Editorial: Montfort: Gospel Radical

Montfort Gospel Radical

S aint Louis Marie de Montfort is often called a radical. For many, the word conjures up visions of left-wing revolutionaries poised for a coup d’état or right-wing devotees determined to blow up subways and trade centers.

Montfort hardly fits in with either category. Yet he is a radical. He is a revolutionary. He is a devotee. And all who integrate his spirituality are called to share his radical spirit.

True, there is a difference. The Father from Montfort is a Gospel radical, a Gospel revolutionary, a Gospel devotee. Montfort’s focus is to live the Good News to the hilt.  Determined to cry out – lovingly yet forcefully – against all contemporary idols which vie for man’s adoration. He is a man of the absolute. He does not tolerate half-way measures  in his own baptismal life and he proclaims constant renewal to all his fellow Catholics. Both his life and his writings bear this out.

Abandonment to the Gospel

When a young man of nineteen, he crossed the Cesson bridge on his way to studies in Paris and then gave away all he had to the poor. He was beginning a journey of joyful, total abandonment to the Gospel. Not that he ever reached the goal in this life. It slowly dawned on him that a Gospel revolutionary must be constantly stripping himself of the never-ending layers of whatever is alien to the Good News in order to be more fully clothed with Christ Jesus. For Montfort, repentance is not a Lenten exercise; it is a way of life. The Gospel radical lives for God Alone – and therefore for others – on every level of personality, in every facet of life.

The Christ-centered consecration that he taught is total, admitting of no ifs or buts. He preached renewal, reform, an ever more intense living of baptismal immersion in Christ Jesus. Saint Louis’ ardent Prayer for Missionaries, although written primarily for the Company of Mary – the Montfort Missionaries – calls all Catholics to radical Gospel living. And throughout his ministry, he found Mary to be the model Gospel radical. Her Let it be to me according to your word expresses the faith that he yearned to live more fully and share with his people.

Experience Living . . .

For those that practice Montfort Spiritual, they must also receive the call  to be Gospel radicals;  an extraordinary challenge in this secularized world. Montfort Spirituality empowers us to destroy idols. Idols such as power, wealth, prestige, selfishness, and security.  So that Jesus Wisdom is the only ultimate foundation of existence. What this means in practice is overwhelming.

How can a person who joins Saint Louis de Montfort as a Gospel radical justify accommodation to racial prejudice? Or to the pervasive anti-life atmosphere of western culture? Or to the sadly familiar “what-ever, if it makes money – or gets me votes – I’m for it”?  Even, justify a watered-down interpretation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church? A follower of the Father from Montfort strives to be a living Gospel, no matter the consequences. The strange notion that the Gospel demands can be compromised and still be Gospel must be anathema to anyone who has made the Montfort consecration. Living ever more intensely in Christ Jesus – under the transforming care of Our Lady – those who listen to Montfort are called to be totally at the service of God and of neighbor, especially of the neglected, the broken-hearted, those who wander so aimlessly in this mixed-up world.

. . . For God Alone

Radical: the term summarizes Montfort. Does it summarize us? Or have we subtly – and almost unknowingly – accommodated to the diluted version of the Gospel, so popular in the United States? We look to Mary to make us totally Christ-centered. In her we will experience the incredible joy. Experience the beautiful fulfillment of living for God Alone. God Alone who in the power of the Spirit comes to us at every moment through Jesus Wisdom. May the Lord transform all readers of The Queen into exemplars of Baptism, true Gospel radicals so that as Saint Louis de Montfort prays, “the earth may be renewed and the Church reformed.”