FOR THE GRACE OF BELONGING COMPLETELY TO MARY
My kind Jesus,
permit me to address myself to you
in order to attest to the gratitude I have
for the goodness that you have done for me
in giving me your holy Mother by the devotion of slavery
to be my advocate before your Majesty,
and my abundant surplus in my great wretchedness.
Alas! Lord, I am so wretched that,
without this good Mother,
I would infallibly be lost.
Yes, Mary is necessary to me to be near you in any way:
necessary in order to soothe you in your righteous anger,
because I have so offended you every day;
necessary in order to halt the eternal punishments of your justice,
which I deserve.
necessary in order to gaze upon you, in order to speak to you,
to pray to you, to approach you and to please you;
necessary in order to save my soul and those of others;
necessary, in a word, in order always to do your holy will
and to obtain in all things your greater glory.
Ah! Would that I could announce throughout all the universe
this mercy that you have had toward me!
Would that all the world could know that, without Mary, I would already be damned!
Would that I could offer worthy acts of thanksgiving for so great a blessing!
Mary is in me, haec facta est mihi.
O! What treasure! O! What consolation!
And I would not, after all that, be entirely hers?
O! What ingratitude, my dear Savior!
Send me, rather, death should this great unhappiness come to me:
for I prefer to die than to live without being entirely Mary’s.
I have taken her thousands upon thousands of times for all my good
with Saint John the Evangelist at the foot of the Cross
and I have as many times given myself to her;
but if I still have not done so according to your desires, my dear Jesus,
I do so now as you desire that I do it;
and if you see in my soul and my body anything
that does not belong to this august Princess,
I beg you to tear it out of me and to throw it far away from me,
as not being Mary’s, it is unworthy of you.
O Holy Spirit!
Grant me all these graces and
plant, water and cultivate in my soul
the Tree of true life,
which is the kindly Mary,
so that it grows, it blossoms, and it provides
the fruit of life in abundance.
O Holy Spirit!
Give me a great devotion and
a great inclination toward your divine Spouse,
a great support upon her maternal bosom,
and a continual recourse to her mercy,
so that in her you may perfectly form in me
Jesus Christ, great and mighty,
even to the fullness of his perfect age.
Amen.
© The Company of Mary
