Mary in the Mystery of Christ and the Church
Is Marian Spirituality Evangelical? (Part II)
Fr. J. Patrick Gaffney, SMM
As mentioned in the first section of this article, the spirituality of St. Louis de Montfort is rightly called a Marian path of perfection. To be authentically Christian, Marian Spirituality can not present itself “as apart from,” or “beyond” or “parallel to” the fundamentally Christian Spirituality. And this evangelical spirituality is, as Pope Paul VI notes in his Marialis Cultus, trinitarian, Christocentric and ecclesial. Briefly, this means that authentic devotion to the Mother is essentially devotion to the Son, the Incarnate Word, thereby uniting Mary’s devotee more intimately to the body of Christ. The last issue of The Queen briefly showed how strongly trinitarian / Christocentric is Saint Louis de Montfort’s Marian path.
This installment closes the article / series by demonstrating the essentially ecclesial character of the saint’s devotion to Our Lady.
To declare the Marian Spirituality is ecclesial is, fundamentally, to insist on the holiness of Mary. She, as the paramount member of the Body of Christ, is filled with the life of her Son beyond human comprehension. To imitate her, therefore, to unite oneself to her, is nothing short of immersing oneself more securely, more perfectly, more intensely into holiness of the community of the baptized, the body of Christ, the Church. This is the point to be clarified in this article segment, with special reference to Montfort Spirituality.
The Petrine and Marian Principles of the Church
When Marian Spirituality is called ecclesial because it inserts us more deeply into the holiness of the Church, it must be recalled that the Church possesses both an inseparable principle of hierarchical authority and a principle of hierarchical holiness. As Pope John Paul II explained in his encyclical The Dignity of Women, “Although the Church possesses a hierarchical structure, nevertheless this structure is totally ordered to the holiness of the Christ’s members. And holiness is measured according to the “great mystery” in which the Bride responds with the gift of love to the gift of the Bridegroom” (27). To put it another way, the Church is, quoting Pope John Paul, “both Marian and Apostolic-petrine.”
When Mary is rightly called the “figure” of the Church, it is her preeminence in the hierarchy of holiness that is proclaimed, not any apostolic authority. In the Holy Father’s address to the Cardinals and Prelates of the Roman Curia on December 22, 1987, he mentioned that “this Marian profile is also – even perhaps more so – fundamental and characteristic for the Church as is the Apostolic and Petrine profile to which it is profoundly united … The Marian dimension of the Church is antecedent to that of the Petrine, without being any way divided from it or being less complementary. Mary Immaculate precedes all others, including Peter himself and the Apostles. This is so, not only because Peter and the Apostles, being born of the human race under the burden of sin, form part of the Church which is “holy from out of sinners”, but also because their triple function has no other purpose except to form the Church in line with the ideal of sanctity already programmed and prefigured in Mary. A contemporary theologian (II. U Von Balthasar) has rightly stated that Mary “is Queen of the Apostles without any pretensions to apostolic powers: She has other greater powers.”
To declare Marian devotion ecclesial because of Mary’s holiness is not to deny the apostolic structure and authority of the Church. Rather, it points out the purpose and goal of the hierarchical authority of the Church: the holiness of Christ’s members.
Painting: Madonna and Child: Pinturicchio (1454-1513)
This is a second and concluding article in this series on Mary in the Mystery of Christ and the Church: Is Marian Spirituality Evangelical? Part I may be found here.
To imitate her, therefore, to unite oneself to her, is nothing short of immersing oneself more securely, more perfectly, more intensely into holiness of the community of the baptized, the body of Christ, the Church.
The Second Vatican Council clarifies the “ecclesial” nature of devotion to Our Lady when it declares: “As Saint Ambrose taught, the Mother of God is a type of the Church in order of faith, charity and perfect union with Christ. For in the mystery of the Church, which in itself is called mother and virgin, the Blessed Virgin stands out in eminent and singular fashion as exemplar both of virgin and mother … the Church indeed contemplating her hidden sanctity, imitating her charity and faithfully fulfilling the Father’s will, by receiving the word of God in faith becomes herself a mother … she herself is a virgin who keeps in its entirety and purity the faith she pledged to her spouse” (Constitution of the Church 63-64).
Pope John Paul cites Vatican II’s Constitution of the Church when he clarifies Mary’s role as the figure of the Church. “The Second Vatican Council, confirming the teaching of the whole tradition, recalled that in hierarchy holiness, it is precisely the “woman”, Mary of Nazareth, who is the “figure” of the Church. She “precedes” everyone on the path to holiness; in her person “the Church has already reached the perfection whereby she exists without spot or wrinkle” (cf. Eph 5:27).
There can be no doubt therefore, that devotion to Our Lady is ecclesial, as explained clearly by the Magisterium of the Church. As Von Balthasar declares, “The (Church) is the union of those who united and constituted by the Yes pronounced by Mary … are disposed to accept promptly the salvific will of God.”
The Marian Path of St. Louis de Montfort
Does St. Louis de Montfort stress this ecclesial nature of devotion to Mary? Or to put it another way, does he insist on the preeminent holiness of Our Lady among all the members of the Body of Christ and to such an extent that he recognizes Our Lady as a way to holiness? The answer is so obvious that only a few quotes will suffice.
1. Mary the Holiest of the Disciples of Jesus
At the very start of True Devotion, St. Louis de Montfort writes “Mary is the excellent masterpiece of the Most High, the knowledge and possession of which He has kept for Himself… Mary is the admirable Mother of the Son … in His heart He esteemed and loved her above all the angels and men. Mary is the “sealed fountain,” the faithful spouse of the Holy Spirit to whom He alone has entrance. Mary is the sanctuary and rest of the Holy Trinity where God dwells more magnificently and more divinely than in any other place in the universe, not excepting His dwelling between the Cherubim and Seraphim” (TD 5).
In relation to her great sanctity, Montfort says “Of Mary, there is never enough.” “We have not yet praised, exalted, honored, loved and served Mary as we ought” (TD 10). Even a superficial reading of St. Louis Marie’s Marian works illustrates his awesome respect for the holiness of the Mother of God. “Her transformation into God far surpasses that experienced by St. Paul and other saints, more than heaven surpasses the earth” (SM 21).
2. Mary, the Pathway to Holiness
Montfort’s Secret of Mary and True Devotion summaries the role of Mary as not only the exemplar of holiness but also the spouse of the Spirit of Holiness. “It all comes to this. We must discover a simple means to obtain from God the grace needed to become holy. It is precisely this I wish to teach you. My contention is that you must first discover Mary if you would obtain this grace from God” (SM 6). The saint then gives ten reasons for this assertion (SM 7-22). Among them are: “Mary alone found grace with God for herself and for every individual person. No patriarch nor prophet, nor any other person of the Old Law could manage to find this grace. It was Mary who gave existence and life to the author of all grace and because of this she is called the Mother of All Grace” … God chose her to be the treasurer, the administrator and the dispenser of all graces so that all His graces and gifts pass through her hands … Since Mary produced the head of the elect, Jesus Christ, she must also produce the members of the elect, that is all true Christians … The Holy Spirit espoused Mary and produced His greatest work, the Incarnate Word, In Her, By Her, and Through Her. He has never disowned her and so He continues to produce every day, in a mysterious but very real manner, the souls of the elect in her and through her.
There can be no doubt whatsoever that the Marian path outlined by St. Louis de Montfort fulfills all the criteria for authentically Christian Spirituality.
