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• 00 - Preface

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  Preface of A Treatise on the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Michael Portelli. A Treatise on the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin.

  By Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort. Translated by Frederick William Faber, Doctor of Divinity. Preface. It was in the year 1846 or 1847 at St. Wilfred's that I first studied the life and spirit of the Venerable Grignon de Montfort.

  Even now, after more than fifteen years, it may be allowable to say that those who take him for their master will hardly be able to name a saint or ascetical writer to whose grace and spirit their mind will be more subject than to his. We may not yet call him saint, but the process of his beatification is so far and so favorably advanced that we may not have long to wait before he will be raised upon the altars of

  the Church. There are few men in the eighteenth century who have more strongly upon them the marks of the man of Providence than this Elias-like missionary of the Holy Ghost and of Mary. His entire life was such an exhibition of the holy folly of the Cross that his biographers unite in always classing him with St. Simon Salo and St. Philip Neri.

  Clement the Eleventh made him a missionary apostolic in France in order that he might spend his life in fighting against Jansenism, so far as it affected the salvation of souls. Since the Apostolical Epistles, it would be hard to find words that burn so marvelously as the twelve pages of his prayer for the missionaries of the Holy Ghost, to which I earnestly refer all those who find it hard to keep up, under their numberless trials,

  the first fires of the love of souls. He was at once persecuted and venerated everywhere. His amount of work, like that of St. Anthony of Padua, is incredible and indeed inexplicable. He wrote some spiritual treatises, which have already had a remarkable influence on the Church during the few years they have been known, and bid fare to have a much wider influence

  in years to come. His preaching, his writing and his conversation were all impregnated with prophecy and with anticipations of the latter ages of the Church. He comes forward like another St. Vincent Ferrer, as if on the days bordering on the Last Judgment, and proclaims that he brings an authentic message from God about the greater

  honour and wider knowledge and more prominent love of his Blessed Mother and her connection with the Second Advent of her son. He founded two religious congregations, one of men and one of women, which have been quite extraordinarily successful. And yet he died at the age of forty-three in 1716, after only sixteen years of priesthood.

  It was on the twelfth of May 1853 that the decree was pronounced at Rome, declaring his writings to be exempt from all error which could be a bar to his canonisation. In his very treatise on the veritable devotion to our Blessed Lady he has recorded this prophecy. I clearly foresee that raging brutes will come in fury to tear with their diabolical teeth this little writing, and him whom the Holy Ghost has made use of to write it, or

  at least to envelop it in the silence of a coffer, in order that it may not appear. Nevertheless he prophesies both its appearance and its success. All this was fulfilled to the letter. The author died in 1716, and the treatise was found by accident by one of the priests of his congregation at St. Laurent, Sura Severa, in 1842. The existing superior was able to attest the handwriting as being that of the venerable founder, and the autograph

  was sent to Rome to be examined in the process of canonisation. All those who are likely to read this book love God and lament that they do not love him more. All desire something for his glory, the spread of some good work, the success of some devotion, the coming of some good time. One man has been striving for years to overcome a particular fault and has not succeeded. Another mourns and almost wonders while he mourns that so few of his

  relations and friends have been converted to the faith. One grieves that he has not devotion enough. Another that he has a cross to carry, which is a peculiarly impossible cross to him. While the third has domestic troubles and family unhappinesses, which feel almost incompatible with his salvation. And for all these things prayer appears to bring so little remedy. But what is the remedy that is wanted? What is the remedy indicated by

  God himself? If we may rely on the disclosures of the saints, it is an immense increase of devotion to our blessed lady. But remember, nothing short of an immense one. Here in England Mary is not half enough preached. Devotion to her is low and thin and poor. It is frightened out of its wits by the sneers of heresy. It is always invoking human respect and carnal prudence, wishing to make Mary so little of a Mary that Protestants may feel at ease about

  her. Its ignorance of theology makes it unsubstantial and unworthy. It is not the prominent characteristic of our religion, which it ought to be. It has no faith in itself. Hence it is that Jesus is not loved, that heretics are not converted, that the church is not exalted, that souls which might be saints wither and dwindle, that the sacraments are not rightly frequented, or souls enthusiastically evangelised. Jesus is obscured because Mary is kept in the background.

  Thousands of souls perish because Mary is withheld from them. It is the miserable, unworthy shadow which we call our devotion to the blessed Virgin that is the cause of all these wants and blights, these evils and omissions and declines. Yet, if we are to believe the revelations of the saints, God is pressing for a greater, a wider, a stronger, quite another devotion to his blessed Mother. I cannot think of a higher work or a broader vocation for anyone

  than the simple spreading of this peculiar devotion of the venerable Grignon de Montfort. Let a man but try it for himself, and his surprise at the graces it brings with it, and the transformations it causes in his soul, will soon convince him of its otherwise almost incredible efficacy, as a means for the salvation of men and for the coming of the Kingdom of Christ. Oh, if Mary were but known, there would be no coldness to Jesus then.

  Oh, if Mary were but known, how much more wonderful would be our faith, and how different would our communions be? Oh, if Mary were but known, how much more happier, how much holier, how much less worldly should we be, and how much more should we be living images of our soul Lord and Saviour, her dearest and most blessed Son. I have translated the whole treatise myself, and have taken great pains with it, and have been scrupulously

  faithful. At the same time, I would venture to warn the reader that one perusal will be very far from making him master of it. If I may dare to say so, there is a growing feeling of something inspired and supernatural about it, as we go on studying it, and with that we cannot help experiencing, after repeated readings of it, that its novelty never seems to wear off, nor its fullness to be diminished, nor the fresh fragrance and sensible fire

  of its unction ever to abate. May the Holy Ghost, the Divine Zealot of Jesus and Mary, deign to give a new blessing to this work in England, and may he please to console us quickly with the canonisation of this new Apostle and fiery missionary of his most dear and most immaculate spouse, and still more with the speedy coming of that great age of the Church, which is to be the age of Mary. F. W. Faber, Priest of the Oratory. Presentation

  of Our Blessed Lady, 1862. End of Preface. Recording by Michael Portelli, Sydney, Australia.

• 01 - Preface French Edition

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  Preface to the French edition of A Treatise on the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Michael Portelli. A Treatise on the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin.

  By Louis-Marie Grignon de Montfort. Translated by Frederick William Faber. Doctor of Divinity. Preface to the French edition. God wishes that his Holy Mother should now be more known, more loved, more honoured than

  ever she has been. And this will no doubt come to pass if the predestinate will enter by the grace and light of the Holy Ghost into the interior and perfect practice which I will discover to them. These words of the venerable servant of God Louis-Marie Grignon de Montfort cannot fail to interest our piety and to inspire us with a lively desire of learning from him so excellent

  a practice of honouring the Most Holy Virgin. He had been drawn from his earliest infancy in quite a particular fashion to the love of this Queen of Angels and in a conversation which he had with his intimate friend Monsieur Blaine two years before his death. The pious missionary confessed to him that God had favoured him with an extraordinary

  grace which was the continued presence of Jesus and Mary in the bottom of his soul. This word was a mystery to Monsieur Blaine but we shall see the explanation of it in this little treatise. We shall see revealed to us there the heart of him who knew no fairer name than the slave of Jesus and Mary.

  We do not however pretend to say that this explanation will be equally understood by all. We must remember here that word of the eternal wisdom, Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to the little ones. It has been said in the life of the venerable servant of God that his history will never

  be understood except by a Christian. It has this in common with the lives of a great number of the servants of God. We may see also that this little work will never be understood by a Christian who is too much a stranger to the maxims of humility and evangelical simplicity and that the wise of this world will find themselves shocked at the lessons of true wisdom which they

  will read without penetrating their sense. Animalus homo non percepet ei, qui sunt spiritus dei. Studsitia enem est illi et non potest elegere qua spiritualitere examinatur. The man who guides himself only by natural light does not comprehend the things of the spirit of God.

  They seem to him follies because they can only be judged by a supernatural light which he has not got. But let us hasten to add that sincere and simple souls will relish the manner hidden in the pious and touching instructions of the virtuous priest who consumed his life in evangelizing the poor.

  They will bless divine providence for the treasure. They will feel themselves penetrated with love for Jesus and Mary in reading these burning pages which the man of God wrote in the fervour of his prayer without ever losing sight of the presence of our divine Saviour and his holy mother. In conclusion let us say a few words on the discovery of this treatise.

  At the time of the French Revolution in 1793 the manuscripts which the house of the missionaries of Saint-Laurent-sur-Sévret possessed were hidden in the neighbouring farms where they remained buried in dust for many years. Later on those which were found were put into the library of the missionaries. But this little treatise was not at that time recognized as was the case with some

  others also composed by the venerable founder of the company. It was not till 1842 that one of the priests of the house of Saint-Laurent found it by chance in the library where it had been put without being recognized after having been mixed up with a great number of imperfect books. After I had read a few pages, says the priest, I took it, hoping to find it useful for making

  a sermon on Our Lady. I read by chance the place where he speaks of his company of Mary. I recognized the style and thoughts of our venerable founder and his way of addressing his missionaries. And after that I had no doubt the manuscript was his.

  I took it to our superior who identified the handwriting. The manuscript has been examined at Rome, recognized to be the work of the venerable servant of God, most minutely examined in its doctrine, and declared to be exempt from all error which could be a bar to his canonization. End of Preface to the French Edition.

  Recording by Michael Portelli.

• 02 - Introduction

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  Introduction of a Treatise on the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Michael Portelli. A Treatise on the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin.

  By Louis-Marie Grignon de Montfort. Translated by Frederick William Faber, Doctor of Divinity. Introduction. It is by the Most Holy Virgin Mary that Jesus has come into the world. And it is also by her that he has to reign in the world.

  Mary has been singularly hidden during her life. It is on this account that the Holy Ghost and the Church call her Alma Mater. Mother secret and hidden. Her humility was so profound that she had no propensity on earth more powerful or more unintermitting than that of hiding herself even from herself as well as from every other

  creature so as to be known to God only. He heard her prayers to him when she begged to be hidden, to be humbled and to be treated as in all respects poor and of no account. He took pleasure in hiding her from all human creatures in her conception, in her birth, in her life and in her resurrection and assumption.

  Her parents even did not know her and the angels often asked of each other, Qui est esta? Who is that? God the Father consented that she should do no miracle, at least no public one, during her life although he had given her the power.

  God the Son consented that she should hardly ever speak though he had communicated his wisdom to her. God the Holy Ghost, though she was his faithful spouse, consented that his apostles and evangelists should speak but very little of her and no more than was necessary to make Jesus Christ known.

  Mary is the excellent masterpiece of the Most High of which he has reserved to himself both the knowledge and the possession. Mary is the admirable Mother of the Son who took pleasure in humbling and concealing her during her life in order to favour her humility, calling her by the name of Woman, Moulir, as if she was a stranger, although in his heart he esteemed and loved her above all

  angels and all men. Mary is the sealed fountain and the faithful spouse of the Holy Ghost to whom he alone has entrance. Mary is the sanctuary and the repose of the Holy Trinity where God dwells more magnificently and more divinely than in any other place in the universe without accepting his dwelling

  between the Sherabim and Seraphim. Neither is it allowed to any creature, no matter how pure, to enter into that sanctuary without a great and special privilege. I say with the saints, the Divine Mary is the terrestrial paradise of the new Adam, where he is incarnate by the operation of the Holy Ghost in order to work their incomprehensible

  marvels. She is the grand and divine world of God, where there are beauties and treasures unspeakable. She is the magnificence of the Most High, where he has hidden as in her bosom his only son and in him all that is most excellent and most precious. Oh, what grand and hidden things that mighty God has wrought in this admirable creature!

  How has she herself been compelled to say it in spite of her profound humility? Fēcit mihi magna, qui potencest. He that is mighty hath done great things to me. The world knows them not, because it is at once incapable and unworthy of such knowledge. The saints have said admirable things of this holy city of God, and as they themselves avow,

  they have never been more eloquent and more content than when they have spoken of her. Yet, after all they have said, they cry out that the height of her merits, which she has the throne of the divinity, cannot be fully seen, that the breadth of her charity, which is broader than the earth, is in truth immeasurable, that the grandeur of her power, which she exercises even over God himself, is incomprehensible, and finally that the depth of her humility

  and of all her virtues and graces is an abyss which never can be sounded. O height incomprehensible, O breadth unspeakable, O grandeur immeasurable, O abyss impenetrable, Every day, from one end of the earth to the other, In the highest heights of the heavens, And in the profoundest depths of the abysses, Everything preaches, everything publishes, The admirable Mary.

  The nine choirs of angels, men of all ages, sexes, conditions and religions, good or bad, Nay even the devils themselves, willingly or unwillingly, Are compelled by the force of truth to call her blessed. Saint Bonaventure tells us that all the angels in heaven cry out incessantly to her, Sancta, sancta, sancta Maria, De genitrex et vergo, Holy, holy, holy Mary, Mother of God and Virgin,

  And that they offer to her millions and millions of times a day the angelical salutation, Ave Maria, prostrating themselves before her and begging of her in her graciousness to honour them with some of her commands. Saint Michael, as Saint Augustine says, Although the Prince of all the heavenly court, Is the most zealous in honouring her and causing her to be honoured,

  While he waits always in expectation that he may have the honour to go at her bidding To render service to some one of her servants. The whole earth is full of her glory, especially among Christians, Most whom she is taken as the protectress of many kingdoms, provinces, dioceses and cities. Numbers of cathedrals are consecrated to God under her name.

  There is not a church without an altar in her honour, not a country or a canton where there are not some miraculous images, where all sorts of evils are cured and all sorts of good gifts obtained. Who can count the confraternities and congregations in her honour? How many religious orders have been founded in her name and under her protection?

  What numbers there are of brothers and sisters, of all these confraternities, and of all religious men and women, of all these orders, who publish her praises and confess her mercies? There is not a little child who as it lisps the Ave Maria does not praise her. There is scarcely a sinner who even in his obduracy has not some spark of confidence in her, nay, the very devils in hell respect her while they fear her.

  After that we must surely say with the saints, De Maria nunquum satis, of Mary there is never enough. We have not yet praised, exalted, honoured, loved and served Mary as we ought to. She has deserved still more praise, still more respect, still more love, and far more service.

  After that we must say with the Holy Ghost, omnes gloria filli regis ab intus, all the glory of the King's daughter is within. It is as if all the outward glory which heaven and earth rival each other in lying at her feet is nothing in comparison with that which she receives within from the Creator and which is not known by creatures, who in their littleness are unable to penetrate the secret of the

  secrets of the King. After that we must cry out with the Apostle, Neo oculus videt, nec aurus audivitet, nec in cor ominus ascendit. Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor man's heart comprehended, the beauties, the grandges, the excellences of Mary, the miracle of the miracles of grace, of nature and of glory.

  If you wish to comprehend the Mother, says a saint, comprehend the Son, for she is the worthy Mother of God. Hic taciet omnes lingua. Hear let every tongue be mute. It is with a particular joy that my heart has dictated what I have just written in order

  to show that the Divine Mary has been up to this time unknown and that this is one of that Jesus Christ is not known as he ought to be. If then as is certain the kingdom of Jesus Christ is to come into the world, it will be but a necessary consequence of the knowledge of the kingdom of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, who brought him into the world the first time and will make his second advent full of splendour.

  End of introduction Recording by Michael Portelli

• 03 - Part 1

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  Part 1 of A Treatise on the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Michael Portelli. A Treatise on the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin by Louis-Marie Grignon de Montfort.

  Translated by Frederick William Faber, Doctor of Divinity. Part 1 on Devotion to our Blessed Lady in general. Excellence and Necessity of Devotion to our Blessed Lady. I avow with all the Church that Mary, being but a mere creature that has come from the hands of the Most High, is in comparison with His Infinite Majesty, less than an atom, or

  rather she is nothing at all, because He only is He who is, and thus by consequence that Grand Lord always independent and sufficient to Himself never had and has not now any absolute need of the Holy Virgin for the accomplishment of His will and for the manifestation of His glory. He has but to will in order to do everything.

  Nevertheless, I say that, things being supposed as they are now, God having willed to commence and to complete His greatest works by the Most Holy Virgin, since He created her, we may well think He will not change His conduct in the eternal ages, for He is God and He changes not either in His sentiments or in His conduct. God the Father has not given His only begotten to the world except by Mary, whatever size

  the Patriarchs may have sent forth, whatever prayers the prophets and the saints of the ancient law may have offered up to obtain that treasure for full four thousand years. It was but Mary that merited it. It was but Mary who found grace before God by the force of her prayers and the eminence of her virtues.

  The world was unworthy, says St. Augustine, to receive the Son of God immediately from the Father's hands. He has given Him to Mary in order that the world might receive Him through her. The Son of God has made Himself man, but it was in Mary and by Mary. God the Holy Ghost has formed Jesus Christ in Mary, but it was only after having asked

  her consent by one of the first ministers of His court. God the Father has communicated to Mary His fruitfulness as far as a mere creature was capable of it, in order that He might give her the power to produce His Son and all the members of His mystical body. God the Son has descended into her virginal womb as the new Adam into the terrestrial

  paradise, to take His pleasure there and to work in secret the marvels of His grace. God made man has found His liberty in seeing Himself imprisoned in her womb. He has made His omnipotence shine forth in letting Himself be carried by that blessed Virgin. He has found His glory and His Fathers in hiding His splendours from all creatures here

  below and revealing them to Mary only. He has glorified His independence and His majesty in depending on that sweet Virgin in His conception, in His birth, in His presentation in the temple, in His hidden life of thirty years and even in His death, where she was to be present, in order that He might make with her but one same sacrifice and be immolated to the Eternal Father by her consent.

  Just as Isaac of old was offered by Abraham's consent to the will of God, it is she who has suckled Him, nourished Him, supported Him, brought Him up and then sacrificed Him for us. O admirable and incomprehensible dependence of a God, which the Holy Ghost could not pass in silence in the Gospel, although He has hidden from us nearly all the admirable things

  which that Incarnate Wisdom did in His hidden life, as if He would enable us by His revelation, of that at least to understand something of its price. Jesus Christ gave more glory to God, the Father by submission to His Mother during those thirty years than He would have given Him in converting the whole world by the working of the most stupendous miracles.

  O how highly we glorify God, when to please Him we submit ourselves to Mary after the example of Jesus Christ our sole Exemplar. If we examine narrowly the rest of our Blessed Lord's life, we shall see that it was His will to begin His miracles by Mary. He sanctified St John in the womb of St Elizabeth, His Mother.

  But it was by Mary's word. No sooner has she spoken than John was sanctified and this was His first and greatest miracle of grace. At the marriage at Cana He changed the water into wine, but it wasn't Mary's humble prayer and this was His first miracle of nature.

  He has begun and continued His miracles by Mary and He will continue them to the end of ages by Mary also. God the Holy Ghost, being barren in God, that is to say, not producing another Divine Person, is become fruitful by Mary whom He has espoused. It is with her, in her and of her that He has produced His masterpiece, which is a God-made

  man and whom He goes on producing in the persons of His members daily to the end of the world. The predestinate are the members of that adorable Head. This is the reason why He, the Holy Ghost, the more He finds Mary, His dear and indissoluble spouse in any soul, becomes the more active and mighty in producing Jesus Christ in that soul and that soul in Jesus Christ.

  It is not that we may say that our Blessed Lady gives the Holy Ghost His fruitfulness as if He had it not Himself. For inasmuch as He is God, He has the same fruitfulness or capacity of producing as the Father and the Son, only that He does not bring it into action, as He does not produce another Divine Person.

  But what we want to say is that the Holy Ghost chose to make use of our Blessed Lady, though He had no absolute need of her, to bring His fruitfulness into action, by producing in her and by her Jesus Christ in His members, a mystery of grace unknown to even the wisest and most spiritual among Christians. The conduct which the three persons of the Most Holy Trinity have deigned to pursue in

  the Incarnation and First Coming of Jesus Christ, they still pursue daily in an invisible manner throughout the whole Church, and they will still pursue it even to the consummation of ages in the Last Coming of Jesus Christ. God the Father made an assemblage of all the waters and He named it the sea, Mare. He has made an assemblage of all His graces and He has called it Mary, Maria.

  This great God has a most rich treasury in which He has laid up all that He has of beauty, of splendour, of rarity and of preciousness even to His own Son. And this immense treasury is none other than Mary, whom the saints have named the treasure of the Lord, out of whose plenitude all men are made rich. God the Son has communicated to His Mother all that He has acquired by His life and by

  His death, His infinite merits and His admirable virtues. And He has made her the treasures of all that His Father has given Him for His inheritance. It is by her that He applies His merits to His members and that He communicates His virtues and distributes His graces. She is His mysterious canal.

  She is His aqueduct, through which He makes His mercies flow gently and abundantly. To Mary, His faithful spouse, God the Holy Ghost, has communicated His unspeakable gifts and He has chosen her to be the dispensatrix of all He possesses, in such sort that She distributes to whom She wills as much as She wills and as She wills. And when She wills, all His gifts and graces.

  The Holy Ghost gives no heavenly gift to men, which He does not pass through Her virginal hands. She has been the will of God, who has willed that we should have everything in Mary, so that She who impoverished, humbled, and hid Herself even to the abyss of nothingness, by Her profound humility, Her whole life long, should now be enriched and exalted by the

  Most High. Such are the sentiments of the Church and the Holy Fathers. If I were speaking to the free thinkers of these times, I would prove what I have said so simply, drawing it out more at length and confirming it by the Holy Scriptures and the Fathers, quoting the original passages and adducing various solid reasons which may be

  seen at length in the book of Father Poiré, La Triple Coronne de la Santa Verge. But as I speak, particularly to the poor and simple, who being of goodwill and having more faith in the common run of scholars, believe more simply and so more meritoriously, I content myself with putting out the truth quite simply, without stopping to quote the original passages, which they would not understand.

  Nevertheless, without making much research, I shall not fail from time to time to bring forward some of them. But let us now go on with our subject. Inasmuch as grace perfects nature, and glory perfects grace, it is certain that our Lord is still in heaven as much the Son of Mary as He was on earth, and that consequently

  He has preserved the most perfect obedience and submission of all children towards the best of all mothers. But we must take great pains not to conceive of this dependence as any abasement or imperfection in Jesus Christ. For Mary is infinitely below her Son, who is God, and therefore she does not command

  Him as a mother here below would command her child, who is below her. Mary, being altogether transformed into God by grace and by the glory which transforms all the saints into Him, asks nothing, wishes nothing, does nothing, which is contrary to the eternal and immutable will of God. When we read then in the writings of saints Bernard, Bernardine, Bonaventure and others,

  that in heaven and on earth everything, even to God Himself, is subject to the Blessed Virgin, they mean to say that the authority which God has been well pleased to give her is so great that it seems as if she has the same power as God, and that her prayers and petitions are so powerful with God that they always pass for commandments with His Majesty, who never resists the prayer of His dear Mother, because she is always humble and conformed

  to His will. If by Moses, by the force of his prayer, arrested the anger of God against the Israelites, in a manner so powerful that the Most High and infinitely Merciful Lord, being unable to resist Him, told Him to let Him alone, that He might be angry with and punish that rebellious people, what must we not, with much greater reason, think of the prayer of

  the humble Mary, that worthy Mother of God, which is more powerful with His Majesty than the prayers and intercessions of all the angels and saints, both in heaven and on earth. Mary commands in the heavens the angels and the blessed. As a recompense for her profound humility, God has given her the power and permission to fill with saints the empty thrones from which the apostate angels fell by pride. Such has been the will of the Most High, who

  exalts the humble, that heaven, earth and hell bend with good will or bad will to the commandments of the humble Mary, whom He has made Sovereign of heaven and earth, General of His armies, Treasurer of His treasures, Dispenser of His graces, Worker of His greatest marvels, Restorer of the human race, Mediatrix of men, the Exterminator of the enemies of God, and the faithful companion of His grandges and His triumphs.

  God the Father wishes to have children by Mary till the consummation of the world, and He has said to her these words, In Jacob, in Habita, dwell in Jacob, that is to say, make your dwelling and residence in My predestinated children, figured by Jacob, and not in the reprobate children of the devil figured by Esau. Just as in the natural and corporal generation of children there is a Father and a Mother, so in the supernatural and spiritual

  generation there is a Father who is God and a Mother who is Mary. All the true children of God, the predestinate, have God for their Father and Mary for their Mother. He who has not Mary for his Mother has not God for his Father. This is the reason why the reprobate, such as heretics, schismatics and others, who hate our Blessed Lady or regard Her with contempt and indifference, have not God for their Father, however much they boast of it,

  simply because they have not Mary for their Mother. For if they had Her for their Mother, they would love and honour Her, as a true and good child naturally loves and honours the Mother who has given Him life. The most infallible and indubitable sign by which we may distinguish a heretic, a man of bad doctrine, a reprobate, from one of the predestinate, is that the heretic and the reprobate have nothing but contempt and indifference for

  our Blessed Lady, endeavouring by their words and examples to diminish the worship and love of Her openly or hiddenly and sometimes under spacious pretexts. Alas, God the Father has not told Mary to dwell in them, for they are essals. God the Son wishes to form Himself and so to speak to incarnate Himself every day by His dear Mother in His members, and He has said to her, In Israel hereditare, take Israel for your inheritance. It is as

  if He had said, God the Father has given me for an inheritance all the nations of the earth, all the men good and bad, predestinate and reprobate, the one I will lead with a rod of gold and the others with a rod of iron, of one I will be the Father and the Advocate, the just Punisher of others and the Judge of all. But as for you, my dear Mother, you shall have for your heritage and possession only the predestinate figured by Israel, and

  as their good Mother you shall bring them forth and maintain them, and as their Sovereign you shall conduct them, govern and defend them. This man and that man is born in her, says the Holy Ghost. Homo et homo natus est in ei. According to the explanation of some of the Fathers, the first man that is born in Mary is the Man God, Jesus Christ. The second is a mere man, the child of God and Mary by adoption. If Jesus Christ the Head

  of Men is born in her, the predestinate who are the members of that Head ought also to be born in her and by a necessary consequence. One and the same Mother does not bring forth into the world the Head without the members, nor the members without the Head, for this would be a monster of nature. So in like manner, in the order of grace, the Head and the members are born of one and the same Mother. And if a member of the mystical body of Jesus Christ,

  that is to say one of the predestinate, was born of any other Mother than Mary who has produced the Head, he would not be one of the predestinate nor a member of Jesus Christ, but simply a monster in the order of grace. Besides this, Jesus being at present as much as ever the fruit of Mary, as heaven and earth repeat thousands and thousands of times each day, and blessed be the fruit of thy womb Jesus. It is certain that Jesus Christ is

  for each man in particular who possesses him as truly the fruit of the womb of Mary as he is for the whole world in general, so that if any one of the faithful has Jesus Christ formed in his heart, he can say boldly, All thanks be to Mary. What I possess is her effect and her fruit, and without her I should never have had it. We can apply to her more truly than St. Paul applied to himself these words, Quos iterum parturio donic formatur Christus

  in vobis. I am in labor again with all the children of God, until Jesus Christ my Son be formed in them in the fullness of his age. St. Augustine surpassing himself and going beyond all I have yet said, affirms that all the predestinate in order to be conformed to the image of the Son of God are in this world hidden in the womb of the most holy Virgin where they are guarded, nourished, brought up and made to grow by that good Mother

  until she has brought them forth to glory after death, which is probably the day of their birth, as the Church calls the death of the just. O mystery of grace, unknown to the reprobate, and but little known even to the predestinate, God the Holy Ghost wishes to form himself in her and to form elect for himself by her, and he has said to her, In electus meis meite radices, strike the roots, my well beloved and my spouse, of all your

  virtues in my elect, in order that they may grow from virtue to virtue and from grace to grace. I took so much complacence in you when you lived on earth in the practice of the most sublime virtues that I desire still to find you on earth without your ceasing to be in heaven. For this end, reproduce yourself in my elect, that I may behold in them with complacence the roots of your invincible faith, of your profound humility, of your

  universal mortification, of your sublime prayer, of your ardent charity, of your firm hope and all your virtues. You are always my spouse, as faithful, as pure and as fruitful as ever. Let your faith give me, my faithful, your purity, my virgins and your fertility, my temples and my elect. When Mary has struck her roots in a soul, she produces their marvels of grace, which she alone can produce because she alone is the faithful virgin, who never

  has had and never will have her equal in purity and in fruitfulness. Mary has produced together with the Holy Ghost the greatest thing which has been or ever will be which is a God-man, and she will consequently produce the greatest things that there will be in the latter times. The formation and education of the great saints who shall come at the end of the world are reserved for her, for it is only that singular and miraculous virgin who can produce in union

  with the Holy Ghost singular and extraordinary things. When the Holy Ghost, her spouse, has found Mary in a soul, he flies there. He enters there in his fullness. He communicates himself to that soul abundantly and to the full extent to which she makes room for her spouse. Nay, one of the great reasons why the Holy Ghost does not now do startling wonders in our souls is because he does not find there a sufficiently great union with his faithful and indissoluble

  spouse. I say indissoluble spouse because since that substantial love of the Father and the Son has espoused Mary in order to produce Jesus Christ the Head of the elect and Jesus Christ in the elect, he has never repudiated her inasmuch as she has always been fruitful and faithful. We may evidently conclude then from what I have said that Mary has received from God a great domination over the souls of the elect, for she cannot

  make her residence in them as God the Father ordered her to and form them in Jesus Christ or Jesus Christ in them and strike the roots of her virtues in their hearts and be the indissoluble companion of the Holy Ghost in all his works of grace. She cannot, I say, do all these things unless she has a right and domination over their souls by a singular grace of the Most High, who having given her power over his only and natural Son has given

  it also to her over his adopted children, not only as to their bodies, which would be but a little matter, but also to their souls. Mary is the Queen of Heaven and Earth by grace as Jesus is the King of them by nature and by conquest. Now, as the Kingdom of Jesus Christ consists principally in the heart and interior of a man, according to that word – the Kingdom of God is within you, in like manner, the Kingdom of our Blessed Lady is

  principally in the interior of a man, that is to say his soul, and it is principally in souls that she is more glorified with her Son than in all visible creatures and that we can call her, as the saints do, the Queen of Hearts. We must conclude that the Most Holy Virgin being necessary to God by a necessity which we call hypothetical in consequence of his will, she is far more necessary to men in order for them to arrive at their

  last end. We must not confound devotions to our Blessed Lady with devotions to the other saints as if devotion to her was not far more necessary than devotion to them, or as if devotion to her were a matter of super-irrigation. The learned and pious Suarez the Jesuit, the erudite and devout Justus Lipsius, Doctor of Luwain and many others have proved invincibly in consequence of the sentiments of the Fathers, and among others of St. Augustine, St. Ephraim,

  St. John of Adessa, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Germanus of Constantinople, St. John Damascene, St. Anselm, St. Bernard, St. Bernardine, St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure. That devotion to our Blessed Lady is necessary to salvation, and that even in the opinion of Ecolampadius and some other heretics, it is an infallible mark of reprobation to have no esteem and love for the Holy Virgin, while on the other hand it is an infallible mark of predestination

  to be entirely and truly devoted to her. The figures and words of the Old and New Testaments prove this. The sentiments and examples of the saints confirm it. Reason and experience teach and demonstrate it. Even the devil and his crew, constrained by the force of truth, have often been obliged to avow it in their own despite. Among all the passages of the Holy Fathers and Doctors, of which I have made an ample collection, in order to prove

  this truth, I shall for brevity say quote but one, Ti bi devotum esse est arma quedam salutis que Deus his dat, quos vult savos fieri. To be devout to you, O Holy Virgin, says St John Damascene, is an arm of salvation which God gives to those whom he wishes to save. I could bring forward here many histories which prove the same thing, and among others one which is related to the Chronicles of

  St Dominic. There was an unhappy heretic near Carcassonne, where St Dominic was preaching the Rosary, who was possessed by a legion of fifteen thousand devils. These evil spirits were compelled to their confusion by the commandment of our Blessed Lady, to avow many great and consoling truths, touching devotion to the Holy Virgin. And they did this with so much force and so much clearness that it is not possible to read this authentic history and

  the panegrych which the devil made, in spite of himself of devotion to the Most Holy Mary, without shedding tears of joy, without lukewarm we may be in our devotion to her. If devotion to the Most Holy Virgin Mary is necessary to all men simply for working out their salvation, it is still more so for those who are called to any particular perfection. And I do not think anyone can acquire an intimate union with our Lord and a perfect fidelity to the

  Holy Ghost without a very great union with the Most Holy Virgin and a great dependence on her succour. It is Mary alone who has found grace before God without the aid of any other mere creature. It is only by her that all those who have found grace before God have found it at all. And it is only by her that all those who shall come afterwards shall find it. She was full of grace when she was saluted by the Archangel Gabriel and she was

  super abundantly filled with grace by the Holy Ghost when he covered her with his unspeakable shadow. And she has so augmented from day to day and from moment to moment this double plenitude that she has reached a point of grace immense and inconceivable in such sort that the Most High has made her the sole treasurer of his treasures and the sole dispenser of his graces, to a noble, to exalt and to enrich whom she wishes, to give the entry to whom

  she wills into the narrow way of heaven, to pass from whom she wills and in spite of all obstacles through the straight gate of life, and to give the throne, the scepter and the crown of the King to whom she wills. Jesus is everywhere and always the fruit and the son of Mary, and Mary is everywhere the veritable tree who bears the fruit of the true Mother who produces it. It is Mary alone to whom God has given the keys of the

  cellars of divine love and the power to enter into the most sublime and secret ways of perfection and the power likewise to make others enter in there also. It is Mary alone who has given to the miserable children of Eve, the faithless, the entry into the terrestrial paradise, that they may walk there agreeably with God, hide themselves there securely against their enemies and feed themselves there deliciously, without any more fear of death, on the fruit of the

  trees of life and of knowledge, of good and evil, and drink in long draughts the heavenly waters of that fair fountain which gushes forth there with abundance. Or rather she is herself the terrestrial paradise, that virgin and blessed earth, from which Adam and Eve the sinners have been driven, and she gives no entry there except to those whom it is her pleasure to make saints. All the rich among the people, to make use of an expression

  of the Holy Ghost according to the explanation of St Bernard, all the rich among the people shall supplicate thy face from age to age, and particularly at the end of the world. That is to say, the greatest saints, the souls richest in graces and virtues, shall be the most assiduous in praying to our blessed Lady, and in having her always present as their perfect model to imitate and their powerful aid to give them succour.

  I have said that this would come to pass, particularly at the end of the world, and indeed presently, because the Most High with his Holy Mother has to form for himself great saints who shall surpass most of the other saints in sanctity, as much as the Sedars of Lebanon outgrow the little shrubs, as has been revealed to a Holy Soul whose life has been written by a great servant of God. These great souls full of grace and zeal shall

  be chosen to match themselves against the enemies of God, who shall rage on all sides, and they shall be singularly devout to our blessed Lady, illuminated by her light, nourished by her milk, led by her spirit, supported by her arm, and sheltered under her protection, so that they shall fight with one hand and build with the other. With one hand they shall fight, overthrow, and crush the heretics with their heresies, the schismatics with their

  schisms, the idolaters with their idolatries, and the sinners with their impieties. With the other hand they shall build the temple of the true Solomon and the mystical city of God. That is to say, the Most Holy Virgin called by the Holy Fathers the temple of Solomon and the city of God. By their words and their examples they shall bend the whole world to true devotion to Mary. This shall bring upon them many enemies, but it shall also bring

  many victories and much glory for God alone. It is this which God revealed to St Vincent Ferrer, the great apostle of his age, as he has sufficiently noted in one of his works. It is this which the Holy Ghost seems to have prophesied in the 58th Psalm, of which these are the words, Et scient qui dominis dominabitur Jacob et finium tere convertentur at vesperam et in

  famum paciensur ut canis et cercubiunt civitatum And they shall know that God will rule Jacob and all the ends of the earth. They shall return at evening and shall suffer hunger like dogs and shall go round about the city. This city, which men shall find at the end of the world to convert themselves in and to satisfy the hunger they have for justice, is the most holy virgin, who is called by the Holy Ghost the City of God. It is by Mary

  that the salvation of the world has begun, and it is by Mary that it must be consummated. Mary has hardly appeared at all in the first coming of Jesus Christ, in order that men, as yet but little instructed and enlightened on the person of her son, should not remove themselves from him, in attaching themselves too strongly and too grossly to her. This would have apparently taken place, if she had been known, because of the admirable

  charms which the Most High had bestowed even upon her exterior. This is so true that St. Denis, the Areopagite, has informed us in his writings that when he saw our Blessed Lady he should have taken her for a divinity, in consequence of her secret charms and incomparable beauty, had not the faith in which he was well established taught him the contrary. But in the second coming of Jesus Christ, Mary has to be made known and revealed by

  the Holy Ghost, in order that by her Jesus Christ may be known, loved and served. The reasons which moved the Holy Ghost to hide his spouse during her life, and to reveal her but very little since the preaching of the Gospel, subsist no longer. God then wishes to reveal and discover Mary the masterpiece of his hands in these latter times. Because she hid herself in this world, and put herself lower than the dust by her profound

  humility, having obtained of God and of his apostles and evangelists that she should not be made manifest. Because being the masterpiece of the hands of God, as well here below by grace, as in heaven by glory, he wishes to be glorified and praised in her by those who are living upon the earth. As she is the aurora which proceeds and discovers the Son of Justice, who is Jesus Christ, she

  ought to be recognized and perceived in order that Jesus Christ may be so. Being the way by which Jesus Christ came to us the first time, she will also be the way by which he will come the second time, though not in the same manner. Being the sure means and the straight and immaculate way to go to Jesus Christ and to find him perfectly, it is by her that the holy souls, who are to shine forth especially

  in sanctity, have to find our Lord. He who shall find Mary shall find life, that is Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth and the life. But no one can find Mary who does not seek her, and no one can seek her who does not know her, for we cannot seek or desire an unknown object. It is necessary then for the greater knowledge and glory of the most holy trinity that Mary should be more known than ever.

  Mary must shine forth more than ever in mercy, in might and in grace, in these latter times, in mercy to bring back and lovingly receive the poor straight sinners who shall be converted and shall return to the Catholic Church, in might against the enemies of God, idolaters, schismatics, Mahometans, Jews and souls hardened in impiety, who shall rise in terrible revolt against God, to seduce all those who shall be contrary to them, and to make them fall

  by promises and threats. And finally she must shine forth in grace, in order to animate and sustain the valiant soldiers and faithful servants of Jesus Christ, who shall do battle for his interests. And lastly Mary must be terrible to the devil and his crew, as an army ranged in battle, principally in these latter times, because the devil, knowing that he has but little

  time and now less than ever to destroy souls, will every day redouble his efforts and his combats. He will presently raise up new persecutions, and will put terrible snares before the faithful servants and true children of Mary, whom it gives him more trouble to surmount than it does to conquer others. It is principally of these last and cruel persecutions of the devil, which shall go on increasing daily till the reign of Antichrist, that we ought

  to understand that first and celebrated prediction and curse of God pronounced in the terrestrial paradise against the serpent. It is to our purpose to explain this here for the glory of the Most Holy Virgin, for the salvation of her children and for the confusion of the devil. Inimis sities ponam inter te et mullerium et semen tuum et semen illius ipsa contraet

  caput tuum et tu insidiaberis calcanea eius. I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed. She shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel. God has never made or formed but one enmity, but it is an irreconcilable one which shall endure and develop even to the end. It is between Mary, his worthy mother, and the devil, between

  the children and the servants of the Blessed Virgin and the children and instruments of Lucifer. The most terrible of all the enemies which God has set up against the devil is his holy mother Mary. He has inspired her even since the days of the earthly paradise, though she existed then only in his idea, with so much hatred against that cursed enemy of God, with so much industry in unveiling the malice of that old serpent, with so much

  power to conquer, to overthrow and to crush that proud, impious rebel, that he fears her not only more than all angels and men, but in some sense more than God himself. It is not that the anger, the hatred and the power of God are not infinitely greater than those of the Blessed Virgin, for the perfections of Mary are limited, but it is first because Satan, being proud, suffers infinitely more from being beaten and punished by a little

  and humble handmaid of God, and her humility humbles him more than the divine power. And secondly because God has given Mary such a great power against the devils, that as they have often been obliged to confess, in spite of themselves, by the mouths of the possessed, they fear one of her size for a soul more than the prayers of all the saints, and one of her menaces against them more than all other torments. What Lucifer has lost by pride,

  Mary has gained by humility. What Eve has damned and lost by disobedience, Mary has saved by obedience. Eve, in obeying the serpent, has destroyed all her children together with herself, and has delivered them to him. Mary, being perfectly faithful to God, has saved all her children and servants together with herself, and has consecrated them to his majesty. God has not only set an enmity, but enmities not simply between Mary and the devil, but

  between the race of the Holy Virgin and the race of the devil. That is to say, God has set enmity, antipathies and secret hatreds between the true children and the servants of Mary and the children and servants of the devil. They do not love each other mutually. They have no inward correspondence with each other. The children of Belial, the slaves of Satan, the friends of the world, for it is the same thing, have always up to this

  time persecuted those who belong to our blessed Lady, and will in future persecute them more than ever. Just as of old, Cain persecuted his brother Abel and Esau, his brother Jacob, who are the figures of the reprobate and the predestinate. But the humble Mary will always have the victory over that proud spirit, and so great a victory that she will go the length of crushing his head where his pride dwells. She will always discover the malice of the

  serpent. She will always counter work his infernal minds and dissipate his diabolical counsels and will guarantee even to the end of time her faithful servants from his cruel claw. But the power of Mary over all the devils will especially break out in the latter times, when Satan will lay his stares against her heel. That is to say, her humble slaves and her poor children whom she will raise up to make war against him, they shall be little

  and poor in the world's esteem, and are based before all like the heel, trodden under foot, and persecuted as the heel is by the other members of the body. But in return for this, they shall be rich in the grace of God, which Mary shall distribute to them abundantly. They shall be great and exalted before God in sanctity, superior to all other creatures by their animated zeal, and leaning so strongly on the divine succor that with the humility of

  their heel in union with Mary, they shall crush the head of the devil and cause Jesus Christ to triumph. In a word, God wishes that his Holy Mother should be at present more known, more loved, more honoured than she has ever been. This, no doubt, will take place if the predestinate enter with the grace and light of the Holy Ghost into the interior and perfect practice, which I will disclose to them shortly. Then they will see clearly as far as faith allows,

  that beautiful star of the sea. They will arrive happily in harbour following its guidance in spite of the tempests and the pirates. They will know the grandures of that Queen, and will consecrate themselves entirely to her service as subjects and slaves of love. They will experience her sweetnesses and her maternal goodnesses, and they will love her tenderly like well-beloved children. They will know the mercies of which she is full, and the need they have of her succor, and they

  will have recourse to her in all things as to their dear advocate and mediatrix with Jesus Christ. They will know what is the most sure, the most easy, the most short, and the most perfect means by which to go to Jesus Christ. And they will deliver themselves to Mary, body and soul, without reserve, that they may thus be all for Jesus Christ. But who shall be those servants, slaves and children of Mary, that shall be a burning fire of the ministers of the Lord,

  who shall kindle the fire of divine love everywhere, and sicut sa gite in mano potentis, like sharp arrows in the hand of the powerful, Mary to pierce her enemies? There shall be the sons of Levi, well purified by the fire of great tribulation, and closely adhering to God, who shall carry the gold of love in their heart, the incense of prayer in their spirit, and the myrrh of mortification in their body.

  And there shall be everywhere the good odour of Jesus Christ to the poor and to the little, while there shall be an odour of death to the great, to the rich and to the proud worldlings. There shall be clouds thundering and flying through the air at the least breath of the Holy Ghost, who without attaching themselves to anything, without being astonished at anything, without putting themselves in pain about anything, shall shower forth the rain of the word of God,

  and of life eternal. They shall thunder against sin, they shall storm against the world, they shall strike the devil and his crew, and they shall strike further and further, for life or for death, with their two-edged sword of the word of God, all those to whom they shall be sent on the part of the Most High. They shall be the true apostles of the latter times, to whom the Lord of Hosts shall give the word and the might to work marvels, and to carry off the glory of the

  spoils of his enemies. They shall sleep without gold or silver, and what is more, without care, in the middle of the other priests, ecclesiastics and clerks, inter medios cleros. And yet they shall have the silvered wings of the dove, to go with the pure intention of the glory of God, and the salvation of souls, wheresoever the Holy Ghost shall call them. Neither shall they leave behind them, in the places where they have preached, anything but the gold of charity, which is the

  accomplishment of the whole law. In a word, we know that they shall be true disciples of Jesus Christ, who, marching in the footsteps of his poverty, humility, contempt of the world, and charity, shall teach the straight way of God in the pure truth according to the Holy Gospel, and not according to the maxims of the world, without putting themselves in pain about things, or accepting persons without sparing, fearing, or listening to any mortal, however influential

  he may be. They shall have in their mouths the two-edged sword of the word of God. They shall carry on their shoulders the bloody standard of the cross, the crucifix in their right hand, and the rosary in their left, the sacred names of Jesus and Mary on their hearts, and the modesty and mortification of Jesus Christ in their own behaviour. These are the great men who shall come, but Mary shall be there by the order of the Most High, to extend his empire over that of the

  impious, the idolaters, and the Mahometans. But when and how shall this be, God alone knows. It is for us to hold our tongues, to pray, to sigh, and to wait. Expectance expectavi, expecting I have expected. End of part one. Recording by Michael Portelli.

• 04 - Part 2

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  Part II of A Treatise on the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary by Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort. Sermon of the True Devotion to Our Blessed Lady. Having said something so far of the necessity which we have of the devotion to the Most Holy Virgin, I must now show in what this devotion consists.

  This I will do by God's help, after I shall at first presuppose some fundamental truths, which shall throw light on that grand and solid devotion which I desire to disclose. First Truth. Jesus Christ, our Savior, true God and true man, ought to be the last end of all our other devotions, else they are false and delusive.

  Jesus Christ is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end of all things. We labor not, as the Apostle says, except to render every man perfect in Jesus Christ. Because it is in Him alone that the whole plentitude of the divinity dwells, together with all the other plentitudes of graces, virtues, and perfections. Because it is in Him alone that we have been blessed with all spiritual benediction, and

  Because He is our only Master who has to teach us, our only Lord on whom we ought to depend, our only Head to whom we must belong, our only Model to whom we should conform ourselves, our only Physician who can heal us, our only Shepherd who can feed us, our only Way who can lead us, our only Truth who can make us grow, our only Life who can animate us, and our only All in all things who can suffice us.

  There has been no other name given under Heaven except the name of Jesus, by which we can be saved. God has laid no other foundation of our salvation, of our perfection, and of our glory, except Jesus Christ. Every building which is not built upon that firm rock is founded upon the moving sand,

  and sooner or later will fall unfollowably. Every one of the faithful who is not united to Him as a branch to the stalk of the vine shall fall, shall wither, and shall be fit only to be cast into the fire. If we are in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ in us, we have no condemnation to fear. Neither the angels of Heaven nor the men of Earth nor the devils of Hell nor any other

  creatures can injure us, because they cannot separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ. By Jesus Christ, with Jesus Christ, in Jesus Christ, we can do all things. We can render all honor and glory to God in the unity of the Holy Ghost. We can become perfect ourselves and be to our neighbor a good odor of eternal life.

  If then we establish the solo devotion to our Blessed Lady, it is only to establish more perfectly the devotion to Jesus Christ and to put forward an easy and secure means for finding Jesus Christ. If devotion to Our Lady removed us from Jesus Christ, we should have to reject it as an illusion of the devil.

  But on the contrary, so far from this being the case, there is nothing which makes devotion to Our Lady more necessary for us, as I have already shown, and will show still further hereafter, than that it is the means of finding Jesus Christ perfectly, of loving Him tenderly, and of serving Him faithfully. I here churn for one moment to thee, O my sweet Jesus, to complain lovingly to thy divine

  that the greater part of Christians, even the most learned, do not know the necessary union which there is between thee and thy holy mother. Thou, Lord, art always with Mary, and Mary is always with thee, and she cannot be without thee, else she would cease to be what she is. She is so transformed into thee by grace that she lives no more, that she is as though she

  were not. It is thou only, my Jesus, who livest and reignest in her, more perfectly than in all the angels and the blessed. Ah, if we knew the glory and the love which thou received in this admirable creature, we should have very different thoughts, both of thee and her, from what we have now.

  She is so intimately united with thee, that it were easier to separate the light from the sun, the heat from the fire. I say more, it were easier to separate from thee all the angels and the saints than the divine Mary, because she loves thee more ardently and glorifies thee more perfectly than all other creatures put together.

  After that, my sweet Master, is it not an astonishingly pitiable thing to see the ignorance and the darkness of all men here below in regard to thy holy mother? I speak not so much of idolaters and pagans, who, knowing thee not, care not to know thee. I speak not even of heretics and schismatics, who care not to be devout to thy holy mother, being separated as they are from thee and thy holy church.

  But I speak of Catholic Christians, and even of doctors amongst Catholics, who make profession of teaching truths to others, and yet know not thee nor thy holy mother, except in a speculative, dry, barren, and indifferent manner. These doctors speak but rarely of thy holy mother, and of the devotion which we ought to have to her, because they fear, so they say, thus we should abuse it, and should do

  some injury to thee in too much honoring thy holy mother. If they see or hear any one devout to our blessed Lady, speaking often of his devotion to that good mother in a tender, strong, and persuasive way, as of a secure means without delusion, as of a short road without danger, as of an immaculate way without perfection, and as of a wonderful secret, for finding and loving thee perfectly, they cry out against

  him and give him a thousand false reasons by way of proving to him that he ought not to talk so much of our blessed Lady, that there are great abuses in that devotion, and that we must direct our energies to destroy these abuses, and to speak of thee rather than to incline the people to devotion to our blessed Lady, whom they already love sufficiently. We hear them, sometimes, to be of devotion to thy holy mother, not for the purpose of

  establishing it and persuading men to it, but to destroy the abuses which are made of it, while all that time these teachers are without piety or tender devotion towards thyself, simply because they have none for Mary. They regard the rosary, the scapular, and the chaplet as devotions proper for weak and ignorant minds, and without which men can save themselves.

  And if there falls into their hands any poor client of our Lady who says his rosary or has any other practice of devotion towards her, they soon change his spirit at his heart. Instead of the rosary, they counsel him the seven penitential psalms. Instead of devotion to the Holy Virgin, they counsel him devotion to Jesus Christ. O my sweet Jesus, have these people got thy spirit?

  Do they please thee in acting thus? Is it to please thee to spare one single effort to please thy mother, for fear of thereby displeasing thee? Does devotion to thy holy mother hinder devotion to thyself? Is it that she attributes to herself the honor which we pay her?

  Is it that she makes a side for herself apart? Is it that she is an alien who has no union with thee? Does it displease thee that we should try to please her? Is it to separate or to alienate ourselves from thy love, to give ourselves to her and to love her?

  Yet my sweet Master, the greater part of the learning could not shrink more from devotion to thy holy mother, and could not show more indifference to it, if all that I have just said were true. Keep me, Lord, keep me from their sentiments and their practices, and give me some share in the sentiments of gratitude, esteem, respect, and love which thou hast in regard to thy

  mother, on order that I may love thee and glorify thee all the more by imitating and following thee more closely. So as of up to this point I have still said nothing in honor of thy holy mother. Give me now the grace to praise her worthily. Falk me dignetium, matrim coludere, in spite of all her enemies, who are thine as well,

  and grant me to say loudly with the saints, non presumat aliquisteum, se habere propitium, qui benedictum matrim, ofensum habereit. Let not that man presume to look for the mercy of God, who offends his holy mother. To obtain of thy mercy a true devotion to thy holy mother, to inspire it to the whole earth, make me to love thee ardently, and for that end receive the burning prayer which

  I make to thee with St. Augustine and thy true friends. Tu es Christus, Pater meius Sanctus, Deus meius Pius, Rex meius Magnus, Pastor meius Bonus, Magister meius Unus, Adjutur meius Optimus, Delectus meius Paterimus, Panius meius Vivus, Ploeterdus meius in Aeternum, Dux meius a Patrium, Dux meia Vera, Dolce de meia Sancta, Via mea recta, Sapiensia mea placera, Simplicitas mea pura, Concordia mea pacifica,

  Custodia mea tota, Portio mea bona, Salus mea semperterna. Christus Jesu, Amabilis Domine, Coramavi, Quare compipivi in omni vita mea, Quiquam praeterti Jesum Deus meum, Ubierum quando tecum mentec non erum, Iam exo e inuct omnia deciderea mea, Incolicite et effluit in Dominum Jesum, Curite, Sacdis a tenus, Tardastis, Preperat, quo perditis, Corite quam coritis,

  Jesu, qui non ama te, Anathame sit, Curite non amat, Amaritude inibus repletor. O Dolce Jesu, Tu amet, Ente delecteter, Te admireter omnis sensus bonus, Tu e conveniens laudi, Deus cordia mea et pars mea, Christi Jesu, Deficiat cor meum spiritusuo, Et vivastu in mea,

  E consolatiat spiritu mea vivus, Carbera moris tui, Et excretat in ignum perfectum, Ardia eugitur in ars, Cordis mei, Flaugrit in asconditis anima mea, And dia consumatiois mea consumatus, In veniar apputei. Amen. I have desired to put in Latin this admirable prayer of St. Augustine,

  in order that those who understand Latin may say it every day, to ask for the love of God which we seek by the Divine Mary. The translator thinks it well to give the prayer in English, and without throwing it into the small print of a note. Thou art Christ, my Holy Father, my tender God, my great King,

  my good Shepherd, my one Master, my best Helper, my most beautiful and my beloved, my living Bread, my Priest forever, my leader to my country, my true Light, my holy Sweetness, my straight Way, my excellent Wisdom, my pure Simplicity, my Pacific Harmony, my whole Guard, my good Portion, my everlasting Salvation.

  Christ Jesus, sweet Lord, why have I ever loved? Why in my whole life have I ever desired anything except Thee, Jesus my God? Where was I when I was not in thy mind with Thee? Now, from this time forth, do ye all my desire, grow hot and flow out upon the Lord. Run, ye have been tardy so far.

  Hasten whither ye are going, seek whom ye are seeking. O Jesus, may he who loves Thee not be anathema, may he who loves Thee not be filled with bitterness. O sweet Jesus, may every good feeling that is fitted for thy praise love Thee, delight in Thee, admire Thee, God of my heart and my portion.

  Christ Jesus, may my heart faint away in spirit, and mayest thou be my life within me. May the live coal of thy love grow hot within my spirit, and break forth into a perfect fire. May it burn incessantly on the altar of my heart, may it glow in my inner being, may it blaze in hidden recesses of my soul,

  and in the day of my consummation may I be found consummated with Thee. Amen. Second truth. We must conclude from what Jesus Christ is with regard to us that we do not belong to ourselves, but as the Apostle says, are entirely his, as his members and his slaves,

  whom he has bought at an infinitely dear price, the price of all his blood. Before baptism we belong to the devil as his slaves, but baptism has made us true slaves of Jesus Christ, who have no right to live, to work, or to die, except to bring forth fruit for that God-man, to glorify him in our bodies,

  and to let him reign in our souls, because we are his conquest, his acquired people, and his inheritance. It is for the same reason that the Holy Ghost compares us to the Holy Spirit. and ought to be the sole end of all our good works,

  and also that we ought to serve him not as servants on wages, but as slaves of love. I will explain myself. Here on earth there are two ways of belonging to another, and of depending on his authority, namely, simple service and slavery, what we mean by a servant, and what we mean by a slave. By common service amongst

  Christians, a man engages himself to serve another. During certain times, at a certain rate of wages, or of recompense. By slavery, a man is entirely dependent on another for his little life, and must serve his master without pretending to any wages or reward, just as one of his beasts, over which he has the right of life and death.

  There are three sorts of slavery, a slavery of nature, a slavery of constraint, and a slavery of the will. All creatures are slaves of God in the first sense. The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness of it. The demons and the damned are slaves in the second sense,

  the just and the saints in the third. The slavery of the will is the most glorious to God, who looks at the heart, claims the heart, and calls himself the God of the heart, that is, of the loving will, because by that slavery we make choice of God and his service above all things, even when nature does not oblige us.

  Above all things, even when nature does not oblige us to it. There is an entire difference between a servant and a slave. One, a servant does not give all he is, all he has, and all he can acquire by himself or by another to his master. But the slave gives himself whole and entire to his master,

  all he has and all he can gain without any exception. Two, the servant exacts wages for the services which he performs for his master, but the slave can exact nothing, whatever assiduity, whatever industry, whatever energy he may have at his work. Three, the servant can leave his master when he pleases,

  or at least when the time of his service shall be expired, but the slave has no right to quit his master at his will. Four, the master of the servant has no right of life and death over him, so that if he kill him like one of his beasts of burden, he would commit an unjust homicide.

  But the master of the slave has by the law a right of life and death over him, so that he may sell him to anybody he likes, or kill him, as if he stood on the same level as one of his horses. Five, lastly, the servant is only for a time in his master's service. The slave is for always.

  There is nothing among men which makes us belong to another more than slavery. There is nothing among Christians which make us more absolutely belong to Jesus Christ and His Holy Mother than the slavery of the will, according to the example of Jesus Christ Himself, who took on Him the form of a slave for love of us. For months serve the Egyptians, and also according to the example of the Holy Virgin,

  who is called the servant and the slave of the Lord. The Apostle calls himself, as by a title of honor, Servus Christi, the slave of Christ. Christians are often called in the Holy Scriptures Servi Christi, slaves of Christ, which word Servus, as a great man is truly remarked, signified in old times nothing but a slave, because there were no servants then like those of the present day.

  Masters were served only either by slaves or by freedmen. It is this which the Catechism of the Holy Council of Trent, in order to leave no doubt about our being slaves of Jesus Christ, expresses by an unequivocal term, in calling us Mancipia Christi, slaves of Jesus Christ. Having premised this, I say that we ought to be to Jesus Christ,

  and to serve Him not only as mercenary servants, but as loving slaves, who by an effect of great love, give themselves up to serve Him in the quality of slaves, with the simple honor of belonging to Him. Before Baptism we were the slaves of the devil, Baptism has made us the slaves of Jesus Christ.

  Christians must need be either the slaves of the devil, or the slaves of Jesus Christ. What I say absolutely of Jesus Christ, I say relatively of our Blessed Lady. Jesus Christ, having chosen her for the inseparable companion of His life, of His death, of His glory, and of His power in heaven and upon earth, has given her by grace, relatively to His Majesty,

  all the same rights and privileges which He possesses by nature. Quicuigdeo, convenit per naterem, Maria convenit per gratiam. All that is fitting to God by nature, is fitting to Mary by grace, say the saints, so that, according to them, Mary and Jesus having but the same will and the same power, the two of the same subjects, servants and slaves.

  We may therefore, following the sentiments of the saints, and of many great men, call ourselves and make ourselves the loving slaves of the Most Holy Virgin, in order to be, by that very means, the more perfectly the slaves of Jesus Christ. Our Blessed Lady is the means our Lord made use of to come to us. She is also the means which we must make use of to go to Him.

  For she is not like all the rest of creatures, who, if we should attach ourselves to them, might rather draw us away from God than draw us near Him. The strongest inclination of Mary is to unite us to Jesus Christ, her Son, and the strongest inclination of the Son is that we should come to Him by His Holy Mother. It is to honor and please Him, just as it would be to do honor and pleasure to a king

  to become more perfectly His subject and His slave, by making ourselves the slaves of the Queen. It is on this account that the Holy Fathers and St. Bonaventure after them said that Our Lady was the way to go to Our Lord. Via venendi ad Christum, as the perpiqueri ad ilam. The way of coming to Christ is to draw near to Her.

  Moreover, if, as I have said, the Holy Virgin is the Queen and Sovereign of Heaven and of Earth, then is it not true what has been said by St. Anselm, St. Bernard, St. Bernardine, and St. Bonaventure, has she not as many subjects and slaves as there are creatures? Imperio Dei omnia sub gigiuntur et virgo et je imperio virginis omnia sub gigiuntur et deus. All things, the Virgin included, are subjects to the Empire of God.

  Behold, all things, and God included, are subject to the Empire of the Virgin. Is it not reasonable that amongst so many slaves of constraint there should be some of love, who of their own good will and the quality of slaves, should choose Mary for their mistress? What, are men and devils to have their voluntary slaves and Mary to have none? What, shall it take to be the case that the Virgin is the Virgin?

  What, shall a king hold it to be for his honor that the Queen, his companion, should have slaves over whom she has the right of life and death, because the honor and power of the one is the honor and power of the other? And yet are we to think that our Lord, who, as the best of all sons, has divided his entire power with his Holy Mother,

  shall take it ill that she too has her slaves? Has he less respect and love for his mother, than Ahasuerus had for Esther, or than Solomon for Vasibhbe? Who shall dare to say so, or even to think it? But whither is my pen hurrying me?

  Why am I stopping here to prove a thing so plain? If we do not wish to call ourselves slaves of the Blessed Virgin, what matter? Let us make ourselves and call ourselves slaves of Jesus Christ, for that is to be the slave of the Holy Virgin, inasmuch as Jesus is the fruit and the glory of Mary,

  and it is in this very thing which we do, by the devotion of which we are hereafter to speak. Third truth. Our best actions are ordinarily stained and corrupted by the ground of evil which is so deeply laid up in us.

  When we put clean and clear water into a vessel which has a foul and evil smell, or wine into a cask, the inside of which has been spoiled by another wine which has been in it, the clear water and the good wine are spoiled,

  and readily take the bad odor. In like manner, when God puts into the vessel of our soul, spoiled by original and actual sin, His grace and heavenly dues, or the delicious wine of His love,

  His gifts are ordinarily spoiled and corrupted by the bad lovin' and the evil which sin has left within us. Our actions, even the most sublime and virtuous, feel the effects of it. It is therefore of great importance in the acquiring of perfection,

  which it must be remembered is only acquired by union with Jesus Christ, to empty ourselves of everything which is bad within us. Otherwise our Lord, who is infinitely pure, and hates infinitely the least stained upon our souls, will cast us out from His presence

  and will not unite Himself to us. 1. To empty ourselves of ourselves, we must first thoroughly recognize, by the light of the Holy Ghost, our inward corruption,

  our weakness in all things, our indignity of every grace, and our iniquity in every position. The sin of our first Father has spoiled us all, soured us, puffed us up, and corrupted us,

  as the love in sours puffs and corrupts the paste into which it is put. The actual sins which we have committed, whether mortal or venial, pardoned though they may be, have nevertheless increased our concupiscence,

  our weakness, our inconstancy, our indignity, our weakness, our inconstancy, and our corruption, and have left evil consequences in our souls.

  2. Our bodies are so corrupted that they are called by the Holy Ghost bodies of sin, conceived in sin, nourished in sin, and capable of all sin, bodies subject to thousands of maladies,

  which go on corrupting from day to day, and which engender nothing but disease, remnant, and corruption. Our soul, united to our body, has become so carnal that it is called flesh.

  All flesh having corrupted its way. We have nothing for our portion but pride and blindness in the spirit, hardness in the heart, weakness and inconstancy in the soul,

  concupiscence, revolted passions, and sicknesses in the body. We are naturally prouder than peacocks, more groveling on the earth than toads, more vile than unclean animals,

  more envious than serpents, more gluttonous than hogs, more furious than tigers, lazier than tortoises, weaker than reeds,

  and more capricious than weathercocks. We have done in our own selves nothing but nothingness and sin, and we deserve nothing but the anger of God and the everlasting hell.

  After this, ought we to be astonished if our Lord has said that whatsoever wishes to follow Him must renounce himself and hate his own soul, and that whosoever shall love his own soul

  shall lose it, and whosoever shall hate it shall save it. He who has infinite wisdom does not give commandments without reason, and he has only commanded us to hate ourselves

  because we so richly deserve to be hated. Nothing is worthier of love than God, and nothing is worthier of hatred than ourselves. 2. Secondly, in order to empty ourselves of ourselves,

  we must die to ourselves daily. That is to say, we must renounce the operations of the powers of our soul and of the senses of our body.

  We must see as if we saw not, understand as if we understood not, and make use of our own self as if we understood not, and make use of the things of this world

  as if we made no use of them at all. This is what St. Paul calls dying daily. Quotidiae morior. If the grain of corn falling on the earth does not die,

  it remains earth and brings forth no good fruit. Nusigranum frumenti cadens in terum mortuum fruit

  ipsum sulum monet. If we die not to ourselves, and our own devotions do not incline us to this necessary and useful death, we shall bring forth no fruit worth anything,

  and our devotions will become useless. All our justices will be stained by self-love and our own will, and this will cause God to hold an abomination, the greatest sacrifices

  we can make, and the best actions we can do, so that at our death we shall find our hands empty of virtues and of merits, and we shall not have one spark of pure love,

  which is only communicated to souls who are dead to themselves, souls whose life is hidden with Jesus Christ in God. 3. We must choose, therefore, among all

  the devotions to the Blessed Virgin, the one which draws us most towards this death, to ourselves, inasmuch as it will be the best and the most sanctifying. For we must not

  think that all that shines is gold, that all that tastes sweet is honey, or all that is easy to do and is done by the greatest number is sanctifying. As there are secrets

  of nature to do in a short time, at little cost and with facility, natural operations, so also in like manner there are secrets in the order of grace to do in a short time,

  with sweetness and facility, supernatural operations, such as emptying ourselves of self, filling ourselves with God, and becoming perfect.

  The practice which I am about to disclose is one of these secrets of grace, unknown by the greatest number of Christians, known even to few of the devout and practiced,

  and relished by far less numbers still. But in order to begin to disclose this practice, let us consider a fourth truth, which is the consequence of the third.

  Fourth truth. It is more perfect because it is more humble, not to approach God of ourselves without taking a mediator. The very foundation

  of our nature, as I have just shown, is so corrupted that if we lean on our own works, industries, and preparations in order to reach God and to please Him, it is certain

  that our justices will be defiled, or be of little weight before God, to engage Him, to unite Himself to us, and to hear us. It is not without reason that God has given us

  mediators with His majesty. He has seen our unworthiness and incapacity. He has had pity upon us, and in order to give us access to His mercies,

  He has provided us with powerful intercessors, with His grandeur, insomuch that to neglect these mediators and to draw near to His holiness directly and without any recommendation

  is to fail in humility. It is to fail in respect towards God, so high and so holy. It is to make thus account of that King of Kings than we should make

  of a King or Prince of Earth, whom we should not willingly approach without some friend to speak for us. Our Lord is our advocate and mediator of redemption with God the Father.

  It is by Him that we ought to pray and union with the whole Church triumphant and militant. It is by Him that we have access to the majesty of the Father, before whom we ought never

  to appear except leaning on the merits and, indeed, clothed with the merits of His Son, just as the young Jacob came before His father Isaac in the skins of the kids to receive

  His benediction. But have we not need of a mediator with a mediator Himself? Is our purity great enough to unite us directly to Him and by ourselves?

  Is He not God, and all things equal to His Father, and by consequence the Holy of Holies, as worthy of respect as His Father? If by His infinite charity

  He has made Himself our bail and our mediator with God, His Father, in order to appease Him and to pay Him what we owed Him, are we on that account to have less respect

  and less fear for His Majesty and His sanctity? Let us say boldly with Saint Bernard that we have need of a mediator with the mediator Himself, and that it is the Divine

  Mary who is the most capable of filling that charitable office. It is by Her that Jesus Christ came, and it is by Her that we must go to Him. If we fear to go directly to Jesus Christ,

  our God, whether because of His infinite greatness, or because of our vileness, or because of our sins, let us boldly implore the aid and intercession of Mary, our Mother.

  She is good, she is tender, she has nothing in her other than She is not the sun, who by the vastity of His rays blinds us because of our weakness.

  But she is fair and gentle as the moon, which receives the light of the sun and tempers it to render it more suitable to our capacity. She is so charitable that she repels

  none of those who ask her intercession, no matter how great sinners they have been. She is so kind and kind to us, and so kind to us to be with her. She is so kind and kind to us,

  and so kind to us to be with her. She is so kind and kind to us, no matter how great sinners they have been. For as the saints say, never has it been heard since the world

  was the world that anyone has confidently and perseveringly had recourse for a blessed lady and yet has been repelled. She is so powerful that never have any of her petitions been refused.

  She has but to show herself before her Son to pray to Him and straightway He grants her desires, straightway He receives her prayers. He is always lovingly vanquished

  by the breasts, the yearnings, and the prayers of his dearest mother. All this is drawn from St. Bernard and from St. Bonaventure, so that, according to them, we have three steps to mount to go to God. The first, which is the nearest to us, and the most suited to our capacity, is Mary. The second is Jesus Christ, and the third is God the Father.

  To go to Jesus we must go to Mary. She is our Mediatrix of intercession. To go to God the Father we must go to Jesus, for He is our Mediator of redemption. Now it is by the devotion which I am about to bring forward that this order is guarded perfectly.

  Fifth truth. It is very difficult, considering our weakness and frailty, to preserve in ourselves the graces and treasures which we have received from God. One, because we have this treasure which is worth more than heaven and earth put together, and frail vessels, how be most they sorrow, is to me vastes victilibus.

  We have this treasure in earthen vessels, in a corruptible body and in a weak and inconstant soul which a mere nothing disturbs and dejects. Two, because the devils, who are skillful thieves, wish to surprise us unawares and to strip us, they watch day and night for the favorable moment. For that end they go round about us incessantly to devour us and to snatch from us in one

  moment, by a sin, all that we have gained of graces and of merits for many years. Their malice, their experience, their stratagems, and their number, ought to make us fear immensely this misfortune, especially when we see how many persons, fuller of grace than we are, richer in virtues, better founded in experience, and far higher exalted in sanctity, have been surprised, robbed, and unhappily pillaged.

  Ah, how many of the cedars of Lebanon, how many of the stars of the firmament, have we not seen to fall miserably, and in the twinkling of an eye to lose all their height and all their brightness? Whence comes that sad and curious change? It has not been for want of grace, which is wanting to know man, but it has been want

  of humility. They thought themselves stronger and more sufficient than they were, they thought themselves capable of guarding their own treasures. They trusted in themselves, leaned upon themselves. They thought their house secure enough and their coffers strong enough to keep the precious

  treasure of their grace. It is because of that scarcely sensible leaning upon themselves, while all the while it seemed to them that they were leaning only on the grace of God, that the Most Just Lord has permitted them to be robbed by leaving them to themselves. Alas, if they had but known the admirable devotion which I will unfold presently, they

  would have confided their treasure to a virgin, powerful and faithful, who would have kept it for them as if it had been her own possession. Nay, who would have even taken it as an obligation of justice on herself to preserve it for them? 3. It is difficult to persevere in justice because of the strange corruption of the world.

  The world is now so corrupt that it seems to be inevitable that religious hearts should be soiled, if not by its mud, at least by its dust, so that it has become a kind of miracle for anyone to remain firm in the midst of this impetuous torrent without being drawn in by it, in the midst of that stormy sea, without being drowned in it, or stripped by the pirates in the corsairs, in the midst of that pestilent air, without being infected

  by it. It is the virgin, alone faithful, in whom the serpent has never had part, who works this miracle for those who serve her, in that sweet way which I have shortly to unfold. Having assumed these five truths, we must now take more pains than ever to make a good choice of the true devotion to Our Blessed Lady.

  There are at this time, more than ever, false devotions to Our Blessed Lady, which it is easy to mistake for true ones. The devil, like a false coiner and a subtle inexperienced sharper, has already deceived and destroyed so many souls by a false devotion to the Blessed Virgin that he makes a daily use of his diabolical experience to plunge many others by this same way into everlasting

  perdition, amusing them, lulling them to sleep and sin under the pretext of some prayers badly said or of some outward practices which he inspires. As a false coiner, doesn't ordinarily counterfeit anything but gold and silver, or very rarely the other metals, because they are not worth the trouble. So the evil spirit does not for the most part counterfeit the other devotions, but only

  those to Jesus and Mary, the devotion to Holy Chameleon and to Our Blessed Lady, because they are, among other devotions, what gold and silver are amongst metals. It is, then, very important, first of all, to know, one, false devotions to Our Blessed Lady in order to avoid them, and, two, the true devotion in order to embrace it. In conclusion, among so many practices of true devotion to Our Blessed Lady, I will

  explain more in detail in the second part of this treatise, which is the most perfect one, the one most agreeable to Our Lady, the most glorious to God, and the most sanctifying to ourselves, in order that we may attach ourselves to it. End of part two.

• 05 - Part 3

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  Part 3 of A Treatise on the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary by Louise Marie Grignot de Montfort Translated by Frederick William Favre, D.D. On false devotion to Our Lady I find seven kinds of false devotees and false devotions to Our Lady Namely, one, the critical devotees, two, the scrupulous devotees, three, the external devotees,

  four, the presumptuous devotees, five, the inconstant devotees, six, the hypocritical devotees, and seven, the interested devotees. The critical devotees are, for the most part, proud scholars, rash and self-sufficient spirits, who have at bottom some devotion to the Holy Virgin, but who criticize nearly all the practices of devotion to Her which the simple people pay simply and wholly to their Good Mother, because these practices do not fall in with their own humour and fancy. They call in doubt all the miracles and histories recorded by authors, where they are our faith, or drawn from the chronicles of religious orders, narratives which testify to us the mercies and the power of the Most Holy Virgin.

  They cannot see without uneasiness simple and humble people on their knees before an altar or an image of Our Lady, sometimes in the corner of a street, in order to pray to God there, and they even accuse them of idolatry, as if they adored the wood or the stone. They say that, for their part, they are not fond of these external devotions, and that their minds are not so weak as to give faith to such a number of tales and little histories as are in circulation about Our Lady. Or, at other times, they reply that the narrators have spoken as professional orators with exaggeration, or they put a bad interpretation upon their words. These kind of false devotees, and of proud and worldly people, are greatly to be feared.

  They do an infinite wrong to the devotion to Our Lady, and they are but too successful in alienating people from it, and are the pretext of destroying its abuses. The scrupulous devotees are those who fear to dishonour the Son by honouring the Mother, to abase the One and elevating the Other. They cannot bear that we should attribute to Our Lady the most just praises which the Holy Fathers have given her. It is all they can do to endure that there should be more people before the altar of the Blessed Virgin than before the Blessed Sacrament, as if the one was contrary to the other, as if those who prayed to Our Blessed Lady did not pray to Jesus Christ by her. They are unwilling that we should speak so often of Our Lady and address ourselves so frequently to her.

  These are the favourite sentences constantly in their mouths. This is the solid devotion. The Church with the Holy Ghost blesses Our Lady first and Our Lord second. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui Jesu. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. It is not that Mary is more than Jesus, or even equal to Him, that will be in an intolerable heresy.

  What it is that, in order to bless Jesus more perfectly, we must begin by blessing Mary. Let us then say with all the true clients of Our Lady against these false scrupulous devotees, O Mary, thou art blessed amongst all women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. External devotees are persons who make all devotion to Our Blessed Lady consist in outward practices. They have no taste except for the exterior of this devotion, because they have no interior spirit of their own.

  They will say quantities of rosaries with the greatest precipitation. They will hear many masses distractedly. They will go without devotion to processions. They will enroll themselves in all sorts of confraternities, without amending their lives, without doing any violence to their passions, or without imitating the virtues of that Most Holy Virgin. They have no love but for the sensible part of devotion, without having any relish for its solidity. If they have not sensible sweetness in their practices, they think they are doing nothing.

  They get all out of joint, throw everything up, or do everything at random. The world is full of these exterior devotees, and there are no people who are more critical of men, of prayer, of those who foster an interior spirit as the essential thing, while they do not lightly account of that outward modesty which always accompanies true devotion. Presumptuous devotees are sinners abandoned to their passions, or lovers of the world,

  who under the fair name of Christians and clients of Our Blessed Lady, conceal pride, avarice, impurity, drunkenness, anger, swearing, detraction, injustice, or some other sin. They sleep in peace in the midst of their bad habits, without doing any violence to themselves to correct their faults, under the pretext that they are devout to the Blessed Virgin. They promise themselves that God will pardon them, that they will not be allowed to die without confession,

  and that they will not be lost eternally, because they say the Rosary, because they fast on Saturdays, because they belong to the confraternity of the Holy Rosary, or wear the scapular, or are enrolled in other congregations, or wear the little habit or little chain of Our Lady. They will not believe us when we tell them that their devotion is only an illusion of the devil, and a pernicious presumption likely to destroy their souls.

  They say that God is good and merciful, that He has not made us to condemn us everlastingly, that no man is without sin, that they shall not die without confession, that one good Pukavi at the hour of death is enough, that they are devout to Our Lady, that they wear the scapular, and that they say daily, without reproach or vanity, seven potters and aves in her honor, and that they sometimes say the Rosary and the office of Our Lady, besides fasting and other things.

  To give authority to all this, and to blind themselves still further, they quote certain stories, which they have heard or read. It does not matter to them whether they be true or false, relating how people have died in mortal sin without confession, and then, because in their lifetime they sometimes said some prayers or went through some practices of devotion to Our Lady, how they have been raised to life again, in order to go to confession, or their soul been miraculously retained in their bodies till confession, or how they have obtained from God at the moment of death contrition and pardon of their sins, and so have been saved,

  and that they themselves expect similar favors. Nothing in Christianity is more detestable than this diabolical presumption. For how can we say truly that we love and honor Our Blessed Lady, when by our sins we are piteously piercing, wounding, crucifying, and outraging Jesus Christ, her Son? If Mary laid down a law to herself, to save by her mercy this sort of people, she would be authorizing crime,

  and assisting to crucify and outrage her Son. Who would dare to think such a thought as that? I say that thus to abuse devotion to Our Lady, which after devotion to Our Lord in the blessed sacrament, is the holiest and solidest of all devotions, is to be guilty of a horrible sacrilege, which, after the sacrilege of an unworthy communion, is the greatest and the least pardonable of all sacrileges. I confess that, in order to be truly devout to Our Blessed Lady, it is not absolutely necessary to be so holy as to avoid every sin,

  though this were to be wished, but so much at least is necessary, and I beg you to lay it well to heart. One, to have a sincere resolution to avoid at least all mortal sin, which outrages the Mother as well as the Son. Two, I would add also that to do violence to ourselves, to avoid sin, to enroll ourselves in confraternities, to say the rosary or other prayers, to fast on Saturdays and the like, is wonderfully useful to the conversion of a sinner. However hardened, and if my reader is such a one, even if he has his foot in the abyss, I would counsel these things to him.

  Nevertheless, it must be on the condition that he will only practice these good works with the intention of obtaining from God by the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, the grace of contrition and the pardon of his sins, to conquer his evil habits, and not to remain quietly in the state of sin, in spite of the remorse of his conscience, the example of Jesus Christ in the saints and the maxims of the Holy Gospel. The inconstant devotees are those who are devout to our Blessed Lady by intervals and whims.

  Sometimes they are fervent and sometimes lukewarm. Sometimes they seem ready to do anything for her, and then, a little afterwards, they are not like the same people. They begin by taking up all their devotions to her and enrolling themselves in the confraternities, and then they do not practice the rules of fidelity. They change like the moon, and Mary puts them under her feet with a crescent,

  because they are immutable and unworthy to be reckoned among the servants of that faithful Virgin, whose clients have for their special graces fidelity and constancy. It were better for such persons to lure themselves with fewer prayers and practices, and to fulfill them with faithfulness and love, in spite of the world, the devil, and the flesh. We have still to mention the false devotees to our Blessed Lady, who are the hypocritical devotees,

  who cloak their sins and sinful habits under her mantle, in order to pass in the eyes of men for what they are not. There are also the interested devotees, who have recourse to Our Lady only to gain some lawsuit, or to avoid some danger, or to be cured of some illness, or for some other similar necessity, without which they would forget her altogether. Both, however, of these two last classes are false devotees,

  and neither of them pass current before God and His Holy Mother. Let us, then, take great care not to be of the number of the critical devotees, who believe nothing and criticize everything, nor of the scrupulous devotees, who are afraid of being too devout to Our Lady out of respect to Our Lord, nor of the exterior devotees, who make all their devotion consistent outward practices,

  nor of the presumptuous devotees, who under the pretext of their false devotion to the Blessed Virgin, while though in their sins, nor of the inconstant devotees, who by levity change their practices of devotion, or throw them up altogether on the least temptation, nor of the hypocritical devotees, who put themselves into confraternities and were deliveries of the Blessed Virgin, in order to pass for good people, nor, finally, of the interested devotees,

  who only have recourse to Our Lady to be delivered from bodily evils, or to obtain temporal goods. 2. On the Characters of True Devotion to Our Blessed Lady After having laid bare and condemned the false devotions to the Most Holy Virgin, we must, in a few words, characterize the true devotion. It must be 1. Interior, 2. Tender, 3. Holy, 4. Constant, and 5. Disinterested.

  1. True devotion to Our Lady is interior, that is to say, it comes from the spirit in the heart. It flows through the esteem we have of Her, the high ideas we have formed of Her greatness, and the love which we have for Her. 2. It is tender, that is to say, full of confidence in Her, like a child's confidence in his loving mother. This confidence makes the soul have recourse to Her in all its bodily or mental necessities, with such simplicity, trust, and tenderness.

  It implores the aid of its good mother at all times, in all places, and about all things. In its doubts that it may be enlightened, in its wanderings that it may be brought into the right path, in its temptations that it may be supported, in its weaknesses that it may be strengthened, in its falls that it may be lifted up, in its discouragements that it may be cheered, in its scruples that they may be taken away, in its crosses, toils, and disappointments of life that it may be consoled under them.

  In a word, in all its evils the body and mind, the soul's ordinary refuge is in Mary, without fearing to be importunate to her or to this pleased Jesus Christ. 3. True devotion to Our Lady is holy, that is to say, it leads the soul to avoid sin, and to imitate in the Blessed Virgin particularly her profound humility, her lively faith, her blind obedience, her continual prayer, her universal mortification, her divine purity, her ardent charity, her heroic patience,

  her angelical sweetness, and her divine wisdom. These are the ten principle virtues of the Most Holy Version. 4. True devotion to Our Lady is constant, it confirms the soul in good, and it does not let it easily abandon its spiritual exercises. It makes it courageous in opposing the world in its fashions and maxims,

  the flesh in its wearinesses and passions, and the devil in his temptations. 5. So that a person truly devout to Our Blessed Lady is neither changeable, irritable, scrupulous, nor timid. It is not that such a person does not fall, or change sometimes, in the sensible feeling of devotion, or in the amount of devotion itself. But when he falls, he rises again by stretching out his hand to his good mother. If he loses the taste and relish of devotion, he does not disturb himself because of that.

  For the just and faithful client of Mary lives on the faith of Jesus and Mary, and not on sentiments and sensibilities. 5. Lastly, true devotion to Our Blessed Lady is disinterested, that is to say, it inspires the soul not to seek itself but God only, and God in His holy mother. Her true client of Mary does not serve that aghast queen from a spirit of lucre and interest, nor for its own good, whether temporal, corporal, or spiritual,

  but exclusively because she merits to be served, and God alone in her. He does not love Mary precisely because she does some good, or because he hopes in her, but because she is so worthy of love. It is on this account that he loves and serves her as faithfully in his disgust and drynesses, as in his sweetnesses and sensible fervors. He loves her as much on Calvary as at the marriage of Cana. Oh, how such a client of Our Blessed Lady, who has no self-seeking in his service of her,

  is agreeable and precious in the eyes of God and of His holy mother. But in these days, however, is such a sight. It is that it may be less rare that I have taken up my pen to put on paper what I have taught, in public and in private, during my missions for many years. I have now said many things about the Most Holy Virgin, but I have many more to say, and there are infinitely more in which I shall omit, whether from ignorance and ability or want of time,

  and the design which I have to form, a true client of Mary and a true disciple of Jesus Christ. Oh, but my labor will have been well expended if this little writing, falling into the hands of a soul of good dispositions, a soul well born, born of God and of Mary, and not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, shall unfold to him, and should, by the grace of the Holy Ghost, inspire him with the excellence and the price of that true and solid devotion to Our Blessed Lady, which I am going presently to describe.

  If I knew that my guilty blood could serve an engraving upon any one's heart the truths which I am writing in honor of my true mother and sovereign mistress, I would use my blood instead of ink to form the letters, and the hope to find some good souls who, by their fidelity to the practice which I teach, shall compensate to my dear mother and mistress for the losses which she has suffered through my ingratitude and infidelities. I feel myself more than ever animated to believe and to hope all which I have had deeply engraven upon my heart, and have asked of God these many years, namely, that sooner or later the Blessed Virgin shall have more children, servants, and slaves of love than ever,

  and that, by this means, Jesus Christ, my dear Master, shall reign more in hearts than ever. I clearly foresee that raging beasts shall come in fury, and tear thy diabolical teeth, this little writing, in him whom the Holy Ghost has made use of to write it, or at least to smother it in the silence of a coffer, that it may not appear. They shall even attack and persecute those who shall read it and carry it out in practice. But what matter? On the contrary, so much the better.

  This very foresight encourages me, and makes me hope for a great success. That is to say, for a great squadron of brave and valiant soldiers of Jesus and Mary, of both sexes, to combat the world, the devil, and corrupted nature, and those more than ever perilous times which are about to come. Qui leitit in telegat, qui potesca peri, copiat. He who reads, let him understand. He who can receive it, let him receive it.

• 06 - Part 4

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  Part IV of Trigates on the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary by Louise Marie Grignot de Montfort. Translated by Frederick William Faber, D.D. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Part II. On the Most Excellent Devotion to Our Blessed Lady, or the Perfect Consecration to Jesus by Mary.

  There are several interior practices of true devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Here are the principles of them stated compendiously. We will presently explain this last practice. True devotion to Our Lady has also several exterior practices of which the following are the chief.

  To enroll ourselves in her confraternities and enter her congregations. To join the religious orders instituted in her honor. To publish her praises. To give alms, to fast, and to undergo outward and inward mortifications in her honor. To wear her liveries, such as the rosary, the scapular, or the little chain.

  To recite with attention, devotion, and modesty the Holy Rosary composed of fifteen decades of Hail Mary's in honor of the fifteen principal mysteries of Jesus Christ, or five decades, which is the third of the Rosary, either in honor of the five joyous mysteries, which are the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity of Jesus Christ, the Purification, and the Finding of our Lord in the Temple, or in honor of the five sorrowful mysteries,

  which are the agony of our Lord in the Garden of Olives, His scourging, His crowning with thorns, His carrying of the cross, and His crucifixion, or in honor of the five glorious mysteries, which are the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Ascension, the Descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, the Assumption of our Blessed Lady, Body, and Soul into Heaven, and her coronation by the three persons of the Most Holy Trinity.

  We may also say a chaplet of six or seven decades in honor of the years which we believe Our Lady lived on earth, with the little corona of the Blessed Virgin composed of three Our Fathers in twelve Hail Marys in honor of her crown of twelve stars or privileges, or the office of Our Lady so universally received and recited in the Church, or the little sultry of the Holy Virgin, which St. Bonaventure has composed in her honor, in which is so tender and so devout that

  one cannot say it without being melded by it, or fourteen Our Fathers in Hail Marys in honor of fourteen Joy's, or some other prayers, hymns, and canicles of the Church, such as the Salve Regina, the Alma, the Ave Regina Caelorum, or the Regina Caeli, according to the different seasons, or the Ave Marie Stella, the O Glorie O Sa Domina, the Magnificat, or some other practices of devotion, of which books are full. Seven, to sing or have sung spiritual canicles in her honor.

  Eight, to make her a number of genuflections or reverences while saying, for example, every morning, sixty or a hundred times Ave Maria Virgo Fidelis, to obtain from God the grace by her to be faithful to the graces of God during the day, and then again in the evening Ave Maria Mater Musere Ricordia, to ask pardon of God by her for the sins that we have committed during the day. Nine, to take care of her confraternities, to adorn her altars, to crown and ornament her images. Ten, to carry

  her images, or to have them carried, in procession, and to carry a picture or image of her about our own persons as a mighty arm against the evil spirit. Eleven, to have her images or her name carved and placed in churches or in houses or on the gates and entrances into cities, churches, and houses. Twelve, to consecrate ourselves to her in a special and solemn manner. But after all, I loudly protest that

  having read nearly all the books which profess to treat of devotion to Our Lady, and having conversed familiarly and holily with the best and wisest of men in these latter times, I have never known nor heard of any practice of devotion towards her at all equal to the one which I wish now to unfold. Exacting from the soul as it does more sacrifices for God, emptying the soul more of itself and of itself love, keeping it more faithfully in grace, and grace more faithfully in

  it, uniting it more perfectly and more easily to Jesus Christ. And finally, being more glorious to God, more sanctifying to the soul, and more useful to our neighbor than any other devotion to her. As the essentials of this devotion consist in the interior which it ought to form, it will not be equally comprehended by everybody. Some will stop at what is exterior in it and will go no further, and these will be the greatest number. Some, in small number, will enter into its inward spirit,

  but they will only mount but one step. Who will mount to the second step? Who will get as far as the third? Lastly, who will so advance as to make this devotion his habitual state? He alone to him the Spirit of Jesus Christ shall have revealed the secret, the faultlessly faithful soul, whom he shall conduct there himself, to advance from virtue to virtue, from grace to grace, from light to light, until he arrives at the transformation of himself into Jesus Christ, into the plenitude

  of his age on earth, and of his glory in heaven. In what consists the perfect consecration to Jesus Christ? All our perfection consists in being conformed, united, and consecrated to Jesus Christ, and therefore the most perfect of all devotions is without any doubt that which the most perfectly conforms, unites, and consecrates us to Jesus Christ. Now, Mary being the most conformed of all creatures to Jesus Christ, it follows that, of all devotions, that which most consecrates and

  conforms the soul to our Lord is devotion to his Holy Mother, and that the more a soul is consecrated to Mary, the more it is consecrated to Jesus. Hence it comes to pass that the most perfect consecration to Jesus Christ is nothing else but a perfect and entire consecration of ourselves to the Blessed Virgin, and this is the devotion which I teach, or in other words, a perfect renewal of the vows and promises of Holy Baptism. This devotion consists, then, in giving ourselves

  entirely and altogether to our Lady, in order to belong entirely and altogether to Jesus by her. We must give her, one, our body, with all its senses and its members, two, our soul, with all its powers, three, the exterior goods of fortune, whether present or to come, four, our interior and spiritual goods, which are our merits and our virtues and our good works, past, present, and future. In a word, we must give her all we have in the order of nature and in the order of grace, and all that

  may become ours in future, in the orders of nature, grace, and glory, and this we must do without any reserve of so much as one filing, one hair, or one least good action. Then we must do it also for all eternity, and we must do it further without pretending to or hoping for any other recompense or offering in service except the honor of belonging to Jesus Christ by Mary and in Mary, even though that sweet mistress were not, as she always is, the most generous and the most

  grateful of creatures. Here we must remark that there are two things in the good works which we do, namely satisfaction and merit. In other words, their satisfactory or impetitory value and their meritorious value. The satisfactory or impetitory value of a good work is the good action so far as it satisfies for the pain due to sin or obtains some fresh increase of grace. The meritorious value or the merit is the good action so far as its merits grace now and eternal glory hereafter.

  Now, in this consecration of ourselves to Our Lady, we give her all the satisfactory, impetitory, and meritorious value of our actions. In other words, the satisfactions and merits of all our good works. We give her all our merits, graces, and virtues, not to communicate them to others, for our merits, graces, and virtues are, properly speaking, incommunicable, and it is only Jesus Christ who, in making Himself our surety with His Father, is able to communicate His

  merits. But we give her them to keep them, augment them, and embellish them for us, as we shall explain by and by. But we give her our satisfactions to communicate them to whom she likes and for the greater glory of God. It follows from this that, one, by this devotion we give to Jesus Christ in the most perfect manner, and as much as it is by Mary's hands, all we can give Him, and far more than by any other devotions, in which we give Him either part of our time, or part of our good works,

  or part of our satisfactions and mortifications. Whereas here everything is given and consecrated to Him, even to the right of disposing of our interior goods, and of the satisfactions which we gain by our good works daily. This is more than we do even in a religious order. In religious orders we give God the goods of fortune by the vow of poverty, the goods of the body by the vow of chastity, our own will by the vow of obedience, and sometimes the liberty of the body by the vow

  of cloister. But we do not by those vows give Him the liberty or the right to dispose of the value of our good works, and we do not strip ourselves, as far as a Christian man can do so, of that which is dearest and most precious to Him, namely His merits and satisfactions. Two, a person who is thus voluntarily consecrated and sacrificed to Jesus Christ by Mary, can no longer dispose of the value of any of His good actions. All He suffers, all He thinks, all the good He says or does,

  belongs to Mary, in order that she may dispose of it according to the will of her Son, and His greatest glory, without, however, that dependence prejudicing in any way the obligations of the state we may be in at present, or may be placed in for the future. For example, without prejudicing the obligations of a priest, who, by his office or otherwise, ought to apply the satisfactory or impetitory value of the Holy Mass to some private person, for we make the offering of

  this devotion only according to the order of God and the duties of our state. Three, we consecrate ourselves at one in the same time to the Most Holy Virgin and to Jesus Christ, to the Most Holy Virgin as to the perfect means which Jesus Christ has chosen, whereby to unite Himself to us and us to Him, and to our Lord as to our last end, to whom we owe all we are, as our Redeemer and our God. I have said that this devotion may most justly be called a perfect renewal of the vows

  or promises of Holy Baptism. For every Christian, before his baptism, was a slave of the devil, seeing that he belonged to Him. He has in his baptism, by his own mouth or by his sponsors, solemnly renounced Satan, his poms and his works, and he has taken Jesus Christ for his master and sovereign Lord, to depend upon Him in the quality of a slave of love. This is what we do by the present devotion. We renounce, as is expressed in the formula of

  consecration, the devil, the world, sin, and self, and we give ourselves entirely to Jesus Christ by the hands of Mary. Nay, we even do something more. For in baptism we ordinarily speak by the mouth of another, namely by our Godfather or Godmother, and so we give ourselves to Jesus Christ, not by ourselves but through another. But in this devotion we do it by ourselves, voluntarily, knowing what we are doing. Moreover, in Holy Baptism we do not give ourselves to Jesus

  by the hands of Mary, at least not in an expressed manner, and we do not give Him the value of our good actions. We remain entirely free after baptism, either to apply them to whom we please or to keep them for ourselves. But by this devotion we give ourselves to our Lord expressly by the hands of Mary, and we consecrate to Him the value of all our actions. Men, says Saint Thomas, make a vow at their baptism to renounce the devil and all his palms. In baptism volvent homines

  abernuntiari diabalo epum pisseius. This vow, says Saint Augustine, is the greatest and most indispensable of all vows. Votum maximum nostrum, quo vovimos nos in Christo, esse mansurus. It is thus also that Canaanists speak, precipum votum est, quodum baptis mate facimus. The chief of vows is the one we make at baptism. Yet who has kept this great vow? Who is it that faithfully performs the promises of Holy Baptism? Have not almost all Christians swore from the

  loyalty which they promised Jesus in their baptism? Whence can come this universal disobedience, except for our oblivion of the promises and engagements of Holy Baptism, and from the fact that hardly anyone ratifies of himself the contract he made with God by those who stood sponsored for him? This is so true that the Council of Sins, convoked by the order of Louis le Debinier, to remedy the disorders of Christians, which were then so great, judged the principal

  cause of that corruption of morals rose from the oblivion and ignorance in which men lived of the engagements of Holy Baptism, and it could think of no better means for remedying so great an evil than to persuade Christians to renew the vows and promises of baptism. The Catechism of the Council of Trent, the faithful interpreter of that Holy Council, exhorts the parish priest to do the same thing, and to induce the people to remember themselves, and to believe that they are bound

  and consecrated to our Lord Jesus Christ as slaves to their Redeemer and Lord. These are its words, parocius fidelum ad eum ratzionem, cohortur vitur utsiat, equisum meisai, non ipsos non sicus, ac mansupio, redempturi nostro ac domino, and perpetuum, adicere et consecure. Catechism of the Council of Trent, Part 1, Chapter 3, Section 4. Now if the Councils, the Fathers, and experience even, show us that the best means of remedying the irregularities of Christians is

  by making them call to mind the obligations of their baptism and persuading them to renew now the vows they made then, does it not stand to reason that we shall do it in a perfect manner by this devotion and consecration of ourselves to our Lord through His Holy Mother? I say in a perfect manner, because in thus consecrating ourselves to Him we make use of the most perfect of all means, namely the Blessed Virgin. No one can object to this devotion as either a new or an indifferent one.

  It is not new, because the Councils, the Fathers, and many authors, both ancient and modern, speak of this consecration to our Lord in renewing the vows and promises of baptism as of a thing anciently practiced, and which they counsel to all Christians. Neither is it a matter of indifference, because the principal source of all discorders and consequently of the eternal perdition of Christians comes from their forgetfulness and indifference about this practice. But some may object that

  this devotion, in making us give to our Lord by our Lady's hands the value of all our good works, prayers, mortifications, and alms puts us into a state of incapacity for succoring the souls of our parents, friends, and benefactors. I answer them as follows. One, that it is not credible that our parents, friends, and benefactors should suffer any damage from the fact of our being devoted and consecrated without exception to the service of our Lord and

  His Holy Mother. To think this would be to think unworldly of the goodness and power of Jesus and Mary, who know well how to assist our parents, friends, and benefactors out of our own little spiritual revenue or by other ways. Two, this practice does not hinder us from praying for others, whether dead or living, although the application of our good works depends on the will of our Blessed Lady. On the contrary, it is this very thing which will lead us to pray with

  more confidence, just as a rich person who has given all his wealth to his prince in order to honor him the more, would bag the prince all the more confidently to give an alms to one of his friends who shall demand it. It would even be conferring a fresh favor on the prince and giving him a fresh pleasure to give him an occasion of testifying his gratitude towards a person who stripped himself to clothe him and who impoverished himself to honor him. We must say the same of our

  Blessed Lord and of our Lady. They will never let themselves be overcome in gratitude. Someone, perhaps, may say, if I give our Blessed Lady all the value of my actions, to apply it to whom she wills, I shall have to suffer, perhaps, a long time in purgatory. This objection, which comes from self-love and ignorance of the generosity of God and his Holy Mother, demolishes itself. A fervent and generous soul who prizes the interest of God more than his own, who gives

  God all he has without reserve so that he can do nothing more, who breathes only the glory and reign of Jesus Christ by his Holy Mother and who makes the entire sacrifice of himself to bring it about. Will this general and liberal soul, I say, be more punished in the other world because it has been more liberal and more disinterested than others? Far, indeed, will that be from the truth. It is towards that soul, as we shall see in conclusion, that our Lord and his Holy Mother

  are most liberal in this world and in the other in the orders of nature, grace, and glory. But we must now, as briefly as we can, run over the motives which ought to recommend this devotion to us, the marvelous effects it produces in the souls of the faithful and its practices. End of part four.

• 07 - Part 5

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  Part V of A Treatise on the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary by Louise Marie Grignon de Montfort Translated by Frederick William Favre, D.D. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The motives of this perfect consecration. First motive, which shows us the excellence of this consecration of ourselves by the hands of Mary.

  If we can conceive on earth no employment more lofty than the service of God, if the least servant of God is richer, more powerful, and more noble than all the kings and emperors of earth, unless they also are the servants of God, what must be the riches, the power, and the dignity of the faithful and perfect servant of God, who is devoted to his service entirely and without reserve, to the utmost extent that is possible, such as the faithful and loving slave of Jesus and Mary, who has given himself up utterly to the service of that king of kings,

  by the hands of his holy mother, and has reserved nothing for himself. Not all the gold of earth, nor all the beauties of the heavens, can repay him. The other congregations, associations, and confraternities, erected in honor of our Lord and his holy mother, and which do such immense good in Christendom, do not make us give everything without reserve. They only prescribe to their members certain practices and actions to satisfy their obligations.

  They leave them free for all the other actions and times of their lives. But this devotion makes us give to Jesus and Mary, without reserve, all our thoughts, words, actions, and sufferings, all the times of our life, in such sort that whether we wake or sleep, whether we eat or drink, whether we do great actions or very little ones, it is always true to say that whatever we do, even without thinking of it, is, by virtue of our offering, at least if it is not been expressly retracted, done for Jesus and Mary.

  What a consolation is this! Moreover, as I have already said, there is no other practice equal to this, for enabling us to get rid, with facility, of a certain proprietorship, which imperceptibly insinuates itself into our best actions. Our good Jesus gives us this great grace in recompense for the heroic and disinterested action of making a session to Him by the hands of His holy Mother of all the value of our good works.

  If He gives a hundredfold, even in this world, to those who for His love quit outward intemperal and perishable goods, what will that hundredfold be which He will give to the man who sacrifices for Him even His inward and spiritual goods? Jesus, our great Friend, has given Himself to us without reserve, body and soul, virtues, graces, and merits. "'Si totototum' make him part of it,' says St. Bernard. He has bought the whole of me by the whole of Him.

  Is it not, then, a simple matter of justice and of gratitude that we should give Him all that we can give Him? He is when the first to be liberal towards us. Let us, at least, be the second, and then, in life and death, and throughout all eternity, we shall find Him still more liberal, cum liberale liberalis irit. With the liberal, He will be liberal.'"

  The second motive, which shows us how just it is in itself, and advantageous to Christians to consecrate themselves entirely to the Blessed Virgin by this practice in order to belong more perfectly to Jesus Christ. This good Master has not disdained to shut Himself up in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, as a captive and as a loving slave, and to be subject and obedient to her for thirty years. "'It is here,' I repeated, that the human mind loses itself when it seriously reflects on the conduct of the Incarnate Wisdom,

  who has not willed, though he might have done so, to give himself to men directly, but through the Blessed Virgin. He did not will to come into the world at the age of a perfect man, independent of others, but like a poor and little babe, dependent on the cares and nourishment of this Holy Mother. He is the Infinite Wisdom, who had a boundless desire to glorify God His Father, and to save men. And yet He found no more perfect means, no shorter way to do it, than to submit Himself in all things to the Blessed Virgin,

  not only during the first eight, ten, or fifteen years of His life, like other children, but for thirty years. He gave more glory to God His Father during all that time of submission and dependence to our Blessed Lady than He would have given Him if He had employed those thirty years in working miracles, in preaching to the whole earth, and in converting all men, seeing that His Heavenly Father and Himself had ruled it thus. "'Pleis passita sunt ei, facio semper.' I always do the things which please Him.'

  Oh, how highly we glorify God, when, after the example of Jesus, we submit ourselves to Mary. Having, then, before our eyes an example so plain and so well known to the whole world, are we so senseless as to imagine that we can find a more perfect or shorter means of glorifying God than that of submitting ourselves to Mary, after the example of Her Son? Let us recall here, as a proof of the dependence we ought to have on our Blessed Lady,

  what I have said above in bringing forth the example which the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost give of this dependence. His Father has not given, and does not give, His Son except by Her. He has no children but by Her, and communicates no graces but by Her. God the Son has not been formed for the whole world in general except by Her, and He is not daily formed and engendered except by Her in the union of the Holy Ghost.

  Neither does He communicate His merits and His virtues except by Her. The Holy Ghost has not formed Jesus Christ except by Her. Neither does He form the members of our Lord's mystical body except by Her, and through Her alone does He dispense His favors and His gifts. After so many and such pressing examples of the Most Holy Trinity,

  can we, without an extreme blindness, dispense ourselves from Mary and not consecrate ourselves to Her and depend on Her to go to God and to sacrifice ourselves to God? Here are some Latin passages of the Fathers which I have chosen to prove what has just been said. Duō fili i Mariae sunt, homo Deus et homo Pius, unius corporaliter et alterius spiritui later, mater es Mariae,

  sin pondiventer in origin. Hec est voluntas Dei qui totum nos voluit habere per Mariae, ac per ende sicuit spei, sicuit grazie, sicuit salutis, habe noverimus redundarei, St. Bernard.

  Omnia dona virtutes gratiae ipsius spiritu sancti, quipus volt et quando volt, quimodo volt, et quantum volt, per ipsium manus administrāntur, St. Bernardin. Quia indignus eras, cui denaritur, datum est Mariae, u per illum acciperes, quid quid habere, St. Bernard.

  God, says St. Bernard, seeing that we are unworthy to receive his graces immediately from his own hand, gives them to Mariae, in order that we may have, through her, whatever he wills to give us, and he also finds his glory in receiving through the hands of Mariae the gratitude, respect, and love which we owe him for his benefits. It is most just, then, that we should imitate this conduct of God, in order, as the same St. Bernard says, that the grace should return to its author by the same canal through which it came.

  Ude odum avio, alogitorum gratiae gratiae radiat quof luxit. That grace should return to the Giver of Grace by the same channel through which it came. This is precisely what our devotion does. We offer and consecrate all we are and all we have to the Blessed Virgin, in order that our Lord may receive through her mediation the glory and the gratitude which we owe him.

  We acknowledge ourselves unworthy and unfit to approach his infinite majesty by ourselves, and it is on this account that we avail ourselves of the intercession of the Most Holy Virgin. Moreover, this devotion is a practice of great humility, which God loves above all the other virtues. O soul which exalts itself, abase it as God. O soul which abases itself, exalts God. God resists the proud and gives his grace to the humble.

  If you abase yourself, thinking yourself unworthy to appear before him and to draw nigh to him, he descends and lowers himself to come to you, to take pleasure in you and to exalt you in spite of yourself. On the contrary, when you are hearty enough to approach God without a mediator, God flies from you and you cannot reach him. O how he loves humility of heart!

  It is to this humility that our peculiar devotion engages us, because it teaches us never to draw nigh of ourselves to our Lord, however sweet and merciful he may be, but always to avail ourselves of the intercession of our Blessed Lady, whether it be to appear before God, or to speak to him, or to draw nigh to him, or to offer him anything, or to unite and consecrate ourselves to him.

  Third motive. 1. The Most Holy Virgin, who is a mother of sweetness and mercy, and who never lets herself be vanquished in love and liberality, seeing that we give ourselves entirely to her to honor and to serve her, and for that end strip ourselves of all that is dearest to us in order to adorn her,

  meets us in the same spirit. 2. She also gives her whole self, and gives it in an unspeakable manner, to him who gives all to her. 3. She causes him to be engulfed in the abyss of her graces. She adorns him with her merits. She supports him with her power. She illuminates him with her light. She inflames him with her love.

  She communicates to him her virtues, her humility, her faith, her purity, and the rest. She makes herself his bail, his supplement, and his dear all towards Jesus. In a word, as that person is all consecrated to Mary, so is Mary all for him. After such a fashion that we can say of that perfect servant and child of Mary, what St. John the Evangelist said of himself, that he took the Holy Virgin for all his goods.

  O chapi eum, the scipulus in sua. The disciple took her for his own. It is this which produces in the soul, if it is faithful, a great distrust, contempt, and hatred of self, and a great confidence and great self-abandonment in the Blessed Virgin, its good mistress. A man no longer, as before, leans on his own dispositions, intentions, merits, and good works. Because, having made an entire sacrifice of them to Jesus Christ by that good mother,

  he is but one treasure now, where all his goods are laid up, and that is no longer in himself, for his treasure is Mary. It is this which makes him approach our Lord without servile or scupulous fear, and pray to him with great confidence. It is this which makes him enter into the sentiments of the devout and learned abbot Rupert, who, making an allusion to the victory that Jacob gained over the

  angel, said to our blessed lady these beautiful words. O Mary, my princess, immaculate mother of a God-man, Jesus Christ, I desire to wrestle with that man, namely, the Divine Word, not armed with my own merits, but with yours. O Domina, dei genitrix Maria, et incorrupta mater dei, et hominis, non meis, sed tuis, or mortis meritus, cum isto viro, seu verbo dei, victori cupio. O how strong and mighty we are with Jesus Christ, when we are armed with the worthy

  merits and intercession of the Mother of God, who, as St. Augustine says, has lovingly vanquished the Most High. 2. As by this practice we give to our Lord, by his mother's hands, all our good works, that good Mother purifies them, embellishes them, and makes them acceptable to her Son. 1. She purifies them of all the soil of self-love and of the imperceptible attachment to the creature, which slips incessantly into our best actions. As soon as they are in her most pure and fruitful

  hands, these same hands, which have never been solid or idle, and which purify whatever they touch, take away from the peasant which we make to her all that was spoiled or imperfect about it. 2. She embellishes our works, and adorning them with her own merits and virtues. It is as if a peasant, wishing to gain the friendship and benevolence of the King, went to the Queen, and presented her with a fruit, which was his whole revenue, in order that she might present

  it to the King. The Queen, having accepted the poor little offering from the peasant, would place the fruit on a large and beautiful dish of gold, and so, on the peasant's behalf, would present it to the King. Then the fruit, however unworthy in itself to be a King's present, would become worthy of His Majesty because of the dish of gold on which it rested, and the person who presented it.

  3. She presents these good works to Jesus Christ, for she keeps nothing of what is given for herself, as if she was our last end. She refers it all faithfully to Jesus. If we give to her, we give necessarily to Jesus. If we praise her or glorify her, we at once praise and glorify Jesus. As of old, when St. Elizabeth praised her, so now, when we praise and bless her, she sings herself, Magnificat anima mea dominum, my soul doth magnify the Lord.

  4. She persuades Jesus to accept these good works, however little and poor the present may be, for that saint of saints and that King of kings. When we present anything to Jesus by ourselves, and relying on our own industry and disposition, Jesus examines the offering and often rejects it because of the stains it is contracted through self-love. Just as of old, He rejected the sacrifices of the Jews when they were full of their own will. But when we present Him anything

  by the pure and virginal hands of His well-beloved, we take Him by His weak side, if it is allowable to use such a term. He does not consider so much the thing that is given Him as the Mother who gives it. He does not consider so much whence the offering comes, as by whom it comes. Thus Mary, who is never repelled and always well received by her son, makes everything she presents to Him, great or small, acceptable to His Majesty. For Jesus to receive it and to take complacence in it,

  it is enough that Mary should present it. This is the great counsel which Saint Bernard used to give to those whom he conducted to perfection. When you want to offer anything to God, take care to offer it by the most agreeable and worthy hands of Mary, unless you wish to have it rejected. Modicum quoto fare, desideris manibus Mariae, alfa random tradere cura, sin nos via, astinere repulsum. Is not this what nature itself suggests a little with regard to

  the great as we have already seen? Why should not grace lead us to do the same thing with regard to God, who is infinitely exalted above us, and before Him we are less than atoms? Seeing, moreover, we have an advocate so powerful that she has never refused, so full of inventions that she knows all the secret ways of gaining the heart of God, and so good and charitable that she repels no one, however little and wretched he may be. I shall bring forward presently the true figure

  of these truths in the history of Jacob and Rebecca. Fourth motive. This devotion faithfully practiced is an excellent means of making sure that the value of all our good works shall be employed for the greatest glory of God. Scarcely anyone acts for that noble end, although we are all under an obligation to do so. Either we do not know where the greatest glory of God is to be found, or we do not wish to find it. But our blessed Lady, to whom we

  cede the value and the merit of the good works we do, knows most perfectly where the greatest glory of God is to be found. And, inasmuch as she never does anything except for the greatest glory of God, a perfect servant of that good mistress, who is wholly consecrated to her, may say with the heartiest assurance that the value of all his actions, thoughts, and words is employed for the greatest glory of God, at least unless he expressly revokes his offering.

  Is there any consolation equal to this for a soul who loves God with a pure and disinterested love, and reprises the glory and interest of God far beyond his own? Fifth motive. This devotion is an easy, short, perfect, and secure way of arriving at union with our Lord, in which the perfection of a Christian consists. One, it is an easy way. It is the way which Jesus Christ himself trod in coming to us,

  and in which there is no obstacle in arriving at him. It is true that we can attain to divine union by other roads, but it is by many more crosses and strange deaths, and with many more difficulties, which we shall find it hard to overcome. We must pass through obscure nights, through combat, through strange agonies, over craggy mountains, through cruel thorns, and over frightful deserts. But by the path of Mary we pass more gently and more tranquilly.

  We do find, it is true, great battles to fight and great hardships to master. But that good mother and mistress makes herself so present and so near to her faithful servants, to enlighten them in their darknesses and their doubts, to strengthen them in their fears, and to sustain them in their struggles and their difficulties, that in truth this virginal path to find Jesus Christ is a path of roses and honey compared with the other paths.

  There have been some saints, but they have been in small numbers, who have passed by this sweet path to go to Jesus. Because the Holy Ghost, faithful spouse of Mary, has by a singular grace disclosed it to them. Such were St. Ephraim, St. John de Massine, St. Bernard, St. Bernardine, St. Bonaventure, St. Francis of Sales, and others. But the rest of the saints, who are the greater number, although they have all had devotion to our Blessed Lady, have not on that account,

  or at least very little, entered upon this way. This is why they have had to pass through the path of roses and honey compared with the other paths. Another, a thousand times over, or perhaps would make him fall, does not once arrest their steps, but rather enables them to advance. Because that good Mother, all full of the graces and unction of the Holy Ghost, preserves all the crosses which she cuts for them, and the sugar of her

  maternal sweetness, so that they swallow them gaily, like preserved fruits, however bitter they may be in themselves. And I believe that a person who wishes to be devout and to live piously in Jesus Christ, and consequently to suffer persecutions and carry his cross daily, will never carry great crosses or carry them joyously or perseveringly, without a tender devotion to our Lady, which is the sweet meat and confection of crosses. Just as a person would not be able to eat unripe fruits

  without a great effort which you could hardly keep up, unless they had been preserved in sugar. Two, this devotion to the Blessed Virgin is a short road to find Jesus Christ, both because it is a road which we do not stray from, and because, as I have just said, it is a road we tread with joy and facility, and by consequence with pomp, we make more progress in a brief period of submission to, and dependence on, Mary, than in whole years of our own will and arresting upon

  ourselves. A man obedient and submissive to Mary shall sing the signal of victories which he shall gain over his enemies. They will try to hinder his advancing, or to make him retrace his steps, or to fall. This is true, but with the support, the aid, and the guidance of Mary, without failing, without drawing back one step, without even slackening his pace, he shall advance with great strides towards Jesus, along the same path by which he knows that Jesus also came to us with

  giant strides and in the briefest space of time. Why do you think that Jesus lived so short a time on earth, and of those few years spent nearly all of them in subjection and obedience to his Holy Mother? Ah, this is the truth, that he was perfected indeed in a short time, but that he lived a long time, longer than Adam, whose fall he had come to repair, although the Patriarch lived above 900 years. Jesus Christ lived a long time, because he lived in complete subjection to his Holy Mother,

  and closely united with her, in order that he might thus obey God his Father. For the Holy Ghost that the man who honors his mother is like a man who layeth up a treasure. That is to say, he who honors Mary his mother, up to the point of subjecting himself to her and obeying her in all things, will soon become exceedingly rich. One, because he is every day amassing treasures by the secret of that philosopher's stone. Quihonorat matrim, quasi quith rosarisat. He who honors his

  mother is as one who lays up a treasure. Two, because it is the bosom of Mary which has surrounded and engendered a perfect man, and has had the capacity of containing him, whom the whole universe could neither contain nor comprehend. It is, I say, in the bosom of Mary that they who are youthful become elders in light, in holiness, in experience, and in wisdom, and that we arrive in a few years at the fullness of the age of Jesus Christ. Three, this practice of devotion to our

  Blessed Lady is also a perfect path by which to go and unite ourselves to Jesus, because the Divine Mary is the most perfect and the most holy of creatures, and because Jesus, who has come to us most perfectly, took no other road for his great and admirable journey. The Most High, the incomprehensible, the inaccessible, he who is, has deigned to come to us, little worms of earth who are nothing. How has he done this? The Most High has come down to us perfectly and divinely by

  the humble Mary. He has come to us by her without losing anything of his divinity and sanctity. So it is by Mary that the unspeakable little are to ascend, perfectly and divinely, without any fear, to the Most High. The incomprehensible has allowed himself to be comprehended and perfectly contained by the little Mary without losing anything of his immensity. So also it is by the little Mary that we must let ourselves be held and guided perfectly without any reserve. The

  inaccessible has drawn near to us and has closely united himself to us perfectly and even personally to our humanity by Mary without losing any of his majesty. So also is it by Mary that we must draw near to God and unite ourselves perfectly and closely to his majesty without fear being repulsed. In a word, he who is has designed to come to that which is not and to make that which is not become God in him who is, and he has done this perfectly in giving himself and subjecting himself entirely

  to the young Virgin Mary without ceasing to be in time he who is eternal. In like manner it is by Mary that we who are nothing can become like to God by grace and glory, by giving ourselves to her so perfectly and entirely as to be nothing in ourselves but everything in her without fear of delusion. Make for me, if you will, a new road to go to Jesus and pave it with all the merits of the blessed, adoring it with all the heroic virtues, illuminate and embellish it with all the lights

  and beauties of the angels, and let all the angels and saints be there themselves to escort, defend, and sustain those who are ready to walk there. And yet in truth, in simple truth, I say boldly, and I repeat that I say truly, I would prefer through this new perfect path the immaculate way of Mary. 4.

  This devotion to our Blessed Lady is also a secure way to go to Jesus and to acquire perfection by uniting us to him. One, it is a secure way because the practice which I am teaching is not new. M. Boudin, who died a little while ago in the order of sanctity, says in a book which he composed on this devotion that it is so ancient we cannot fix precisely the date of his commencement. It is, however, certain that for more than 700 years we find traces of it in the church. Saint

  Adolon, the abbot of Cluny, who lived about the year 1040, was one of the first to publicly practice it in France, as is remarked in his life. Cardinal Peter Damien relates that in the year 1036 the Blessed Marino, his brother, made himself a slave of the Blessed Virgin in the presence of his director, in a most edifying manner. He put a robe round his neck, took the discipline, and laid on the altar a sum of money to mark his devotion and consecration to Our Lady, and he continued

  this devotion so faithfully during his whole life that he deserved to be visited and consoled at his death by his good mistress and to receive from her mouth the promise of paradise and recompense for her services. Caesarius Belandus mentions an illustrious cavalier, Vautear de Burbach, who, about the year 1500, consecrated himself to the Blessed Virgin. This devotion was also practiced by several private persons up to the 17th century when it became public. Father Simon de Roxas,

  of the Order of the Redemption of Captives and preacher of Philip III, made this devotion popular in Spain and Germany, and through the instance of Philip III he obtained of Gregory XV ample indulgences for those who practiced it. Father de los Rios, the Augustinian, devoted himself, with his intimate friend, Father Roxas, to spread this devotion both by preaching and writing through Spain and Germany. He composed a thick volume called Hirachiap Mariana, in which he

  treats with as much piety as learning of the antiquity, excellence, and solidity of this devotion. The Theotin Fathers, in the 17th century, established this devotion in Italy, Sicily, and Savoy. Father Stanislaus Felacius, the Jesuit, increased this devotion wonderfully in Poland. Father de los Rios, in his work just cited, quotes the names of princes, princesses, dukes, and cardinals of different kingdoms who embraced this devotion. Cornelius A. Lapide, as much

  recommended for his piety as for his profound tradition, having received a commission from several theologians to examine this devotion, did so with great maturity and deliberation. And praised it in a manner which we might have expected from his well-known piety, and many other distinguished persons have followed his example. The Jesuit Fathers, always zealous in the service of our blessed Lady, presented in the name of the

  Congreganus of Cologne a little treatise on this devotion to the Duke Ferdinand of Bavaria, who was then Archbishop of Cologne. He gave it his approbation and permission to print it, and exhorted all the parish priests and religious of his diocese to promote the devotion as much as ever they could. Cardinal Borelli, whose memory is in benediction through all France, was one of the most zealous in spreading this devotion in that country, in spite of all the calamities and

  persecutions which he suffered from critics and libertines. They accused him of novelty and superstition, they wrote and published against him a libel in order to defame him, and they made use, or rather it was the devil by their ministry, of a thousand subtleties to hinder his spreading their devotion in France. But that great and holy man only answered their calamities by his patience, and he met the objections contained in their libel by a short treatise, in which he most

  convincingly refuted them. He showed them that the devotion was founded on the example of Jesus Christ, on the obligations which we have to him, and on the vows which we have made in holy baptism. It was chiefly by this last reason that he shut his adversaries' mouths, making them see that his consecration to the Holy Virgin and to Jesus Christ by her hands is nothing else than the perfect renewal of the vows and promises of baptism. He has said many beautiful things on

  this practice which can be read in his works. We may also see in Imboudon's work the different popes who have approved this devotion, the theologians who have examined it, the persecutions they have undergone and have overcome, and the thousands of persons who have embraced it without any pope having ever condemned it. Indeed, we cannot see how it could be condemned without over-turning the foundations of Christianity. It is clear that this devotion is not new,

  and that if it is not common, it is because it is too precious to be relished and practiced by all the world. Footnote. Boudon says, in his Saint-Esclavogue, that the English Catholics were remarkable for this devotion in the seventeenth century. FWF. 2. This devotion is a secure means of going to Jesus Christ, because it is the very characteristic of our Blessed Lady to conduct us surely to Jesus, just as it is the very characteristic of Jesus to

  conduct us surely to the Eternal Father. Spiritual persons, therefore, must not fall into the false belief that Mary can be a hindrance to them in attaining to divine union. For is it possible that she who has found grace before God for the whole world in general, and for each one in particular, should be a hindrance to a soul in finding the great grace of union with him? Can it be possible that she who has been all full and super bounding with graces,

  so united and transformed into God that it has been a kind of necessity that he should be incarnate in her, should be a stumbling block in the way of a soul's perfect union with God? It is quite true that the view of other creatures, however holy, may perhaps at certain times retard divine union, but this cannot be said of Mary, as I have remarked before, and shall never weary of repeating. One reason why so few souls come to the fullness of the age of Jesus Christ is because

  Mary, who is as much as ever the mother of the Son, and as much as ever the fruitful spouse of the Holy Ghost, is not sufficiently formed in their hearts. He who wishes to have the fruit well ripened and well formed must have the tree that produces it. He who wishes to have the fruit of life, Jesus Christ, must have the tree of life, which is Mary. He who wishes to have in himself the operation of the Holy Ghost must have his faithful and indissoluble spouse, the Divine Mary,

  who makes him fertile and fruit bearing, as we have said elsewhere. Be persuaded then that the more you look at Mary in your prayers, contemplations, actions, and sufferings, if not with a distinct and definite view, at least with a genuine and perceptible one, the more perfectly will you find Jesus Christ, who is always with Mary, great, powerful, operative, and incomprehensible. Thus, so far from the Divine Mary, all absorbed in God, being an obstacle to the perfect, in their

  attaining to union with God, there has never been up to this point, and there never will be, any creature who will aid us more efficaciously in this great work, whether by the grace she will communicate to us for this effect. For, as a saint has said, no one can be filled with the thought of God except by her, ni mo cogitacione, dei repliter, nici per te, or whether by freedom from the illusions and trickeries of the evil spirit which she will guarantee to us. Where Mary is, there the

  evil spirit is not. One of the most infallible marks we can have of our being conducted by the good spirit is our being very devout to Mary, our thinking often of her, and our speaking often of her. This last is the thought of a saint, who adds that as respiration is a certain sign the body is not dead, the frequent thought and loving invocation to Mary is a certain sign the soul is not dead by sin. As it is Mary alone, says the Church, and the Holy Ghost who guides the Church,

  who alone makes all heresies come to naught, su locumptus hereses inter misti in universum mundo, thou alone hast to stoil hereses in the whole world. We may be sure that, however critics may grumble, no faithful client of Mary will ever fall into heresy or illusion, at least formal. He may very well err materially, take falsehood for truth, and the evil spirit for the good, and yet he will do even this with more difficulty than others. But sooner or later he will

  acknowledge his material fault and err, and when he knows it he will not be in any way self-opinionated in believing and maintaining what he had once thought true. Whoever then wishes to put aside the fear of illusion, which is the besetting timidity of men of prayer, and to advance in the way of perfection, and surely and perfectly define Jesus Christ, let him embrace with great heartedness corde magnum ad animo valenti, with a great heart and a willing mind, this devotion to our blessed

  lady, which perhaps he has not known before. Let him enter into this excellent way, which was unknown to him, in which I now point out, excellentium viam vobis dimensitro. I show you a more excellent way. It is a path trodden by Jesus Christ, the incarnate wisdom, our soul head. One of his members, in passing by the same road, cannot deceive himself. It is an easy road because of the fullness of the grace and unction of the Holy Ghost, which fills it to overflowing.

  No one wearies there, no one walking there has ever to retrace his steps. It is a short road, which leads us to Jesus in a little time. It is a perfect road, where there is no mud, no dust, nor will be spot of sin. Lastly, it is a secure road, which conducts us to Jesus Christ in life eternal, in a straight and secure manner, without turning to the right hand or to the left. Let us then set forth upon that road and walk there day and night, until we come

  to the fullness of the age of Jesus Christ. Sixth Motive This practice of devotion gives to those who make use of it faithfully a great interior liberty, which is the liberty of the children of God. For, as by this devotion we make ourselves slaves of Jesus Christ and consecrate ourselves entirely to him in this capacity, our good master and recompense for the loving captivity in which we put ourselves. One takes all scruple and

  servile fear from the soul, with everything that is capable of contracting, imprisoning, or confusing it. Two, he enlarges the heart by a firm confidence in God, making it look at him as a father. And, three, he inspires us with a tender, filial love. Without stopping to prove these truths by argument, I shall be content to quote here what I have read in the life of Mother Agnes of Jesus, a Dominicaness of the convent of Langjac in Arvene,

  who died there in the order of Sanctity in the year 1634. When she was only seven years old, and was suffering from great spiritual pains, she heard a voice which told her that if she wished to be delivered from all her pains, and to be protected against all her enemies, she was as quickly as possible to make herself the slave of Jesus and his most holy mother. She had no sin in return to the house, then she gave herself up entirely to Jesus and his mother in this capacity,

  although up to that time she had not known so much as what the devotion meant. Having found an iron chain, she put it round her body and wore it to her death. After this action, all her pains and scruples ceased, and she found herself in a great peace and deletion of heart. It was this which engaged her to teach the devotion to many persons who made great progress in it, and among others to Im Aulier, the founder of Saint Silpiche, and to many priests and

  ecclesiastics of the same seminary. One day Our Lady appeared to her and put round her neck a chain of gold to testify the joy she had in Mother Agnes having made herself her son's slave in her own, and Saint Cecilia, who accompanied Our Lady in that apparition, said to the religious, Happy are the faithful slaves of the Queen of Heaven, for they shall enjoy true liberty. 7. Another consideration which may engage us to embrace this practice is that of the great

  good which our neighbor will receive from it, for by this practice we exercise charity towards him in an eminent manner, seeing that we give him by Mary's hands all that is most precious to ourselves, which is the satisfactory and impetitory value of all our good works, without accepting the least good thought or the least little suffering. We agree that all the satisfactions we may have acquired or may acquire up to the moment of our death should be employed at Our Lady's will,

  either for the conversion of sinners or for the deliverance of souls from purgatory. Is not this to love our neighbor perfectly? Is not this to be the true disciple of Jesus Christ, who is always to be recognized by His charity? Is not this the way to convert sinners without any fear of vanity and to deliver souls from purgatory without scarcely doing anything but what we are obliged to do by our state of life? To understand the excellence of this motive,

  we must understand also what a good it is to convert a sinner or to deliver a soul from purgatory. It is an infinite good, which is greater than to create heaven and earth, because we give to a soul the possession of God. If by this practice we deliver but one soul in our life from purgatory or convert but one sinner, would not that be enough to induce a truly charitable man to embrace it? But we must remark that, inasmuch as our good works

  pass through the hands of Mary, they receive an augmentation of purity and consequently of merit, of satisfactory and impetritory value. On this account, they become more capable of soul-seeing the souls in purgatory and of converting sinners than if they did not pass by the virginal and liberal hands of Mary. It may be little that we give by our Lady, but in truth, if it is given without our own will and with a disinterested charity, that little becomes very mighty to turn

  the wrath of God and to attract His mercy. It would be no wonder if, at the hour of death, it should be found that a person faithful to this practice shall, by the means of it, have delivered many souls from purgatory and converted many sinners, though he shall have done nothing more than the ordinary actions of his state of life. What joy at his judgment! What glory in his eternity! Eighth motive. Lastly, that which in some sense most persuasively

  engages us to this devotion to our Lady is that it is an admirable means of persevering and being faithful in virtue. Whence comes it that the majority of the conversions of sinners are not durable? Whence comes it that we relapse so easily into sin? Whence comes it that the greater part of the just, instead of advancing from virtue to virtue and acquiring new graces, often lose the little virtue and the little grace they have? This misfortune comes, as I have shown before,

  from the fact that man is at once so corrupt, so feeble, and so inconstant, and yet trusts to himself, leans on his own strength, and believes himself capable of guarding the treasure of his graces, of his virtues and merits. On the other hand, by this devotion we confide all we possess to the Blessed Virgin, who is faithful. We take her for the universal depository of all our goods of nature and of grace. It is to her fidelity that we trust them. It is on her power that we lean.

  It is on her mercy and charity that we build, in order that she may preserve and augment our virtues and merits, in spite of the devil, the world, and the flesh, who put forth all their efforts to take them from us. We say to her, as a good child to his mother, and a faithful servant to her mistress, depositum custodi, my good mother and mistress, I acknowledge that up to this time I have, by your intercession, received more grace from God than I deserve, and my sad experience

  teaches me that I carry this treasure in a very frail vessel, and that I am too weak and too miserable to keep it safely of myself. I beseech you, therefore, receive and trust all which I possess, and keep it for me by your fidelity and power. If you keep it for me, I shall lose nothing. If you hold me up, I shall not fall. If you protect me, I shall be sheltered from my enemies. Listen to what St. Bernard said in former times, in order to encourage us to adopt this practice.

  When Mary holds you up, you will not fall. When she protects you, you need not fear. When she leads you, you will not tire yourself. When she is favorable to you, you will arrive at the harbor of safety. St. Bonaventure seems to say the same thing in still more formal terms. But she also retains and keeps the saints in their plenitude so that it may not diminish.

  She hinders their virtues from being dissipated, their merits from withering, their graces from being lost, the devils from hurting them, and even our Lord from punishing them when they sin. Our blessed Lady is a faithful virgin who by her fidelity to God repairs the losses which the faithless Eve has caused by her infidelity. It is she who obtains the graces of fidelity and

  perseverance for those who attach themselves to her. It is on this account that a saint compares her to a firm anchor which holds them fast and hinders their making shipwreck in the agitated sea of this world, where so many persons perish simply through not being fastened to that anchor. We fasten our souls, says he, to thy hope as to an abiding anchor. Ani mos atspem tuam sicurad fermam an quram aligamus.

  It is to her that the saints who have saved themselves have been the most attached and have done their best to attach others in order to persevere in virtue. Happy then, a thousand times happy, are the Christians who are now fastened faithfully and entirely to her as to a firm anchor. The violence of the storms of this world would not make them founder nor sink their heavenly treasures. Happy those who enter into Mary as into the ark of Noah. The waters of the deluge

  of sin which drown so great a portion of the world shall do no harm to them. Quia perantur in menon pecabunt. They who work in me shall not sin, says Mary with the divine wisdom. Blessed are the faithless children of the unhappy Eve. If only they attach themselves to the faithful mother and virgin who remains always faithful and never belies herself. Fidelis permanent sipsam nigyare non potest. She always loves those who love her. E coduligentes nigyrio.

  Not only with an effective love but with an effectual and efficacious one by hindering them through a great abundance of graces from drawing back in the pursuit of virtue, from falling in the road and from losing the grace of her son. This good mother always out of pure charity receives whatever we deposit with her and what she has once received in her office of depository she is obliged by justice and virtue of the contract of trusteeship to keep safely for us. Just as a person

  with whom I have left a thousand pounds in trust would be under the obligation of keeping him safely for me so that if by his negligence they were lost he would in justice be responsible to me for them. But the faithful Mary cannot let anything which has been entrusted to her be lost through her negligence. Heaven and earth could pass away sooner than she could be negligent or faithless to those who trust in her. Poor children of Mary your weakness is extreme, your inconstancy

  is great, your inward nature is thoroughly corrupted, you are drawn, I grant it, from the same corrupt mass as all the children of Adam and Eve. Yet do not be discouraged on that account. Consol yourself and exalt in having the secret which I teach you, a secret unknown to almost all Christians, even the most devout. Leave not your gold and silver in your coffers which have been already broken open by the evil spirits who have robbed you. Those coffers are too little,

  too weak, too old to hold a treasure so precious and so great. Put not the pure and clear water of the fountain into your vessels, all spoiled and infected by sin. If the sin is there no longer, at least the odor of it is, and so the water will be spoiled. Put not your exquisite wines into your old casks which have had bad wine in them. Also even these wines will be spoiled and perhaps break the casks and be spilled upon the ground. Though you predestinate souls understand me well enough,

  I will speak yet more openly. Trust not the gold of your charity, the silver of your purity, the waters of your heavenly graces, nor the wines of your merits and virtues, to a torn sack, an old and broken coffer, a spoiled and corrupted vessel like yourselves, else you will be stripped by the robbers, that is to say, the demons, who are seeking and watching night and day for the right time to do it, and you will infect, by your own bad odor of self-love,

  self-confidence, and self-will, every most pure thing which God has given you. Pour, pour into the bosom and the heart of Mary all your treasures, all your graces, all your virtues. She is a spiritual vessel, she is a vessel of honor, she is a marvelous vessel of devotion. Since God himself has been shut up in person with all his perfections in that vessel, it has become altogether spiritual, and the spiritual boat of the most spiritual souls.

  It has become honorable and the throne of honor for the grandest princes of eternity. It has become wonderful in devotion and a dwelling the most illustrious for sweetness, for graces, and for virtues. It has become rich as a house of gold, strong as a tower of David, and pure as a tower of ivory. Oh, how happy is the man who has given everything to Mary, and has trusted himself to Mary in everything and for everything. He belongs all to Mary,

  and Mary belongs all to him. He can say boldly with David, Huk fakta est mihi, Mary is made for me. Or with the beloved disciple, I have taken her for all my goods. Or with Jesus Christ, All that I have is thine, and all that thou hast is mine. If any critic who reads this shall take it into his head that I speak here exaggeratedly,

  and with an extravagance of devotion, alas, he does not understand me, either because he is a carnal man who has no relish for spiritual things, or because he is a worldling who cannot receive the Holy Ghost, or because he is proud and critical, condemning and despising whatever he does not understand himself. But the souls which are not born of blood, nor of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God and Mary, understand me and relish it, and it is for these that I write.

  Nevertheless, I say now both for the one and for the other, in returning from this digression, that the Divine Mary, being the most gracious and liberal of all pure creatures, never lets herself be overcome in love and liberality. As the Holy Man said of her, an egg she gives an ox. That is to say, for little that is given to her, she gives much of what she has received from God. Hence, if a soul gives itself to her without reserve,

  she gives herself to that soul without reserve, if only we put our confidence in her without presumption, and labor on our side to acquire virtues and to bridle our passions. Let, then, the faithful servants of the Blessed Virgin say heartily with Saint John the Massine, Having confidence in you, O Mother of God, I shall be saved, being under your protection. I shall give battle to my enemies and put them to flight. For devotion to you is an arm of salvation

  which God gives to those whom it is his will to save. For devotion to you is an arm of salvation which God gives to those whom it is his will to save. For devotion to you is an arm of salvation which God gives to those whom it is his will to save.

• 08 - Part 6

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  Part 6 on A Treatise on the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary by Louis Marie Grignot de Montfort. Translated by Frederick William Faber. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Of all the truths to have been put forward with regard to our Blessed Lady and her children

  and servants, the Holy Ghost gives us an admirable figure in the Scriptures. It is in the history of Jacob, who received the benediction of his father, Isaac, by the skill and pains of Rebekah, his mother. This is the history, as the Holy Ghost relates it. I will afterwards add the explanation of it.

  Esau, having sold Jacob his birthright, Rebekah, the mother of the two brothers, who loved Jacob tenderly, secured this advantage to him many years afterwards by an address most holy but most full of mystery. Isaac, feeling himself very old and wishing to bless his children before he died, called his son, Esau, who was his favorite, and commanded him to go out hunting, to get him something

  to eat, in order that he might bless him afterwards. Rebekah promptly informed Jacob of what had passed, and ordered him to go and take two kids from the flock. When he had given them to his mother, she prepared for Isaac what she knew he liked. She clothed Jacob in the garments of Esau, which she kept, and covered his hands and

  his neck with the skin of the kids, so that his father, who was blind, might, in hearing Jacob's voice, think at least by the skin of his hands that it was Esau his brother. Isaac, having been surprised by the voice which he thought was Jacob's voice, made him come near him. Having touched the skins with which his hands were covered, he said that the voice truly

  was the voice of Jacob, but that the hands were the hands of Esau. After he had eaten, and, in kissing Jacob, had smelled the odor of his perfume garments, he blessed him, and wished for him the dew of heaven and the fruitfulness of earth. He made him lord over all his brethren, and finished his blessing with these words. "'Cursed be he that curses thee, and let him that blesses thee be filled with blessings.'"

  Isaac had hardly finished these words when Esau entered, and brought with him what he had captured while out hunting, in order that his father might eat it, and then bless him. The holy patriarch was surprised with an incredible astonishment when he understood what had happened. But, far from retracting what he had done, on the contrary, he confirmed it, for he saw too plainly that the finger of God was in the matter.

  Esau then uttered great cries, as the Holy Scripture remarks, and, loudly accusing the deceitfulness of his brother, he asked his father if he had but one benediction. Being in this point, as the Holy Father's remark, the image of those who are too glad to ally God with the world, and are fainting to enjoy the consolations of heaven and the consolations of earth both together.

  At last, Isaac, touched with the cries of Esau, blessed him, but with the blessing of the earth, subjecting him to his brother. This made him conceive such an invenoment hatred of Jacob that he waited only for his father's death in order to kill him. Neither would Jacob have escaped death if his dear mother, Rebekah, had not saved him

  from it by her industries, and by the good counsels which she gave him, and which he followed. Before explaining this beautiful history, we must observe that, according to the Holy Fathers and the interpreters of Scripture, Jacob is the figure of Jesus Christ, and the predestinate, and Esau that of the reprobate. We have but got to examine the actions and conducts of the one and the other to form

  our judgment about this. 1. Esau, the elder, was strong and robust the body, adroit and skillful in drawing the bow, and in taking much game in the chase. 2. He hardly ever stayed in the house, and putting no confidence in anything but his own strength and address, he only worked out of doors.

  3. He took very little pains to please his mother, Rebekah, and indeed did nothing for that end. 4. He was such a glutton and loved eating so much that he sold his birthright for a messapotage. 5. He was, like Cain, full of envy against his brother Jacob and persecuted him beyond

  measure. Now this is the daily conduct of the reprobate. 1. They trust in their own strength and aptitude for temporal affairs. They are very strong, very able, and very enlightened in earthly business, but very weak and very ignorant in heavenly things.

  2. It is on this account that they are hardly at all, or at least very little, at their own homes. That is to say, in their own interior, which is the inward and essential house which God has given to every man, to live there after his example. For God always rests in himself.

  The reprobate do not love retirement, nor spirituality, nor inward devotion, and they treat as little, or as bigots, or as savages those who are interior or retired from the world, and who work more within than without. 3. The reprobate care next to nothing for devotion to our blessed lady, the mother of the predestinate.

  It is true that they do not hate her formally. Indeed, they sometimes praise her and say they love her, and even practice some devotion in her honor. Nevertheless, they cannot bear that we should love her tenderly, because they have not the tenderness of Jacob for her.

  They find much to say against the practices of devotion in which your good children and servants faithfully employ themselves in order to gain her affection. Because they do not think that devotion is necessary to salvation, and they consider that provided they do not hate our lady formally or openly despise her devotion, it is enough. Moreover, they imagine that they are already in her good graces, and that, in fine, they

  are her servants, inasmuch as they recite and mumble certain prayers in her honor, without tenderness for her, or amendment in themselves. 4. The reprobates sell their birthright, that is to say, the pleasures of paradise. They sell it for a partage of lentils, that is to say, for the pleasures of the earth. They laugh, they drink, they eat, they amuse themselves, they gamble, they dance, and take

  no more pains than Esau did to render themselves worthy of the benediction of their heavenly father. In a word, they think only of earth, and they love earth only, and they speak and act only for earth and for its pleasures, selling for one moment of enjoyment, for one vain puff of honor, and for remorseful of hard metal, yellow or white, their baptismal grace, their

  rib of innocence, and their heavenly inheritance. 5. Finally, the reprobate daily hate and persecute the predestinate openly and secretly. They feel the predestinate as a burden to them, they despise them, they criticize them, they counterwork them, they abuse them, they rob them, they cheat them, they impoverish them, they drive them away.

  They bring them low into the dust, while they themselves are making fortunes, are taking their pleasures, getting themselves into good positions, enriching themselves, aggrandizing themselves, and living at their ease. As to Jacob the younger, 1. He was of a feeble constitution, meek and peaceful. He lived for the most part at home, in order to gain the good graces of his mother Rebecca,

  whom he loved tenderly. If he went abroad, it was not of his own will, nor through any confidence in his own industry, but to obey his mother. 2. He loved and honored his mother. It was on this account that he kept at home. He avoided everything which could displease her, and did everything which he thought would

  please her, and this increased the love which Rebecca already had for him. 3. He was subject in all things to his dear mother. He obeyed her entirely in all matters, promptly, without delaying, and lovingly, without complaining. At the least token of her will, the little Jacob ran and worked, and he believed everything she said to him.

  For example, when she told him to fetch two kids, and that he should fetch them in order that she should prepare something for his father Isaac to eat, Jacob did not reply that one was enough to make a dish for a single man, but without reasoning, he did what she told him to do. 4. He had a great confidence in his dear mother. As he did not lean in the least on his own ability, he leaned exclusively on the care and protection of his mother. He appealed to her in

  all his necessities, consulted her in all his doubts. For example, when he asked if instead of a blessing he should not receive a curse from his father, he believed her and trusted her, when she said that she would take the curse upon herself. 5. Lastly, he imitated as far as he could the virtues he saw in his mother. It seems as if one of his reasons for leading such a sedentary life at home was to imitate his dear mother,

  who was virtuous and kept herself removed from bad companies, which corrupts the morals. By this means he made himself worthy to receive the double benediction of his beloved father. Such also is the conduct which the predestinate daily observe. 1. They are sedentary and homekeepers with their mother. In other words, they love retirement in our interior. They give themselves to prayer. But it is after the example and in the company of

  their mother, the Holy Virgin, the whole of whose glory is within, and who, during her whole life, so much love retirement and prayer. It is true that they sometimes appear without in the world, but it is in obedience to the will of God and that of their dear mother to fulfill the duties of their state. However apparently important their outward works may be, they esteem still more highly those which they do within themselves, in their interior, in the company of the Blessed

  Virgin. For it is within that they accomplish the great work of their perfection, compared with which all their other works are but infant sports. It is on this account that, while sometimes their brothers and sisters are working outwardly with much energy, success, and skill, and the praise, and with the approbation of the world, they, on the contrary, know by the light of the Holy Ghost that there is for more glory, more good, and more pleasure in remaining hidden in retreat with Jesus

  Christ their model, and in an entire and perfect subjection to their mother, than to do of themselves wonders of nature and grace in the world, as so many essos and reprobates do. Lord Jesus, how sweet are thy tabernacles! The sparrow has found a house to lodge in, and the turtle doth a nest for her little ones. O happy is the man who dwells in the house of Mary, where thou wert the first to make thy dwelling. It is in this house of the predestinate that he

  receives succor from thee alone, and that he has disposed the steps and a sense of all the virtues, to raise himself in his heart to perfection in this veil of tears. Quam delecta, tabernacle tua. How lovely are thy tabernacles! 2. The predestinate tenderly love and truly honor our blessed lady as their good mother and mistress. They love her not only by mouth but in truth. They honor her not only outwardly but in the bottom of

  their hearts. They avoid, like Jacob, everything which can displease her, and they practice with fervor whatever they think will make them find favor with her. They bring to her and give her not two kids, as Jacob did to Rebekah, but their body and their soul, with all that depends on them, figured by the two kids of Jacob. They bring them to her. They bring them to her. One, that she may receive them as things which belong to her. Two, that she may kill them and make them die to sin

  and self, and stripping them of their own skin and their own self-love, and by this means to please Jesus her son, who wills not to have any for his disciples and friends but those who are dead to themselves. Three, that she may prepare them for the taste of our heavenly Father and for his greatest glory, which she knows better than any other creature. And, four, that by her cares and intercessions this body and soul thoroughly purify from every stain, thoroughly dead,

  thoroughly stripped and well prepared, may be a delicate meat worthy of the mouth and the blessing of our heavenly Father. Is this not what the predestinate do, who relish and practice this perfect consecration to Jesus Christ by the hands of Mary, which we are now teaching them, by way of testifying to Jesus and Mary an effective and courageous love? The rubber bait tells us loudly enough that they love Jesus and that they love and honor Mary, but it is not with their substance.

  It is not up to the point of sacrificing to them their body with its senses, their soul with its passions, as the predestinate do. These last are subject and obedient to our blessed Lady as to their good Mother, after the example of Jesus Christ, who of the three and thirty years He lived on earth, employed thirty to glorify God his Father by a perfect and entire subjection to his Holy Mother. The predestinate obey Mary in following exactly her counsels, as little Jacob did those of Rebecca,

  who said to them, My son, follow my counsels. Or like the people at the marriage of Kena, to whom our Lady said, Whatever my son shall say to you, that do. Jacob, for having obeyed his mother, received the blessing, as it were, miraculously, although naturally he would not have had it. The people at the marriage of Kena, for having followed our Lady's counsel, were honored with

  our Lord's first miracle, who there changed the water into wine at the prayer of His Holy Mother. In like manner, all those who, to the end of time, shall receive the benediction of our heavenly Father, and shall be honored by the wonders of God, shall only receive their graces in consequence of their perfect obedience to Mary. The Esau's, on the contrary, lose their blessing through their want of subjection to the Blessed Virgin.

  their sins by her intercession, or to taste her maternal sweetness and their pains and wearinesses. They even throw themselves, hide themselves, and lose themselves in an admirable manner, in her loving and virginal bosom, that they may be set on fire there of pure love, that they may be cleansed there from their least stain, and fully define Jesus, who dwells there, as on His most glorious throne.

  than in Mary's, for it is in this last that our Lord has placed His throne. The reprobates, on the contrary, putting all their trust in themselves, only eat with a prodigal what the swine eat. They eat earth like the toads, and, like the children of the world, they love only visible and external things. They have no relish for the sweetnesses of Mary's bosom. They have not that feeling of a certain resting place, and a sure confidence, which the

  predestinate feel in the Holy Virgin, their good mother. They are miserably attached to their outward hunger, as St. Gregory says, and make not so much as a pretense of having any taste for the sweetness which is prepared within themselves and within Jesus and Mary. And it keep the ways of our blessed Lady, their good mother. That is to say, they imitate her. It is in this point that they are truly happy and truly devout, and carry more especially the mark

  of their predestination. This good mother says to them, That is to say, Lest that are they who practice my virtues, and with the help of divine grace walk in the footsteps of my life. During life they are happy in this world, through the abundance of graces and sweetnesses which I impart to them for my fullness, and more abundantly than to others,

  who do not imitate me so closely. They are happy in their death, which is mild and tranquil, and at which I ordinarily present myself, that I myself may conduct them to the joys of eternity. And, lastly, they shall be happy in eternity, for never has any one of my good servants been lost, who imitated my virtues during life. The reprobate, on the contrary, are unhappy during their life, at their death and for eternity, because they do not imitate Our Lady in her virtues,

  but content themselves with sometimes being enrolled in her confraternities, reciting some prayers in her honor, or going through some other exterior devotion. O Holy Virgin, my good Mother, how happy are those! I repeat it with the transports of my heart. How happy are those who, not letting themselves be seduced by a false devotion towards You, faithfully keep Your ways, Your counsels, and Your orders! But how unhappy and accursed are those who

  abuse Your devotion, and keep not the commandments of Your Son! Melodic de ones, qui declay not all mandantes, tuis, cursed are all who fall from My commandments. Let us now turn to look at the charitable duties which our Blessed Lady has the best of all mothers, who fills for the faithful servants, who have given themselves to her after the manner I have described, and according to the figure of Jacob. 1. She loves them. Ego diligentes me deligo.

  I love those who love me. She loves them. 1. Because she is their true mother, and the mother loves her child, the fruit of her entrails. 2. She loves them out of gratitude, because they effectively love her as their good mother. 3. She loves them because, being predestinate, God loves them. Jacob Delexi. Esau Ohtim Odoe. Habuai. 4. She loves them because they are all consecrated to her, and are her possession and her inheritance, and Israel

  Hereditare. 5. She loves them tenderly, and more tenderly than all other mothers put together. 6. Throw, if you can, all the natural love which all the mothers of the world have for their children into the one heart of one mother for one only child. Surely that mother will love that child immensely. Nevertheless, it is true that Mary loves her children yet more tenderly than that mother would love that child of hers. She does not love them only with affection, but with advocacy.

  Her love for them is active and effective, equal to that of Rebecca for Jacob, and far beyond it. See what this good mother, of whom Rebecca was but the type, does to obtain for her children the blessing of her heavenly father. 1. She is on the lookout, as Rebecca was, for favorable occasions to do them good, to aggrandize and enrich them. She sees clearly in God all good and evils, all prosperous and adverse fortunes, the blessings and the cursings of God. And then she so disposes

  things from afar that she may exempt her servants from all sorts of evils, and heap upon them all sorts of goods. So that if there is a good fortune to make in God by the fidelity of a creature to any high employment, it is certain that Mary will procure that good fortune for some of her true children and servants, and will give them the grace to go through it with fidelity. It is a saint who says, Ibsa pe curat negosia nostra. 2. She also gives her clients good counsels, as Rebecca did to Jacob.

  Fili mi, acquiesce concili meis. My son, follow my counsels. Among other counsels, she inspires them to bring her the two kids, that is to say, their body and soul, in order to consecrate them, to make a potech agreeable to God, and to do everything which Jesus Christ her son has taught by his words and his examples. If it is not by herself that she gives these counsels, it is by the ministry of the angels, who have no greater honor or pleasure

  than to descend to earth to obey any of her commandments and to succor any of her servants. 3. When they have brought to her and consecrated to her their body and soul, and all that depends on them, without accepting anything, what does that good mother do? Just what Rebecca did of old with the two kids Jacob brought to her. 1. She kills them and makes them die to the old Adam. 2. She flays and strips them of their natural skin, their natural inclinations, self-love, their own will,

  and all attachment to creatures. 3. She cleanses them of their spots, their vilenesses, and their sins. 4. She dresses them to the tastes of God and to His greatest glory. And as it is Mary alone who knows perfectly what that divine taste is and what that greatest glory of the Most High, it is Mary alone who, without making any mistake, can accommodate and dress our body and soul for that taste infinitely exalted and for that glory infinitely hidden. 4. This good mother, having

  received the perfect offering which we make to her of ourselves, our own merits and satisfactions, by the devotion I am describing, strips us of our good garments. She makes us her own and so makes us worthy to appear before our Heavenly Father. 1. She clothes us in the clean, new, precious, and perfumed garments of Esau the Elder, that is, of Jesus Christ her Son, whom she keeps in her house, that is to say, whom she has in her own power. She is the treasurer and eternal dispenser

  of the merits and virtues of her Son, which she gives and communicates to whom she wills, when she wills, as she wills, and in such quantity as she wills, as we have seen before. 2. She covers the neck and hands of her servants with the skins of the kids she killed. That is to say, she adorns them with the merits and values of her own proper actions. She kills and mortifies, it is true, all that is impure and imperfect in them, but she neither loses nor dissipates

  one atom of the good which grace has done there. On the contrary, she preserves and augments it, to make it the ornament and the strength of their neck and their hands. That is to say, to fortify them and to help them to carry the yoke of the Lord, which is worn upon the neck, and to work great things for the glory of God and the salvation of their poor brethren. 3. She bestows a new perfume and a new grace upon their garments and adornments,

  and communicating to them her own garments, merits, and virtues which she bequeathed to them by her testament when she died. As said a holy religious of the last century, who died in the odor of sanctity and learned this by revelation. Thus all her domestics, faithful servants, and slaves are doubly clad in the garments of her son and in her own. Omnes domestici vestiti sunt du plici pus. All her domestics are closed in

  double clothing. It is on this account that they have nothing to fear from the cold of Jesus Christ, who is white as snow, a cold which the reprobate, all naked and stripped of the merits of Jesus and Mary, cannot for one moment bear. For, finally, she enables them to obtain the blessing of her heavenly Father, though, being but the youngest born, and indeed only adopted children, they have no natural right to have it. With these garments, all new, most precious in the most fragrant odor,

  and with their body and soul well prepared and dressed, they draw near with confidence to the Father's bed of repose. He understands and distinguishes their voice, which is the voice of the sinner. He touches their hands, covered with skins. He smells the good odor of their clothes. He eats with joy of that which Mary their mother has dressed for him, recognizing in them the merits and the good odor of his son and of his holy mother. One, first, then, he gives them his

  double benediction, the benediction of the dew of heaven, Dei Rorei Chalasti, that is to say, of divine grace, which is the seed of glory, Benedictit nos in omni benedicione spiritale in Christo Jesu, and then the benediction of the fat of the earth, Dei pinguerini terre, that is to say, the good Father gives them their daily bread and a sufficient abundance of the goods of this world. Two, secondly, he makes the masters of their other brethren the reprobate,

  but this primacy is not always apparent in the world, which passes in an instant, and where the reprobate are often masters. Picatores effa bunter, e gloria bunter, vidi infium, superexultatum et elevatum. But it is nevertheless a true primacy, and it will appear manifestly in the other world for all eternity, where the just, as the Holy Ghost says, shal reign over the nations and command them. Domino bunter popubis. Three,

  thirdly, His Majesty, not content with blessing them and their persons and their goods, blesses also those who shall bless them and curses those who shall curse and persecute them. Two, the second duty which Our Blessed Lady fulfills towards her faithful servants is that she furnishes them with everything, both for their body and their soul. She gives them double clothing, as we have just seen. She gives them to eat the most exquisite meats of the table of God,

  for she gives them to eat the bread of life which she herself has formed. A generacionibus meis implamini. My dear children, she says, under the name of divine wisdom, be filled with my generations. That is to say, with Jesus the fruit of life, whom I have brought into the world for you. Venite, comidite, panem meum, epibite vinum, comisciui vobis. Comidite, epibite, edinebiam mini, curissimi. Come, she repeats to them in another place, eat my bread,

  which is Jesus, and drink the wine of His love, which I have mixed for you. As it is Mary, who is the treasurer and dispenser of the gifts and graces of the Most High, she gives a good portion, and indeed the best portion, to nourish and maintain her children and her servants. They are fattened on the living bread. They are inebriated on the wine which brings forth virgins. They are born of the bosom of Mary. Adu bere, portubi mini. They have such facility in carrying

  the yoke of Jesus Christ that they feel nothing of its weight, because of the oil of division which has made it soften and decay. Eugen Corum, putria care, faciet et facie, olii. The third good which Our Lady does to her servants is that she conducts and directs them according to the will of her son. Rebecca guided her little Jacob and gave him good advice from time to time, either to draw upon himself the blessing of his father, or to avert from himself the hatred and

  persecution of his brother Esau. Mary, who is the star of the sea, leads all her faithful servants to a good port. She shows them the path of eternal life. She makes them avoid the dangerous places. She conducts them by her hand along the path of justice. She steadies them when they are about to fall. She lifts them up when they have fallen. She reproves them like a charitable mother when they fail, and sometimes she even lovingly chastises them.

  The fourth good office which Our Lady renders to her children and faithful servants is to protect and defend them. Rebecca, by her cares and artifices, delivered Jacob from all the dangers in which he found himself, and particularly from the death which his brother Esau would have inflicted on him because of the envy and hatred which he bore him, as Cain did of old to his brother Abel. Mary, the good mother of the predestinate, hides them under the wings of

  her protection as a hen hides her chickens. She speaks, she humbles herself, she condescends to all their weaknesses, to secure them from the hawk and the vulture. She puts herself round about them, and she accompanies them like an army in battle array. Ucestro rum acias ordinata. Shall a man who has an army of a hundred thousand soldiers around him fear his enemies? A faithful servant of Mary, surrounded by her protection and her imperial power, has still less to fear.

  This good mother and powerful princess of the heavens would rather dispatch battalions of millions of angels to succor one of her servants than that it should ever be said that a faithful servant of Mary, who trusted in her, had had to succumb to the malice, the number, and the vehemence of its enemies. 5. Lastly, the fifth and the greatest good, which the sweet Mary procures for her faithful clients is, to intercede for them with her son and to appease him by her

  prayers. She unites them to him with the most intimate union, and she keeps them unshaken in that union. Rebekah made Jacob come near to his father's bed. The good man touched him, embraced him, and even kissed him with joy, being content and satisfied with the well-dressed vines which he had brought him. And having smelt with much contentment the exclusive perfume of his garments, he cried out, Etce odor filii meii, sicud odor augri pleni, cui benedictit dominus.

  Behold the odor of my son, which is like the odor of a full field that the Lord hath blessed. This odor of the full field which charms the heart of the father is nothing else than the odor of the virtues and merits of Mary, who is a field full of grace, where God the Father has sown his only Son as a grain of the wheat of the elect. O, how a child perfumed with the good odor of Mary is welcome with Jesus Christ, who is the Father of the world to come. O, how promptly and

  how perfectly is such a child united to his Lord. But we have shown this at length already. Furthermore, after Mary has heaped her favors upon her children and faithful servants, and has obtained for them the benediction of her Heavenly Father and union with Jesus Christ, she preserves them in Jesus, and Jesus in them. She takes care of them, watches over them always, for fear that they should lose the grace of God and fall back into the snares of their enemies.

  Impleniturine Dei Tignet. She detains the saints in their fullness, and makes them persevere to the end, as we have seen. This is the interpretation of the history of Jacob and Esau, that create an ancient figure predestination and reprobation so unknown and so full of mysteries. End of part 6

• 09 - Part 7

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  Part 7 of A Treatise on the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary by Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort Translated by Frederick William Faber, D.D. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The wonderful effects which this devotion produces in the soul which is faithful to it. My dear brother, be sure that if you are faithful to the interior and exterior practices of this devotion,

  which I will point out, the following effects will take place in your soul. In other words, the humble Mary will communicate to you a portion of her profound humility, which will make you despise yourself, despise nobody else, but love to be despised yourself. Now that she is reigning in the heavens, she has no longer this faith, because she sees all things clearly in God by the light of glory.

  Nevertheless, with the consent of the Most High, and entering into glory, she has not lost her faith. She has kept it, in order that she may keep it in the church militant for her faithful servants. The more, then, you gain the favor of that august princess and faithful virgin, the more will you go by pure faith and all your conduct. A pure faith which will make you hardly care at all about the sensible and the extraordinary.

  A lively faith animated by charity, which will enable you to perform all your actions from the mode of a pure love. A faith firm and immovable as a rock, through which you will rest quiet and constant in the midst of storms and hurricanes. A faith active and piercing, which, like a mysterious passkey, will give you entrance into all the mysteries of Jesus, into the last ends of man and into the heart of God himself. A courageous faith, which will enable you to undertake and carry out without hesitation great things for God and for the salvation of souls.

  Lastly, a faith which will be your blazing torch, your divine life, your hidden treasure of divine wisdom, and your omnipotent arm, which you will use to enlighten those who are in the darkness of the shadow of death, to inflame those who are lukewarm and who have need of the heated gold of charity, to give life to those who are dead and sin, to teach and overthrow, by your meek and powerful words, the hearts of marble and the cedars of Lebanon, and finally, to resist the devil and all the enemies of salvation.

  3. This mother of fair love will take away from your heart all scruple and all disorder of servile fear. She will open and enlarge it to round the way of her son's commandments with the holy liberty of the children of God. She will introduce into it pure love, of which she has the treasure, so that you shall no longer be guided by fear, as hitherto in your dealings with God of charity, but by pure love. You will look on him as your good father, whom you will be incessantly trying to please,

  and with whom you will converse confidently as a child with his tender father. If, unfortunately, you offend him, you will at once humble yourself before him. You will ask his pardon, with great lowliness, but at the same time you will stretch your hand out to him with simplicity, and you will raise yourself up lovingly, without trouble or disquietude, and go on your way to him without discouragement. 4. Our blessed lady will fill you with a great confidence in God and in herself.

  1. Because you will not be approaching to Jesus by yourself, but always by that good mother. 2. Because, as you have given her all your merits, graces, and satisfactions, to dispose of at her will, she will communicate to you her virtues, and will clothe you in her merits, so that you will be able to say to God with confidence, Behold Mary, thy handmaid, be it done unto me according to thy word. Etcea, ancella, domini, fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum.

  3. Because, as you have given yourself entirely to her body and soul, she, who is liberal with the liberal, and more liberal even than the liberal, will in return give herself to you in a marvelous but real manner, so that you may say to her with assurance, tuosum ego salvum me fac. I am thine, holy virgin, save me. Or as I have said before with the beloved disciple, ascapite in mea,

  I have taken thee, holy mother, for all my goods. You may also say with Saint Bonaventure, Etcea, domina, salvatrix mea, filicea licear adum et non timibo, quia fortitude mea et las mea in domino est tu. And in another place, tuus totus ego sum, et omnia mea tua sunt.

  O virgo gloriosa, super omnia benedicta, ponam te ut signaculum super cor meum, quia fortis est, ut moris dilectio tua. My dear mistress, who saves me, I will have confidence and will not fear, because you are my strength and my praise in the Lord. I am altogether yours, and all that I have belongs to you.

  O glorious virgin, blest above all created things, I will put you as a seal upon my heart, because your love is as strong as death. You may say to God in the sentiments of the prophet, Dominae, non est exaltatum cor meum, neque elati sunt oculi mei, neque ambulavi in magnis, neque emirabilibus super mei,

  sinan humiliter sunt ebam, sed exaltavi anima meum, siclude abartactus est super matri tua, etat retributio in anima mea. Lord, my heart and my eyes have no right to extol themselves, or to be proud, or to seek great and wonderful things. Yet even in this I am not humble, but I have lifted up and encouraged my soul by confidence.

  I am like a child weaned from the pleasures of earth and resting on its mother's lap, and it is on that lap that all good things come to me. See Psalm 130. For what will still further increase your confidence in her is that you will have less confidence in yourself.

  You have given her in trust all you have of good about you that she may have it and keep it. And so all the trust you once had in yourself has become an increase of confidence in her, who is your treasure. Oh, what confidence and what consolation is this for a soul who can say that the treasure of God,

  where he has been pleased to put all he had most precious, is his own treasure also, ipsa est the sarus domini. It was a saint who said she was the treasure of the Lord. 5. The soul of our blessed lady will communicate itself to you to glorify the Lord. Her spirit will enter into the place of yours to rejoice in God her salvation,

  provided only that you are faithful to the practices of this devotion. Sit in singulis anima Mariae, ut magnificet dominum. Sit in singulis spiritus Mariae, ut exultat endeo. St. Ambrose, let the soul of Mary be in each of us to glorify the Lord. Let the spirit of Mary be in each of us to rejoice in God.

  Ah, when will the happy time come, said a holy man of our own days. It was all absorbed in Mary. Ah, when will the happy time come when the Divine Mary will be a stylish mistress and queen of hearts, in order that she may subject them fully to the empire of her great and holy Jesus. When will souls breathe Mary as the body breathes air?

  When that time comes, wonderful things will happen in those lily places, where the Holy Ghost, finding his dear spouse, as it were, reproduced in souls, shall come in with abundance, and fill them full to overflowing with his gifts, and particularly with the gift of wisdom, to work the miracles of grace. My dear brother, when will that happy time, that age of Mary, come,

  when souls, losing themselves in the abyss of her interior, shall become living copies of Mary, to love and glorify Jesus? That time will not come until men shall know and practice this devotion which I am teaching. Ut adveniat regnum tuum, adveniat regnum Mariae. If Mary, who is the Tree of Life, is well cultivated in our soul by fidelity to the practices of this devotion,

  she will bear her fruit in her own time, and her fruit is none other than Jesus Christ. How many devout souls do I see who seek Jesus Christ, some by one way or by one practice, and others by other ways and other practices? And after they have toiled much throughout the night, they say, Per totam noctam laboratis nihium sapimus.

  We have toiled all night and have taken nothing. We may say to them, Laboratis multum, identolistis parum. You have labored much and gained little. Jesus Christ is yet feeble in you.

  But by that immaculate way of Mary, and that divine practice which I am teaching, we toil during the day. We toil in a holy place. We toil but little. There is no night in Mary, because there is no sin, not even the slightest shade.

  Mary is a holy place, and the holy of holies where saints are farmed and molded. Take notice, if you please, that I say the saints are molded in Mary. There is a great difference between making a figure in relief by blows of hammer and chisel and making a figure by throwing it into a mold. Statuaries and sculptors labor much to make figures in the first manner,

  but to make them in the second manner, they work little and do their work quickly. St. Augustine calls our blessed lady, Forma Dei, the mold of God. See Formam Dei, an apellum, Dei not existis. The mold fit to cast and mold gods. He who is cast in this mold is presently formed and molded in Jesus Christ,

  and Jesus Christ in him. At a slight expense and in a short time he will become God, because he has been cast in the same mold which has formed a God. It seems to me that I can very aptly compare directors and devout persons who wish to form Jesus Christ in themselves or others by different practices from this

  to sculptors who trust in their own professional skill, ingenuity, or art, and so give an infinity of hammerings and chiselings to a hard stone or a piece of badly polished wood to make an image of Jesus Christ out of it. Sometimes they do not succeed in giving anything like the natural expression of Jesus, either from having no knowledge or experience of the person of Jesus,

  or from some blow awkwardly given, which has spoiled the work. But for those who embrace the secret of grace which I am revealing to them, I may reasonably compare them to founders and casters who discover the beautiful mold of Mary, where Jesus was naturally and divinely formed. And without trusting through their own skill, but only in the goodness of the mold,

  they cast themselves and lose themselves in Mary to become the portraits of Jesus Christ after nature. Oh, beautiful and true comparison, but who will comprehend it? I desire that you may, my dear brother, but remember that we only cast in a mold which is melted in liquid. That is to say, you must destroy and melt down in yourself the old Adam to become the new one in Mary. 7. By this practice faithfully observed, you will give Jesus more glory in a month

  than by any other practice, however difficult, in many years. And I give the following reasons for it. 1. Because doing your actions by our blessed lady, as this practice teaches you, you abandon your own intentions and operations, although good and known. To lose yourself, so to speak, and the intentions of the blessed virgin, although they are unknown.

  Thus you enter by participation into the sublimity of her intentions, which are so pure that she gives more glory to God by the least of her actions, for example, in twirling her distaff or pointing her needle, then St. Lawrence by his cruel martyrdom on his gridiron, or even all the saints by all their heroic actions put together. It was thus that, during her sojourn here below, she acquired such an unspeakable aggregate of graces and merits

  that it were easier to count the stars of the firmament, the drops of water in the sea, or the grains of sand upon its shore, than her merits and graces. Thus it was that she gave more glory to God than all the angels and saints have given him or ever will give him. Oh, prodigy of a Mary, thou canst not help but do prodigies of grace and souls that wish to lose themselves altogether in thee, too.

  Because the soul in this practice counts as nothing whatever it thinks or does of itself, and only puts its trust and takes its pleasure in the dispositions of Mary when it approaches Jesus or even speaks to him. Thus it practices humility far more than the souls who act of themselves, and lean, with however imperceptible a complacency, on their own dispositions.

  What if the soul acts more humbly, if therefore glorifies God more highly, and he is only perfectly glorified by the humble and those that are little and lowly in heart? Because our blessed Lady, wishing by her great charity to receive the presence of our actions in her virginal hands, gives them an admirable beauty and splendor. Moreover, she offers them herself to Jesus Christ and without difficulty,

  and our Lord is thus more glorified by them than if we offered them by our own criminal hands. Mary is altogether relative to God, and, indeed, I might well call her the relation to God. She only exists with reference to God. She is the Echo of God, who says nothing, repeats nothing, but God. If you say Mary, she says God.

  St. Elizabeth praised Mary and called her blessed because she had believed. Mary, the faithful Echo of God, at once intoned, Magnificat anima mea dominum. My soul doth magnify the Lord. That which Mary did then, she does daily now.

  When we praise her, love her, honor her, or give anything to her, it is God who is praised, God who is loved, God who is glorified. We give them to God by Mary and in Mary.

• 10 - Part 8

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  Part VIII. Particular Practices of the Devotion. 1. External Practices. Although what is essential in this devotion consists in the interior, we must not fail

  to unite to the inward practice certain external observances, heka portet facere et illa non omitere. We must do the one, yet not leave the other undone, both because the outward practices will perform to aid the inward ones, and because they make a man remember by reminding his senses what he has done or ought to do, and also because they are suitable to edify our

  neighbor who sees them which inward practices cannot do. Let no whirling then or critics near it this, let them not say that because true devotion is in the heart we must avoid external devotion, or that devotion ought to be hidden, and that there may be vanity in showing it. I answer with my master that men should see our good works, that they may glorify our

  Father who is in heaven, not, as St. Gregory says, that we ought to perform our actions and exterior devotions to please men and to get praise, that would be vanity, but that we should sometimes do them before men, with the view of pleasing God, and glorifying Him thereby without caring either for the contempt or the praise of men. I will only allude briefly to some exterior practices, which I do not call exterior because

  we do them without any interior, but because they have something outward about them to distinguish them from those which are purely inward. First practice. Those who wish to enter into this particular devotion, which is not at present erected into a confraternity, though that were to be wished, after having, as I said in the

  first part of this preparation, for the reign of Jesus Christ, employed twelve days at least, and emptying themselves of the Spirit of the world, which is contrary to the Spirit of Jesus Christ, should employ three weeks in filling themselves with Jesus Christ by the Holy Virgin. They should pursue the following order.

  During the first week they should employ all their prayers and highest actions in asking for a knowledge of themselves and for contrition of their sins. And they should do this in a spirit of humility. For that end they can, if they choose, meditate on what I have said before or for inward corruption. They can look upon themselves during the six days of this week as snails, crawling things,

  tithes, swine, serpents, and unclean animals, or they can reflect on those three considerations of St. Bernard, the vileness of our origin, the dishonors of our present state, and our ending as the food of worms. They should pray our Lord and the Holy Ghost to enlighten them, and for that end they might use the ejaculation Domine Ut Vidiam, or Novera Mae, or Veni Sancte Spiritus, and they may

  say daily the Ave Maria Stella and the Litany of the Holy Ghost. During the second week they should apply themselves, during all their prayers and works, each day to know the Blessed Virgin. They should ask this knowledge of the Holy Ghost. They should read and meditate what we have said about it.

  They should recite, as in the first week, the Litany of the Holy Ghost and the Ave Maria Stella, and in addition a Rosary daily, or, if not a whole Rosary, at least a chaplet, for the intention of impetrating more knowledge of Mary. They should apply themselves in the third week to know Jesus Christ. They can meditate upon what we have said about Him and say the prayer of St. Augustine, which

  they will find in the first part of this treatise. They can, with the same Saint, repeat a hundred times a day, Noveram Te, lor, that I might know thee, or Domine Ut Vidiam, lor, that I might see who thou art. They shall recite, as in the preceding weeks, the Litany of the Holy Ghost and the Ave Maria Stella, and they shall add daily the Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus.

  At the end of the three weeks they shall confess and communicate with the intention of giving themselves to Jesus Christ and the quality of slaves of love by the hands of Mary. After communion, which they should try to make according to the method given farther on, they should recite the formula of their consecration, which they will find afterwards. They ought to write it or have it written, unless it is printed, and they should sign

  it the same day they have made it. It would be well also that, on that day, they should pay some tribute to Jesus Christ and either as a penance for their past unfaithfulness to the vows of their baptism, or in testimony of their dependence and allegiance to the domain of Jesus and Mary. This tribute ought to be according to the devotion and capacity of every one, as a fast,

  a mortification, an alms, or a candle. If they had but a pen to give in homage, yet gave it with a good heart, it would be enough for Jesus, who looks only at the good will. Once a year at least, on the same day, they should renew the same consecration, observing the same practices during the three weeks.

  They might also, once a month, or even once a day, renew what they have done by these few words. Tuus totus ego sum et omnia mea tuos sunt. I am all for thee, and all I have belongs to thee, O my sweet Jesus, by Mary thy holy mother.

  They may recite every day of their life, without however making any burden of it, the little corona of the Blessed Virgin, composed of three Our Fathers and twelve Hail Marys, in honor of Our Lady's twelve privileges and granders. This is a very ancient practice, for it has its foundation in the Holy Scriptures. Saint John saw a woman crowned with twelve stars, clothed with the sun, and holding the

  moon under her feet. And this woman, according to the interpreters, was the most holy Virgin. There are many ways of saying this corona well, but it would be too long to enter upon them. The Holy Ghost will teach them to those who are the most faithful to this devotion.

  Nevertheless, to say it quite simply, we should begin by saying, Dignare mea tlateraetae viegros acrata da mihi vertutum contra hostos tuos. After that, we should say the credo, and then a pater, with four aveis, and then one Gloria patriae. Then another pater, four aveis, and one Gloria patriae, and so on with the rest.

  And at the end, we should say, the sub tuum presidium. Third practice. It is a most glorious and praiseworthy thing, and very useful to those who have thus made themselves slaves of Jesus and Mary, that they should wear, as a badge of their loving chains, blessed with the proper benediction.

  Footnote. Note from the French. It may be thought that since the time of the Venerable Servant of God, certain decrees of the Congregation of the Index have absolutely condemned this usage. But whatever may be the precise extent of the prohibition intended by these decrees,

  there seems to be nothing in them formally introducing the using of little change to private persons. We may see at the end of Colette's Life of Udon the remarks of that theologian, justifying the pious Archdeacon of the Varrocs from the criticisms of which he was the object, by the occasion of his treatise, L'Essent aus Clavadge de la Sante Virge.

  He cites the decrees which he read in the edition of the Index of 1758, and which have been repeated in the subsequent editions. The words of the Index are as follows. Proibentur imaginis numis matum in sculpta, pro confraternitatibus mansi piorum matris Dei,

  italice sciavi della madre di Dio. Sodalis contentatus, turnitatibus regilet, prescibentur, confraternitatis atumque,

  continuas, distribunt confritribus, et consul oribus, brachii seccolo, circumpoendas,

  acque, gestandas, ud eius signo, beatissimi virgini mansi patus, se esi proficientur,

  et quorum institutum, in eius mansi patu precipiui versatur, dominatur et extinguuntur, sociatatibus vera,

  quae ritum elicum, acque cumque, aliud ad mansi patum, eius mobi pertinnes, ati bent.

  Prescipitur ud its statum regiciant. Index decretat generalis 3.3. It is perfectly true that those external badges are not essential, and a person who has embraced this devotion may very well go without them. Nevertheless, I cannot refrain from warmly praising those who,

  after having shaken off the shameful chains of the slavery of the devil, in which original sin, and perhaps actual sins, had engaged them, had voluntarily surrendered themselves to the glorious slavery of Jesus Christ, and glory with St. Paul in being in chains for Jesus, chains a thousand times more glorious and precious,

  though of iron, than all the golden colors of emperors. Once there was nothing more infamous on earth than the cross, and now that wood is the most glorious boast of Christianity. Let us say the same of the irons of slavery.

  There was nothing more ignominious among the ancients, nothing more shameful even now among the heathen, but among Christians there is nothing more illustrious than the chains of Jesus, for they unchain us and preserve us from the infamous fetters of sin and the devil. They set us at liberty and chain us to Jesus and Mary,

  not by compulsion and constraint like galley slaves, but by charity and love like children. Traum eus, invigulus charitatis. I will draw them to me, said God by the mouth of the prophet, by the chains of love.

  These chains are as strong as death, and they are in a certain sense strongest in those who are faithful in carrying these glorious badges to their death. For though death destroys their bodies and bringing them to corruption, it does not destroy the chains of their slavery,

  which, being of iron, do not corrupt so easily. Perhaps at the day of the resurrection of the body, the grand last judgment, these chains shall be round their bones and shall make a part of their glory and be transmuted into chains of light and splendor.

  Happy then, a thousand times happy, the illustrious slaves of Jesus, who wear their chains even to the tomb. The following are the reasons for wearing these little chains. First, it is to remind the Christian of the vows and engagements of his baptism, of the perfect renewal he has made of them by his devotion,

  and of the strict obligation under which he is to be faithful to them. As the man who shapes his course more often by the senses than by pure faith, easily forgets his obligation towards God, unless he has some outward thing to remind him of them, these little chains serve marvelously to remind the Christian of the chains of sin

  and of the slavery of the devil, from which baptism has delivered him, and of the dependence on Jesus, which he has vowed to him in baptism, and of the ratification of it, which he has made by the renewal of his vows. One of the reasons why so few Christians think of their baptismal vows and live with as much license as if they had promised no more to God than the heathen,

  is because they do not wear any external badge to make them remember it. Secondly, it is to show that we are not ashamed of the servitude and slavery of Jesus Christ, and that we renounce the slavery of the world, sin and the devil. Thirdly, it is to guarantee ourselves from the chains of sin and the devil, and to be beforehand with them, for we must wear either the chains of iniquity,

  or the chains of charity and salvation. Oh my dear brother, let us break the chains of sin and of sinners, of the world and of worldliness, of the devil and his ministers, and let us cast far from thus their depressing yoke. Let us put our feet, to use the terms of the Holy Ghost, into his glorious irons,

  and our neck into his collars. You will remark that the Holy Ghost, before saying these words, prepares a soul for them, thus it should reject his important counsel. Harken, my son, and receive a counsel of understanding, and reject not my counsel. As Jesus Christ on the cross ought to draw all things to him, with their will or against it,

  he will draw the reprobate by the chains of their sins, that he may chain them like galley slaves and devils, to his eternal anger and revengeful justice. But he will, and particularly in these latter times, draw the predestinate by the chains of charity, these loving slaves of Jesus Christ, the chains of Christ, can wear their chains either on their neck or on their feet.

  Father Vincent Caraffa, seventh general of the Jesuits, who died in the odor of sanctity in the year 1643, used to wear a circle of iron round his feet as a mark of his servitude, and said that his only pain was that he could not publicly drag a chain. The mother Agnes of Jesus, of whom we have spoken before, used to wear an iron chain round her body. Others have worn it round their neck, and penance for the colors of pearls which they have worn in

  the world, while others have worn it round their arms, to remind themselves, in their manual labors, that they were slaves of Jesus Christ. Fourth practice. Those who undertake this holy slavery should have a very special devotion to the great mystery of the incarnation of the word, on the 25th of March. Indeed, the incarnation is the proper mystery of this practice, inasmuch as it was a devotion inspired by the Holy Ghost. First, to honor and

  imitate the ineffable dependence which God the Son has been pleased to have on Mary, for his Father's glory and our salvation, which dependence particularly appears in this mystery, where Jesus is a captive and a slave in the bosom of the Divine Mary, and depends upon her for all things. Secondly, to thank God for the incomparable graces he has given Mary, and particularly for having chosen her to be his most holy mother, which choice was made in this mystery.

  These are the two principal ends of the slavery of Jesus and Mary. Have the goodness to observe that I generally say, the slave of Jesus and Mary, the slavery of Mary in Jesus. I might, in good truth, as many have done before, say, the slave of Mary, the slavery of the Holy Virgin. But I think it is better to say, the slave of Jesus and Mary, as Mr. Tronson, Superior General of the Seminary in St. Slavice, renowned for his veraprudence and consummate piety,

  counseled to an ecclesiastique who consulted him on the subject. The following were the reasons. 1. As we are living in an age of intellectual pride, and there are all round us numbers of puffed-up scholars and conceited and critical spirits, who have plenty to say against the best established and most solid practices of piety, it is better for us not to give them any needless occasion of criticism. Hence, it is better for us

  to say, the slavery of Jesus and Mary, and to call ourselves the slaves of Jesus Christ rather than the slaves of Mary, taking the denomination of our devotion rather from its last end, which is Jesus Christ, than from the road and the means to the end, which Mary is. Though, I repeat, that in truth we may do either, as I have done myself. For example, a man who goes from Orleans to Tours by way of Emboisse may very well say that he is going to Emboisse,

  or that he is going to Tours, that he is a traveller to Emboisse and a traveller to Tours. With this difference, however, that Emboisse is but a straight road to Tours, and that Tours only is the last end in term of his voyage. 2. A second reason is because the principal mystery we celebrate in honour of this devotion is the mystery of the Incarnation, where we can only see Jesus and Mary, and incarnate in her bosom. Hence, it is more to the purpose to speak of the

  slavery of Jesus and Mary, and of Jesus residing and reigning in Mary, according to that beautiful prayer of so many great men. O Jesus, living in Mary, come and live in us in thy spirit of sanctity, etc. 3. Another reason is because this manner of speaking sets forth still more the intimate union which there is between Jesus and Mary. They are so intimately united that the one is altogether in the other. Jesus is altogether in Mary, and Mary is altogether in Jesus. Or, rather,

  she exists no more, but Jesus is all alone in her, and it were easier to separate the light from the sun than Mary from Jesus, so that we might call our Lord Jesus of Mary, and our blessed Lady Mary of Jesus. The time would not permit me to stop now and explain the excellences and granders of the mysteries of Jesus living and reigning in Mary, in other words, of the Incarnation of the Word. I will content myself with saying these three words. We have here the first mystery of Jesus

  Christ, the most hidden, the most exalted, and the least known. It is in this mystery that Jesus, in his mother's womb, which is for that very reason called by the saints the cabinet of the secrets of God, has, in concert with Mary, chosen all the elect. It is in this mystery that he wrought all the other mysteries of his life by the acceptance which he made of them. Consequently, this mystery is an abridgment of all mysteries and contains the will and grace of all.

  Finally, this mystery is the throne of the mercy of the liberality and of the glory of God. It is the throne of his mercy for us because, as we cannot approach Jesus but by Mary, we can only see Jesus and speak to him by her intercession. Jesus, who always hears his dear mother, always grants his grace and mercy to poor sinners. It is the throne of his liberality for Mary because, while the new Adam dwelt in that true

  terrestrial paradise, he worked so many miracles in secret that neither angels nor men can comprehend them. It is on this account that the saints call Mary the magnificence of God. It is the throne of his glory for his father because it is in Mary that Jesus Christ has calmed his father, irritated against men, and that he has made restitution of the glory which sin ravaged from him, and that, by the sacrifice he made of his own will and of himself, he has given

  him more glory than ever the sacrifices of the ancient law could do, and he gives him now an infinite life. It is the throne of his glory for his father because, as we cannot approach Jesus, he has given him more glory than ever the sacrifices of the ancient law could do, and he gives him now an infinite glory which he never could have received from man. Few Christians, however enlightened, know the real price, merit, excellence, and necessity of

  the Hail Mary. It was necessary for the Blessed Virgin to appear several times to great and enlightened saints to show them the merit of it. She did so to St. Dominic, St. John Capistrion, and the Blessed Ellen de la Roche. They have composed entire works on the wonders and efficacy of that prayer for converting souls. They have loudly published and openly preached that, salvation having begun with the Hail Mary, the salvation of each one of us in particular is

  attached to that prayer. They tell us that it is the prayer which made the dry and barren earth bring forth the fruit of life, and that it is the prayer well said which makes the word of God germinate in our souls and bring forth Jesus Christ, the fruit of life. They tell us that the Hail Mary is the heavenly dew for watering the earth, which is the soul, to make it bring forth its fruit and season, and that a soul which is not watered by that prayer bears no fruit and brings

  forth only thorns and rambles and is ready to be cursed. Listen to what Our Lady revealed to the Blessed Ellen de la Roche as he has recorded it in his book on the Dignity of the Rosary. Demnationes, Harire, Adachi, Tyari, Acnegligere, Salutationem, Angelicum, Totius, Muni, Reparationem. These are words that once terrible and consoling in which we should find it hard to believe if we had not that holy man for a guarantee and Saint Dominic before him and many great men since.

  But we have also the experience of several ages, for it has always been remarked that those who wear the outward look of reprobation, like impious heretics and proud worldlings, hate or despise the Hail Mary or the Rosary. Heretics still learn and say they are a father, but not the Hail Mary nor the Rosary. That is their horror. They would rather wear a serpent than a Rosary. The proud also, although Catholics, have the same inclinations as their father, Lucifer,

  and so have only contempt or indifference for the Hail Mary and look at the Rosary as out of devotion which is only good for the ignorant and for those who cannot read. On the contrary, it is an equally universal experience that those who have otherwise great marks of predestination about them love and relish the Hail Mary and delight in saying it. We always see the more a man is for God, the more he likes that prayer.

  This is what Our Lady said also to the Blessed Allen after the words which I have recently quoted. I do not know how it is nor why, but nevertheless I well know that it is true. Nor have I any better secret of knowing whether a person is for God than to examine if he likes to say the Hail Mary and the Rosary. I say, if he likes. For it may happen that a person may be under some natural inability to say it or even a supernatural one. Yet nevertheless, he likes it

  always and always inspires the same liking into others. O predestinate souls, slaves of Jesus and Mary, learn that the Hail Mary is the most beautiful of all prayers after the Our Father. It is the most perfect compliment which you can make to Mary because it is the compliment which is the most high sent her by an archangel in order to gain her heart. And it was so powerful over her heart by the secret charms of which it is so full

  that in spite of her profound humility she gave her consent to the incarnation of the Word. It is by this compliment also that you will infallibly gain her heart if you say it as you ought. The Hail Mary, well said, that is, with attention, devotion and modesty, is, according to the saints, the enemy of the devil which puts him to flight and the hammer which crushes him. It is the sanctification of the soul, the joy of angels, the melody of the predestinate,

  the canticle of the New Testament, the pleasure of Mary and the glory of the Most Holy Trinity. The Hail Mary is a heavenly dew which fertilizes the soul. It is the chaste and loving kiss which we give to Mary. It is the vermilion rose which we present to her, a precious pearl we offer her, a chalice of divine and berogeo nectar which we hold to her. All these are comparisons of the saints. I pray you urgently, by the love I bear you in Jesus and Mary, not to content yourselves

  with saying the little corona of the Blessed Virgin, but a whole chaplet, or even, if you have the time, the whole rosary every day. At the moment of your death you will blast the day and hour in which you have followed my advice. Having thus sown in the benedictions of Jesus and Mary, you will reap eternal benedictions in heaven. Quis semina in benediccionibus, de benediccionibus et mitut. 6. Practice

  To thank God for the graces he has given to Our Lady, those who adopt this devotion will often say the Magnificat, as the Blessed Mary de Ogenes did, and many other saints. It is the only prayer, the only work, which the Holy Virgin composed, or rather, which Jesus composed in her, for he spoke by her mouth. It is the greatest sacrifice of praise which God ever received from a pure creature in the law of grace. It is, on the one hand, the most humble and grateful, and on the other hand,

  the most sublime and exalted of all canticles. There are in that song mysteries so great and hidden that the angels do not know them. The pious and erudite Gerson employed a great part of his life in composing works upon most difficult subjects, and yet it was only at the close of his career, and even then with trembling, that he undertook to comment on the Magnificat, so as to crown all his other works. He wrote a folio volume on it, and brings forward many

  admirable things about that beautiful and divine canticle. Among other things, he says that Our Lady often repeated it herself, and especially for Thanksgiving after Chimeon. The learned benzoneus, in explaining the same Magnificat, relates many miracles wrought by the virtue of it, and says that the devils tremble and fly when they hear these words. Seventh Practice

  Those faithful servants of Mary, who adopt this devotion, ought always greatly to despise, to hate, and to eschew the corrupted world, and to make use of those practices of the contempt of the world which we have given in the first part of this treatise. Two, particular and interior practices for those who wish to be perfect. Besides the external practices of the devotion which we have been describing so far, and which we must not omit through negligence or contempt,

  so far as the state and condition of each one will allow him to observe them, there are some very sanctifying interior practices for those whom the Holy Ghost calls to high perfection. These may be expressed in four words, to do all our actions by Mary, with Mary, in Mary, and for Mary, so that we may do them all the more perfectly by Jesus, with Jesus, in Jesus, and for Jesus.

  One, we must do our actions by Mary, that is to say, we must obey her in all things, and in all things conduct ourselves by her Spirit, which is the Holy Spirit of God. Those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. Those who are led by the Spirit of Mary are the children of Mary, and consequently the children of God, as we have shown, and among so many clients of the Blessed Virgin, none are true

  or faithful but those who are led by her Spirit. I have said that the Spirit of Mary was the Spirit of God, because she was never led by her own Spirit, but always by the Holy Ghost, who has rendered himself so completely master of her that he has become her own proper Spirit. It is on this account that St. Ambrose says, Sit in singuli spiritus, Mariae, ure exultat in Deo,

  That the soul of Mary be in each of us to magnify the Lord, and the Spirit of Mary be in each of us to rejoice in God. A soul is happy indeed when, like the good Jesuit lay brother Alfonso Rodriguez, who died in the odor of sanctity, it is all possessed and overruled by the Spirit of Mary, a spirit meek and strong, zealous and prudent, humble and courageous, pure and profound.

  In order that the soul may let itself be led by Mary's Spirit, it must first of all renounce its own spirit and its own proper lights and wills before it does anything. For example, it should do so before its prayer, before its saying or hearing mass, and before communicating, because the darkness of our own spirit and the malice of our own will and operation, if we follow them, however good they may appear to us, will put an obstacle to the Spirit of Mary.

  Secondly, we must deliver ourselves to the Spirit of Mary to be moved and influenced by it in the manner she chooses. We must put ourselves and leave ourselves in her virginal hands, like a tool in the grasp of a workman, like a lute in the hands of a skillful player. We must lose ourselves and abandon ourselves to her like a stone one throws into the sea. This must be done simply and in an instant by one glance of the mind, by one little movement of the

  will, or even verbally in saying, for example, I renounce myself. I give myself to thee, my dear mother. We may not, perhaps, feel any sensible sweetness in this act of union, but it is not on that account the less real. It is just as if we were to say with equal sincerity, though without any sensible change in ourselves, what, may it please God, we never shall say, I give myself to the devil. We should not the less truly belong to the devil because we do not feel we belong to him.

  Thirdly, we must, from time to time, both during and after the action, renew the same act and offering of union. The more we shall do so, the more we shall be sanctified, and we shall all the sinner attain to union with Jesus Christ, which always follows necessarily on our union with Mary, because the Spirit of Mary is the Spirit of Jesus. Two. We must do our actions with Mary. That is to say, we must in all our actions regard Mary as an

  accomplished model of every virtue and perfection which the Holy Ghost has formed in a pure creature for us to imitate according to our little measure. We must therefore, in every action, consider how Mary has done it, or how she would have done it, had she been in our place. For that end, we must examine and meditate the great virtues which she practiced during her life, and particularly, first of all, her lively faith, by which she believed without hesitation the

  Angel's word, and believed it faithfully and constantly up to the foot of the cross. Secondly, her profound humility, which made her hide herself, hold her peace, submit to everything, and put herself the last of all. And thirdly, her altogether divine purity, which never has had, and never can have, its equal under heaven. And so on with all her other virtues. Let us remember, I repeat it for the second time, that Mary is the great and exclusive mold of God,

  proper to make living images of God at small costs and in little time, and that a soul which has found that mold and has lost itself in it is presently changed into Jesus Christ, whom that mold represents to the life. Three. We must do our actions in Mary. Thoroughly to understand this practice, we must know, first, that Our Blessed Lady is the true terrestrial paradise of the new Adam, and that the ancient paradise was but a figure of her. There are,

  then, in this earthly paradise, riches, beauties, rarities, and inexplicable sweetnesses, which Jesus Christ, the new Adam, has left there. It was in this paradise that he took his complacence for nine months, worked his wonders, and displayed his riches with the magnificence of God. This most holy place is composed only of a virgin and immaculate earth, of which the new Adam was formed, and on which he was nourished,

  without any spot or stain, by the operation of the Holy Ghost, who dwelt there. It is in this earthly paradise that there is the true Tree of Life, which has borne Jesus Christ, the Fruit of Life, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which has given light unto the world. There are in this divine place trees planted by the hand of God, and watered by his divine unction, which have borne in daily bare fruits of a taste divine. There are flower beds,

  enameled with beautiful and various blossoms, for it chews shedding odors which embalm the very angels. There are meadows green with hope, and pregnantable towers of strength, and the most enticing houses of confidence. It is by the Holy Ghost you can make us know the hidden truth of those figures of material things. There are in this place an air of perfect purity, a fair sun without the shadow of the divinity, a fair day without the night of the sacred humanity,

  a continual burning furnace of love, where all the iron that is cast into it is changed by excessive heat to gold. There is a river of humility which springs from the earth, and which, dividing itself into four branches, waters all that enchanted place. And these are the four cardinal virtues. The Holy Ghost, by the mouth of the Fathers, also styles the Blessed Virgin the Eastern gate, by which the High Priest, Jesus Christ, enters the world and leaves it. By it he came the first time,

  and by it he will come the second. In the next place, to comprehend thoroughly the practice of doing our actions in Mary, we must know that the Holy Virgin is the sanctuary of the divinity, the repose of the Most Holy Trinity, the throne of God, the city of God, the altar of God, the temple of God, the world of God. All these different epithets and panegyriques are most substantially true with reference to the divine marvels which the Most High has wrought in

  Mary. Oh, what riches, what glory, what pleasure, what happiness, to be able to enter in and dwell in Mary, where the Most High has set up the throne of supreme glory. But how difficult it is for sinners like ourselves to have the permission, the capacity, and the light to enter into a place so high and so holy, which is guarded not by one of the cherubim, like the old earthly paradise, but by the Holy Ghost himself, who is its absolute master. He himself has said of it,

  Hortus conclusus, sor mea svanse, Hortus conclusus, fond signatus. Mary is shut, Mary is sealed. The miserable children of Adam and Eve, driven from the earthly paradise, cannot enter into this one except by particular grace of the Holy Ghost, which they ought to merit. After we have obtained this illustrious grace by our fidelity, we must remain in the fair interior of Mary with complacency, repose there in peace,

  lean our weight there in confidence, hide ourselves there with assurance, and lose ourselves there without reserve. Thus, in that virginal bosom, one, the soul shall be nourished with the milk of grace and maternal mercy, two, it shall be delivered from its troubles, fears, and scruples, and three, it shall be in safety against all its enemies, the world, the devil, and sin, who never have an entrance there. It is on this account that Mary says that they who

  work in her shall not sin, qui operantur eme non peccabunt, that is to say, those who dwell in Mary's spirit shall fall into no considerable fault. Lastly, four, the soul shall be formed in Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ in it, because her bosom is, as the Holy Fathers say, the chamber of the Divine Sacraments, where Jesus Christ and all the elect have been formed. Four, finally, we must do all our actions for Mary, as we have given ourselves up entirely to her service. It is but

  just to do everything for her as a servant and a slave. It is not that we can take her for the last end of our services, for that is Jesus Christ alone, but we may take her for our proximate end, our mysterious means, and our easy way to go to him. Like a good servant and slave, we must not remain idle, but, supported by her protection, we must undertake and achieve great things for this august sovereign. We must defend her privileges when they are disputed. We must stand up for her

  glory when it is attacked. We must entice all the world, if we can, to her service and to this true and solid devotion. We must speak and cry out against those who abuse her devotion to outrage her son, and we must at the same time establish this veritable devotion. We must pretend to know recompense for our little services, accept the honor of belonging to so sweet a queen, and the happiness of being united by her to Jesus her son, by an indissoluble tie in time and in eternity.

  Glory to Jesus and Mary. Glory to Mary in Jesus. Glory to God alone. End of part 8.

• 11 - Part 9

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  Part IX of A Treatise on the True Devotion to the Apostle-Firte Mary by Louis Marie Cignel de Montfort Translated by Frederick William Faber, D.D. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Manner of practicing this devotion to Our Lady when we go to Holy Communion.

  Before Communion 1. You must humble yourself most profoundly before God. 2. You must renounce your corrupt interior and your dispositions out of every good your own self-love may make them look.

  3. You must renew your consecration by saying, Tuus totus egosum et omnia mea tuasunt. I am all thine, my dear mistress, with all I have. 4.

  You must implore that good mother to lend you her heart that you may receive her son there with the same dispositions as her own. You will represent to her that it touches her son's glory to be put into a heart so solid and so inconstant as yours, which would not fail either to lessen his glory or to destroy it.

  But if she will come and dwell with you in order to receive her son, she can do so by the dominion which she has over all hearts, and her son will be well received by her without stains and without danger being outraged or destroyed. Deus in meadio eus non comovitur. You will tell her confidently that all you have given her of your good is a little matter

  to honor her, but that by the holy communion you wish to make her the same presence as the Eternal Father gave her, and that you will honor her more by that than if you gave her all the goods in the world. And finally, that Jesus, who loves her alone, still desires to take his pleasure and his repose in her, even in your soul, though it be filthier far and poorer than the stable

  where he made no difficulty to come, simply because she was there. You will ask her for her heart by these tender words. Ascipio te eme aumnia pro bemihi ur tuum, O Maria. Tu. Acuminion.

  On the point of receiving Jesus Christ after the Our Father, you say three times, Domine non son dignus. Say the first one to the Eternal Father, telling him you are not worthy because of your evil thoughts and ingratitudes towards so good a Father to receive his only Son, but that he is to behold Mary, his handmaid, ecce en chila Domine, who acts for us and who gives

  us a singular confidence and hope with His Majesty. Quonium singularitur in spe constitutisti me. You shall say to the Son, Domine non son dignus, telling him that you are not worthy to receive because of your idle and evil words and your infidelity to his service, but that nevertheless you pray him to have pity upon you, that you may introduce him into the house of his own

  mother and yours, and that you will not let him go without his coming to lodge with her. Tenui aum nec demetam, donec introducam ulum, endomum matris mea, et in cubiculum genetrisis mea. Canticles 3, 4. You will pray him to rise and come to the place of his repose and into the Ark of his sanctification, surge Domine, in requiem tuam, tu ad Arca sanctificatio nis tuae.

  Tell him you put no confidence at all in your own merits, your own strength, and your own preparations, as Esau did, but that you trust only in Mary, your dear mother, as the little Jacob did in the cares of Rebeca. Tell him that, sinner and Esau as you are, you dare to approach his sanctity, supported and adorned as you are, with the virtues of his holy mother.

  You shall say to the Holy Ghost, Domine non sum dignus, telling him that you are not worthy to receive this masterpiece of his charity because of the lukewarmness and iniquity of your actions and because of your resistances to his inspirations, but that all your confidence is in Mary, his faithful spouse. You shall say with St. Bernard, Hec mea maxima fidicea, hec totoritios beimei.

  You can pray even him to come himself and Mary, his indissoluble spouse, telling him that her bosom is as pure and her heart is burning as ever, and that without his descent into your soul, neither Jesus nor Mary will be formed, nor yet worthily lodged. After Holy Communion, while you are inwardly recollected and holding your eyes shut, you will introduce Jesus into the heart of Mary.

  You will give him to his mother, who will receive him lovingly, will place him honorably, will adore him profoundly, will love him perfectly, will embrace him closely, and will render to him, in spirit and in truth, many homages which were unknown to us in our thick darkness. Or else you will keep yourself profoundly humbled in your heart, and the presence of Jesus residing in Mary.

  Or you will sit like a slave at the gate of the King's Palace, where he is speaking with the Queen. And while they talk one to the other without need of you, you will go in spirit to heaven and over all the earth, praying all creatures to thank, adore, and love Jesus and Mary in your place.

  Venite, adoramus, venite. Or else you shall yourself ask of Jesus and union with Mary the coming of his kingdom on earth, through his Holy Mother. Or you shall sue for the divine wisdom, or for divine love, or for the pardon of your sins, or for some other grace.

  But always by Mary and in Mary, saying, while you look aside at yourself, Ne respetios Domine peccatamea, Lord, look not at my sins. Sedaculi tui vidiant, or quitatis Mariae. But let your eyes look at nothing in me but the virtues and merits of Mary. And then, remembering your sins, you shall add,

  Enimicus homo hoc facit, it is I who have committed these sins. Or you shall say, Apomine iniquo, etuloso erui me, or else teoportet Christere me ateminui. My Jesus, you must increase in my soul, and I must decrease. Mary, you must increase within me, and I must be still thus than I have been.

  Christite et multipli eamenti. O Jesus and Mary, increase in me, and multiply yourselves outside and others also. There are an infinity of other thoughts which the Holy Ghost furnishes and will furnish you if you are thoroughly interior, mortified, and faithful to this grand and sublime devotion which I have been teaching you.

  But always remember that the more you leave Mary to act in your communion, the more Jesus will be glorified. The more you leave Mary to act for Jesus, and Jesus to act in Mary, the more profoundly will you humble yourself and will listen to them in peace and silence, without putting yourself in trouble about seeing, tasting, or feeling.

  For the just man lives throughout on faith, and particularly in Holy Communion, which is an action of faith, justus meus ex fidei vivid. Consecration of ourselves to Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Wisdom, by the hands of Mary. O Eternal and Incarnate Wisdom, O sweetest and most adorable Jesus, true God and true man, only son of the Eternal Father, and of Mary, always Virgin, I adore thee profoundly

  in the bosom and splendors of thy Father during eternity, and I adore thee also in the virginal bosom of Mary, thy most worthy mother, in the time of thine incarnation. I give thee thanks for that thou hast annihilated thyself in taking the form of a slave in order to rescue me from the cruel slavery of the devil. I praise and glorify thee, for that thou hast been pleased to submit thyself to Mary, thy

  holy mother, in all things, in order to make me thy faithful slave through her. But, alas, ungrateful and faithless as I have been, I have not kept the promises which I made so solemnly to thee in my baptism, I have not fulfilled my obligations, I do not deserve to be called thy son, nor yet thy slave, and as there is nothing in me which does not merit thine anger in thy repulse, I dare no more come by myself before thy

  most holy and august majesty. It is on this account that I have recourse to the intercession of thy most holy mother, whom thou hast given me for a mediatrix with thee. It is by her means that I hope to obtain of thee contrition and the pardon of my sins, the acquisition and the preservation of wisdom.

  I salute thee, then, O Immaculate Mary, living tabernacle of the divinity, where the eternal wisdom willed to be hidden, and to be adored by angels and by men. I hail thee, O Queen of heaven and earth, to whose empire everything is subject which is under God. I salute thee, O sure Refugee of sinners, whose mercy fails to know one.

  Hear the desires which I have of the divine wisdom, and for that end receive the vows and offerings which my lowliness presents to thee. I, a faithless sinner, I renew and ratify today in thy hands the vows of my baptism. I renounce for ever Satan, his poms and works, and I give myself entirely to Jesus Christ, the incarnate wisdom, to carry my cross after him all the days of my life, and to be more

  faithful to him than I have ever been before. In the presence of all the heavenly court, I choose thee this day for my mother and mistress. I deliver and consecrate to thee as thy slave my body and soul, my goods both interior and exterior, and even the value of all my good actions, past, present, and future, leaving to you the entire and full right of disposing of me, and all that belongs to me, without

  exception according to thy good pleasure, to the greatest glory of God in time and in eternity. Receive, O benign virgin, this little offering of my slavery, in the honor of and in union with the subjection which the eternal wisdom deign to have to thy maternity, in homage to the power which both of you have over this little worm and miserable sinner, and in thanksgiving

  for the privileges with which the holy trinity hath favored thee. I protest that I wish henceforth as thy true slave to seek thy honor and to obey thee in all things. O admirable mother, present me to thy dear son as his eternal slave, so that as he hath redeemed me by thee, by thee he may receive me.

  O mother of mercy, get me the grace to obtain the true wisdom of God, and for that end put me in the number of those whom thou lovest, whom thou teachest, whom thou conductest, and whom thou nourished and protectest as thy children and thy slaves. O faithful virgin, make me in all things so perfect a disciple, imitator, and slave of Jesus Christ thy son, that I may attain, by thy intercession and by thy example, to the

  fullness of his age on earth and of his glory in the heavens. Amen. Qui potus copere capiat, qui sapiens ad intelligent cake. Who can receive this, let him receive it. Who is wise, he will understand these things.

  The End. End of part 9. Writing by Maria Therese. End of A Treatise on the True Division to the Blessed Virgin Mary. By Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort.

  Translated by Frederick William Faber. D.D.