A Message From John Paul II to Montfort Missionaries of Today: Part I

. . . Holiness

How many times, preparing to meet with diverse groups all over the world, have I read and reflected on the Message that Pope John Paul II wrote to our Montfortian Family!

Yet I am always struck by how accurately the Holy Father has seized on the rich spectrum of the life and charism of St. Louis-Marie, and how clearly he points out the challenges which confront the sons and daughters of Montfort today. Even to remember the date of the Canonization, 20 July 1947. And then to conjure up fifty years of history. Fifty years of radical change that thrust the Company of Mary onto the threshold of the year 2000 is most exciting and instructive!

Remembering Montfort’s Canonization

In 1947, with the War’s destruction and hardships nearly everywhere, who would have foreseen the great increase in vocations? Foreseen the building of impressive seminaries, the sending out of so many missionaries? In 1954, there were joyful and lavish celebrations of the Marian Year.  Scores of confreres around the world preaching parish missions.  Who would have predicted the dissolution of most of our mission bands. Who would have predicted a period of rather wide-spread paralysis or disillusionment in diffusing our Montfortian and Marian Spirituality?

Fifty years ago, shortly after our first Dutch confreres in Indonesia were released from Japanese prisoner-of-war camps, who would have imagined a thriving Montfortian presence there with 22 Indonesian confreres in perpetual vows and 26 Scholastics? Who foresaw the coming of the Montfort Missionaries and Daughters of Wisdom in India to complete the presence of the Montfortian Family so strongly begun by the Brothers of Saint Gabriel? Fifty years ago who would have dreamed of the painful demographic realities of Europe and North America, with an aging population that increased and a troubling lack of births for future generations? The 50th Anniversary of St. Louis-Marie’s Canonization encompasses fifty years of change, challenge and blessing.

God Alone is My Tenderness. . .

From the start the papal Message plunges into the heart of Montfort’s spirit and mission; “Saint Louis-Marie adopted as his motto these simple words God Alone. His love for God was total. It was with God and for God that he went towards others ” (n. 1). If Montfort acted as mystic and apostle, it was because the God who is Love had set his heart afire. God is impelling him to spread the light and warmth of that flame to all whom he met.

Saint Louis-Marie had an intense pastoral ministry. And his hands-on care of the poor and needy is evident. Also evident was the love that flowed from God Alone was not a cold, disembodied abstraction. Rather, it was a deeply felt call to be near to the poor, to be poor among the poor.  The Montfortian of today must also burn with this same fire, a fire that is both a luminous holiness because its inextinguishable source of light is God Alone, and a burning charity because the measure and limit of its love is also God Alone.

God Alone

To be his best, the Montfort Missionary unites in his heart and in his ministry the fire of the mystic and the zeal of the apostle. Someone who quietly simmers on as a religious functionary, a bourgeois, self-absorbed bachelor might resemble more the priest or Levite of Jesus’ story; who on the road to Jericho saw the victim of the robbers’ attack and continued on his way (Lk 10:31). The true Montfortian ought to act like the Samaritan, seeing the need, being moved to pity, approaching the wounded man, and taking concrete and appropriate steps to help – all because of the love of God, of God Alone, because of “the coherence of a theological and spiritual vision that is always oriented toward an intense life of faith and charity”. (n. 2).

To Unveil to the Humblest Persons the Mystery of the Trinity . . .

Pope John Paul’s Message praises St. Louis-Marie’s theocentric, Trinitarian spirituality. For the Montfort Missionary of the coming millennium, I would especially stress the pastoral implications of this. “Father de Montfort does not hesitate to unveil, even to the humblest persons, the mystery of the Trinity which inspires his prayer and reflection . . .”. (n. 2). We follow in the spirit and example of our Founder. We discover, we become the words and actions that reveal to the people of today the Wisdom of Love.

Like Montfort, we need to find ways to share this gift. Share it with the little ones, the simple folk of the village or factory or parish, the teenager, the elderly. Like Montfort we must unveil a God who is beyond rules and fears and superstition; who is greater than passing external visions or apparitions; who frees us from slavery to astrology or earthly powers, a God who is Love.

I have often witnessed with my own eyes how ordinary people,  can grow into genuinely holy people.  A lifetime’s experience of the nearness and gentleness of God in the Virgin Mary’s child; the quiet assurance of faith, hope and love through-out the joys and sorrows of daily life; the conviction to serve and care for the poor at home and abroad; grace upon grace, year by year, saints are made. It is the joy and privilege of the Montfortian to be both an agent and a recipient in this process. A process of transforming ordinary people into the fullness of Jesus Christ.

Friends . . .

To find full maturity, full stature in Christ Jesus, one must journey through the gates of death and new life; one must experience in his own spirit and flesh the mystery of the Cross.  The Holy Father tells us in his Message that the person of Christ dominates the thought of Grignion de Montfort. That the Incarnation of the Word is the absolute central reality. (n. 3).

With their holy Founder, Montfort Missionaries of the third millennium ought to be friends of the Cross. With the Incarnate Word they learn obedience through what they suffer; they live the mystery of kenosis in all its emptiness and fullness. They need to learn with Jesus of Nazareth how to be in such solidarity. Solidarity with wounded and suffering humanity, that they come to discover that there is no other savior than the Abba, the Father of Love, into whose hands they commend their lives.

. . . of the Cross

Pope John Paul tells the Montfortian Family that they must reveal to this world the truth of saving love (n. 3). That truth is revealed in its harshest, clearest, most unambiguous way on the Cross. Revealed in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Montfort Missionaries need to draw near to the Cross. Embracing it in the length and breadth and height and depth that each society, culture, physical condition, age, fraternal solidarity might present. As Montfort said, Friends of the Cross, what a glorious title!

Not in our own lives; not in the lives of our suffering brothers and sisters anywhere in the world; we may ever think or act as enemies of the Cross of Christ. Few in numbers though we might be; weak in power and influence; Montfort Missionaries nevertheless stand close to the Cross. The Cross of Jesus with Mary, his Mother, and with his brothers and sisters who suffer. With their Founder, Montfort Missionaries show that satisfaction and success do not come from money or power or human esteem. But from solidarity with the poor, patient and absolute confidence in God. And from a wisdom and a power that foolishly display their victory on the Cross of Jesus the Nazarene.