom I am but one and in whom you partake of my own substance too, so that you may receive more abundantly my Spirit.
Finally, you should know that I desire nothing so much as to purge your souls of all sin in order to perfect them and to unite them with a sovereign good: and where can that be done better than in the sacrament of union and love? This is why, if you wish to please me, you should approach the Blessed Sacrament frequently. If it is a great sorrow for a mother to see her children dying for want of bread or for having no desire to eat it, then think what a great sorrow it is for me to see your souls dying for want of receiving the bread of Heaven. When I consider the great and loving desire of my Son to give himself to you, how saddened I am to see that you have so little desire to receive Him with all the treasures of grace and the blessings that he brings with Him.
Footnotes
[1] Prov. ix. 5.
© Peter Bloor 2026
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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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