Chapter 11 : Imitation – tenth 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) |
The humility of the Holy Virgin was most grateful
4 The gratitude in the humility of the Holy Virgin may clearly be seen at the Visitation. Just as her cousin Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, began to shower her with blessings,
• calling her the Mother of her Lord,
• expressing her astonishment that she had gone to the trouble of visiting her and saying that the infant in her womb leaped for joy as soon as the voice of her salutation sounded in her ears,
• praising her great faith and
• proclaiming her blessed to have believed the voice of the Angel,
the Holy Virgin, on the contrary, turned her own thoughts and the words of St Elizabeth away from herself and, raising them to God, she sang her mysterious Canticle, just as though she were saying :
My dear cousin, thou dost say great things of me; but my soul doth magnify the Lord, the unique author of all these good things that thou dost admire in me. Thou art surprised that I should come to thee; but I have my own reason for being astonished, considering that the God of Majesty hath deigned to come down to me. Thou art elated by thy baby son leaping within thy womb; but my spirit doth leap for joy and is enraptured by the honour God will one day receive from these wondrous mysteries. Thou sayest that I am blessed for having believed the words of the Heavenly Messenger; but for my part I acknowledge I am infinitely indebted to God for being the object of His great mercy, in that He hath deigned in His goodness to look upon the lowest and meanest of His creatures.
5 What an excellent way to acknowledge God’s graces, and draw down still more favours from His generosity. I have written at length elsewhere[1] in praise of the Most Holy Virgin’s humility and it is time now to consider some of her devout imitators.
Whoever wants to build a tall tower, writes St Gregory, begins by digging deep foundations ; and whoever would build a tower of personal perfection must ensure it is founded on very deep humility.
Those who have a love for this incomparable virtue discover reasons for motivation everywhere. If they contemplate themselves and what they have become, the awareness will make them fall into a deep abyss of their own nothingness. If they consider what they have become through their sin, they find that they have gone from one abyss to another until finally falling into one much deeper than the first. If they cast their eyes upon the Queen of Angels, who recognises in herself only baseness and abjection even though she was chosen to be MOTHER OF GOD, they wish that they could descend even further; but when they see in their thoughts a God nailed to a cross and reduced to perfect nothingness, it is then they wish they could go to the limits, losing themselves as they plunge into the depths of self-abasement. This is the point when they esteem themselves to be less than nothing; when they judge that in truth there is nothing so vile that would not be too good for them and when they develop an insatiable thirst for opprobrium and ignominy.
Footnotes
[1] Part I, ch. 3, § 7 ; ch. 5, § 3 ; Part III, ch. 2, § 4.
6 If God nevertheless wishes through His infinite mercy to confer a gift upon them or make them the instruments of some good, there are none more generous or more magnanimous than they are. For when from the depths of their abyss they go up to the throne of His Majesty, they find that in a certain sense they have become almighty like Him. They go up again but by a different path to the one they took when they came down, for they immediately forget what they are and what they have become through sin. They put behind them any considerations that could undermine their courage and instead they are raised by noble thoughts worthy of the greatness of Him upon whom they rely for support. They focus their gaze upon the grace of divine adoption by which they are raised unto a resemblance of God and made heirs to all His goods. They allow themselves to bathe in the infinite tenderness of the loving heart of Jesus, where love and trust have brought them to a place they would not abandon for anything in the world. They see clearly that nothing can equal the merits of this same Saviour who condescends to place in their hands what he has achieved through His Redemption. The experience makes them appreciate that nothing is impossible for those who know how to use these gifts appropriately and that it is within their power even to move the heart of God should they once undertake to do so. Enlightened by thoughts and feelings such as these, they climb upwards step by step until they come to share in God’s omnipotence. The more they climb, the greater their confidence grows and their courage increases. The more they experience the faithfulness of God, the more they know they are right to place their trust in Him; the more they dispose themselves to render great and signal services to Him, the more these services advance them in the good grace of His Majesty.
7 Their gratitude grows in them along with their courage and the low estimation they have of themselves. They see clearly enough that in themselves they have nothing but poverty and wretchedness, but God nevertheless makes use of them to achieve great things; and because of this they offer in sacrifice to Him all the honour which results from their actions. They take great care not to touch the glory which is uniquely reserved unto Him, since they understand very well that nothing is capable of making them fall from favour as usurping this possession of God which He prizes as the apple of His eye. In this we see just how good and rewarding the Lord is in His heart to those who are faithful to Him.
§ 8. On her great patience and how it should be imitated by everyone
1 In the words of St James[1], patience is a trait of perfection, purifying virtue. The Holy Virgin’s patience was most heroic, kind-hearted and accomplished.
Footnotes
[1] The trying of your faith worketh patience and patience hath a perfect work; that you may be perfect and entire, failing in nothing. James i. 4.
The patience of the Holy Virgin was most heroic
2 Most heroic: for if spiritual pain is incomparably greater than physical pain, what must that of the Blessed Virgin have been like when she became aware of St Joseph’s distress, when torrents of anguish flooded her afflicted heart and when her own soul was pierced by a sword of sorrow? If love is the measure of suffering, then what must she not have endured seeing the dear fruit of her womb and the unique object of her affection on His arrival into this world reduced to such great objection and extreme poverty? What pain would she have felt :
• when she saw Him after eight days shed His own blood, and immediately afterwards being hunted by those seeking His death and necessitating the family’s flight into Egypt?
• when she lost Him at the age of twelve?
• when she heard Him denounced as a Samaritan, as someone who had a devil, as a drinker of wine, a seducer and a breaker of the law? and
• when she learned that He had been condemned to die on a cross like a criminal?
If the suffering we see in a person who is dear to us causes deep pain within our hearts, then what must have been the feelings of this dear Mother when the innocent Lamb, her Son, was bound with cords and chains, dragged through the streets of Jerusalem, taken from one tribunal to another with indescribable insolence by soldiers, accompanied by fearful jeers from the people who saw Him pass by? When He was mocked, struck, spat upon, bruised and wounded by blows, covered from head to foot in blood, pierced with nails, given vinegar and gall to drink, blasphemed and ill-used in every conceivable way? If a person would need a strong heart to bear separation from Him she loved more than any other and to see His soul torn out through torture and cruelty then, great God! What must the state of this loving Mother’s heart have been like when her Son spoke His final farewell to her from the Cross; and when she accepted John in place of Jesus, the disciple for the Master, and the man for God? If the high point of patience consists in suffering the greatest evils with a firm and resolute spirit, must it not be said that the Virgin's patience was wondrously heroic, since she saw the best of all the children ever born enduring all these excesses, since she saw him die and held the body of her deceased Son in her arms with no change of countenance and without showing any signs of weakness? I would have so many things to say here if I had not written elsewhere[1] in some detail about the sword of sorrow which pierced the most sacred Virgin’s soul, and the incredible patience with which she bore this mortal wound.
Footnotes
[1] Part II, ch. 6, § 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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