 |
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 11 : Mary for her own sake and for ours is most fittingly compared to the light of dawn
Part 1
Dominus tecum : The Lord is with thee. St. Anselm, devoutly alluding to these most sweet words, says[1]:
“O truly the Lord is with thee, to whom the Lord hath ordained that all nature should be so greatly indebted! Mary, I beseech thee, through the grace by which the Lord wished to be with thee and thee to be with Him, grant that according to the same grace thy mercy may be with me; grant that the love of thee may be ever with me, and that my care may be ever with thee; grant that the cries in my necessities may be with thee for as long as they last, and that the look of thy loving kindness may be with me as long as I live; grant that my joy in thy beatitude may ever be with me, and that compassion for my misery may be with thee as far as it is expedient for me.”
The Lord is with thee, therefore, O Mary; He is with thee and most assuredly with thee. He was with thee, He is with thee now and He will be continue to be with thee. He is with thee, as the sun is with the dawn which goeth before him; with thee as the flower is with the stem which produces it; and with thee, as the King is with the Queen going in to him. For the Sun which is the most brilliant of all luminaries, the Flower which is more precious than all flowers and the King who is more glorious than all kings, is Our Lord Jesus Christ. The light of dawn, therefore, going before this Sun with a most resplendent radiance, the stem budding forth most wondrously into this Flower, the Queen entering in to the King in solemn procession, is the most Blessed Virgin Mary. We shall treat of all these points in order.
“The Lord is with thee.” With thee, indeed, as the Sun is with the light of dawn going before it, preceding its rise and initiating the day by its light. Mary is truly the dawn of the world, prepared in a most singular manner by the Eternal Sun and marvellously illumined. She herself heralds the rising of this Sun and she it is who has wondrously inaugurated for the world the day of grace of so great a Sun, as St. Bernard says[2]:
“Like the greatly glowing light of dawn thou hast come into the world, O Mary, when thou didst foreshow the splendour of the true Sun by such a wonderful radiance of sanctity that truly the day of salvation, the day of propitiation, the day which the Lord hath made[3], was worthy to be initiated by thy resplendent light.”
Mary is, therefore, the dawn, of whom it is said[4]:
“Who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising?”
Fittingly is she compared to the dawn, as much for her sake as for ours: for herself in particular and for us in general. Mary in herself is well compared to the dawn according to Scripture: first, because of the driving away of the night of sin; secondly, because of the approach of the light of grace; thirdly, because of the rising of the Sun of justice; and fourthly, because of the place of her throne of glory. First, in the fullness of her sanctification; secondly, in her most resplendent conversation; thirdly, in her most wonderful generation of her Son; and fourthly, in her most glorious Assumption.
Footnotes
[1] Orat. 52. (alias 51.) circa medium.
[2] Potius Egbert., loc. cit. n. 4.
[3] Psalm. cxvii. 24.
[4] Cant. vi. 9.
First, note that Mary is, as it were, a happy dawn because of the happy passing of the dark night of sin through her own sanctification. Therefore Job
cursed . . . the night in which it was said: A man child is conceived, and said: “Let the stars be darkened with the mist thereof: let it expect light and not see it, nor the rising of the dawning of the day.”[1]
What is meant here by the stars, by the light, by the dawn? I say that the stars are the souls of the Saints; the light is the Holy of holies; and the dawn is the Queen of Saints. The stars indeed are all the Saints, who never abandon the good order of morals, nor the way of fervour and of a good life, safe in the fight against the devil. Of these stars, it is well said in the Book of Judges[2]:
“The stars remaining in their order and courses fought against Sisara.”
Sisara may be interpreted as[3] “taking away the departing one,” and it signifies the devil who takes away anyone who departs from God. The light signifies the Holy of Holies, Jesus Christ, as He Himself shows, saying[4]:
“I am the light of the world, who followeth Me, walketh not in darkness.”
Let us, dear brethren, follow this light lest walking in darkness we should fall into the mire of sin and the pit of hell. Let us follow not haltingly, according to what is said[5]:
“How long do you halt between two sides? if the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him.”
The dawn whose rising the night does not see signifies the Blessed Virgin whose nativity was not initiated by the night of original sin. For the night which Job cursed, the night in which man was conceived, is original sin; in which we are all conceived. Hence the Psalmist says[6]:
“In sins did my mother conceive me.”
Because all the Saints are conceived in sin, they are born in sin, and hence it is well said that the stars are darkened by this night. But because Christ was neither conceived nor born in sin, therefore it is rightly said that this night did not see His light. [Because the Blessed Virgin was conceived in sin but was born without sin, she did not emerge in sin; accordingly, it is said that this night did not see the dawn but rather the emergence of the dawn. This is contrary to the opinion of those who say that she was not only born without sin but also conceived without sin, against whom blessed Bernard argues as follows[7]:
“If Mary could not be sanctified before her conception because she did not exist, nor at the conception itself because of the sin that was in her, it follows that she is believed to have received sanctification after her conception when already existing in the womb; this sanctification, by excluding sin, made her birth holy but not her conception.”][8]
Footnotes
[1] Job. iii. 3 & 9.
[2] Iudic. v. 20.
[3] Hieron., de Nom. Hebr. (Iudic.)
[4] Ioann. viii. 12.
[5] 3 Kings (1 Kings) xviii. 21.
[6] Psalm. l. 7.
[7] Epist. 174. n. 7.
[8] The text included in the red brackets translates the Latin text on pages 145-6 at Speculum Beatae Mariae Virginis (1904) but it is not found in the 1932 English translation. For more, see “The Controversy” under the entry Immaculate Conception at the New Advent site.
+ + +
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment