Editorial: Marian Life

MARIAN LIFE

W hen Father de Montfort knelt and wrote his Treatise on True Devotion to Mary, in the year 1712, he clearly foresaw the coming of the Age of Mary when, as he aptly puts it, “souls will breathe Mary as the body breathes air.” He predicted too the day when more and more souls would “lose themselves in the abyss of her interior, become living copies of Mary…and faithful portraits of Jesus Christ.” (T.D. nos. 218-220)

Little did our Saint realize, however, that he was opening up for humanity at large a new way of life which, until his day, had been the privilege of a chosen few, and which was to become known as the Marian Life. St. Louis de Montfort was not the first to live this life of union with Mary, nor was he the one who coined the term: Marian Life. He was the first, however, to reduce it to a simple, practical system of spiritual life. He was the first to popularize it by putting down on paper what ”I have taught with good results, in public and in private, during my missions for many years.”
(TD. no. 110)

Today, the term Marian Life, or life of union with Mary, is a familiar thing. Particularly for the past century, the term has been used by theologians and faithful alike to characterize that select way of Christian Life distinguished by Mary‘s predominant influence. On November 22, 1946, Pope Pius XII put the seal of his approval, so to speak, on this relatively new expression by making use of it in a discourse to a large group of French pilgrims. Speaking of a true consecration to Mary, the Holy Father said in part, ”It is a complete gift-of-self, for life and for eternity; not a mere formal or purely sentimental gift, but an effective gift-of-self carried out in the intensity of the Christian and Marian Life.”

It may be well to point out that the Holy Father places the two expressions side by side: ”Christian and Marian Life”, not indeed as though they were two parallel or diametrically opposed “lives”, but rather to show how they form but one and the same Christian Life in its fulness.

The reason for this is obvious: there is only ONE WAY of Christian Life and that is to follow Him who said: “I am the Way . . . the Truth..,and the Life.” No one will deny, however, that there are many different ways of following Christ. The man in the world and the man in the cloister, the sick and the healthy, the king and the slave, all are called to follow Christ; but obviously not by the same paths.

Another important element to keep in mind is that the Christian Life does not consist in merely following Christ as the Buddhists follow Buddha, the Moslems, Mohamed. Christian Life is essentially a life in which Christ takes possession of a soul, becomes its King and Master, and thereby claims personal, sovereign, inalienable rights over it. In a word, Christian Life means: belonging to Christ. To use the words of St. Paul: “You are not your own, you have been bought at a great price . . . You are Christ’s.” (I Cor. VI, 20; III, 23.)

Since Christ’s Life, therefore, is of the very essence of our Christian Life, we cannot escape the conclusion that in some marvelous manner we share in the very life of Christ. This union between Christ and us is so close that we become one body with Him, even as the shoots and branches of the vine are one with the vine itself. Father Olier, the founder of the Sulpicians, expresses this beautifully when he writes: “Who deserves the name of Christian? He who is possessed by the Spirit of Jesus Christ…that makes us both interiorly and exteriorly like Jesus Christ.” (Cath. for an Int. Life, P. I, Ch. 111)

This Life is inaugurated at Baptism. For, in the words of St. Louis de Montfort, every Christian “has in his Baptism, by his own mouth or by his sponsor’s, solemnly renounced Satan, his pomps and his works; and he has taken Jesus Christ for his Master and Sovereign Lord, to depend upon Him in the quality of a slave of love.” (T.D. no. 126)

If such is the nature of Christian Life that it is a complete gift-of-self to Jesus Christ, then the Marian Life must lead us to the same end, otherwise it would be false. ”Jesus Christ our Savior, true God and true Man, ought to be the last end of all our other devotions,” writes de Montfort, ”else they are false and delusive … If then we establish solid devotion to our Blessed Lady, it is only to establish more perfectly devotion to Jesus Christ, and to provide an easy and secure means for finding Jesus Christ.” (T.D. nos. 61—62)

Now if the Christian Life begins at Baptism, it is equally true that the Marian Life also begins then. Nevertheless, as de Montfort explains … in Holy Baptism, we do not give ourselves to Jesus by the hands of Mary, at least not in an explicit manner . . (T.D. no. 126) That is why our Saint urges us to enter upon this Marian Life by an explicit, personal and formal consecration of oneself to Mary and to Jesus through her. Thus, for de Montfort, the Marian Life becomes synonymous with belonging to Mary (and to Christ through her), just as Christian Life means belonging to Christ.

To establish the nature of this Marian Life in a soul is outside the scope of this editorial. It is the purpose of The Queen to introduce our readers into it gradually by expounding to you the de Montfort way of life. Suffice it for us to say that it can be reduced to what St. Thomas calls, “The mutual possession (inhabitation) of the lover and the one loved.” (1a Hae, XXVHI, Art. 2)

Needless to say, this Marian Life, far from being a hindrance to union with Christ, is the perfect way to Him. In the words of Pope Pius XII, once again, “True Devotion (to Mary), that of Tradition, that of the Church, that I might say, of Christian and Catholic common sense, tends essentially to union with Jesus under the guidance of Mary.” (Disc. July 21, 1947) To the spiritually timid who still hesitate to enter upon this perfect way of life, we say with de Montfort: “The strongest inclination of Mary is to unite us to Jesus Christ, her Son; and the strongest inclination of the Son is that we should come to Him through His Holy Mother.” (T.D. no. 75)