Back to Index (Montfortian Religious)This book gives the essential context of all the other writings of St. Louis Marie. In it he treats of the relationship between God and mankind, stressing first and foremost the love of God for human beings, and the plan he devised for saving them from the consequences of sin. Using many texts from the Old Testament Wisdom literature, he meditates on the extraordinary desire God has to love them and be loved by them. He, like St Paul and St John, sees the Saviour, Jesus Christ, as the embodiment of the Wisdom of God, and applies to Christ the title "Eternal and Incarnate Wisdom of God" - therefore the "Eternal Wisdom" in the title of the book is to be taken as Jesus Christ himself. In his reflections on the love of God for humans, St Louis Marie picks out the death of Christ on the Cross as the greatest manifestation of this love, to the point where he can say:
Wisdom is the Cross, and the Cross is Wisdom.
Making the assumption that all human beings desire happiness, and that "wisdom" (in a natural sense) is the way to achieve this, he discusses various forms of wisdom, and states that the only true wisdom is the Wisdom of God, incarnate in Jesus Christ himself. It then becomes the life-long quest of all Christians to seek to acquire this Wisdom, or, in other words, to seek to know and love Jesus Christ, the Eternal Wisdom of God. He proposes four principal means to achieve this:
1. An ardent desire to do so
2. Constant prayer for this grace
3. "Universal" mortification
4. A tender devotion to the Blessed Virgin.
He claims that this fourth means (devotion to the Blessed Virgin) is the most effective way to acquire and preserve Divine Wisdom, and it is this theme which he develops in the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin and The Secret of Mary. The third means (universal mortification) is seen as a way of participating in the Cross of Christ, by accepting our own "crosses" and so becoming more aware of the love shown by the sufferings of Christ. He develops this theme more in A Letter to the Friends of the Cross.
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This is the book for which St. Louis Marie de Montfort is probably best-known. It should, however be read in the context of The Love of Eternal Wisdom, where he makes it plain that a "tender devotion to the Blessed Virgin" is only a means (although the most effective means) to acquire and preserve Divine Wisdom.
In the True Devotion, St. Louis Marie sets out his teaching on devotion to Mary in general, and proposes a particular form of devotion, involving a total dedication or consecration of oneself to Jesus through the hands of Mary. The first part of the book is devoted to showing that devotion to Mary is not an end in itself. It is always a means to becoming more dedicated to the service of Jesus Christ. It is, however, he claims, a necessary means to this, and is indeed the surest way to achieving this goal. He examines the qualities of what he calls "true" (or genuine) devotion to Mary, as opposed to false devotion. And he makes it clear that there can be many different kinds of "true" devotion to her. Yet he claims, based on his own experience and reading, to have found one form of devotion to Mary which achieves its aim (to bring us closer to Jesus Christ) more effectively than any other.
The form of devotion to Mary to which he refers (and which he earnestly proposes to his readers) consists in a total dedication of oneself to Jesus Christ through the hands of Mary. This total dedication he calls "consecration", and he is careful to explain that, even though we may speak of "consecration to Mary", this must always be understood as only a step on the way to "consecration to Jesus Christ". The rest of the book is taken up with an explanation of what this total dedication means in practice, and with descriptions of its effects in a person who undertakes it, intended to encourage us to embrace it. It also examines various "practices" of devotion intended to help us to live it out, both "exterior" and "interior" practices, as he calls them. Among the exterior practices, he speaks of the recitation of the Rosary, a topic which he treats more fully in The Admirable Secret of the Rosary.
This form of devotion to Mary was known in St Louis Marie's day (and before) as "Holy Slavery", and he spends some time explaining the meaning of this phrase, insisting that, far from being a slavery of compulsion, it must be a "slavery of love". Other phrases, more in tune with our modern way of thinking, could easily be used in place of this.
Another of St Louis Marie's works, The Secret of Mary, is a shorter presentation of much the same matter as is found in the True Devotion.
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The Secret of Mary presents much the same matter as the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, in a shortened form, but it also includes a section on "The Tree of Life". It seems to have been written for a member (or members) of a Religious Congregation. The title indicates the way in which St Louis Marie presents his topic: he wishes to disclose a "secret" of holiness, or a "secret" for finding happiness, and that "secret" is to be found in Mary, and in particular in the form of devotion to her which he proposes in the book.
As in the True Devotion, the first part of the book is concerned with the "necessity" of a genuine devotion to Mary, the Mother of God, for a real knowledge of, and adhesion to Jesus Christ. Again, this devotion to Mary is a means to this end, never an end in itself, and is necessary only because God himself has chosen the way of Mary to reveal himself in Jesus Christ.
In the second part of the book, St Louis Marie examines briefly some genuine forms of devotion to Mary, before presenting what he calls "the perfect practice of devotion to Mary", which he says is "unknown to many and practiced by very few". This perfect devotion, he says, consists in "surrendering oneself in the manner of a slave to Mary, and to Jesus through Mary, and then performing all our actions with Mary, in Mary, through Mary and for Mary", referring to this as a "consecration". He goes on to discuss what this means, and in particular what he means by performing all our actions "with Mary, in Mary, through Mary and for Mary".
In a kind of supplement at the end of the book, we find two very beautiful prayers: a Prayer to Jesus, and a Prayer to Mary; and a short metaphor for this form of devotion, which he calls "The Tree of Life".
The matter presented briefly in the Secret of Mary is much more developed in the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin.
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The Letter to the Friends of the Cross is largely a meditation on the words of Christ:
If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself, and take up his cross and follow me (Mt 16:24; Lk 9:23).
It is addressed to the members of an association which he seems to have established in various places during the course of his missions, and presents the self-renunciation called for by Christ as a necessary, beneficial and glorious means of becoming a true disciple of Christ. St Louis Marie here gives practical "rules" for making our own sufferings and acts of penance and mortification a real "following of Christ". It could well be read in conjunction with what he says in The Love of Eternal Wisdom on the third means for acquiring Divine Wisdom: universal mortification.
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One of the most honourable titles given to St Louis Marie ("the priest with the big rosary") is that of "Apostle of the Cross and of the Holy Rosary". The Rosary occupied an important place in his own spiritual life and in his apostolate. The Secret of the Holy Rosary (as it is sometimes called) is not as original in its composition as his other books, for here he is demonstrating the value of one particular devotional practice (among others mentioned in the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin), and at the same time borrowing extensively from many authors.
As he was primarily a missionary of the ordinary people, concentrating especially on the poor and abandoned, he set out to renew in them the spirit of Christianity, believing that this could be achieved by devotion to Mary which could only lead people to Jesus and holiness. He believed that the Rosary was a wonderfully secret way of knowing Mary and finding Jesus through her. He established the devotion of the Rosary wherever he preached and had it recited publicly every day during his missions. This book, though not published in his lifetime, was certainly intended for all classes of people, as is clear from the "Little Roses" in the introduction. In the body of the book, which (like the Rosary itself) is divided into Decades, each with ten "roses", he speaks about the origin of this form of Marian devotion and the climate of miracles in which it developed over the centuries. Well aware that critics would express doubts about some of his stories, he simply points out that he has quoted them from reputable authors. Other sections of the book deal with the power and effectiveness of the Rosary, the prayers of which it is made up, the beauty and usefulness of the meditations which should accompany it. He describes how to say the Rosary "worthily", and at the end provides some Methods of Reciting the Rosary.
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As would be expected from a popular missionary, St Louis Marie's book, The Admirable Secret of the Rosary, was meant to serve as a practical apostolate, and with this in mind he added to his book three methods for saying the Rosary, including one which he had composed for the Daughters of Wisdom. He gives two further methods in his Book of Sermons, and these are included in "God Alone - The Collected Writings of St. Louis Marie de Montfort". An appendix to Methods of reciting the Rosary in God Alone adds some passages which St Louis Marie quotes verbatim from other authors, on The Principal Rules of the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary, the power and dignity of the Rosary and the dignity of the Hail Mary.
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![[Cover]](godalone.gif) | This book contains all the major writings (excluding all but a few of the Hymns) of St Louis Marie, translated into English, in one volume of 630 pages. It is well bound, with an attractive layout. It contains copious footnotes, together with an index of subjects, an index of proper names, and a third index of Biblical references. It costs just $24.95 US or £18.00 Sterling.
God Alone can be obtained by writing to: Montfort Publicationsor: Montfort Press |
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![[Cover]](jlm.gif) |
This book is a collection of 88 articles, written by experts in their field, on themes relating to the spirituality of St Louis Marie de Montfort. It contains over 1300 pages, with indices of subjects, proper names and Biblical references. It brings together under one cover all the best thinking on Montfortian Spirituality, and is an excellent companion volume to God Alone - The Collected Writings of St Louis Marie de Montfort. It costs just $34.95 US or £24.00 Sterling. Jesus Living in Mary can be obtained by writing to: Montfort Publicationsor: Montfort Press |
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