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The Annunciation, early 1460s; by Willem Vrelant.The Getty Museum, L.A. |
It is referred to in the French work by Fr François Poiré called The Triple Crown of the Holy Mother of God (1630) which I translated on this blog starting on the 1st of May 2024.
I offer this annotated edition of St Bonaventure’s work as a small gift to our gentle Queen and Mother in gratitude for all her graces and favours, requesting her continued help and protection for the author and his family.
The Latin text and references are based upon Speculum Beatae Mariae Virginis (1904). The English text is based upon that attributed to Sr Mary Emmanuel O.S.B. (published by Herder in 1932). Amazon's various editions acknowledge that this text is in the Public Domain worldwide, attributing it to the text of a Dublin edition (author unknown) published in 1849.
Chapter 15 : How Mary is blessed with the seven virtues against the seven capital vices
Part 4
Sixthly, hear how Mary is blessed by temperance against gluttony. For the gluttons and the intemperate are accursed, as it appears in the greediness of our first parents[1], for which both they and the whole human race incurred a curse. Against this curse of gluttony Mary obtained every blessing of abstinence and temperance. In opposition to the curses of gluttony in the material paradise, the blessings of temperance rightly abounded in the spiritual paradise, according to those words in Ecclesiasticus[2]:
“Grace is like paradise in blessings.”
So great an abundance of grace was in Mary that she, the gracious Virgin, might in a certain manner be called grace itself. This grace, that is, the most gracious Virgin Mary, was like a paradise in blessings; for as in the material paradise the gluttony of Eve merited the curses of punishments, so in the spiritual paradise the temperance of Mary merited the blessings of graces. Therefore Augustine says[3]:
“The curse of Eve was turned into the blessing of Mary.”
As the gluttony of Eve brought forth a curse not only in the body but also in the soul, so Mary obtained for us a blessing not only in the body but also in the soul, not just a spiritual blessing but also a corporeal one. The malediction inflicted on Eve because of her greed was to bring forth children in pain; the blessing of the temperate Mary was to bring forth her baby Son without pain, as St. Bernard says[4]:
“Blessed art thou among women, thou who hast escaped that general curse in which it is said[5]: ‘In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children,’ and yet at the same time too that other[6], ‘Cursed is the sterile in Israel’; and thou hast obtained a singular blessing, that thou shouldst neither remain sterile nor bring forth in sorrow.”
Footnotes
[1] Gen. iii. 6 & 16 et seq.
[2] Ecclesus. xl. 17.
[3] Serm. 194. append. (alias 18. de Sanct.) n. 1.
[4] Homil. 3. super Missus est n. 7.
[5] Gen. iii. 16.
[6] Exod. xxiii. 26; Deut. vii. 14.
Seventhly, let us hear how Mary is blessed by her chastity against lust. Of the lustful it is written[1]:
“Cursed be he that sleepeth with the his neighbour’s wife . . . and all the people shall say, Amen.”
Against this curse of incontinence, Mary merited the blessing of continence, as may have been prefigured in the case Judith, of whom it is written[2]:
“They all blessed her with one voice, saying: Thou art the glory of Jerusalem, thou art the joy of Israel, thou art the honour of our people: for thou hast done manfully, and thy heart has been strengthened because thou hast loved chastity, and after thy husband hast not known any other: therefore also the hand of the Lord hath strengthened thee, and therefore thou shalt be blessed for ever.”
This blessing of the chaste Judith not only represents the blessing of Mary, but the passage enables us to consider something greater still: for if a chaste widow is thus blessed, how much more so is a chaste virgin, and especially such a virgin who both merited to give birth to God and to give birth in such a way that she did not lose her virginity! Well therefore doth Bede say[3]:
“She is incomparably blessed, who both received the glory of the divine seed, and kept the crown of virginity.”
Note, however, that in Scripture we find a blessed wife, a blessed widow and a blessed virgin. The blessed wife was Sara, of whom it is said in Tobias[4]:
“May a blessing come upon thy wife.”
The blessed widow was Judith, as we have shown. Of a blessed widow it is written in the Psalm[5]:
“Blessing I will bless his widow.”
The blessed virgin was indeed Mary, as the Angel testifies, saying:
“Blessed art thou among women.”
She is blessed, therefore, because she was a wife; she is more blessed because she was a widow; she is blessed above all because she loved virginal chastity. She is blessed without doubt who, like Sara and Susanna[6], was chaste in wedlock; she is more blessed who, like Judith and Anna[7], was a chaste widow; and she is blessed above all, who with Mary shall have been chaste as a virgin. Therefore St. Augustine says[8]:
“We praise Susanna’s example in her conjugal chastity; but we prefer before her the virtue of the widow Anna, and much more that of the Virgin Mary.”
This is truly meet and just: it is meet that she should be blessed who had known no other man than her husband; it is meet that she should be more blessed who neither during her husband’s life-time nor after his death had known any man. It is meet and just that she should be blessed above all who neither knew her own, nor any other man, yet conceived a Man so far beyond measure. Therefore St. Augustine rightly exclaims[9]:
“O woman blessed above women, who knew no man whatsoever yet encompassed a man in her womb!”
Mary was deservedly blessed for her humility, blessed for her charity, blessed for her meekness, blessed for her diligence, blessed for her liberality, blessed for her sobriety, and blessed for her chastity; she was most excellent in humility, most rich in charity, most patient in meekness, most fervent in diligence, most generous in liberality, most temperate in sobriety and most continent in virginity.
Please hearken unto us, dear Mary, thou who art so manifoldly and superabundantly blessed, as we pray that by thy blessing thou mayest free us wretched souls from every curse and mayest make us worthy of the divine blessing. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Footnotes
[1] Deut. xxvii. 20.The words in the Doauy-Rheims reflect the Vulgate as follows: Cursed be he that lieth with his father’s wife, and uncovereth his bed: and all the people shall say: Amen
[2] Judith xv. 10.
[3] Homil. in solemn. Deiparae, quando salutavit Elisabeth, ante medium.
[4] Tobias ix. 3.
[5] Psalm. cxxxi. 15.
[6] Dan. xiii. 23.
[7] Luc. ii. 36. seq.
[8] De Bono coniug., c. 8. n. 8.
[9] Serm. 194. append. (alias 18. de Sanct.) n. 3.
[End of Chapter 15]
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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. 30-31.30-31.
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