Montfort’s Spirituality: Call and Response to Happiness: Part V: The Response to Wisdom’s Call
Fr. J. Patrick Gaffney, SMM
Jesus is not only the call, He is also the response. “In Mary, He gave His Father Infinite Glory, such as His Father had never received from man” (TD 248; cf. S.Th III, q.48, a.6). Formed by the Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, He redeems us through obedience. “I have come to do thy will, O God”. (Heb 10:7; TD 248; H 41:3; FC 16). The glorious and triumphant Cross is His victory over sin and death, shared with us in the Spirit.
The Response to Wisdom’s Call
Our response to the call follows the same path that the call comes to us: through Mary and the redeeming Cross.
After a short introduction on Saint Louis de Montfort’s teaching on man’s need to respond to Jesus, the Act of Consecration will be examined together with both means, Mary and the Cross. This section will conclude with a summary. The summary includes the steps Father de Montfort outlines for his Marian path to the glory of God.
Introduction: The State of Man
The beauty and power of the Trinity’s Call to man in Christ Jesus demands a response. “For man to withhold his heart from Wisdom or to wrench it away from Him would constitute an outrage”. (LEW 64). And for Saint Louis de Montfort, it is not only an outrage, it is also a refusal to enter into the only true happiness, union with the Father through the Incarnate Word, in the Holy Spirit.
Montfort the parish mission preacher, insists that man has been devastated by original sin: “The sin of Adam has almost entirely spoiled us and soured us, filling us with pride and corrupting every one of us”. (TD 79). To some extent following what has been termed “the pessimistic Augustinianism of the French School”, three times in his True Devotion alone, he describes fallen man in harsh terms. “[We are] toads, snails, peacocks, pigs, worms, weather-vanes” . (cf. TD 79, 213, 228).
Such expressions do not give us any sense of self-worth. And there is no doubt that Saint Louis Marie intended that precise message. For this preacher who yearns “to reform the Church and renew the face of the earth” (PM 17), Eternal Wisdom did not come into this world to tell us how great we are without Him; rather, He bluntly proclaims that He has come to call sinners (cf. Mk 2:17). That “Without me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5).
Without Me You Can Do Nothing
Montfort’s descriptive terms of fallen man, taken from the agricultural setting of 17th century Brittany, may not be apropos in today’s culture. However, it cannot be denied that his spirituality is thoroughly evangelical. “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me”. (Jn 15:4). Montfort is explicitly speaking of “relying on our own works and efforts and preparations to reach God and please Him” (TD 83). . .. “our incapacity for every good thing useful for salvation”. (SM 46). Like Augustine, Montfort is reacting to what he perceives as the Neo-Pelagianism of his day.
The Ravages of Original Sin
This vagabond troubadour is also, like Augustine, convinced of the ravages which original sin have caused in man, ravages – concupiscence – which remain even after baptism. “The sin of our first father has spoilt us, soured us, puffed us up our bodies are so corrupted that they are called by the Holy Spirit bodies of sin, conceived in sin, nourished in sin, capable of all sins, bodies subject to thousands of maladies which go on corrupting from day to day and which engender nothing but disease, vermin and corruption”. (TD 79).
He insists upon our “weakness in all things, our inconstancy at all times, our unworthiness of every grace, our iniquity wherever we may be”. (TD 79). Adam is created in original justice and the missionary goes to great lengths to express the beauty of man in this state (cf. LEW 35-38). The Fall of man is, then, a cosmic calamity and has consequences which we human beings are more prone to deny than to admit. The saint’s intense union with the Lord makes him extremely sensitive to sin, vividly conscious of his own weakness and of his utter dependence upon the grace of God.
The saint is a classical example of theology’s dictum. The closer we are to God, the more we experience distance; the more in harmony we are with the Lord, the more we are sensitive to the shattering disharmony of sin. Whatever would lead man away from the Lord, whatever is not fumed fully to its Source and Goal, is called ‘the world,” or better, the “snares of the world”. His hymns 30-38 are a missionary’s trumpet-like cry. They warn of the traps the world has so cunningly set for us.
The Virgin [and Child] With Angels (cropped) : Painter: William-Adolphe Bouguereau: 1900
This oil on canvas painting now resides in Petit Palais, Paris. For those that have visited The Shrine of Our Lady of the Island, a print of the full painting resides in the third building.
If we do respond to God’s loving call, Montfort is at a loss for words to describe the majesty of our state, our divinization. One with the Incarnate Wisdom, the “wretched” man becomes a “man-God”. And the boldness of the missionary knows no bounds; “by Jesus Christ, with Jesus Christ, in Jesus Christ, we can do all things. We can become perfect ourselves and be to our neighbor the good odor of eternal life”.
The Beauty of Those Who Lose Themselves in Christ
As strongly as Montfort insists upon the depravity of man left to his own, so miserable, so proud, even more strongly does he insist on the beauty of those who lose themselves in Christ; they are “burning fires lighting up the world like suns, peaceful sheep, chaste doves, royal eagles, swarms of honey bees, herd of fleet deer, a battalion of courageous lions, endowed with the swiftness of the eagle . . .”. (cf. PM 18).
If we do respond to God’s loving call, Montfort is at a loss for words to describe the majesty of our state, our divinization. One with the Incarnate Wisdom, the “wretched” man becomes a “man-God”. (TD 157; SM 3). And the boldness of the missionary knows no bounds; “by Jesus Christ, with Jesus Christ, in Jesus Christ, we can do all things. We can become perfect ourselves and be to our neighbor the good odor of eternal life”. (TD 61).
Even when we wayfarers are united to the Lord through baptism, concupiscence still remains; the world still entices the soul to find eternal happiness in finite gods. The spirituality of Saint Louis de Montfort is ever alert to the mysterious power of created things to lure even the holiest person into sin; “I have seen the stars of heaven fall”. (TD 88; cf. SR 51, SM 40).
A. The Act of Consecration (LEW 223-227)
Montfort spirituality’s response to Incarnate Wisdom meshes perfectly with Wisdom’s call. The return made to Jesus Wisdom, the Incarnate Second Person of the Trinity, must be total. And the principal means to arrive at that Goal are especially through the glorious Cross and through Mary, spiritual mother of all. This path into the Blazing Light of Tenderness, the Father, must have a solemn and well prepared starting point, a beginning which encloses in itself the determination to walk the path faithfully, all the days of one’s life.
The saint demands a truly thoughtful beginning of the spiritual path he outlines. Just as the Incarnation itself is the beginning of our salvation and encloses whatever flows from it, so too there is to be a solemn starting point into this path to Jesus-Wisdom, which embraces all it entails to arrive at the Goal. It is not a distracted, fleeting moment. Much like a profession ceremony of the novice who has spent months in preparing for her joyful and awesome entry into religious life, so too whoever fully enters the Montfort path not only has spent some time in prayer and study of the Goal and the means, but has also gone through a preparation/retreat of at least a month before pronouncing the solemn act of consecration.
Renewed Life in Christ Jesus
The solemn beginning of a renewed life in Christ Jesus is not to be rushed. The personal and perfect affirmation of our baptismal promises – for this is essentially what the saint is proposing – is not to be hastily done. Surely, in the eyes of Father de Montfort it is considered a fuming point in the life of the baptized, bringing with it a renewal not only of an individual’s life in Christ but also through individuals, a renewal of the family and of the parish, and of the Church itself.
The Act of Consecration is to be a memorable event, so well prepared and done with such awe that it will be etched into the fabric of one’s life. The spiritual exercises in preparation for the Consecration consist of first, “at least twelve days ridding themselves of the spirit of the world”. (TD 227). The missionary considers the topic of these twelve days to be important. For his seventh external practice of Marian devotion is but a repetition of the identical subject (TD 256).
Asking the Holy Spirit For Grace
“They should then spend three weeks imbuing themselves with the spirit of Jesus through the most Blessed Virgin . . . During the first week they should offer up all their prayers and acts of devotion to acquire knowledge of themselves and sorrow for their sins”. (TD 227-228). “Each day of the second week they should endeavor in all their prayers and works to acquire an understanding of the Blessed Virgin and ask the Holy Spirit for this grace”. (TD 229). “During the third week they should seek to understand Jesus Christ better”. (TD 230). These Exercises, given in no more than a skeleton form by the missionary, echo the motives (TD 135-212) and effects (TD 213-225) of the Consecration.
Every year the Consecration is to be renewed “following the same exercises for three weeks. They might also renew it every month or even every day by saying this short prayer: “I am all yours and all I have is yours, 0 my loving Jesus, through Mary your holy Mother ”. (TD 233).
Vol. #011: November – December 2021
