Question about True Devotion to Mary

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mathematoons

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I’ve been reading True Devotion to Mary by St Louis de Montfort. The idea is interesting, but there’s one thing I can’t understand. De Montfort says that we shouldn’t go to Jesus except through Mary, that any devotion we give to Him will be corrupted by our sinful nature, but it will be pure if it goes through Mary instead. This is a strange concept to me.

First, I thought Jesus was the gate to the Father. He didn’t say anything about there being a gate to the gate. In fact, He said to pray, “Our Father, who art in Heaven…”

Second, Jesus gives Himself to us in the Eucharist. That doesn’t seem to fit with the distant Jesus described by De Montfort.

Third, I’ve been praying to God since I converted. If I follow De Montfort’s work, does that mean I have to start talking to Jesus only through Mary, the way I would speak to a foreigner through an interpreter?

I’ve been researching this, but no one seems to have an answer. I hope someone here can help.
 
mathematoons said:
I’ve been reading True Devotion to Mary by St Louis de Montfort. The idea is interesting, but there’s one thing I can’t understand. De Montfort says that we shouldn’t go to Jesus except through Mary, that any devotion we give to Him will be corrupted by our sinful nature, but it will be pure if it goes through Mary instead. This is a strange concept to me.

First, I thought Jesus was the gate to the Father. He didn’t say anything about there being a gate to the gate. In fact, He said to pray, “Our Father, who art in Heaven…”

Second, Jesus gives Himself to us in the Eucharist. That doesn’t seem to fit with the distant Jesus described by De Montfort.

Third, I’ve been praying to God since I converted. If I follow De Montfort’s work, does that mean I have to start talking to Jesus only through Mary, the way I would speak to a foreigner through an interpreter?

I’ve been researching this, but no one seems to have an answer. I hope someone here can help.
Click to expand...
The answers are in fact in Scripture straight from Christ’s mouth. He calls us to “deny ourselves,” “Unless one hates his life, will save it to eternal life.” Also “Unless the grain of wheat falls and dies.” We are called to deny ourselves everyday (dying to self). True devotion is a practice of humility, “those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Sorry for paraphrasing I can get the numbers of each verse if you’d like. I hope this helps a little.
 
JESUS taught us to direct our prayers to the father, but to also invoke JESUS’ name.

If we are in need of THE LORD, but are not in a position where we feel we are entitled to ask, then we ask the Aid (intercession) of JESUS, Mary, Saints, etc.

If we ask the Aid of THE LORD, directly, I am certain HE knows what is in your heart before you do, and has “heard” you. YOU ARE IN-AUDIENCE OF THE LORD. Rest your head in the PALM OF HIS HAND.
 
De_Montfort said:
The answers are in fact in Scripture straight from Christ’s mouth. He calls us to “deny ourselves,” “Unless one hates his life, will save it to eternal life.” Also “Unless the grain of wheat falls and dies.” We are called to deny ourselves everyday (dying to self). True devotion is a practice of humility, “those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Sorry for paraphrasing I can get the numbers of each verse if you’d like. I hope this helps a little.
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I don’t see how this defends St. Louis’ writing. I’m not in agreement with it either (St. Louis is not the Magisterium). God inhabits the praises of his people (Ps. 22:3). So our praise is imperfect and poor because of our sinful nature. So what? Because of our baptism we offer the Father our praise and devotion in our common priesthood, which is a participation in the priesthood of Christ himself, which it always pleasing to the Father.

And further, the OP is right; I’ve never been able to wrap my head around all things must pass through Mary since Catholic sacramental theology is very clear: it is Christ himself who acts through his minister. It’s not even the minister being a gateway, but rather Christ acts directly. For example, in Confession, the priest does not merely represent Christ and relay the grace; it is Christ himself who absolves in the ministry of his priest.

I know and understand that God does tie the granting of favours to the prayers and merits of our Lady and the saints; that is not in dispute. Our Lady bore Grace Himself; that is not in dispute either. St. Louis’ language is way too flowery for me.
 
I found an excellent book that serves as a great “companion” to de Monfort’s. It’s called 33 Days to Morning Glory by Michael E Gaitley, MIC. He follows the writings of four great Marian saints and blesseds: de Montfort, Kolbe, John Paul ll, and Mother Theresa. He explains de Montfort beautifully in terms our 21st century minds can easily comprehend. I highly recommend it. I read de Montfort a couple of years ago and had some of the same questions you have. The problem wasn’t so much what de Montfort was teaching, but the way my modern brain understood it. Gaitley translates 18th century language into 21st century language.
I hope this helps. Please don’t let the language, which made perfect sense to de Montfort’s audience, put you off from Marian consecration.
Kris
 
mathematoons said:
I’ve been reading True Devotion to Mary by St Louis de Montfort. The idea is interesting, but there’s one thing I can’t understand. De Montfort says that we shouldn’t go to Jesus except through Mary, that any devotion we give to Him will be corrupted by our sinful nature, but it will be pure if it goes through Mary instead. This is a strange concept to me.

First, I thought Jesus was the gate to the Father. He didn’t say anything about there being a gate to the gate. In fact, He said to pray, “Our Father, who art in Heaven…”

Second, Jesus gives Himself to us in the Eucharist. That doesn’t seem to fit with the distant Jesus described by De Montfort.

Third, I’ve been praying to God since I converted. If I follow De Montfort’s work, does that mean I have to start talking to Jesus only through Mary, the way I would speak to a foreigner through an interpreter?

I’ve been researching this, but no one seems to have an answer. I hope someone here can help.
Click to expand...
Well, just start with the liturgy of the Church. You’ll see that in the vast majority of cases, prayers are addressed directly to God.
 
I have made the De Montfort consecration to our Lady several times in my life, and plan to do it again soon.

In fact, I have heard so much about the book “33 Days to Morning Glory”, that I will purchase it and enjoy the enhancements by the other mentioned Marian devotees.

Mary is the perfect disciple of Jesus, and Jesus has given her to us. It was too much too soon for the early Christians to fully understand that yet. In fact our Lord Jesus Christ mentioned that in Scripture (my last sentence, I will try to find it after I finish this post.)

Jesus gave her to us at the foot of the cross, and she is our Mother. When she looks at us, she sees a beloved of God that her Son loves.

You don’t have to picture Mary constantly,…you can make a morning offering. Over the years, if you stay with the devotion, you will better understand why this devotion is recommended. Gradually our devotion and appreciation of Mary increases, and we get to know her better.

St. Louis Marie de Montfort himself says on page 65 of “Preparation for Total Consecration” that “Jesus Christ our Savior, true God and true Man, ought to be the last end of all our devotions, else they are false and delusive.”

I had read the larger book that explains true and false devotions to our Blessed Mother before I made the consecration for the first time.

I hope my sharing has helped!
 
I found another book which translates St Louis De Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary, paragraph by paragraph. The book helps explain the archaic baroque language used by St Louis De Montfort.

Echo of God, Fr Lance Harlow
 
I found the verse in the bible that I mentioned in my post:

John 16:12 “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.”

Our Lord established the Church, and the authority given to the Church teaches us. We have learned a lot about our Blessed Mother and her privileges since the beginnings.
 
mathematoons said:
I’ve been reading True Devotion to Mary by St Louis de Montfort. The idea is interesting, but there’s one thing I can’t understand. De Montfort says that we shouldn’t go to Jesus except through Mary, that any devotion we give to Him will be corrupted by our sinful nature, but it will be pure if it goes through Mary instead. This is a strange concept to me.

First, I thought Jesus was the gate to the Father. He didn’t say anything about there being a gate to the gate. In fact, He said to pray, “Our Father, who art in Heaven…”

Second, Jesus gives Himself to us in the Eucharist. That doesn’t seem to fit with the distant Jesus described by De Montfort.

Third, I’ve been praying to God since I converted. If I follow De Montfort’s work, does that mean I have to start talking to Jesus only through Mary, the way I would speak to a foreigner through an interpreter?

I’ve been researching this, but no one seems to have an answer. I hope someone here can help.
Click to expand...
A consecration of everything thru Mary dosen’t mean that we address only Mary. It is in the spirit of Mary that we give to God everything because she was sinless, virginal, and the one who loved God the most being his mother. She knew how to love him more than anyone else.

So a dedication of self to God thru Mary still means addressing all those in heaven and on earth as normally done. So the point of consecration is that we live in the spirit of holiness as Mary did, and ask her as our benefactor to present everything we do during our earthly life to her Son so that it might be more pleasing in his eye seening Mary’s love added to ours.

Just a thought.​

“God is love, and all who live in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” (hymn)
 
De_Montfort said:
The answers are in fact in Scripture straight from Christ’s mouth. He calls us to “deny ourselves,” “Unless one hates his life, will save it to eternal life.” Also “Unless the grain of wheat falls and dies.” We are called to deny ourselves everyday (dying to self). True devotion is a practice of humility, “those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Sorry for paraphrasing I can get the numbers of each verse if you’d like. I hope this helps a little.
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Can you explain the connection between those teachings of Jesus and my question? I’m not seeing it. From having read your other posts, I can see that you’re quite knowledgeable about DeMontfort’s teaching, but some of us don’t see it as easily as you.
 
I am preparing myself to make the consecration although to be honest, I don’t totally understand. However, I have little doubt that I’m supposed to do it. I’ve been thinking about it off and on for months and within the space of 1 week, I got 3 separate confirmations suggesting that I make the consecration. This is one of those things that I’m just going to go with and see where it leads. . .

I do wonder why did God allow Mary to be “hidden” for so long? Meaning, there isn’t much about her in scripture (to the untrained eye) and we don’t start getting the Marian dogmas and apparitions until much later in Church history. Thoughts?
 
mathematoons said:
Can you explain the connection between those teachings of Jesus and my question? I’m not seeing it. From having read your other posts, I can see that you’re quite knowledgeable about DeMontfort’s teaching, but some of us don’t see it as easily as you.
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You said in your original post that De Montfort portrays a “distant Jesus” When in fact the whole point of True Devotion is continual union with Jesus. In living True devotion we are living the Gospel and following the commands of Christ. We do not trust in ourselves and trust in our Heavenly Mother who glorifies God forever perfectly. In this devotion we die to self, fill ourselves with God, and charity to our neighbor.

Christ says in Scripture Mark 10:44 “and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.” We are called to be slaves of each other. Why would Christ be offended at being a slave of Our Mother in order to be a better slave to Him?

Some may ask why a mediator with the One mediator? In John 13:20 Jesus says “Truly, truly I say to you, he who receives any one whom I send receives me; and he who receives me, receives him who sent me.” Christ sent Mary into our lives from the Cross and when we receive Her we receive Him.

I am just trying to show that living True devotion in turn is living the Gospel. It is following the footsteps of Christ, He said Mark 10:45 “For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and give his life as a ransom for many.” He served His (our) Mother for 30 years. I want to follow in His footsteps 🙂 and follow his commandments.

Just trying to help
God Bless Your on your journey!
 
Mary always leads to Jesus. I have done the consecration myself on the Annunciation last year an renewed it at the same time this year. Since doing this consecration I have found that I have been drawn closer to Jesus and I have more trust in God it seems. Its not a case of devotion to Mary and thats it, it’s a case of going to Jesus through Mary who as St De Montfort describes increases our prayers and merits with her own merits. Some would say why do you need a mediator with Jesus, well you don’t necessarily though it is helpful and does draw you closer to Jesus to have His mother advocating for you.
You see once you do this consecration you do not have to always go to Mary but simply have that underlying intention, so of course you can pray to Jesus directly as doing the yearly consecration program instills that intention of doing it through Mary. A De Montfort Priest said a small glance towards Mary helps, but I know that can be hard to always do so I guess the daily prayer “I am all yours and all that I have I offer You, Oh Most loving Jesus, through Mary your holy mother,” helps to keep this spirit of the consecration in you.
 
Thanks for the link!

I’m still having trouble understanding the reason for a mediator between us and the one mediator between man and God (cf. 1 Timothy 2:5). Everyone who has anything to say about it assumes this as an axiom. I understand now that we do get to Jesus that way (thanks De_Montfort for the Bible verses). But Mary’s will is united with God’s, as I hope mine is someday while I’m still on Earth. So, as I understand it, she won’t pray for anything that isn’t already part of God’s will (unlike me; I pray for things that I later learn I should not have, and I end up thanking God for saying no). Therefore the answer should be the same whether I pray to God directly or through Mary.
 
mathematoons said:
Thanks for the link!

I’m still having trouble understanding the reason for a mediator between us and the one mediator between man and God (cf. 1 Timothy 2:5)…
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This Scripture is worth looking at…

Actually Christ is clear in Scripture about sending mediators, this is what He says,
(John 13:20)
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who receives any one whom I send receives me; and he who receives me receives him who sent me.”
 
De_Montfort said:
This Scripture is worth looking at…

Actually Christ is clear in Scripture about sending mediators, this is what He says,
(John 13:20)
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who receives any one whom I send receives me; and he who receives me receives him who sent me.”
Click to expand...
I understand that we can go to Him though a mediator, but why is it preferable to do so?
 
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