Montfort’s Company of Mary: Part I

Montfort’s Company of Mary

All  missionaries have a supreme model, a pioneer who guides and strengthens them: Jesus, the Apostle of the Father.

Sent into this broken world, the Savior is Himself the message of reconciliation and salvation. To truly identify with this fragmented human family yet to proclaim, through the total self-giving of the triumphant Cross, the infinite healing power of God’s Love that is the blueprint of Jesus, the missionary. The Church is empowered and mandated to proclaim this victory of the Risen Lord.  In every age, therefore, it seeks missionaries of THE Missionary, Jesus the Christ; missionaries who will identify with the brokenness of their contemporaries. Yet who will at the same time implement, by total self-giving in union with the Crucified Savior, the triumphant Love of THE Missionary, Jesus the Lord.

Apostolic Missionary

Saint Louis de Montfort (1673- 1716) was such a missionary. In fact, Pope Clement XI, recognizing the extraordinary gifts of this vagabond saint, commissioned him “Apostolic Missionary”. Instructing him to proclaim with boldness the renewal of our baptism into the victorious Redeemer, Jesus Christ, the Son of Mary. Obedient to the Holy Father, Louis de Montfort became the missionary in his home territory, north-western France, rekindling the faith by his constant parish missions and retreats of all kinds.

Yet there was something else which made this young priest quite extraordinary. Barely six months ordained, he was convinced that God was calling him to found a congregation of totally dedicated missionaries who would be so filled with the Holy Spirit that they would renew the face of the earth and reform the Church. As early as 1700, Father Louis-Mary Grignion, from the insignificant hamlet of Montfort, begged God for “a small and poor company of good priests” who would tirelessly labor under the standard of Our Blessed Mother, in total dependence on Divine Providence. This Father from Montfort, as he was called, dreamed of this congregation of missionaries; he wrote and prayed about it. But he also put his ideas into action! Alone, he began working as a missionary-chaplain of the General Hospital Of Potters.

Love for . . .

To demonstrate that a missionary must live and share the conditions of his people, Father de Montfort, the middle-class lawyer’s son, truly identified with the poorest of the poor. While struggling to organize and restore this filthy, dank, poor-house asylum, he ate the same food, slept in the same hovels, and ceaselessly proclaimed to the poor the victorious love of Jesus, the Eternal and Incarnate Wisdom. During the months at Poitiers, Father de Montfort founded along with Marie-Louise Trichet, the congregation of the Daughters of Wisdom (Montfort Sisters) who would continue his missionary work with the outcasts of society. However, there was no sign of the fulfillment of his dream, a “small and poor company of good priests” whom he had already named the Missionaries of the Company of Mary.

. . . the Poor

Indeed, the beginning of his hoped for Company – today popularly called the Montfort Missionaries – were to be frustratingly slow. One of his close friends from seminary days, Father Blain, told him that he was too idealistic, too radical, aiming too high, demanding too much in his plans for the members of his proposed religious congregation of roving missionaries.  Father de Montfort would not budge one iota. His model was Jesus THE Missionary, the Eternal Wisdom of the Father, sent into our folly thereby transforming our folly into Wisdom.

W hile still working in Poitiers, Montfort encountered a fine young man, Mathurin Rangeard, who was planning to enter the Capuchins. But on Montfort’s forceful advice, he became the first of Saint Louis’ followers, the first Brother of the community. While Father de Montfort continued his work of angelizing the poor and preaching missions and retreats in parishes, town-squares, convents, monasteries, soldiers’ barracks, and even proclaiming the radical demands of the Gospel in houses of prostitution, Mathurin was constantly at his side, assisting the great missionary.

In time, Father de Montfort recruited five or six other Brothers. However, he could find no priest willing to join him in a life of total surrender to Divine Providence in imitation of Our Lady; no priest willing to identify with the poor and the outcasts of society, proclaiming to them the News of God’s victorious Love. His dream of the Missionaries of the Company of Mary – so many of his friends believed – would die with him.

His Prayer . . .

Not that Montfort had not looked for priests. As early as 1703 he had asked Claude Poullart des Places, the first founder of the Ghost Fathers, to work with as a missionary. Poullart des Places could not accept the invitation but did promise to prepare young men at his Paris Seminary for Montfort’s proposed order. No candidates were forthcoming.

In 1713, three years before his untimely death, Father de Montfort was still searching for priests for his proposed congregation. Before setting off for Paris on another expedition to find recruits, he wrote The Rule for his non-existing community. Imagine, no priests, no houses, only a few struggling Brothers and Sisters! Yet out of the deep conviction and trust of his heart, Montfort penned his impassioned Prayer for Missionaries, his remarkable Rule for the Missionaries of the Company of Mary, and even a deeply personal letter to all future members of his proposed community, telling them to trust totally in Divine Providence! The saint knew that through the gift of the Cross which the first Missionary, Jesus, was sharing with him, one day, somehow, somewhere, there would be good men willing to sacrifice everything in order to proclaim God’s healing word to this broken world.

. . . for the Missionaries

The years rolled by. Father de Montfort moved constantly throughout western France, preaching parish renewals, instructing people in the faith, repairing dilapidated churches and shrines, organizing schools and hospitals, composing hundreds of hymns on the truths of the faith, and most of all, boldly proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ to the poorest of the poor, to the “ordinary people”. The results were nothing short of miraculous. Western France drew closer and closer to its Risen Lord and His Blessed Mother. The missionary of THE Missionary was implementing the victory of the Risen Crucified Lord by calling upon all people to renew and live their baptismal insertion into Christ Jesus.

The Realization of the Dream

Montfort’s brief but exhausting sixteen years of ministry, the endless travels, constant preaching, took a heavy toll on his health. Moreover, because of his fidelity to the Holy Father and his bold authentic proclamation of the Gospel, he earned the anger if not the hatred of many. Several bishops expelled him from their dioceses, his enemies sought to kill him and almost succeeded when they did manage to poison him.

At the end of April, 1716, Saint Louis de Montfort became extremely ill. He was preaching a mission at the village of Saint Laurent-sur-Sevre. His last sermon was on the love and kindness of Jesus, the Eternal and Incarnate Wisdom. He died on April 28, 1716. Although barely 43 years of age, he had transformed the heart of western France through his constant missionary preaching. Kneeling around his deathbed were the first fruits of the Montfort Family; a few Sisters, several Brothers and two priests who had only recently joined him, Fathers Mulot and Vatel. To them he left the privilege of continuing his work of bringing all people closer to Jesus through their Mother, Mary; to them he left as a precious will, his writings. Writings which spell out his magnificent, evangelical spirituality, the soul of the Montfort Family.

(To Be Continued)