Chapter 6 : The Fifth Star or Splendour of the Crown of Power of the MOTHER OF GOD
She is the Mother of the world to come and Redeemer of our race
Continuing our translation of the 1845 reprint of Fr François Poiré's Triple Crown of the Mother of God (1643 French edition).
§ 8. A curse transformed into a blessing : the second fruit of mankind’s restoration by the Blessed Virgin
1 Blessed St Bruno, founder of the Carthusian Order, spoke movingly about the genealogy of the Saviour in a sermon he gave on the Nativity of the Virgin. Viewing this genealogy like a mystical, celestial ladder with various rungs, he points towards:
two women, one at the top and one at the bottom; one is the mother of death, the other is the mother of life; one was overcome by the devil, the other defeated and vanquished him; one transmitted a contagion to her race, the other provided a cure; one cast a curse upon all her descendants, the other brought forth a blessing which reached back through her forebears to the very first and which was also shared generously amongst all her posterity.
This is the praise which all the Holy Fathers give to the Holy Virgin: that she replaced the ancient curse with a new blessing.
It was she and no one else, says St Ildephonsus[1], by whom the effect of the curse which had been placed upon our first parents was halted and replaced by the heavenly blessing which the whole universe was awaiting.She is the one, says Cardinal Peter Damian[2], who opened the floodgates of Heaven’s blessings to wash away the ancient stains of the first curse.
Just as death made its entry into the world through a woman, says Pope innocent III[3], so it was necessary that life should come through a woman. This is what happened when Mary restored what Eve had previously ruined. For in yielding to the serpent’s temptation, Eve had conceived death; but in her obedience to the word of the Angel, Mary conceived life. Eve had been cursed in herself, in her childbearing and in her children; Mary was blessed in her person and in all the children of Adam but was much more blessed in the most blessed fruit of her womb, Jesus.It was not without reason, says the Holy Archbishop of Ravenna[4], that her cousin Elizabeth told her that she was blessed among women; but this was to show us that just as through sin a curse had fallen upon the first woman and upon all her daughters, whose wombs were to experience a terrible pains of labour, in the same way a blessing was given to Mary which brought so much sweetness and consolation that she was able to share it with the whole of Adam’s race.
This is what we all owe to the good news brought to the Virgin by the Angel Gabriel; news which Tertullian of old said[5]:
brought life no more nor less than the hissing lies of the ancient serpent brought death.
This was an altogether new message, says the pious Saint Bernard[6], which was addressed to her who had made profession of a new virtue; and its success was such that the old curse was revoked and replaced by an unprecedented blessing.
This is what led St Germanus of Constantinople to represent the Angel as speaking to the Blessed Virgin in the following manner[7]:
May God keep thee, most holy Lady, who alone didst make thy womb an abode for the blessing by which the curse brought in by our first mother hath been vanquished.
Footnotes
[1] Serm. 2 de Assumpt.
[2] Serm. de Nativit. Mariæ.
[3] Serm. 2 de Assumpt.
[4] Serm. 410.
[5] Lib. de Carne Christi.
[6] Serm. 2 de Annuntiat.
[7] Orat. de Nativit.
2 Even though these Holy Fathers speak only of one blessing, they must be understood in such a way that we consider it beyond question that all the curses which had been inflicted upon the parents of our race and on all their posterity were erased by am equivalent number of blessings, or to be clearer, by the superabundance of blessings that Mary brought to the world. The Blessed Ivo[1], Bishop of Chartres, went into greater detail when he said:
To the two curses inflicted upon our first mother, namely bringing into the world children of death, and the pains of childbirth, were counterbalanced by a double blessing which the Holy Virgin received in the name of all the daughters of Eve: to bring forth with the principle of life children destined to live forever in Heaven, and to be delivered of them without pain.
Paulinus, Patriarch of Aquileia[2], who lived 800 years ago, said that:
The first woman brought upon herself three sorts of misfortune: pain, sorrow and servitude; by way of an antidote, the second was honoured with a triple blessing: the angelic salutation, the divine blessing, and the plenitude of grace.
Sophronius, however, in the Epistle he addresses to St Paula and St Eustochium her daughter, says clearly that:
All the damage that we can imagine resulting from a curse upon the world, following the bad choice made by a woman, was more than abundantly put right by the blessing of the most wise virgin.
Footnotes
[1] Serm. de Nativit. Domini.
[2] Lib. V contra Felicem.
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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.
© Peter Bloor 2025