True Devotion to Mary – (4)

This is the fourth 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.

Also, please note that 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.

ARTICLE TWO: Mary Is Necessary to God in the Sanctification of Souls

29. God the Father wishes to have children by Mary til the consummation of the world; and He speaks to her these words: “Dwell in Jacob” (Ecclus. 24:13); that is to say: Make your dwelling and residence in My predestined children, prefigured by Jacob, and not in the reprobate children of the devil, prefigured by Esau.

30. Just as in the natural and corporal generation of children there are a father and a mother, so in the supernatural and spiritual generation there are 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 honor her as a true child naturally loves and honors 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 Lady, endeavoring by their words and examples to diminish the worship and love of her, openly or hiddenly, and sometimes by misrepresentation.  Alas!  God the Father has not told Mary to dwell in them, for they are Esaus.

31. God the Son wishes to form Himself, and, so to speak, to incarnate Himself in His members every day, by His dear Mother, and He says to her:  “Take Israel for your inheritance.” (Ecclus. 24:13).  It is as if He had said:  God the Father has given Me for an inheritance all the nations of the earth, all men, good and bad, predestinate and reprobate.  The ones I will lead with a rod of gold, and the others with a rod of iron.  Of the ones, I will be the Father and the Advocate; of the others, the Just Punisher; and of all, the Judge.  But as for you, My dear Mother, you shall have for your heritage and possession only the predestinate, prefigured by Israel; and as their Mother, you shall bring them forth and take care of them; and as their sovereign, you shall conduct them, govern them and defend them.

32. “This man and that man is born in her” (Ps. 86:5), says the Holy Ghost through the Royal Psalmist.  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, then the predestinate, who are the members of that Head, ought also to be born in her, by a necessary consequence.  One and the same mother does not bring forth into the world the head without the members, or 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 – were born of any other mother than Mary, who had 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.

33. Besides this, Jesus being at present as much as ever the fruit of Mary – as Heaven and earth repeat thousands and thousands of times a day, “and blessed is 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 and work 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 than St. Paul applied to himself the words:  “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.” (Cf. Gal. 4:19).

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 properly 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!

34. God the Holy Ghost wishes to form elect for Himself in her and by her, and He says to her:  “Strike the roots,” My Well-beloved and My Spouse, “of all your virtues in My elect” (Ecclus. 24:13), 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 of 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.

35. When Mary has struck her roots in a soul, she produces there marvels of grace, which she alone can produce, because she alone is the fruitful 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 – a God-Man; and she will consequently produce the greatest saints that there will be in the end of time.  The formation and the 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.

36. 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 it makes room for His spouse.  Nay, one of the greatest reasons why the Holy Ghost does not now do startling wonders in our souls in because He does not find there a sufficiently great union with His faithful and inseparable spouse.  I say “inseparable” 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, because she has always been fruitful and faithful.

True Devotion to Mary and the Holy Spirit

St. Louis De Montfort is continually speaking about Mary’s union with the Holy Ghost (Holy Spirit).  In Section 36 he says:

“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 it makes room for His spouse.”

Doesn’t it make you wonder how, after reading De Montfort’s words, any person could possibly still either hate the Blessed Lady or at the very least treat her with indifference, as if she doesn’t matter?  Why would any God-fearing individual who professes to be Christ-like and full of Christian love turn around and reject the truth that is coming directly from the Holy Spirit?  I mean, why would you do that?  Is it not enough that the words of De Montfort were inspired by the Holy Spirit and that in turn De Montfort has been elevated in the eyes of the Church (to the point of sainthood) and viewed as a person who possessed great prophetic abilities and the wisdom and insight that the Church acknowledges was Holy Spirit-inspired?

DE MONTFORT’S WRITING IS NOT OPINION-BASED, BUT RATHER, IS DIRECTLY INSPIRED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT.  That should be good enough for all of us to grab hold of and accept as God’s truth.  That said, (and back to what I asked before), why would anyone reject Marian doctrine in its fullest and most perfect form just because they either simply can’t be bothered, feel that they’re in some way disrespecting God by “worshipping” Mary, or flat-out won’t take the time to read it and understand it?  Why run the risk of disrespecting and offending God by blowing off His Mother or treating her as some incidental person in His life rather than the Holy Mother of God?

The Holy Spirit will enable a person who is seeking God’s truth to find the answers he or she desires through persistent prayer.  If a person can’t quite grasp this whole Marian devotion thing, and yet that same person is filled with the fire of love for the Lord and His Son, Jesus Christ, what better way to arrive at an understanding of what true devotion to Mary is all about than to ask the Holy Spirit for the wisdom, guidance and discernment that is needed in order to become spiritually enlightened and gain that understanding?  After all, De Montfort says in Section 30:

“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 honor her as a true child naturally loves and honors the mother who has given him life.”

I realize that it’s difficult to shift gears in any area of life, no matter what it may be, to the point of adjusting thinking, breaking old habits and taking on the new challenges that inevitably accompany change.  But what is the alternative when it comes to pleasing God?  If you lack the grace to understand true devotion to Mary, then ask the Holy Spirit to give you that grace and be persistent in your asking.  And finally, stop looking back at old notions and former assumptions that kept you from the truth; for they also kept you from receiving this gift of grace in the first place.

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