True Devotion to Mary – (11)

This is the eleventh in a series of posts titled True Devotion to Mary which I started in a hopeful effort to promote the prophetic message of Saint Louis De Montfort in his book titled True Devotion to Mary.  Please refer back to this post which will link you back to the previous ones.  Everything written in burgundy font is quoted directly from Saint Louis De Montfort’s book and my personal remarks and insights are in black font.

-SECOND TRUTH-

 We belong to Jesus and Mary as Their Slaves

68. We must conclude, from what Jesus Christ is with regard to us, that, as the Apostle says (1 Cor. 6:19-20), we do not belong to ourselves but 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 belonged 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 (Rom. 7:4); 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: (1) to trees planted along the waters of grace, in the field of the Church, who ought to bring forth their fruit in their seasons; (2) to the branches of a vine of which Jesus Christ is the stock, and which must yield good grapes; (3) to a flock of which Jesus Christ is the Shepard, and which is to multiply and give milk; (4) to a good land of which God is the Husbandman, in which the seed multiplies itself and brings forth thirtyfold, sixtyfold and a hundredfold. (Ps. 1:3; Jn. 15:2; 10:11; Matt. 13:8).  Jesus Christ cursed the unfruitful fig tree (Matt. 21:19), and pronounced sentence against the useless servant who had not made any profit on his talent. (Matt. 25:24-30).  All this proves to us that Jesus Christ wishes to receive some fruits from our wretched selves, namely our good works, because those works belong to Him alone: “Created in good works, in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:10) – which words of the Holy Ghost show that Jesus Christ is the sole beginning, and ought to be the sole end, of all our good works, and also that we ought to serve Him, not as servants for wages, but as slaves of love.  I will explain what I mean.

69. Here on earth there are two ways of belonging to another and of depending on his authority: namely, simple service and slavery, whence we derive the words “servant” and “slave.”

By common service among Christians a man engages himself to serve another during a certain time, at a certain rate of wages or of recompense.

By slavery a man is entirely dependent on another during his whole life, and must serve his master without claiming any wages or reward, just as one of his beasts, over which he has the right of life and death.

70. There are three sorts of slavery: a slavery of nature, a slavery of constraint and a slavery of will.  All creatures are slaves of God in the first sense: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof” (Ps. 23:1); the demons and the damned are slaves in the second sense; the just and the saints in the third.  Because by slavery of the will we make choice of God and His service above all things, even though nature did not oblige us to do so, slavery of the will is the most perfect and most glorious to God, who beholds the heart (1 Kg. 16:7), claims the heart (Prov. 23:26), and calls Himself the God of the heart (Ps. 72:26), that is, of the loving will.

71. There is an entire difference between a servant and a slave:   

          1.) 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 acquire, without any exception.

          2.) The servant demands wages for the services which he performs for his master; but the slave can demand nothing, whatever assiduity, whatever industry, whatever energy he may have at his work.

          3.) The servant can leave his master when he pleases, or at least when the time of his service expires; but the slave has no right to quit his master at will.

          4.) The master of the servant has no right of life and death over him, so that if he should kill him like one of his beasts of burden, he would commit an unjust homicide; but the master of the slave has by 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. 

          5.) Lastly, the servant is only for a time in his master’s service; the slave, always.

72. There is nothing among men which makes us belong to another more than slavery.  There is nothing among Christians which makes 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 Himself the form of a slave for love of us (Phil. 2:7); and also according to the example of the holy Virgin, who called herself the servant and slave of the Lord. (Lk. 1:38).

73. Now that I have given these explanations, I say that we ought to belong to Jesus Christ, and to serve Him not only as mercenary servants, but as loving slaves who, as a result of their great love, give themselves up to serve Him in the quality of slaves simply for the 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 needs by either the slaves of the devil or the slaves of Jesus Christ.

 74. What I say absolutely of Jesus Christ, I say relatively of Our Lady.  Since Jesus Christ chose her for the inseparable companion of His life, of His death, of His glory and of His power in Heaven and upon earth, He gave her by grace, relatively to His Majesty, all the same rights and privileges which He possesses by nature.  “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, have also the same subjects, servants and slaves.

75. 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 other 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 through His holy Mother.  It is to honor and to 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, say that Our Lady is the way to go to Our Lord: “The way of coming to Christ is to draw near to her.” 

76. Moreover, if, as I have said, the holy Virgin is the Queen and Sovereign of Heaven and earth, has she not then as many subjects and slaves as there are creatures?  St. Anselm, St. Bernard, St. Bernardine, St. Bonaventure say: “All things, the Virgin included, are subjects to the empire of God: Behold, all things, and God included, are subjects to the empire of the Virgin.”  Is it not reasonable that among so many slaves of constraint there should be some of love, who of their own good will, in 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 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 had for Bethsebee?  Who shall dare say so, or even think so?

77. 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 being the slave of the holy Virgin, inasmuch as Jesus is the fruit and the glory of Mary; and it is this very thing which we do perfectly by the devotion of which we are hereafter to speak.

Slavery in Our Modern World

I’m inclined to believe that many people who read this post will be bristling when they read the word “slave” being used over and over again in reference to our devotion to Jesus and Mary.  First of all, in our present day and time, most people glean a negative connotation from the word.  It just sounds really, well – wrong.  I mean – slave?? 

Throughout history, slavery has been an unfortunate way of life for people in various cultures and countries.  Even today, we hear of horrifying examples of the existence of slavery around the world, one example being human trafficking.  Also, there is the blurred line syndrome that has taken root in our modern-day society in an alarming number of individuals who feel that role-playing via sadomasochism is an accepted form of adult recreation.  This often leads to one person playing the role of a master or mistress, and the other playing the role of a slave.  There are television programs, movies and websites (many of which are underground) which condone, support and even feature this type of dark, perverse behavior.  “Slave” is a commonly used word in these sick instances where the Devil manages to trash humanity, making a mockery out of slavery of love: the true meaning of what it is to be a slave to Jesus and Mary.

Slaves to Jesus and Mary: Slavery Redefined

We need to get our thinking straight.  Many people within our present culture are so programmed to view the word “slave” as a negative, dark and even evil term, that they fail to see the truth behind the mask.  The Devil thrives on deceiving humanity, and his tactics of deception will very often involve the use of twisting a beautiful and holy truth from the Lord, and making it appear ugly and even in some instances, seductive.

So what happens as a result of that deception from the evil one?  I see it as two possible scenarios.  The first scenario: People will flat-out bristle at the very idea of becoming slaves on any level, even when it involves the Almighty God and His Blessed Mother.  Rather than acquiesce to the truth of the Holy Spirit, they will instead make the determination that they can be followers of Christ without having to also be slaves of Christ.  The second scenario: People will sadly fall hard and heavy into the Devil’s trap of seduction, whereby they will choose a path of fantasy that eventually draws them toward a sort of mild curiosity that will lead to a twisting of the human identity that will then lead to role-playing that will lead to slavery of sin.

The good news is that we can change all of that.  There needs to be an awakening of what it truly means to belong to Christ.  And there needs to be the absolute desire within each and every one of us to give ourselves to Him in the way that He gave Himself to us.  We have Mary, His Blessed Mother as our Mediatrix and role model of humanity.  It is through Mary that we will find the salvation our hearts crave, and in becoming her children, servants and slaves we will find the truest and most perfect path to Our Lord.

We must keep in mind the words of Louis De Montfort in Section 74:

“What I say absolutely of Jesus Christ, I say relatively of Our Lady.  Since Jesus Christ chose her for the inseparable companion of His life, of His death, of His glory and of His power in Heaven and upon earth, He gave her by grace, relatively to His Majesty, all the same rights and privileges which He possesses by nature.  “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, have also the same subjects, servants and slaves.”