Editorial: Fools for God’s Sake

Fools for God’s Sake

Walking along the banks of the Clain in Poitiers, France, Father de Montfort noticed a group of boys, foul-mouthed and brazen, romping in the river. Their gross antics were staged to harass a group of washerwomen nearby. The priest’s words to the teenage hooligans meant nothing. As the youngsters continued their play while scampering to the shore, he took off the cord around his waist and snapped it against the bare rumps to force them to move on. One of the youngsters went home whimpering that the priest with the big Rosary lashed out at him. His mother immediately reported it to the Bishop. And Father de Montfort was told he could no longer celebrate Mass in the diocese.

Now St. Louis de Montfort could have said a few words in reprimand and just walked by. But in his mind, that would be – at best – a watered down version of the Gospel. What would others think? That was the last thought that would go through his head; his longest cantique – 152 stanzas! – is on the dangers of human respect.

Similar stories abound in the saint’s life. At college in Rennes, he did not just watch a fellow student being heckled because of extremely miserable clothes. He had the evangelical boldness to take up a collection for him among the students themselves and then accompanied the poor colleague to the tailor. “If this isn’t enough money to buy him a new suit, then it is up to you to make up the rest,” he told the merchant.

Saint Louis de Montfort is a man of evangelical action. Praying for someone is not enough. Mouthing the Good News is useless. Filled with the Spirit, he became involved. His prayerful, contemplative life propelled him into a life of evangelical service to the poorest of the poor.

Living the Gospel fully is the greatest challenge we face. “If you are afraid to take risk for God, you’ll never do anything for Him” he wrote Mother Marie Louise, when she balked at leaving Poitiers for La Rochelle. Montfort’s life is filled with Gospel-risks. His actions were often considered unfitting for a priest in the early 1700’s: living a vagabond’s life; bolding walking into the middle of a group of soldiers who were fighting and blaspheming God’s name; bring a beggar with him when invited to a meal; dressed only in the poorest of clerical garb; filled with tender kindness toward the greatest public sinners who requested God’s forgiveness.

It was primarily for these “eccentricities” of his evangelical life that Montfort shunned but some of his former seminary teachers and, at times, asked to leave the diocese. But as he emotionally explained to his friend, Monsignor J.B. Blaine who urged him to drop these “exaggerations”: “If living the Gospel means being called eccentric, so be it.”

What we need today are Gospel eccentrics, like Saint Louis de Montfort. Contemplation pours us out in service to the needy, to the homeless, to the sick and to the dying. No true contemplative learns of the millions of abortions and calms his conscience by saying three Hail Mary’s. The love of God moves us, urges us to become involved, each one according to his role in life.

It was G.K. Chesterton who wrote: “Christianity, even when watered down, is hot enough to boil modern society to rags.” Imagine what Christianity can do if it is not diluted! Instead of sulking about the present situation in parishes, family life, government, we are called to risk “Christian involvement” in the crisis of the times. And that is the rub. We can not truly transform modern society if we are not contemplatives. Years ago, Karl Rahner put it clearly: “The religious person of tomorrow will be mystic, someone who has experienced God, or else he will no longer be.” The times demand action. And evangelical action is the fruit of contemplation. It is not either prayer or action, either contemplation or involvement. It is not an either/or. It is both. Contemplation reveals itself in action. The apostolate flows from contemplation.

How can we, like Fr. de Montfort, bravely and boldly live the Gospel in today’s world? By living Through Mary, In Mary. When the Holy Spirit finds Our Lady in a soul, He flies there and works wonders. Father Faber’s strong words to English Catholics years ago apply to our own times: “Here in England Mary is not half enough preached. Devotion to her is low and thin and poor… Hence it is that Jesus is not loved, that heretics are not converted, that the Church is not exalted; that souls which might be saints wither and dwindle; that the sacraments are not rightly frequented… Jesus is obscured because Mary is kept in the background.”

The consecration to Jesus through Mary promoted by Saint Louis de Montfort is essentially apostolic, demanding involvement. As Our Lady took that great risk of saying “Yes” to Gabriel’s invitation, so must a slave of love of Jesus in Mary fully live the baptismal promise of service to others.

Montfort’s secret formula for evangelical action is to live In Mary, sharing her total and undivided surrender to the Lord. Thus, with Saint Louis de Montfort, we become like her: Fools for God’s Sake.