By Saint Louis
De Montfort
1. Here is a secret, chosen soul, which the most High God taught me himself. I have not found it in any book, ancient or modern. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, I am confiding it to you, with these conditions:
(1)
That you share it
only with people who deserve to know it because they are prayerful, give alms
to the poor, do penance, suffer persecution, are unworldly, and work seriously
for the salvation of souls.
(2)
That you use this
secret to become holy and worthy of heaven, for the more you make use of it the
more benefit you will derive from it.
Under no circumstances must you let this secret make you idle and
inactive. It would then become
harmful and lead to your ruin.
(3)
That you thank
God every day of your life for the grace he has given you in letting you know a
secret that you do not deserve to know.
As
you go on using this secret in the ordinary actions of your life, you will soon
come to understand its extraordinary value. At the beginning however, your
understanding of it will be clouded. It may not at first seem fitting to you.
It is lofty and mysterious. Only the truly chosen of God are able to understand
how important this secret really is. Your unconscious love of self may prove to
be an obstacle.
2. Before you read any further, kneel down and
devoutly say a prayer. Ask God to help you understand and appreciate this
secret given by him. As I have not
much time for writing and you have little time for reading, I will be brief in
what I have to say.
NECESSITY OF HAVING A TRUE DEVOTION TO
MARY
THE GRACE OF GOD IS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY
3. Chosen soul, living image of God and redeemed
by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, God wants you to become holy like him in
this life and glorious like him in the next.
It is certain that growth in the holiness of God is your vocation. All your thoughts, words, actions,
everything you suffer or undertake must lead you towards that end. Otherwise you are resisting God in not
doing the work for which he created you and for which he is even now keeping
you in being. What a marvelous
transformation is possible! Dust
into light, uncleanness into purity, sinfulness into holiness, creature into
Creator, man into God! A marvelous
work, I repeat, so difficult in itself, and even impossible for a mere creature
to bring about, for only God can accomplish it by giving his grace abundantly
and in an extraordinary manner.
The very creation of the universe is not as great an achievement as this.
4.
Chosen soul, how
will you bring this about? What
steps will you take to reach the high level to which God is calling you? The means of holiness and salvation are
known to everybody, since they are found in the gospel; the masters of the
spiritual life have explained them; the saints have practiced them and shown
how essential they are for those who wish to be saved and attain
perfection. These means are
sincere humility, unceasing prayer, complete self-denial, abandonment to divine
Providence, and obedience to the will of God.
5. The grace and help of God are absolutely
necessary for us to practice all these, but we are sure that grace will be
given to all, though not in the same measure. I say “not in the same measure”, because God does not give his
graces in equal measure to everyone, although in his infinite goodness he
always gives sufficient grace to each.
A person who corresponds to great graces performs great works, and one
who corresponds to lesser graces performs lesser works. The value and high standard of our
actions corresponds to the value and perfection of the grace given by God and
responded to by the faithful soul.
No one can contest these principles.
TO FIND THE
GREATEST GRACES OF GOD, WE MUST FIND MARY
6
It all comes to
this. We must discover a simple means to obtain the greatest graces from God,
which are needed to become truly holy.
It is precisely how to do this that I wish to teach you. You must first
discover the secret of Mary if you would obtain the greatest graces from God.
7.
Let me explain:
(1)
Mary alone found
grace with God for herself and for every individual person. No patriarch or prophet, or any other
holy person of the Old Law ever found this grace.
It was given to her as a special privilege because she
was chosen from the foundation of the world to be the mother of God.
8.
(2) It was Mary
who gave existence and life to the author of all grace, and because of this she
is called the “Mother of Grace”.
9.
(3) God the
Father, from whom, as from its essential source, every perfect gift and every
grace come down to us, gave her every grace when he gave her his Son. Thus, as St. Bernard says, the will of
God is manifested to her in Jesus and with Jesus.
10.
(4) God chose her
to be the treasurer, the administrator and the dispenser of all his graces, so
that all his graces and gifts pass through her hands. Such is the power that she has received from him that,
according to St. Bernardino, she gives the graces of the eternal Father, the
virtues of Jesus Christ, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit to whom she wills, as
and when she wills, and as much as she wills.
11.
(5) As in the
natural life a child must have a father and a mother, so in the supernatural
life of grace a true child of the Church must have God for his Father and Mary
for his mother. If he prides
himself on having God for his Father but does not give to Mary the tender
affection of a true child, he is an impostor and his father is the devil.
12. (6) Since Mary produced the head of the elect,
Jesus Christ, she must also produce the members of that head, that is, all true
Christians. A mother does not
conceive a head without members, nor members without a head. If anyone, then, wishes to become a
member of Jesus Christ, and consequently be filled with grace and truth, he
must be formed in Mary through the grace of Jesus Christ, which she possesses
with a fullness enabling her to communicate it abundantly to true members of
Jesus Christ, her true children.
13.
(7) The Holy
Spirit espoused Mary and produced his greatest work, the incarnate Word, in
her, by her and through her. He
has never disowned her and so he continues to produce every day, in a
mysterious but very real manner, the souls of the elect in her and through her.
14.
(8) Mary received
from God a unique dominion over souls enabling her to nourish them and make
them more and more godlike. St.
Augustine went so far as to say that even in this world all the elect are
enclosed in the womb of Mary, and that their real birthday is when this good
mother brings them forth to eternal life.
Consequently, just as an infant draws all its nourishment from its
mother, who gives according to its needs, so the elect draw their spiritual
nourishment and all their strength from Mary.
15.
(9) It was to
Mary that God the Father said, “Dwell in Jacob”, that is, dwell in my elect who
are typified by Jacob. It was to
Mary that God the Son said, “My dear Mother, your inheritance is in Israel”,
that is, in the elect. It was to
Mary that the Holy Spirit said, ”Place your roots in my elect”. Whoever, then, is of the chosen and
predestinate will have the Blessed Virgin living within him, and he will let
her plant in his very soul the roots of every virtue, but especially deep
humility and ardent charity.
16.
(10) Mary is
called by St. Augustine, and is indeed, the “living mold of God”. In her alone the God-man was formed in
his human nature without losing any feature of the Godhead. In her alone, by the grace of Jesus
Christ, man is made godlike as far as human nature is capable of it. A sculptor
can make a statue or a life-like model in two ways: (i) By using his skill,
strength, experience and good tools to produce a statue out of hard, shapeless
matter; (ii) By making a cast of it in a mold. The first way is long and involved and open to all sorts of
accidents. It only needs a faulty
stroke of the chisel or hammer to ruin the whole work. The second is quick, easy,
straightforward, almost effortless and inexpensive, but the mold must be
perfect and true to life and the material must be easy to handle and offer no
resistance.
17.
Mary is the great
mold of God, fashioned by the Holy Spirit to give human nature to a Man who is
God by the hypostatic union, and to fashion through grace men who are like to
God. No godly feature is missing
from this mold. Everyone who casts
himself into it and allows himself to be molded will acquire every feature of
Jesus Christ, true God, with little pain or effort, as befits his weak human
condition. He will take on a
faithful likeness to Jesus with no possibility of distortion, for the devil has
never had and never will have any access to Mary, the holy and immaculate
Virgin, in whom there is not the least suspicion of a stain of sin.
18.
Dear friend, what
a difference there is between a soul brought up in the ordinary way to resemble
Jesus Christ by people who, like sculptors, rely on their own skill and
industry, and a soul thoroughly tractable, entirely detached, most ready to be
molded in her by the working of the Holy Spirit. What blemishes and defects, what shadows and distortions,
what natural and human imperfections are found in the first soul, and what a
faithful and divine likeness to Jesus is found in the second!
19. There is not and there will never be, either in
God’s creation or in his mind, a creature in whom he is so honored as in the
most Blessed Virgin Mary, not excepting even the saints, the cherubim or the
highest seraphim in heaven.
Mary is God’s garden of Paradise, his own unspeakable world, into which
his Son entered to do wonderful things, to tend it and to take his delight in
it. He created a world for the
wayfarer, that is, the one we are living in. He created a second world - Paradise - for the Blessed. He created a third for himself, which
he named Mary. She is a world
unknown to most mortals here on earth.
Even the angels and saints in heaven find her incomprehensible, and are
lost in admiration of a God who is so exalted and so far above them, so distant
from them, and so enclosed in Mary, his chosen world, that they exclaim: “Holy,
holy, holy” unceasingly.
20. Happy, indeed sublimely happy, is the person to
whom the Holy Spirit reveals the secret of Mary, thus imparting to him true
knowledge of her. Happy the person
to whom the Holy Spirit opens this enclosed garden for him to enter, and to whom
the Holy Spirit gives access to this sealed fountain where he can draw water
and drink deep draughts of the living waters of grace. That person will find only grace and no
creature in the most lovable Virgin Mary.
But he will find that the infinitely holy and exalted God is at the same
time infinitely solicitous for him and understands his weaknesses. Since God is everywhere, he can be
found everywhere, even in hell.
But there is no place where God can be more present to his creature and
more sympathetic to human weakness than in Mary. It was indeed for this very purpose that he came down from
heaven. Everywhere else he is the
Bread of the strong and the Bread of angels, but living in Mary he is the Bread
of children.
21. Let us not imagine, then, as some misguided
teachers do, that Mary being simply a creature would be a hindrance to union
with the Creator. Far from it, for
it is no longer Mary who lives but Jesus Christ himself, God alone, who lives
in her. Her transformation into
God far surpasses that experienced by St. Paul and other saints, more than
heaven surpasses the earth.
Mary was created only for God, and it is unthinkable that she should
reserve even one soul for herself.
On the contrary she leads every soul to God and to union with him. Mary is the wonderful echo of God. The more a person joins himself to her,
the more effectively she unites him to God. When we say “Mary”, she re-echoes “God”.
When, like St. Elizabeth, we call her blessed, she gives the honor to
God. If those misguided ones who
were so sadly led astray by the devil, even in their prayer-life, had known how
to discover Mary, and Jesus through her, and God through Jesus, they would not
have had such terrible falls. The
saints tell us that when we have once found Mary, and through Mary Jesus, and
through Jesus God the Father, then we have discovered every good. When we say “every good”, we except
nothing. “Every good” includes
every grace, continuous friendship with God, every protection against the
enemies of God, possession of truth to counter every falsehood, endless
benefits and unfailing headway against the hazards we meet on the way to
salvation, and finally every consolation and joy amid the bitter afflictions of
life.
22. This does not mean that one who has discovered
Mary through a genuine devotion is exempt from crosses and sufferings. Far from it! One is tried even more than others are, because Mary, as
Mother of the living, gives to all her children splinters of the tree of life,
which is the Cross of Jesus. But
while meting out crosses to them she gives the grace to bear them with
patience, and even with joy. In
this way, the crosses she sends to those who trust themselves to her are rather
like sweetmeats, i.e. “sweetened” crosses rather than “bitter” ones. If from time to time they do taste the
bitterness of the chalice from which we must drink to become proven friends of
God, the consolation and joy which their Mother sends in the wake of their
sorrows creates in them a strong desire to carry even heavier and still more
bitter crosses.
A TRUE DEVOTION TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN IS
INDISPENSABLE
23. The difficulty, then, is how to arrive at the
true knowledge of the most holy Virgin and so find grace in abundance through
her. God, as the absolute Master,
can give directly what he ordinarily dispenses only through Mary, and it would
be rash to deny that he sometimes does so. However, St. Thomas assures us that, following the order
established by his divine Wisdom, God ordinarily imparts his graces to men
through Mary. Therefore, if we
wish to go to him, seeking union with him, we must use the same means that he
used in coming down from heaven to assume our human nature and to impart his
graces to us. That means was a
complete dependence on Mary his Mother, which is true devotion to her.
WHAT PERFECT DEVOTION TO MARY CONSISTS
IN
Some true devotions to the Blessed
Virgin Mary:
24.
There are indeed
several true devotions to our Lady.
I do not intend to discuss those that are false.
25. The first consists in fulfilling the duties of
our Christian state, avoiding all mortal sin, performing our actions for God
more through love than through fear, praying to our Lady occasionally, and
honoring her as the Mother of God, but without our devotion to her being
exceptional.
26. The second consists in entertaining for our
Lady deeper feelings of esteem and love, of confidence and veneration. This devotion inspires us to join the
confraternities of the Holy Rosary and the Scapular, to say the five or fifteen
decades of the Rosary, to venerate our Lady’s pictures and shrines, to make her
known to others, and to enroll in her sodalities. This devotion, in keeping us from sin, is good, holy and
praiseworthy, but it is not as perfect as the third, nor as effective in detaching
us from creatures, or in practicing that self-denial necessary for union with
Jesus Christ.
27. The third devotion to our Lady is one which is
unknown to many and practiced by very few. This is the one I am about to present to you.
THE PERFECT PRACTICE OF TRUE DEVOTION TO
MARY
What it consists in:
28.
Chosen soul, this
devotion consists in a total surrender of one’s whole self in order to become
the absolute possession, and the perfect instrument of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
It is a total abandonment of ones own self, and all that one possesses, both
materially and spiritually, so that one may become the total possession and
property of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It requires the spirit of a trusting,
obedient child. It requires the heart a perfect servant. But even more, it
requires the willingness to become as it
were a slave of love for her. We must totally give up all that we would
call our own, and willingly consecrate and dedicate ourselves to the Blessed
Virgin Mary as slaves of love. This secret requires that for the rest of our
lives we perform all of our actions as slaves of love for Mary. In the future
we serve Almighty God by doing everything for Mary, with Mary, in Mary, and
through Mary.
29.
We should choose
a special feast-day on which to give ourselves totally to her. Then, willingly
and lovingly and under no constraint, we consecrate and sacrifice to her
unreservedly our body and soul. We
give to her our material possessions, such as our house, our family, and our
income. Most especially we offer even the inner possessions of our soul, namely,
our merits, graces, virtues and atonement’s. We give her the value of all of
our good actions, so that she may dispose of them to the greatest glory of God
and the salvation of souls.
30.
Notice that in
this devotion we sacrifice to Jesus through Mary all that is most dear to us,
that is, the right to dispose of ourselves, of the value of our prayers and
alms, of our acts of self-denial and atonements. We even give her full
possession of any heavenly glory we might attain in this life, so that nothing that
we might call our own remains. We become her full possession and property in
time and in eternity. In fact, we even beg her – implore her – to take us as
her own possession. To even hope that Mary might call us “her own” for all
eternity is an honor that we do not deserve, nor could we ever deserve. How
fortunate is the soul, which Mary actually receives as her own!
. Knowing what most special honor it actually is
to truly become the possession of the Most Blessed Virgin; we still approach
her with absolute confidence. We leave to her the right to dispose of all the
value of our prayers, sacrifices, and good deeds. So that, after having done so
and without going so far as making a vow, we cease to claim merit for any good
deed we might do. Our Lady now may use our good deeds either to bring relief or
deliverance to a soul in purgatory, or perhaps to provide a special grace to
bring a conversion to a poor sinner. We do not bury our talent, so that we may
return it to the master when he asks for it back. No, we have given it to the
wisest banker, who will return it to him with interest. For us, this is the
wisest investment we can make: and God will reward us for being wise stewards.
31. By this devotion we place our merits in the
hands of our Lady, but only that she may preserve, increase and embellish them,
since merit for increase of grace and glory cannot be handed over to any other
person. But we give to her all our
prayers and good works, inasmuch as they have intercessory and atonement value,
for her to distribute and apply to whom she pleases. If, after having thus consecrated ourselves to our Lady, we
wish to help a soul in purgatory, rescue a sinner, or assist a friend by a
prayer, an alms, an act of self-denial or an act of self-sacrifice, we must
humbly request it of our Lady, abiding always by her decision, which of course
remains unknown to us. We can be
fully convinced that the value of our actions, being dispensed by that same
hand which God himself uses to distribute his gifts and graces to us, cannot
fail to be applied for his greatest glory.
32. I have said that this devotion consists in
adopting the status of a slave with regard to Mary. We must remember that there are three kinds of slavery.
There is, first, slavery based on nature. All men, good and bad alike, are
slaves of God in this sense. The second is a slavery of compulsion. The devils and the damned are slaves of
God in this second sense.
The third is a slavery of love and free choice. This is the kind chosen by one who
consecrates himself to God through Mary, and this is the most perfect way for
us human beings to give ourselves to God, our Creator.
33. Note that there is a vast difference between a
servant and a slave. A servant
claims wages for his services, but a slave can claim no reward. A servant is free to leave his employer
when he likes and serves him only for a time, but a slave belongs to his master
for life and has no right to leave him.
A servant does not give his employer a right of life and death over him,
but a slave is so totally committed that his master can put him to death
without fearing any action by the law.
It is easy to see, then, that no dependence is so absolute as that of a
person who is a slave by compulsion.
Strictly speaking, no man should be dependent to this extent on anyone
except his Creator. We therefore
do not find this kind of slavery among Christians, but only among Muslims and
pagans.
34. But happy, very happy indeed, will the generous
person be who, prompted by love, consecrates himself entirely to Jesus through
Mary as their slave, after having shaken off by baptism the tyrannical slavery
of the devil.
The excellence of this practice of
devotion
35.
I would need much
more enlightenment from heaven to describe adequately the surpassing merit of
this devotional practice. I shall
limit myself to these few remarks:
1.
In giving
ourselves to Jesus through Mary’s hands, we imitate God the Father, who gave us
his only Son through Mary, and who imparts his graces to us only through
Mary. Likewise we imitate God the
Son, who by giving us his example for us to follow, inspires us to go to him
using the same means he used in coming to us, that is, through Mary. Again, we imitate the Holy Spirit, who
bestows his graces and gifts upon us through Mary. “Is it not fitting,” remarks St. Bernard, “that grace should
return to its author by the same channel that conveyed it to us?”
36.
2. In going to
Jesus through Mary, we are really paying honor to our Lord, for we are showing
that, because of our sins, we are unworthy to approach his infinite holiness
directly on our own. We are
showing that we need Mary, his holy Mother, to be our advocate and mediatrix
with him who is our Mediator. We
are going to Jesus as Mediator and Brother, and at the same time humbling
ourselves before him who is our God and our Judge. In short, we are practicing humility, something that always
gladdens the heart of God.
37.
3. Consecrating
ourselves in this way to Jesus through Mary implies placing our good deeds in
Mary’s hands. Now, although these
deeds may appear good to us, they are often defective, and not worthy to be
considered and accepted by God, before whom even the stars lack brightness.
Let us pray, then, to our dear Mother and Queen that having accepted
our poor present, she may purify it, sanctify it, beautify it, and so make it
worthy of God. Any good our soul
could produce is of less value to God our Father, in winning his friendship and
favor, than a worm-eaten apple would be in the sight of a king, when presented
by a poor peasant to his royal master as payment for the rent of his farm. But what would the peasant do if he
were wise and if he enjoyed the esteem of the queen? Would he not present his apple first to her, and would she
not, out of kindness to the poor man and out of respect for the king, remove
from the apple all that was maggoty and spoilt, place it on a golden dish, and
surround it with flowers? Could
the king then refuse the apple?
Would he not accept it most willingly from the hands of his queen who
showed such loving concern for that poor man? “If you wish to present something to God, no matter how
small it may be,” says St. Bernard, “place it in the hands of Mary to ensure
its certain acceptance.”
38. Dear God, how everything we do comes to so very
little!
But let us adopt this devotion and place everything in Mary’s
hands. When we have given her all
we possibly can, emptying ourselves completely to do her honor, she far
surpasses our generosity and gives us very much for very little. She enriches us with her own merits and
virtues. She places our gift on
the golden dish of her charity and clothes us, as Rebecca clothed Jacob, in the
beautiful garments of her first-born and only Son, Jesus Christ, which are his
merits, and which are at her disposal.
Thus, as her servants and slaves, stripping ourselves of everything to
do her honor, we are clad by her in double garments - namely, the garments,
adornments, perfumes, merits and virtues of Jesus and Mary. These are imparted to the soul of the
slave who has emptied himself and is resolved to remain in that state.
39.
4. Giving
ourselves in this way to our Lady is a practice of charity towards our neighbor
of the highest possible degree, because in making ourselves over to Mary, we
give her all that we hold most dear and we let her dispose of it as she wishes
in favor of the living and the dead.
40.
5. In adopting
this devotion, we put our graces, merits and virtues into safe keeping by
making Mary the depository of them.
It is as if we said to her, ”See, my dear Mother, here is the good that
I have done through the grace of your dear Son. I am not capable of keeping it, because of my weakness and
inconstancy, and also because so many wicked enemies are assailing me day and
night. Alas, every day we see cedars
of Lebanon fall into the mire, and eagles, which had soared towards the sun,
become birds of darkness, a thousand of the just falling to the left and ten
thousand to the right. But, most
powerful Queen, hold me fast lest I fall.
Keep a guard on all my possessions lest I be robbed of them. I entrust all I have to you, for I know
well who you are, and that is why I confide myself entirely to you. You are faithful to God and man, and
you will not suffer anything I entrust to you to perish. You are powerful, and nothing can harm
you or rob you of anything you hold.”
“When you follow Mary you will not go astray; when you pray to her, you
will not despair; when your mind is on her, you will not wander; when she holds
you up, you will not fall; when she protects you, you will have no fear; when
she guides you, you will feel no fatigue; when she is on your side, you will
arrive safely home” (Saint Bernard).
And again, “She keeps her Son from striking us; she prevents the devil
from harming us; she preserves virtue in us; she prevents our merits from being
lost and our graces from receding.”
These words of St. Bernard explain in substance all that I have
said. Had I but this one motive to
impel me to choose this devotion, namely, that of keeping me in the grace of
God and increasing that grace in me, my heart would burn with longing for it.
41.
This devotion
makes the soul truly free by imbuing it with the liberty of the children of
God. Since we lower ourselves
willingly to a state of slavery out of love for Mary, our dear Mother, she out
of gratitude opens wide our hearts enabling us to walk with giant strides in
the way of God’s commandments. She
delivers our souls from weariness, sadness and scruples. It was this devotion that our Lord
taught to Mother Agnes de Langeac, a religious who died in the odor of
sanctity, as a sure way of being freed from the severe suffering and confusion
of mind that afflicted her. “Make
yourself,” she said, “my Mother’s slave and wear her little chain.” She did so, and from that time onwards
her troubles ceased.
42.
To prove that
this devotion is authoritatively sanctioned, we need only recall the bulls of
the popes and the pastoral letters of bishops recommending it, as well as the
indulgences accorded to it, the confraternities founded to promote it, and the
examples of many saints and illustrious people who have practiced it. But I do not see any necessity to
record them here.
3. The interior
constituents of this consecration and its spirit
43.
I have already
said that this devotion consists in performing all our actions with Mary, in
Mary, through Mary, and for Mary.
44. It is not enough to give ourselves just once as
a slave to Jesus through Mary; nor is it enough to renew that consecration once
a month or once a week. That alone
would make it just a passing devotion and would not raise the soul to the level
of holiness which it is capable of reaching. It is easy to enroll in a confraternity; easy to undertake
this devotion, and say every day the few vocal prayers prescribed. The chief difficulty is to enter into
its spirit, which requires an interior dependence on Mary, and effectively
becoming her slave and the slave of Jesus through her. I have met many people who with
admirable zeal have set about practicing exteriorly this holy slavery of Jesus
and Mary, but I have met only a few who have caught its interior spirit, and
fewer still who have persevered in it.
Act
with Mary
45.
The essential
practice of this devotion is to perform all our actions with Mary. This means that we must take her as the
accomplished model for all we have to do.
46. Before undertaking anything, we must forget
self and abandon our own views. We
must consider ourselves as a mere nothing before God, as being personally
incapable of doing anything supernaturally worthwhile or anything conducive to
our salvation. We must have
habitual recourse to our Lady, becoming one with her and adopting her
intentions, even though they are unknown to us. Through Mary we must adopt the intentions of Jesus. In other words, we must become an
instrument in Mary’s hands for her to act in us and do with us what she
pleases, for the greater glory of her Son; and through Jesus for the greater
glory of the Father. In this way,
we pursue our interior life and make spiritual progress only in dependence on
Mary.
Act in Mary
47. 2. We must always act in Mary, that is to say,
we must gradually acquire the habit of recollecting ourselves interiorly and so
form within us an idea or a spiritual image of Mary. She must become, as it were, an Oratory for the soul where
we offer up our prayers to God without fear of being ignored. She will be as a Tower of David for us
where we can seek safety from all our enemies. She will be a burning lamp lighting up our inmost soul and
inflaming us with love for God.
She will be a sacred place of repose where we can contemplate God in her
company. Finally Mary will be the
only means we will use in going to God, and she will become our intercessor for
everything we need. When we pray
we will pray in Mary. When we
receive Jesus in Holy Communion we will place him in Mary for him to take his
delight in her. If we do anything
at all, it will be in Mary, and in this way Mary will help us to forget self
everywhere and in all things.
Act through Mary
48. 3. We must never go to our Lord except through
Mary, using her intercession and good standing with him. We must never be without her when
praying to Jesus.
Act
for Mary
49. 4. We must perform all our actions for Mary,
which means that as slaves of this noble Queen we will work only for her,
promoting her interests and her high renown, and making this the first aim in
all our acts, while the glory of God will always be our final end. In everything we must renounce
self-love because more often than not, without our being aware of it,
selfishness sets itself up as the end of all we work for. We should often repeat from the depths
of our heart: “Dear Mother, it is to please you that I go here or there, that I
do this or that, that I suffer this pain or this injury.”
50. Beware, chosen soul, of thinking that it is
more perfect to direct your work and intention straight to Jesus or straight to
God. Without Mary, your work and
your intention will be of little value.
But if you go to God through Mary, your work will become Mary’s work,
and consequently will be most noble and most worthy of God.
51. Again, beware of doing violence to yourself,
endeavoring to experience pleasure in your prayers and good deeds. Pray and act always with something of that
pure faith which Mary showed when on earth, and which she will share with you
as time goes on. Poor little
slave, let your sovereign Queen enjoy the clear sight of God, the raptures,
delights, satisfactions and riches of heaven. Content yourself with a pure faith, which is accompanied by
repugnance, distractions, weariness and dryness. Let your prayer be: “To whatever Mary my Queen does in
heaven, I say Amen, so be it.” We
cannot do better than this for the time being.
52. Should you not savor immediately the sweet
presence of the Blessed Virgin within you, take great care not to torment
yourself. For this is a grace not
given to everyone, and even when God in his great mercy favors a soul with this
grace, it remains none the less very easy to lose it, except when the soul has
become permanently aware of it through the habit of recollection. But should this misfortune happen to
you, go back calmly to your sovereign Queen and make amends to her.
The effects that this devotion produces
in a faithful soul
53
Experience will
teach you much more about this devotion than I can tell you, but if you remain
faithful to the little I have taught you, you will acquire a great richness of
grace that will surprise you and fill you with delight.
54.
Let us set to
work, then, dear soul, through perseverance in the living of this devotion, in
order that Mary’s soul may glorify the Lord in us and her spirit be within us
to rejoice in God her Savior. Let
us not think that there was more glory and happiness in dwelling in Abraham’s
bosom - which is another name for Paradise - than in dwelling in the bosom of
Mary where God has set up his throne. (Abbot Guerric)
55.
This devotion
faithfully practiced produces countless happy effects in the soul. The most important of them is that it
establishes, even here on earth, Mary’s life in the soul, so that it is no
longer the soul that lives, but Mary who lives in it. In a manner of speaking, Mary’s soul becomes identified with
the soul of her servant. Indeed
when by an unspeakable but real grace Mary most holy becomes Queen of a soul,
she works untold wonders in it.
She is a great wonder-worker especially in the interior of souls. She works there in secret, unsuspected
by the soul, as knowledge of it might destroy the beauty of her work.
56.
As Mary is
everywhere the fruitful Virgin, she produces in the depths of the soul where
she dwells a purity of heart and body, a singleness of intention and purpose,
and a fruitfulness in good works.
Do not think, dear soul, that Mary, the most faithful of all God’s
creatures, who went as far as to give birth to a God-man, remains idle in a
docile soul. She causes Jesus to
live continuously in that soul and that soul to live in continuous union with
Jesus. If Jesus is equally the
fruit of Mary for each individual soul as for all souls in general, he is even
more especially her fruit and her masterpiece in the soul where she is present.
57. To sum up, Mary becomes all things for the soul
that wishes to serve Jesus Christ.
She enlightens his mind with her pure faith. She deepens his heart with her humility. She enlarges and inflames his heart
with her charity, makes it pure with her purity, makes it noble and great
through her motherly care. But why
dwell any longer on this?
Experience alone will teach us the wonders wrought by Mary in the soul,
wonders so great that the wise and the proud, and even a great number of devout
people find it hard to credit them.
58. As it was through Mary that God came into the
world the first time in a state of self-abasement and privation, may we not say
that it will be again through Mary that he will come the second time? For does not the whole Church expect
him to come and reign over all the earth and to judge the living and the
dead? No one knows how and when
this will come to pass, but we do know that God, whose thoughts are further
from ours than heaven is from earth, will come at a time and in a manner least
expected, even by the most scholarly of men and those most versed in Holy
Scripture, which gives no clear guidance on this subject.
59. We are given reason to believe that, towards
the end of time and perhaps sooner than we expect, God will raise up great men
filled with the Holy Spirit and imbued with the spirit of Mary. Through them Mary, Queen most powerful,
will work great wonders in the world, destroying sin and setting up the kingdom
of Jesus her Son upon the ruins of the corrupt kingdom of the world. These holy men will accomplish this by
means of the devotion of which I only trace the main outlines and which suffers
from my incompetence.
Exterior practices
60. Besides interior practices, which we have just
mentioned, this devotion has certain exterior practices that must not be
omitted or neglected.
Consecration and its renewal
61. The first is to choose a special feast-day to
consecrate ourselves through Mary to Jesus, whose slaves we are making
ourselves. This is an occasion for
receiving Holy Communion and spending the day in prayer. At least once a year on the same day,
we should renew the act of consecration.
Offering of a tribute in submission to the Blessed Virgin
62. The second is to give our Lady every year on
that same day some little tribute as a token of our servitude and
dependence. This has always been
the customary homage paid by slaves to their master. This tribute could consist of an act of self-denial or alms,
or a pilgrimage, or a few prayers.
St. Peter Damian tells us that his brother, Blessed Marino, used to give
himself the discipline in public on the same day every year before the altar of
our Lady. This kind of zeal is not
required, nor would we counsel it.
But what little we give to our Lady we should at least offer with a heart
that is humble and grateful.
A Special Celebration of the Feast of the Annunciation
63. The third practice is to celebrate every year
with special fervor the feast of the Annunciation of our Lord. This is the distinctive feast of this
devotion and was chosen so that we might honor and imitate that dependence
which the eternal Word accepted on this day out of love for us.
The Saying of the Little Crown and the Magnificat
64. The fourth practice is to say every day,
without the obligation of sin, the prayer entitled “The Little Crown of the
Blessed Virgin”, which comprises three Our Fathers and twelve Hail Marys, and
to say frequently the Magnificat, which is the only hymn composed by our
Lady. In the Magnificat we thank
God for favoring us in the past, and we beg further blessings from him in the
future. One special time when we
should not fail to say it is during thanksgiving after Holy Communion. A person so scholarly as Gerson informs
us that our Lady herself used to recite it in thanksgiving after Holy
Communion.
The wearing of a medal, preferably the Miraculous Medal, or a blessed
chain.
65.
The fifth is the
wearing of a blessed Medal around the neck. The Miraculous Medal given to St.
Catherine Laboure, also called the Medal of the Immaculate Conception, is most
perfect for this purpose because Our Lady promised the greatest graces to those
who would wear it. It is the first sacramental of the Church to have received
extraordinary promises of grace from heaven. Also, all the privileges and
promises of the Brown Scapular have been commuted to the Miraculous Medal by
the Holy See if wearing the cloth Scapular is difficult or impractical. (If it
is possible, the cloth Brown Scapular should also be worn, for it is the
primary symbol of one’s consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. One
should be properly enrolled in the Confraternity of the Brown Scapular by a
Priest using the Book of Blessings to gain its full merits and indulgences.)The
other external signs, like wearing the Miraculous Medal, or the wearing of a
blessed chain on the arm, on the foot, or about the body, symbolizes the zeal
of one who sincerely practices this devotion. Strictly speaking, these practices could be omitted without
affecting the essential nature of the devotion, but it would be foolish to
despise the graces offered to those who will wear these powerful sacramentals,
which are themselves sources of grace.
66.
Here are the
reasons for wearing these external signs:
(1) It signifies that we desire to be free from the
chains of original and actual sin, which held us in bondage.
(2) By it we show our esteem for the cords and
bonds of love with which our Lord let himself be bound that we might be truly
free.
(3) As these bonds are bonds of love, they remind
us that we should do nothing except under the influence of love.
(4)
Finally, wearing
an external sign, such as the Miraculous Medal, recalls to us constantly that
we are dependent on Jesus and Mary. People who have become slaves of Jesus and
Mary value these external signs so much that they are unhappy if they are not
permitted to wear them publicly.
External
signs, like the Brown Scapular and the Miraculous Medal are more valuable and
more glorious than the necklaces of gold and precious stones worn by emperors,
because they are the illustrious insignia of Jesus and Mary. Not only to they
signify the bonds uniting us to them, but as holy sacramentals the greatest
graces and protections are given to those wear them.
It
should be noted that if the chains worn about the body, other than the neck,
are not of silver, they should for convenience’ sake at least be made of iron.
If
one chooses to wear them, they should never be laid aside at any time so that
they may be with us even to the Day of Judgment. Great will be the joy, glory and triumph of the faithful
slave on that day when, at the sound of the trumpet, his bones rise from the
earth still bound by such medals or chains of holy bondage, which to all
appearance will not have decayed.
This thought alone should convince a devout servant of Our Lady never to
take off his medal, or chain, however inconvenient it might be.
SUPPLEMENT
PRAYER TO JESUS
Most loving Jesus, permit me to express my
heartfelt gratitude to you for your kindness in giving me to your holy Mother
through the devotion of holy bondage, and so making her my advocate to plead
with your Majesty on my behalf, and make up for all that I lack through my
inadequacy.
Alas, O Lord, I am so wretched that without my dear Mother I would
certainly be lost. Yes, I always
need Mary when I am approaching you.
I need her to calm your indignation at the many offenses I have
committed every day. I need her to
save me from the just sentence of eternal punishment I have deservedly
incurred. I need her to turn to
you, speak to you, pray to you, approach you and please you. I need her to help me save my soul and
the souls of others. In a word, I
need her so that I may always do your holy will and seek your greater glory in
everything I do.
Would that I could publish throughout the whole world the mercy which
you have shown to me! Would that
the whole world could know that without Mary I would now be doomed! If only I could offer adequate thanks
for such a great benefit as Mary!
She is within me. What a
precious possession and what a consolation for me! Should I not in return be all hers? If I were not, how ungrateful would I
be! My dear Savior, send me death
rather than I should be guilty of such a lapse, for I would rather die than not
belong to Mary.
Like St. John the Evangelist at the foot of the Cross, I have taken her
times without number as my total good and as often have I given myself to
her. But if I have not done so as
perfectly as you, dear Jesus would wish, I now do so according to your
desire. If you still see in my
soul or body anything that does not belong to this noble Queen, please pluck it
out and cast it far from me, because anything of mine which does not belong to
Mary is unworthy of you.
67. Holy Spirit, grant me all these graces. Implant in my soul the tree of true
life, which is Mary. Foster it and
cultivate it so that it grows and blossoms and brings forth the fruit of life
in abundance. Holy Spirit, give me
a great love and longing for Mary, your exalted spouse. Give me a great trust in her maternal heart
and a continuous access to her compassion, so that with her you may truly form
Jesus, great and powerful, in me until I attain the fullness of his perfect
age. Amen.
CONSECRATION TO MARY
68. Hail, Mary, most beloved daughter of the
eternal Father; hail, Mary, most admirable mother of the Son; hail, Mary, most
faithful spouse of the Holy Spirit; hail, Mary, Mother most dear, Lady most
lovable, Queen most powerful!
Hail, Mary, my joy, my glory, my heart and soul. You are all mine through God’s mercy,
but I am all yours in justice. Yet
I do not belong sufficiently to you, and so once again, as a slave who always
belongs to his master, I give myself wholly to you, reserving nothing for
myself or for others.
If you still see anything in me that has not been given to you, please
take it now. Make yourself
completely owner of all my capabilities.
Destroy in me everything that is displeasing to God. Uproot it and bring it to nothing. Implant in me all that you deem to be
good; improve it and make it increase in me.
May the light of your faith dispel the darkness of my mind! May your deep humility take the place
of my pride. May your heavenly
contemplation put an end to the distractions of my wandering imagination. May your continuous vision of God fill
my memory with his presence. May
the burning love of your heart inflame the coldness of mine. May your virtues take the place of my
sins. May your merits be my
adornment and make up for my unworthiness before God. Finally, most dearly beloved Mother, grant, if it be
possible, that I may have no other spirit but yours to know Jesus and his
divine will. May I have no soul
but yours to praise and glorify the Lord.
May I have no heart but yours to love God purely and ardently as you
love him.
69. I do not ask for visions or revelations, for
sensible devotion or even spiritual pleasures. It is your privilege to see God clearly in perpetual
light. It is your privilege to
savor the delights of heaven where nothing is without sweetness. It is your privilege to triumph
gloriously in heaven at the right hand of your Son without further humiliation,
and to command angels, men, and demons, without resistance on their part. It is your privilege to dispose at your
own choice of all the good gifts of God without any exception.
Such, most holy Mary, is the excellent portion that the Lord has given
you, and which will never be taken from you, and which gives me great joy. As for my portion here on earth, I wish
only to have a share in yours, that is, to have simple faith without seeing or
tasting, to suffer joyfully without the consolation of men, to die daily to
myself without flinching, to work gallantly for you even until death without
any self-interest, as the most worthless of your slaves. The only grace I beg you in your
kindness to obtain for me is that every day and moment of my life I may say
this threefold Amen:
Amen, so be it, to all you did upon earth; Amen, so be it, to all you
are doing now in heaven; Amen, so be it, to all you are doing in my soul. In that way, you and you alone will
fully glorify Jesus in me during all my life and throughout eternity. Amen.
IV.
THE CARE AND GROWTH OF THE TREE OF LIFE,
In other words,
HOW BEST TO CAUSE MARY TO LIVE AND REIGN
IN OUR SOULS
A. The holy
slavery of love.
The Tree of Life
70.
Have you
understood with the help of the Holy Spirit what I have tried to explain in the
preceding pages? If so, be
thankful to God. It is a secret of
which very few people are aware.
If you have discovered this treasure in the field of Mary, this pearl of
great price, you should sell all you have to purchase it. You must offer yourself to Mary,
happily lose yourself in her, only to find God in her.
If the Holy Spirit has planted in your soul the true Tree of Life,
which is the devotion that I have just explained, you should see carefully to
its cultivation, so that it will yield its fruit in due season. This devotion is like the mustard seed
of the Gospel, which is indeed the smallest of all seeds, but nevertheless it
grows into a big plant, shooting up so high that the birds of the air, that is,
the elect, come and make their nest in its branches. They repose there, shaded from the heat of the sun, and
safely hidden from beasts of prey.
B. How to cultivate it.
Here is the best way, chosen soul, to cultivate it:
71.
(1) This tree,
once planted in a docile heart, requires fresh air and no human support. Being of heavenly origin, it must be
uninfluenced by any creature, since a creature might hinder it from rising up
towards God who created it. Hence
you must not rely on your own endeavors or your natural talents or your personal
standing or the guidance of men.
You must resort to Mary, relying solely on her help.
72.
(2) The person in
whose soul this tree has taken root must, like a good gardener, watch over it
and protect it. For this tree,
having life and capable of producing the fruit of life, should be raised and
tended with enduring care and attention of soul. A soul that desires to be holy will make this its chief aim
and occupation.
73.
Whatever is
likely to choke the tree or in the course of time prevent its yielding fruit,
such as thorns and thistles, must be cut away and rooted out. This means that by self-denial and
self-discipline you must sedulously cut short and even give up all empty
pleasures and useless dealings with other creatures. In other words, you must crucify the flesh, keep a guard
over the tongue, and mortify the bodily senses.
74. (3) You must guard against grubs doing harm to
the tree.
These parasites are love of self and love of comfort, and they eat away
the green foliage of the Tree and frustrate the fair hope it offered of
yielding good fruit; for love of self is incompatible with love of Mary.
75. (4) You must not allow this tree to be damaged
by destructive animals, that is, by sins, for they may cause its death simply
by their contact. They must not be
allowed even to breathe upon the Tree, because their mere breath, that is,
venial sins, which are most dangerous when we do not trouble ourselves about
them.
76.
(5) It is also
necessary to water this Tree regularly with your Communions, Masses and other
public and private prayers.
Otherwise it will not continue bearing fruit.
77. (6) Yet you need not be alarmed when the winds
blow and shake this tree, for it must happen that the storm-winds of temptation
will threaten to bring it down, and snow and frost tend to smother it. By this we mean that this devotion to
our Blessed Lady will surely be called into question and attacked. But as long as we continue steadfastly
in tending it, we have nothing to fear.
C. Its lasting fruit: Jesus Christ
77.
Chosen soul,
provided you thus carefully cultivate the Tree of Life, which has been freshly
planted in your soul by the Holy Spirit, I can assure you that in a short time
it will grow so tall that the birds of the air will make their home in it. It will become such a good tree that it
will yield in due season the sweet and adorable Fruit of honor and grace, which
is Jesus, who has always been and will always be the only fruit of Mary.
Happy
is that soul in which Mary, the Tree of Life is planted. Happier still is the soul in which she
has been able to grow and blossom.
Happier again is the soul in which she brings forth her fruit. But happiest of all is the soul that savors
the sweetness of Mary’s fruit and preserves it up till death and then beyond to
all eternity. Amen.
“Let
him who possesses it, hold fast to it.”
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