Day 4 - on the journey to Total Consecration

[MariaChristi]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Yesterday, continuing to read from St. Louis DeMontfort’s True Devotion, and pondering how to empty myself more completely from the spirit of the world, I came upon these paragraphs in Chapter One - Necessity of Devotion to Our Lady

1. When Mary has taken root in a soul she produces in it wonders of grace which only she can produce; for she alone is the fruitful virgin who never had and never will have her equal in purity and fruitfulness. Together with the Holy Spirit Mary produced the greatest thing that ever was or ever will be: a God-man. She will consequently produce the marvels which will be seen in the latter times. The formation and the education of the great saints who will come at the end of the world are reserved to her, for only this singular and wondrous virgin can produce in union with the Holy Spirit singular and wondrous things.

1. When the Holy Spirit, her spouse, finds Mary in a soul, he hastens there and enters fully into it. He gives himself generously to that soul according to the place it has given to his spouse. One of the main reasons why the Holy Spirit does not work striking wonders in souls is that he fails to find in them a sufficiently close union with his faithful and inseparable spouse. I say “inseparable spouse”, for from the moment the substantial love of the Father and the Son espoused Mary to form Jesus, the head of the elect, and Jesus in the elect, he has never disowned her, for she has always been faithful and fruitful.

It seemed to me that St. Louis De Montfort discovered these truths by God’s Grace and also by his own experience. He wrote this treatise after some years of seminary and priestly life. In giving parish missions, I wonder if he began to see the change in souls who heard how important Mary is in God’s Plan and who began to cooperate more fully with the graces God gave them.

It dawned on me, how I can often “forget” Mary’s Love for me and her part in God’s plan. Even as I began this journey, I thought of how “I” need to change or what “I” need to do or not do in preparation, which is only part of the work God desires. There is a mysterious and beautiful mystery in how God works in our souls. The “formation and education of the great saints” of which St. Louis de Montfort speaks had already begun in him, and it will continue to the end of the world in souls. We just witnessed the canonization of St. Teresa of Calcutta who had consecrated herself totally to Jesus through Mary and encouraged her missionaries to do the same. We saw also the canonization of St. John Paul II who also read de Montfort’s “True Devotion” and Consecrated himself as a young man and continually renewed his Consecration according to the method of St. Louis de Montfort.

With the Lord, one day is as a thousand and a thousand years is as a day. We are given a certain time to live and to die. Let us choose wisely how to spend each day. Come, Holy Spirit, and enable us to prepare ourselves, let us empty ourselves of the spirit of the world and look to You to root Mary in our souls, that You and she may produce in us new wonders of grace – a more perfect image of Jesus.