St Pope John Paul II and Montfort’s Spirituality

I n his introduction to the Handbook of the Spirituality of St. Louis Marie de Montfort, entitled: JESUS LIVING IN MARY, Father Patrick Gaffney, the Editor-in-Chief of the English Edition, reminds us that: “The Montfort Path is the same one which Wisdom took to enter the human family: The Immaculate Mary. Her spirit permeates every aspect of Father de Montfort’s staunchly Christ-centered doctrine . . . The key to an understanding of Montfort Spiritualty is to grasp that this vagabond Saint is unreservedly – madly, the world would say – in love with Love Itself, Who became enfleshed through Mary’s YES.”

Pope John Paul’s personal attraction for Montfort’s Marian Spirituality, his relentless desire to tell the whole Church about it has been openly manifested on many occasions from the very start of his pontificate.

The fact is, Pope John Paul II calls his own personal encounter with Montfort Spirituality “the decisive turning point” in his life. Moreover, he terms it “indispensable to anyone who means to give himself without reserve to Christ . . ”

Little wonder then that on April 24th last [1998], the Holy Father was pleased to accept a copy of the Handbook of the Spirituality of St. Louis de Montfort from the hands of its Managing Editor, Richard Payne.

The Handbook is available by Montfort Publications using this link.