Keeping Us Connected Newsletter

September 6, 2024

“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.”

– St. Louis de Montfort

Dear Saint Mary Friends,

Today we complete the series on saints represented in our Adoration Chapel, with a look at St. Louis de Montfort.

He’s not a martyr like Anna Wang or Peter To Rot; nor did he have the dramatic life of a Josephine Bakhita, Martin de Porres or Kateri Tekakwitha. But he was a faithful priest and missionary throughout France who is responsible for profound insights into devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. In fact, it’s Montfort who gave us the first 33-day consecration to Jesus through Mary that so many have done over centuries.

Here are just some brief highlights of his fruitful life:

Louis Grignion de Montfort was born in 1673, the oldest of eighteen children. As a child he spent long hours praying before a statue of the Blessed Virgin in the church at Rennes.

His seminary years were difficult, his superiors who were often lax in their faith, did all they could to delay his ordination, after which it was more than a year before he was given an assignment.

He Embraced Poverty

He walked 200 miles from Paris to Poitiers to reach his first assignment as chaplain of the hospital for the poor. The poor patients, seeing his own impoverished appearance, thought he was worse off than they and so took up a collection for him. He rejoiced to be identified with the poorest of the poor.

“Building a Calvary in our Hearts”

Montfort had a custom of often sculpting a Calvary scene to leave in parishes where he gave retreats. He did this on a hill near the parish church at Pontchateau. All was prepared for the bishop to come bless the scene. Sadly, some military commanders convinced the king and bishop that this was a base for British spies. The bishop then told him not only would he not bless the scene but that it would have to be demolished. Montfort went back to angry parishioners who wanted to march on the bishop’s residence. He serenely told them: “We had hoped to build a Calvary here. Evidently, the Lord wants us to build it in our hearts.”

Total Consecration: To Jesus Through Mary

He was most known for his writings on Mary. This in particular brought about demonic resistance and ecclesial obstruction. By the time of his death, he had been kicked out of all but two of France’s over 170 dioceses.

As he predicted during his life, the devil did all in his power to keep his writings from spreading. But miraculously, over a hundred years after his death in 1716, someone rummaging through a box of old books happened upon a manuscript titled Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin. It soon spread far and wide, inspiring countless Catholics to follow the sublime path outlined by this humble priest.

In this spiritual masterpiece, Montfort shows Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary as the means for bringing about the kingdom of Jesus Christ on earth.

“All our perfection consists in being conformed, united and consecrated to Jesus Christ…. therefore the most perfect of all devotions is that which most perfectly conforms, unites and consecrates us to Jesus.”

“Now, Mary being the most conformed of all creatures to Jesus, 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.”

Montfort's intense devotion to Mary is clearly Christocentric. So strongly does he insist on this point that he says if devotion to Mary alienated us from Jesus it would have to be rejected as a diabolical temptation.

Simply yet powerfully he presented Mary as the surest and safest way to Christ. It was the way the Father sent his Son to us; therefore our best way to Him is through her. He would say that when we pray “Hail Mary” she responds “Jesus!”

St. Louis de Montfort died in 1716 and was canonized in 1947. His Feast Day is April 28.

Blessings,