in Les douze estoilles qui composent la couronne de
la S. Vierge mère de Dieu ou douze panygériques, Paris 1676,
here p. 295.
Félix Ceuillens had been definitor general of the Order of St.
Francis, provincial of the province of Aquitaine. We quote from a sermon he
preached before King Louis XIV at the French court.
Text quoted in French by Réné Laurentin (in Maria,
Ecclesia, Sacerdotium, Nouvelles Éditions Latines, Paris 1952, pp.
309) and translated into English by John Wijngaards.
Mary was truly a priestess
“
Mary had to do justice to herself in herself in her spirit and her body . . . .
In her spirit she could be priestess, in her body she rendered the services of
a good mother towards her son. Her prudence made her quality of being a loving
mother give way to that of being a priestess and to prefer sacrificing her son
to feeding him, or, properly speaking as St Anne says, to be the priestess of
her guts [lit. prêtresse de ses propres entrailles], rather than
preserve the fruit of her womb for her own satisfaction . . . . ”
“What is most admirable is that, by a feat of
prodigious charity, she performed both her two tasks in a saintly manner. She
sacrifices and loves. She is priestess without ceasing to be a mother. Let us
rather say, she continues to be a mother in order to perform the task of the
priest and to offer the greatest sacrifice as soon as this victim shall be
entirely formed. ”
