THE QUEENSHIP OF MARY ACCORDING TO MONTFORTIAN SPIRITUALITY

 

The Annunciation (1660) by Spanish painter Bartolomé Esteban Murillo.

Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum; benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus. Sancta Maria, Regina coeli, dulcis et pia, o Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, ut cum electis te videamus.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Queen of heaven sweet and merciful, O Mother of God, pray for us sinners, that with the elect we may gaze upon thee.

St Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort kneeling before Our Lady Queen of Hearts, Regina Cordium. 

The following is my translation of Chapter III from the book La Vie Spirituelle à l’école du Bienheureux Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort (“The Spiritual Life in the School of Blessed Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort”) written in 1901 by Antonin Lhoumeau (pp. 198-219); Montfort would not be canonized until 1947 by Pope Pius XII. We worked from the fourth edition, published in 1920, and the obvious popularity of this work which made several reprintings necessary points to a certain renaissance in Marian spirituality at the beginning of the 20^th century.

The Queenship of Mary

“Mother and Mistress”

Mary, as mediatrix and Queen, as we have said, is the object of the devotion taught by Blessed de Montfort. We have just just explained her mediation and particularly, her maternity, which is its foundation and cornerstone. But this title of Queen,with  which the faithful love to honour the Holy Virgin, has been explained to them too often for a long discussion on this subject to be necessary..  We will therefore briefly discuss her titles and the extent of her sovereignty, while particularly insisting on that which she exercises over our souls. This point in fact is more closely relevant in the perfect devotion to Mary and justifies the title Queen of Hearts.

ARTICLE I

HER ROYAL TITLES

The title of Queen does not only mean that Mary excels in this or that quality, in the sense that one says of a rich man that he is the king of millionaires; of a woman, that she is the queen of beauty; of a writer, that he is the king of poets, etc. By this name of Queen, we want to express that the Blessed Virgin has a real right of possession, a real sovereignty and royal power.

This queenship, as we have said, like all the other prerogatives of Mary, is a consequence of her divine maternity. From this maternity, in fact, arises her kinship with Christ, her role as co-redemptrix, being the treasurer and distributer of graces: all part of the myriad titles on which her sovereignty is based.

§  I.  —  Mother of Christ

The mother of a king is the queen mother, the wife of a king is also queen, because her kinship makes her a sharer in the same goods. For this reason, Mary shares in the prerogatives of Christ. He is King, she is Queen; He is Lord, Dominus; she is sovereign, Domina. Arnauld de Chartres says, “In regards sovereignty and power, you cannot separate the Mother from the Son, because they do not have but one flesh, one spirit, one love; and ever since it was said to Mary: Dominus tecum, they are henceforth inseparable in virtue of this promise and this grace.” So as to avoid a proliferation of citations, let us limit ourselves with these words of St John Damascene, “Mary became sovereign of all creation by the fact that she became Mother of the Creator.” (De fide  orth.  c.  xv.)

The Psalms therefore certainly refer in a literal sense to the royal power of Mary when it says, “The Queen stood on thy right hand.” (Psalm 44:10), as so often the Church greets her in its prayers with this magnificent title. The Church also applies to her these words from [the Divine] Wisdom: “By me kings reign, and lawgivers decree just things, by me princes rule, and the mighty decree justice.” (Proverbs 8:15-16)

§  II.  —  Coredemptrix

We do not only call Jesus-Christ King and Lord, but Our Lord, because in many ways he is ours, particularly as Redeemer. Now Mary has cooperated in this Redemption; this is why we call her Our Lady, which is to say Queen and our Sovereign. Her status as coredemptrix corresponds to her second royal title. It is founded, like the others,in her divine maternity, because the Mother of Christ is also the Mother of the Redeemer, and also according to grace, the Mother of the redeemed.

Here it is worth recalling the famous words of Saint Anselm, “In the same way that God, who has created everything through his omnipotence, is the Father and Lord of all creatures, so the Blessed Virgin, Mother of God, who has remade (or repaired) everything through her merits, is Mother and Sovereign of all things.” (De  excell.  Virg.  c.  xi.)

§  III.   —  Mediatrix of all graces and Spouse of the Holy Ghost

This third title of her sovereignty particularly merits our attention. How could the Blessed Virgin govern us and be the mediatrix of graces, unless we subject ourselves to her? It is above all on this point that Blessed de Montfort insists, particularly in relation to his Devotion [to the Blessed Virgin]. “Mary has received from God a great domination over the souls of the elect; for she cannot make her residence in them, as God the Father ordered her to do, and form them in Jesus Christ, and strike the roots of her virtues in their hearts, and be the indissoluble companion of the Holy Ghost in all His works of grace, - she cannot, I say, do all these things unless she has a right and domination over their souls by a singular grace of the Most High, who, having given her power over His only and Natural Son, has given it also to her over His adopted children, not only as to their bodies, which would be but little matter, but also as to their souls.” (True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin)

We now understand the intimate relationship between these two names which Montfort loved to repeat: “O my Mother and Mistress!” She is mistress or Queen, as we have said, because she is Christ’s Mother, and we submit ourselves to her under these titles so that she can fulfill her role. She is mistress, in the sense of lady or sovereign, that is Domina, but also teacher, an educator: Magistra, as a mother must also be. Here again, Mary is always with the Lord and participates in His prerogatives, because he is Master in the double sense we have just explained (Dominus and Magister). The apostles knew him under this double title: “Magister, Teacher”, they told him; and we learn from Jesus Himself that they also called him Lord: “You call me Teacher and Lord, and rightly so.” (John 13:13)

Mary, the Spouse of the Holy Ghost, cooperates with Him in the distribution of graces. This is again a special title of her sovereignty. We sing of this divine Spirit in the Symbol that he is “Lord and Vivifier”, Dominum et Vivificantem. Why? Because, in virtue of the law of appropriation we attribute to the Father power, to the Son wisdom, and to the Holy Ghost goodness and the communication of the divine life of grace (Summa Theologica, Ia, Q45, art. 6). Now, all the goods, all rights and privileges of the husband are shared by his wife, and so much more legitimately here where the spouse, Mary, cooperates fully in the action of her divine Spouse. If therefore in order to govern and vivify souls He has the right of sovereignty over them , Mary also, and for the same reason, must participate in this royal prerogative. This is what Blessed de Montfort continuously reminds us.

Before finishing this article, it is fitting to mention that the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin also has its foundation in the state of original justice in which she was established by the Immaculate Conception. “Let us make man according to our image and likeness, and may he have dominion over all the fish of the seas, all the birds of the air, all the beasts, all the earth and all reptiles that move over the surface.” This sovereignty given by God to man over all creation was lost by Adam through sin. With their innocence and sanctity, the saints have recovered it to a certain extant, as the marvels of their life testify. But the Blessed Virgin did not need to recover a dominion which she never lost due to sin. Pure from her conception, she is Queen since her entrance in this world. And since her state of justice surpasses that of our first parents when they came out of the hands of the Creator, just as the splendour of her grace eclipses that of the angels and the saints, her sovereignty, since it is connected to the excellence of her state, must exalt her over everything that is not God.

ARTICLE II

THE EXTENT OF HER QUEENSHIP

“In the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth.” (Phillipians 2:10) The Kingship of Christ is therefore universal, and such is also the Queenship of Mary, because as Arnauld de Chartres said, “in my opinion she not only has a glory similar to that of her Son, but it is the same glory that she shares.” Let us briefly glance through the different provinces of the kingdom of Mary.

This kingdom above all includes everything on earth, and even those creatures without reason. In holy Scripture, the inanimate objects, as well as plant and animal life, are represented to us as being subject to the most holy Virgin and dedicated to her service. The sun is her vestment, the moon is under her feet; the stars form her crown; her throne is in a pillar of a cloud (cf Ecclesiasticus 24:7); she travels the seas; the earth comes to the rescue of this woman pursued by the dragon, etc. This can all be summarized by these words of Saint Bernardin, “There are as many creatures at the service of Mary as there are at the service of the Creator.” (Serm    15  de  Fest.    Virg.)

We have already spoken and we will speak again of the Queenship of Mary over men and nations.

Let us descend to hell; we know that in this abode one believes and trembles. The power of Christ restrains there those who have always rejected the yoke of his love. Now – has not Mary been instituted by God the triumphant adversary of Satan and isn’t she terrible against him as an army in battle array? Isn’t she the image of the  Rod of Aaron, who devours the other rods changed into serpents? The Fathers of the Church explicitly mention her power over hell. “Sovereign of demons”, as she is called in the Speculum attributed to Saint Bonaventure (Lect.8)  Saint Bernardin, commenting on these words of Ecclesiasticus: “I alone…have penetrated into the bottom of the deep” (Ecclesiasticus 24:8), says that the Blessed Virgin extends her dominion over hell. How is her power exercised there? Alas! it is made known in order to restrain the pride and malice of the evil spirits and the damned who are their associates. It is also exercised in the sense that this “Gate of Heaven” closes, or at least, tightens the gate to hell. How many souls does she prevent from being devoured in the abyss of this pit (cf Psalm 68:16)! This is what we can say for certain, without speculating on other more or less dubious opinions.

From hell our view goes to purgatory. It is included in the kingdom of Mary where even there her children are present, who in a painful phase await to be born to eternal glory. Saint Vincent Ferrer (serm. 2 de Nativ.), Saint Bernardin of Sienna (serm. 3 de Glor. Nom.), Louis de Blois and others explicitly proclaim Mary as sovereign in purgatory, and Blessed de Montfort encourages us to think and act in conformity to this belief. It is in the hands of Mary that he teaches us to place the value of our prayers and merits, and he promises that in return for this offering, the souls dear to us will be more generously relieved than if we directly applied to them our prayers. Through her prayers, in effect, the Mother of God can obtain that the infinite merits of Christ be granted them in a larger measure; she can also make them participate of her own merits, which are for the Church such a rich treasure; moreover, it is in her power to alleviate these souls indirectly, for example, by inspiring the faithful on earth to intercede for them. If the saints, according to the general opinion of the doctors, come to the aid of the souls in purgatory, how much more must we think this of the Virgin Mary!

Must we know speak of heaven, of the blessed, and of the angels? “Queen of Heaven, Queen of the angels, Empress of the heavenly abode”, are titles familiar to Christians. “Thou art exalted above all the choirs of angels in the kingdom of heaven”, the Church sings on the feast of the Assumption. But what we have already explained of the beatitude, of the vision, and the mediation of the Blessed Virgin was already a glimpse of her heavenly Queenship.

Let us rise even higher. Above Mary we find Christ, her divine Son; now Christ was subject to Mary, there is no need to insist on this point. Blessed de Montfort, in reminding us of this fact in the words we have previously cited, presents this to us as the reason and model for our submission to Mary. In heaven, the Mother of Jesus still has over her Son a kind of authority, let us say, of sovereignty. That this empire belongs to her by a singular grace and not by nature, that it is always exercised in harmony with the one who is subject, that with regards to Christ her supplication is attendant to His omnipotence, all of this is inarguable. But having made these qualifications, we can say with Saint Peter Damian: “How could this King Christ born of your flesh oppose your power? Therefore approach this golden altar of propitiation for men, not only by praying, but also by commanding, in capacity as Sovereign and not as servant.” (Serm.  1.  de  Nat.  Mar.)

Let us therefore sing with Blessed de Montfort:

She is Sovereign
Of all the universe,
She has in her dominion
Heaven and Hell,
She has in her power
The goods of Jesus Christ,
She gives and distributes
The gifts of the Holy Ghost

In the history of the Assyrian and Persian monarchies, where we are astonished by their colossal pomp and pride, Holy Scripture describes the feast of Assuerus where, in order to crown the brilliance of the feast and to make a display of the magnificences of his court, the king wanted that Queen Vasthi appear next to him. These empires were destined, despite their vices and repugnant corruption, to serve the designs of God by preparing the reign of His Christ, and even, under certain respects, to be its figure. Now, this royal feast was but a parody of that of the heavenly kingdom. When on the day of the Ascension Christ entered into His glory and opened heaven to his elect, it was into a feasting chamber that they entered, because according to the Gospels, this eternal life is a banquet where God Himself passes among His guests to serve them. But it was not enough for the divine King to show His elect the splendours of His kingdom and the radiance of his own glory. He soon called the Queen to this heavenly feast, and on the day of her Assumption, she came in order to be crowned. Imagine what must have been the thrills of joy, the acclamations of the heavenly court, as well as the triumph of Jesus, when above the angels and men, with a glory and beauty without equal, this Queen appeared at His right who fully merited the name of Vasthi, meaning, “excellent”. And the feast lasts forever, because it is eternal. By the grace of God, we have the hope of entering there; but it is the consolation of our exile to know a little better She who is, “the magnificence of the Lord of Lords” and to submit ourselves to her glorious and maternal empire.

ARTICLE III

QUEEN OF HEARTS

We wouldn’t have sufficiently discussed the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin in a complete manner suitable for our goal unless we place greater emphasis on the title Queen of Hearts, a title dear to Blessed de Montfort under which the Confraternity of the holy Slavery to Mary was recently erected. If under the title of “Queen of Hearts” we certainly do not want to content us with a vague sentimentality, we will see that it designates the object under which the Queenship of Mary is exercised in a particularly way.

In Holy Scripture and in the language of the Church, the word heart has multiple meanings. It is first the organ of thebody which circulates blood within us. But this word is also used to designate everything that is within man, the sum of his thoughts, of his desires and will. In this sense Scripture says: “For man seeth those things that appear, but the Lord beholdeth the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7), and elsewhere: “And rend your hearts, and not your garments” (Joel 2:13). Sometimes this word is taken to refer to the faculties of the soul: “the meditation of my heart always in thy sight” (Psalm 18:15), meaning, “I always remember Thee, your presence and will.” Elsewhere we read in the Psalms: “Incline my heart into thy testimonies” (Psalm 118:36), that is to say, my will, which also means, “with my whole heart” (Psalm 118:34). This word can also designate understanding: “The fool hath said in his heart: There is no God” (Psalm 13), sensibility, courage, but it principally expresses the affection [towards which the soul is inclined]: “ Let my heart be undefiled in thy justifications, that I may not be confounded.” (Psalm 118:80) – “This people honoureth me with their lips: but their heart is far from me.” (Matthew 15:18) – “And they have not cried to me with their heart” (Hosea 7:14). Such is also the sense of the expression, “winning the heart of someone.”

Now, it is in virtue of these varied but very precise meanings that the title Queen of Hearts expresses what must be especially subject to Mary in us and the particular motive of this subjection.

§  I.  —  Mary, Queen of Hearts, meaning her reign over our interior

The reign of Mary is for us the means to establish that of God, which is above all exercised within: Regnum  Dei  intra  vos  est (Luke 17:21), meaning within our soul and its faculties which must be possessed and reigned over by Jesus; it will therefore be necessary that the means employed be able to reach this interior in order to attain there the desired effect. This is why Blessed de Montfort has all the greater reason to insist that devotion to Mary should be interior; without this first it will not be genuine and will consequently remain ineffectual. Elsewhere he reiterates: “The essential of this devotion consists in the interior which she must form.” “Just as the Kingdom of Jesus-Christ principally exists within the heart and interior of man, in the same way the Kingdom of the most Holy Virgin is principally within the interior of man, that is to say his soul; and it is mainly within souls that she is more glorified with her Son than in visible creatures, and we can call her together with the saints: Queen of Hearts.” (True Devotion, 1^st part)

We have previously stated that the sovereignty of Mary rests on her divine maternity under which her spiritual maternity is subordinated. How will she fufill her duties, if we do not remain subject and abandon ourselves to her; is we are not truly possessed by her? Now, is it not our soul itself that attains to the operations of grace? Given therefore that the maternal mediation of the Holy Virgin extends as far as our interior, it is up to there that her dominion will also extend.

And see how, in fact, most of the acts through which Mary exercises her mediation reach deep into our soul. One will perhaps object that her influence over us is not immediate, in the sense for example, that she prays for the mediation of the Holy Ghost, that she orders our guardian angel to illuminate us, etc. This can be granted, but at the very least, these very acts suppose that she can see within our interior as we have previously stated according to the opinion of the doctors. Now this vision is in itself an act of her high dominion which properly speaking belongs only to God, and if Mary can participate in this it is thanks to the prerogative of her maternity. Let us stop here for a moment on this tought which is for our piety a true feast.

Whoever says: home, stirs up the idea of a dwelling which one possesses and where one is master. If a stranger, someone obnoxious or a cretin should enter, “home” no longer exists, and one no longer feels the master of his dwelling.

Even stricter is the sphere of an intelligent being over the acts of his thought and his will that one generally calls the “secrets of the heart”, and nothing is more intimate to him. To know them is something naturally reserved only to God and ourselves since our liberty depends on it. Other than what we may choose to manifest to men, to the angels, and to the saints, be it through exterior actions or through mental prayer, our thoughts and will remain in secret between ourselves and God. However, His providence has established mediators, which are Christ and His Mother. They must see within us since they must act there, even though differently; nevertheless with them the circle where the operations of our soul are known is closed. Is our personal sphere alienated or our privacy and liberty violated? Oh! No – because Jesus and Mary are so united to God and to us that everything still takes place within God and ourselves. Mary leads us to Jesus, and Jesus brings us back to God. Isn’t this like re-entering into our privacy, since God who grants us our being, is more intimate to us than everything else?

Doesn’t this also affirm us into that liberty and possession of ourselves granted to us by the divine Wisdom (cf Sirach 15:14: “God made man from the beginning, and left him in the hand of his own counsel.”)? Besides, Jesus is our head, and Mary, our Mother; now doesn’t the head necessarily intervene in the operations of our being, and the mother in the life of her child, without however destroying its liberty and privacy? But for us, who desire to belong to Mary so much and through her to Jesus, to feel ourselves kept under her care, open to her eyes, this is but a joy, a consolation, and an assurance. A joy, because in this way our interior is delivered to her; a consolation, because, if our ignorance, our blindness and our distractions make self-knowledge difficult, at least we know that our sweet Mother does not ignore anything, which helps us to rest in security in the arm of her maternal providence. What remains, but for us to entirely abandon our will to her so that she may finish establishing in our soul the reign of Jesus-Christ?

§  II.  —  Queen of Hearts, or Queenship of love

The sovereignty of Christ extends in right over all creatures, and a time will come in fact when anyone who will have refused to submit by love will be subjugated by the force of his power. That it is the same for Mary, we can see by the formidable power she makes the demons feel from her. But this is not the only way in which she exercises her authority, in fact she only uses it in the absence of this other type of sovereignty which we ask for in these words, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven”, meaning in all fullness and liberty. This is a voluntary and loving acceptance of the reign of Jesus and a recognition of His sacred rights; this is what is done in baptism and, with all the more reason, in those vocations where we profess a greater dependence. It is a kinship of love, because love is the principle and the goal, as we have explained at length. We give ourselves over because we love and in order to love all the better. Such is the holy slavery in which one is committed with respect to Mary by the perfect consecration: this is a slavery of love. Blessed de Montfort comments, “Isn’t it reasonable, that among so many forced slaves, there should be those of love, who willingly choose in their capacity as slaves, Mary for their Sovereign?” Penetrated by these sentiments, he loved to invoke Mary as Queen of Hearts; and, not happy with giving himself entirely over to her, he did not hide the ardent desires of apostolate which tormented his soul. These verses, where a touching naiveté add an additional charm to the sentiment which inspired them, are a testimony to this.

I ardently love Mary
After God my Saviour;
I would surrender my life
To win a soul for her
Oh my good mistress!
If we all knew you,
Everyone would rush
To serve you first

Blessed de Montfort refers certain texts which the Church applies to the Holy Virgin to this interior sovereignty of Mary in our souls, which does not also exclude an exterior sovereignty. In briefly describing them, he represents to us the three divine Persons granting Mary something like a triple investiture, crowning her with a triple tiara.

It is to Mary that God the Father said, In  Jacob  inhabita – “reside in Jacob”. The Old Testament represents, in fact, in a special way the reign of the Father. Now, God is named there over and over again the God of Jacob: “O ye seed of Abraham his servant; ye sons of Jacob his chosen” (Psalm 104); “I will declare for ever: I will sing to the God of Jacob.” (Psalm 74:10); “Blessed is he who hath the God of Jacob for his helper, whose hope is in the Lord his God” (Psalm 145:5); “But the Lord's portion is his people: Jacob the lot of his inheritance.” (Deuteronomy 32:9). It was Jacob who received the paternal blessing (cf Romans 9:13.) Therefore, must not her dwelling place have been among the children of Jacob, where she is there properly at home and in the realm of her own family, this Virgin who descended from the great patriarch, but who is above all Daughter of the Father, Blessed among all others? If Jacob was the servant of God (cf Isaiah 45:4), she is excellently the servant of the Lord. It was also from Jacob that this mysterious star had to rise, a figure of the Messiah of whom Mary is the mother. Although we cannot express all of the similitudes with the types from scripture, we can ultimately say that God hated Esau and rejected him, while Jacob was his beloved. Was it convenient that this beloved of the Song of Songs, chosen among all women as unique, should reside in Esau and receive him into her inheritance? Reside therefore in Jacob, a figure of the elect of whom you are Mother, and who by grace become in Jesus sons of the eternal Father.

Et  in  Israel  haereditare:  “And may Israel be your inheritance”, the Son tells her. For her, He has received from His Father in inheritance all the nations of the earth He governs through force or by love, but Israel (Jacob’s other mysterious name) is His faithful and chosen people. If other nations receive, according to the testimony of Isaiah, certain blessings from the Lord, Israel finds itself delicately opposed to them and placed apart as especially chosen. This is why Nathanael told Our Lord, “You are the King of Israel.” (John 1:49), and according to Saint John, the crowd praised Jesus during His triumphal entry into Jerusalem by granting Him this same title (John 12:13), which is often repeated in the holy Gospels (cf John 18:37, Mark 15:32, Matthew 2:2).

Mary, heiress of the Father of whom she is His daughter, co-heir with Christ and a sharer in His sovereignty, will surely make her formidable power be felt to the enemies of her Son, reaching the bottom of hell. But as sharer in His inheritance, she will also have for her part the faithful people represented by Israel, the people of Christ, populum suum, which was acquired by His blood. To the right of Christ, she will be enthroned by love, she will govern through mercy, and she will receive the praise and honour which she rightly merits. Because if Christ is King as Redeemer, Mary participates in this Kingship over Israel in her capacity as co-redemptrix, as alluded by St Alphonsus Liguori in The Glories of Mary by quoting St Anselm: “Although God could create the world out of nothing, yet, when it was lost by sin, He would not repair the evil without the cooperation of Mary.”

Moreover, the Holy Ghost associates His faithful Spouse to His sovereignty: Et  in  electis  meis mitte  radices... “And strike your roots within my elect.” This sovereignty has a particular character, because the action of the Holy Ghost is mysterious and profound, penetrating to the most intimate recesses of souls. This is what is meant by the figure of the roots, who sink into the ground in order to act there in a secret and marvellous way. This indeed is the interior sovereignty of Mary, in cooperation with the Holy Ghost, Lord and Vivifier, Dominum et Vivificantem. Ah! If only this root of Jesse could strike so deeply into our heart that despite the ravages of the “enemy of man” who could destroy or make it languish, it may yet extend and re-grow so that its divine flower may blossom: Jesus, Son of the Virgin Mary!

Among the reasons which compel us to live in dependance of the Holy Virgin, Blessed de Montfort mentions the example of Jesus, where  we imitate and honour His submission towards Mary. This subjection of the Saviour, of which he says that, “the human spirit loses itself”, is the only brightly lit aspect of the Gospel illuminating the obscurity of the hidden life of Jesus-Christ. Our pious author comes back to this consideration multiple times, thus singing in one of his canticles:

My God in order to be subject
Became man here on earth.
I cannot do otherwise

Than to follow in his footsteps.

But this is still not enough. Desirous, to put it some way, to win over all souls by a fierce fight in order to place them to the feet of Mary, our Blessed accumulates his arguments with an illuminated faith, and accustomed to the profound truths of dogma, he proposes the ways shown to us by the Holy Trinity, that is, its attitude towards Mary.

Here is the summary of the considerations which he previously developed: “The Father has not given, and does not give, His Son except by her; He has no children but by her, and communicates no graces but by her. God the Son has not been formed for the whole world in general except by her; and He is not daily formed and engendered except by her, in the union with the Holy Ghost; neither does He communicate His merits and His virtues except by her. The Holy Ghost has not formed Jesus Christ except by her; neither does He form the members of our Lord’s Mystical Body except by her; and through her alone does He dispense His favours and His gifts. After so many and such pressing examples of the Most Holy Trinity, can we, without an extreme blindness, dispense ourselves from Mary, and not consecrate ourselves to her, and depend on her to go to God, and to sacrifice ourselves to God?” (True Devotion)

May thanks be given to the Lord! Far behind us is the time when the Blessed was forced to insist before the faithful on these prerogatives of Mary, of reinvindicating them in all their glory with a jealous care, because heresies were making efforts to negate or diminish them. It is in a pure sky free from the fog and shadows of error in which the Star of the morning, Stella matutina, now freely shines. We no longer fear, “to dishonour the Son by honouring the Mother, or to debase the one by elevating the other.” (True Devotion) With what wit did Montfort taunt these “scrupulous devotees” whose only fear is to exalt Mary too much! Using a concise, nervous, and fully engaging style, he presses them in a few pages with his arguments; he traps them in their contradictions and unmasks them with subtle mockery – it is a routing. We – for whom shines the full brightness of the faith – sing with him in the joy of our love:

In short, she surpasses
Everything that is not God;
After Him, by grace
She is first among beings.
 
(Canticle by Blessed Louis-Marie de Montfort)