"The Holy Spirit formed from the most pure blood of Mary's heart ..."

[MariaChristi]

1. Notice that at the very moment Mary consented to become the Mother of God, several miraculous events took place. The Holy Spirit formed from the most pure blood of Mary’s heart a little body which he fashioned into a perfect living being: God created the most perfect soul that ever could be created. Eternal Wisdom, the Son of God, drew the body and soul into union with His person. Here we have the great wonder of heaven and earth, the prodigious excess of the love of God. “The Word was made flesh” (Jn. 1:14). Eternal Wisdom became incarnate. God became man without ceasing to be God. This God-man is Jesus Christ and His name means Saviour.
2. Here is a summary of His divine life on earth:

1. He wished to be born of a married woman, though she was indeed a virgin, lest He should be reproached as one born out of wedlock. Other important reasons are given by Fathers of the Church. His conception, as we have just said, was announced to the Blessed Virgin by the angel Gabriel. He became a child of Adam without inheriting Adam’s sin.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We are continuing Chapter 9 in St. Louis de Montfort’s book, “The Love of Eternal Wisdom”. Hopefully, by God’s Grace, we are growing in our understanding of the unique role of Mary in God’s Plan to save us, in sending His Son to become Incarnate in her womb. If not, let us continue to pray for this grace from God.

Jesus from His Cross knew our need for His Mother to be our Mother and Model and so He spole those precious words to John, His bolved Disciple for all of us to hear:

“Behold Your Mother”

We need to hear those words deeply with the ears of our hearts. Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your Faithful. Kindle in us the Fire of your Love for Mary and for us. Fill us as you filled Mary with the Life of Jesus.

 

[paperwight]

I’m sorry, but I find the imagery as expressed in the thread title not at all helpful. to put it mildly.

 

[MariaChristi]

Dear paperwight,

Can you share “why” the imagery in the thread title is not helpful to you? I’d be grateful. Sometimes when we read paragraphs out of the whole context they can be misunderstood. This book is based on the book of Wisdom, but St. Louis also includes the New Testament to show how Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament.

St. Louis de Montfort lived in the 1700’s and is sharing with us, what he heard in listening to the Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium of the Church at that time. It is not merely imagery of his own he is expressing in this book, but rather the prayerful pondering of God’s Truth as it has been revealed. Thanks for your honest comment. Hope we may be able to ponder the passage together. Perhaps others who’ve read this post and other posts on this book, might share their thoughts as well that may be helpful.

 

[Cecilia2017]

I have to agree with @paperwight. The abbreviated sentence you’ve used as a thread title does suggest that the Holy Spirit originated from Mary…perhaps it could be titled a little differently with better context?

 

[paperwight]

I have to agree with @paperwight. The abbreviated sentence you’ve used as a thread title does suggest that the Holy Spirit originated from Mary…perhaps it could be titled a little differently with better context?

Actually, I think you have misread the title, and my distaste isn’t on those grounds. The sentence is oddly phrased but the title makes sense if you read the whole thing.

No, my distaste is an instinctive reaction to the physicality of the image. The Holy Spirit did not form the infant body so physically and directly, as if from playdough. It also shows a complete misunderstanding of the process of conception. A child’s body is not formed in the heart, nor is blood from the heart any different from the blood in the rest of the body. It is circulated, after all.

 

[PetraG]

The Holy Spirit did not form the infant body so physically and directly, as if from playdough, It also shows a complete misunderstanding of the process of conception.

I don’t think anybody knows the first thing about the science of a virgin birth. We know nothing about it, because it happens on a supernatural plane. We may as well say we have a scientific understanding of how Our Lord’s spit and mud healed someone’s eyes or the physical mechanism by which faith healed someone’s leprosy.

The saint is merely reflecting on the reality that Mary was the physical mother of Jesus, the Man. When God took human flesh, God did not make a new human race out of thin air, but took His flesh from flesh that descended from the bloodline of Adam and Eve, albeit human flesh that God had preserved from the corruption that we had put into the human condition by our disobedience. If you look at that corruption as nothing more or less than the absence of hospitality to the Holy Spirit, then the conception of Mary was God’s willingness to again put His full breath into the human race, to ask again for a “yes” uncorrupted by former human rejections of God’s sovereignty.

When he speaks of the blood of Mary’s heart, I took that to mean the bloodline of Adam that had been circulated through the seat of the will of Mary, the will that was all obedience. It is a way of saying that the Incarnation required the Fiat of the Annunciation. Salvation required Mary’s cooperation; it was not imposed on humanity against the will of humanity.

Mary’s obedient will was the beachhead on which our Salvation landed.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I think it’s awesome, myself.

It’s also pretty much what happened.

 

[Cecilia2017]

Apologies…I didn’t misread the title but I did misunderstand your response. Having read the title I only clicked further because I thought to myself…‘surely they can’t mean to be saying what that implies’ - which to be fair they didn’t.
My response was more visceral and even having read the post I still think it should be retitled.

Edit: And, having reread the previous posts, to be fair you did seem to be challenging the imagery of the title…

 

[PetraG]

I think it’s awesome, myself.

It’s also pretty much what happened.

In poetic terms, yes, and poetic terms are all we have. This was an event beyond science, because science is a human enterprise that requires putting its subject to the test in order to conclude anything. We cannot put God to the test, so we cannot use science to understand any supernatural event. We can only use science to study those things that happen according to the normal order that God put into the universe.

 

[DaveBj]

The title is an elliptical expression, meaning that are words missing. To analyze, “The Holy Spirit (subject of the sentence) formed (a transitive verb, requiring an object) from the most pure blood of Mary’s heart (an adverbial prepositional phrase)…” The three periods are an ellipsis, indicating that the words that should be the direct object have been left out, but supplied in the quotation supplied in the OP. To interpret the sentence fragment that makes up the title as meaning that it was the Holy Spirit that had been formed would require completely rewriting the title.

D

 

[Tis_Bearself]

It may be poetic, but since as you said this wasn’t a scientific event and conception obviously didn’t happen in the usual manner, the one thing we do know is that Jesus’ human self as a baby in the womb was nourished by Mary’s blood, and he was flesh of her flesh and blood of her blood.

 

[MariaChristi]

Dear Petra,

Thanks so much for responding to paperwight, with such an excellent explanation. I hope you helped clarify the language of St. Louis de Montfort used in his treatise on “The Love of Eternal Wisdom” not only for paperwight, but for many others.

In writing the title as an incomplete sentence with three dots (…), I had hoped people would read the opening sentence of the quote from St. Louis de Montfort. I had hoped to “invite” others to ponder the wonder of God’s Love and Mary’s “yes”. Obviously, I need to be more careful in how I write my “invitations”!

Thanks to all who contributed to this thread, and especially to you Petra.

 

[PetraG]

It may be poetic, but since as you said this wasn’t a scientific event and conception obviously didn’t happen in the usual manner, the one thing we do know is that Jesus’ human self as a baby in the womb was nourished by Mary’s blood, and he was flesh of her flesh and blood of her blood.

Let me clarify: I did not mean to say that there was no physical mechanism. I mean to say that we cannot use science to conclude what the physical mechanism was. Science is an experimental endeavor, and the nature of this event does not allow experimentation. There was one event, one unique happening, not many regular experiences of an occurence regulated by the order that normally rules nature.

 

[PetraG]

The Holy Spirit formed from the most pure blood of Mary’s heart a little body which he fashioned into a perfect living being: God created the most perfect soul that ever could be created. could be rewritten with the exact same sense as
The Holy Spirit formed a little body which he fashioned into a perfect living being–that is, God created the most perfect soul that ever could be created–from the most pure blood of Mary’s heart .
At least, I don’t think that rearrangement changes the sense of what he’s saying. I am not quite sure that my re-write doesn’t change the sense from referring to Mary’s soul or Our Lord’s.
Remember that the saint wrote in French, not English, and 17th century French, at that. I don’t know what sort of challenges the translator was facing in trying to preserve melody, sense, and the order of the exposition of thoughts.

Anybody here have enough knowledge of French to look at the original and let us know what the issue might be?

 

[MariaChristi]

Dear Petra,

Sorry, I do not have any knowledge of French; I only studied Latin and Spanish in high school and college. I will keep my eyes open, however, for any new translation of St. Louis de Montfort’s work, from French into English.

Thanks again, Petra for emphasizing the supernatural and unique mystery that we need to approach with great reverence, when we speak of the “Incarnation of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity”. What Love Eternal Wisdom manifested to us, when the Word became Flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit!

Come Holy Spirit fill the Hearts of Your Faithful; kindle in us the Fire of Your Love. Jesus we trust in You. Mary, Mother and Model of the Church, pray for us.