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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 ackowledge 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 1
Blessed art thou among women. Let us continue our discussion of the Blessed Virgin’s blessedness and let us learn still more about it. How happy is the Blessed Mary and how unhappy is every accursed soul to whom it shall be said[1]:
“Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire!”
Cursed without doubt is every sinful soul, but blessed art thou, O virtuous Mary. The world incurred malediction through the seven capital vices, but Mary obtained blessing by the contrary virtues. Blessed, therefore, art thou among women, O Mary. Blessed by humility against pride, by charity against envy, by meekness against anger, by diligence against sloth, by generosity against avarice, by temperance against gluttony, and by chastity against lust.
Footnotes
[1] Matt. xxv. 41.
First let us hear how Mary is blessed with humility against pride; for the proud are accursed, as it is written[1]:
“Thou hast rebuked the proud: they are cursed who decline from thy commandments.”
Against this curse of pride Mary obtained the blessing of humility. She may accordingly be signified by that valley of which it is said in Paralipomenon[2]:
“They called that place the valley of blessing.”
If every humble soul is, as it were, a valley of God, according to that word of Isaias[3]: “Every valley shall be exalted,” how much more was Mary a valley, who was so deep in humility! What wonder if she were the valley of valleys, being the most humble of the humble? This valley which is blessed with blessings is greatly exalted for her humility so deep, so beneficial and so pleasing! St. Augustine says[4]:
“O truly blessed humility of Mary, who brought forth the Lord to men, gave life to mortals, renewed the heavens, purified the world, opened up paradise and delivered the souls of men from hell.”
Just as the deeper a valley is, the more waters it can receive; so too was Mary’s deep humility able to receive more graces. A valley, however, receives irrigation by waters sometimes from above and sometimes from below; from above, when the rains flow down from the mountains; from below, when there are springs of water in it. In like manner, the humble Mary received graces both from above and from below; for she was, as it were, irrigated from a mountain and from a spring, when from the divine and from the human nature of her Son she was blessed by so many graces being poured into her. This is that blessing of which we read in the Book of Judges[5], when Axa said to her father:
“Give me a blessing,” so her father “gave her the upper and the nether watery ground.”[6]
Axa was a type of Mary, who received a well-watered blessing from the heavenly Father; for God the Father gave her “upper watery ground” by a blessing from above in the divinity of Christ, and “nether watery ground” by a blessing from below in the humanity of Christ; from above in her mind, and from below in her womb; from above in her love of God, from below in her love for her neighbour; from above in contemplation, from below, in action. Or the heavenly Father gave her an ineffable blessing from Heaven above and from earth below so that in Heaven she might possess the blessing of glory, and on earth the blessing of grace. She would thus be blessed both in Heaven and on earth, as St. Bernard intimates when he says[7]:
“Remember, O Mary, that Christ who bore the malediction of the Cross blessed thee, His Mother, in Heaven; but thou wert also blessed on earth by the Angel, and art rightly called blessed on earth by all generations.”
Footnotes
[1] Psalm. cxviii. 21.
[2] 2 Para. xx. 26.
[3] Isai. xl. 4.
[4] Serm. 208. append. (alias 35. de Sanct.) n. 10.
[5] Judges i. 15.
[6] i.e., her father gave her a place well watered from above and from below.
[7] Homil. 3. super Missus est n. 8.
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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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