NV-St Louis de Montfort

NOVENA TO ST. LOUIS MARIE DE MONTFORT
Feast Day April 28th
Novena starts on April 28th and ends on May 6th

What is a Novena?
A novena is a traditional devotion consisting of specific prayers recited on nine successive days. Besides being a form of praise, a novena is frequently offered for a particular intention. The first novena took place in the Cenacle, during the nine days preceding Pentecost, or the coming of the Holy Ghost. As a regular popular custom, this practice began in 12th century Christianity and continues to be beneficial today as a way of praying for healing, protection or other blessings for ourselves or others.

This particular novena is prayed to God in honor of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Though Our Lady's whole life was a continual life of sorrow, since she was the Mother of the "Man of Sorrows", the Church has chosen the mystical number of seven for the chief sorrows that will be remembered and honored. The purpose of this novena is to try to help us understand the necessity, reasonableness, power, nobility, beauty and glory in suffering, so that we can better profit from the inevitable sufferings that God's Providence will send our way, and will help us unite our sufferings to those of the Sorrowful Heart of Mary.

In praying this Novena, as in the case of all prayer, it is good to begin by opening ourselves wholeheartedly to God's will, offering a simple act of trust in God's wisdom and in His providential love for us all, that disposes all things for the ultimate benefit of our souls and their salvation.

How to Pray This Novena
This novena is based on upon the life and teachings of St. Louis de Montfort and his True Devotion to Our Lady. Each day of the novena is divided into the following parts:
(1) a quote from Holy Scripture that reflects the life, focus and devotion of St. Louis de Montfort;. (2) an excerpt from the life of St. Louis de Montfot; (3) a passage from Saint Louis Montfort's many works, which include True Devotion to Mary, The Secret of Mary, The Secret of the Rosary, The Love of Eternal Wisdom, Letter to the Friends of the Cross, etc; (4) a Meditation; (5) a Prayer; (6) after mentioning your intention, pray the Our Father and the Hail Mary; (7) a Closing Prayer.

LITANY TO ST. LOUIS
MARIE DE MONTFORT

St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort

Lord, have mercy on us.
Christ have mercy on us.
Lord have mercy on us.
Christ hear us.
Christ graciously hear us.

God the Father of Heaven, have mercy on us
God the Son Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.
God the Holy Ghost, have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, One God, have mercy on us.

Holy Mary,
   pray for us.
Saint Louis-Marie de Montfort,
   pray for us.
Ardent disciple of Jesus Christ the Incarnate Wisdom,
   pray for us.
Eloquent preacher of the Cross,
   pray for us.
Singer of the praises of the Sacred Heart,
   pray for us.
Loving slave of Jesus in Mary,
   pray for us.
Faithful son of the handmaid of the Lord,
   pray for us.
Apostle of the Most Holy Rosary,
   pray for us.
Preacher of the Mother of the Redeemer,
   pray for us.
Servant of the poor and the afflicted,
   pray for us.
Man of solitude and prayer,
   pray for us.
Wonder of mortification,
   pray for us.
Model of priests and missionaries,
   pray for us.
Fervent minister of the Holy Eucharist,
   pray for us.
Fearless champion of truth,
   pray for us.
Restorer of devotion to the Blessed Sacrament,
   pray for us.
Marvel of poverty and abandonment to Divine Providence,
   pray for us.
Teacher of the God’s faithful,
   pray for us.
Founder of Religious congregations,
   pray for us.
Apostle of the end times,
   pray for us.
Obedient collaborator with the Pope and Bishops,
   pray for us.

You see the Face of God:
   obtain for us perseverance in the faith.
You shine within Infinite Charity:
   obtain for us the gift of pure love.
You live in the New Jerusalem:
   obtain for us the spirit of prayer.
You stand before the throne of the Lamb:
   obtain for us the wisdom of the Cross.
You contemplate the Mother of the Lord:
   obtain for us true devotion to Mary.
You dwell with the Apostles of Christ:
   obtain for us missionary zeal.
You share in the communion of Saints:
   obtain for us love for the Church.
You are seated in the Kingdom of Heaven:
   obtain for us the crown of glory.

Let us pray

O God, Who by the power of the Holy Ghost, didst make Saint Louis-Marie de Montfort, an ardent apostle of Christ Crucified and a faithful son of the Virgin Mary; grant that through his example and intercession, we may be renewed in the spirit of our Baptism and be always faithful to Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who lives and reigns with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, One God, forever and ever. Amen.

FIRST DAY OF THE NOVENA (new meditations posted for each day)
Theme: A Call to Holiness

Holy Scripture

“As He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in His sight in charity” (Ephesians 1:4).

“Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:48).

The Life of St. Louis de Montfort

The Name "Monfort"
The hamlet of Montfort, a Breton village about thirteen miles east of Rennes, is important in any biographical sketch of Louis-Marie Grignion. Yet its significance does not lie in the fact that it was there that he was born on January 31, 1673. He linked himself by name to this town of Montfort because it was there that he was baptized into Christ Jesus.

It is for this same reason that as an itinerant preacher he preferred to drop his surname, Grignion, and be called, simply, Louis-Marie of Montfort, or merely, the Father from Montfort, "le Pere de Montfort." His stress on baptism with its practical consequences of total consecration to the Eternal and Incarnate Wisdom is the root characteristic of his vision of reality.

Louis-Marie was born on 31st January 1673, to John Baptist Grignion and Jeanne Robert in a small town known as Montfort-sur-Meu in the Province of Brittany in France. He was baptized on the following day. From 1673 - 1675, he stayed with Mother Andrea, a wet nurse. The second of eighteen children, Louis-Marie was one of the few who survived to adulthood. Among the ten children out 18, who lived beyond the age of ten years, Louis-Marie was the eldest.

His stay at the village of Montfort was extremely brief: no more than the first two years of his short life-span of just over forty-three years. On 16th July, 1675 (incidentally, the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel), his father bought a new property known as Bois-Marquer within the parish of Iffendie, not far from Montfort and the whole family came to stay there. This is where Louis-Marie spent his youth at the family's farmhouse, just a few miles from his birthplace.

Fiery Father and Pious Mother
His father, a notary, was known for his fiery temper; his mother, for her deep piety. The Grignion family owned some property but was not considered well-off nor part of the upper-class. Louis-Marie was born into a family of deep Catholic faith, in an area of France renowned for its dynamic Christian life.

Three sons including Louis became priests and two daughters became nuns. Mrs. Jeanne taught prayers to Louis-Marie and Mr. John the three R's. Louis-Marie proved to be a good elder brother to his brothers and sisters. He helped his father by coaching his brothers and sisters. He helped his father by coaching his brothers and sisters in their studies. As he was devoted to Blessed Virgin Mary, he often took his beloved sister Guyonne aside to recite the Rosary.
At the age of eleven, Louis-Marie set out for Rennes, the capital of Brittany, to enroll in the Jesuit College of Thomas a Becket. The institution enjoyed an excellent reputation and had, therefore, approximately two thousand young men attending its classes.

A Passage from the Writings of St. Louis de Montfort
Chosen soul, living image of God and redeemed by the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, God wants you to become holy like Him in this life, and glorious like Him in the next (Matthew 5:48). It is certain that growth in the holiness of God is your vocation. All your thoughts, words, actions, everything you suffer or undertake, must lead you towards that end.

Otherwise you are resisting God, in not doing the work for which He created you and for which He is even now keeping you in being. What a marvelous transformation is possible! Dust into light, uncleanness into purity, sinfulness into holiness, creature into Creator, man into God! A marvelous work, I repeat, so difficult in itself, and even impossible for a mere creature to bring about, for only God can accomplish it by giving His grace abundantly and in an extraordinary manner. The very creation of the universe is not as great an achievement as this.

Chosen soul, how will you bring this about? What steps will you take to reach the high level to which God is calling you? The means of holiness and salvation are known to everybody, since they are found in the Gospel; the masters of the spiritual life have explained them; the saints have practiced them and shown how essential they are for those who wish to be saved and attain perfection. These means are: sincere humility, unceasing prayer, complete self-denial, abandonment to divine Providence, and obedience to the will of God.

The grace and help of God are absolutely necessary for us to practice all these, but we are sure that grace will be given to all, though not in the same measure. I say “not in the same measure,” because God does not give His graces in equal measure to everyone (Romans 12:6), although in His infinite goodness He always gives sufficient grace to each. A person who corresponds to great graces performs great works, and one who corresponds to lesser graces performs lesser works. The value and high standard of our actions corresponds to the value and perfection of the grace given by God and responded to by the faithful soul. No one can contest these principles.

It all comes to this, then. We must discover a simple means to obtain from God the grace needed to become holy. It is precisely this I wish to teach you. My contention is that you must first discover Mary if you would obtain this grace from God.

Meditation

Holiness is both possible and necessary for everyone who wants to go to Heaven. There are only saints in Heaven. So many souls are lost because they neither believe that they can become saints, nor do they want to become saints. Being a saint is seen as being no fun. The world offers much more fun and instant gratification and joy.

The more worldly, earthly, material, temporal things we have and become attached to, then the more we weaken and hinder God's plan for our sanctity. The spiritual masters tell us that our whole life is meant to be one of increasing detachment from the persons, places and things of this world―and not an increasing attachment to them.

This reminds us of two of the many instances in the Bible where Our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, pointed out this detachment from things to be more attached to God. The first was a parable, the second was a real-life event.

“And He spoke a similitude to them, saying: ‘The land of a certain rich man brought forth plenty of fruits. And he thought within himself, saying: “What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?” And he said: “This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and will build greater; and into them will I gather all things that are grown to me, and my goods. And I will say to my soul: ‘Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years take thy rest; eat, drink, make good cheer!’” [20] But God said to him: “Thou fool, this night do they require thy soul of thee: and whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?” So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards God!'" (Luke 12:16-21).

The second instance, involved the rich young man, whom Our Lord called to leave all he had behind and then come and follow Him as one of His disciples: "And behold one came and said to Jesus: ‘Good master! What good shall I do that I may have life everlasting?’ Who said to him: ‘Why asketh thou Me concerning good? One is good, God. But if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments!’ He said to Him: ‘Which?’ And Jesus said: ‘Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness. Honor thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself!’ The young man saith to Him: ‘All these I have kept from my youth! What is yet wanting to me?’

“Jesus saith to him: ‘If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven: and come follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, he went away sad: for he had great possessions. Then Jesus said to His disciples: ‘Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’ (Matthew 19:16-24).

Does that strike a chord with us in any way? God is always callilng everybody―but barely any one answers the call. Speaking of our present day times, Jesus said to Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres (of Our Lady of Good Success fame): “The times will come,” He told her, “when doctrine will be commonly known among the learned and the ignorant. ... Many religious books will be written. But the practice of the virtues and of these doctrines will be found in only a few souls; for this reason, saints will become rare. And precisely for this reason, My priests and My religious will fall into a fatal indifference. Their coldness will extinguish the fire of divine love, afflicting My Loving Heart with these small thorns that you see.

Prayer
Great Apostle and son of Our Lady, St. Louis de Montfort, your only desire was to set aflame the world with the love of Jesus through Mary. We implore you to obtain for us a perfect and constant devotion to Mary that we may participate in the faith, hope, and charity of Our Lady and that we may receive the favor we ask of you in this novena....

[Mention Intention]

Pray:
Say the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

Final Invocation:
O Jesus, living in Mary, come and live in your servants, in the spirit of holiness, in the fullness of your power, in the perfection of your ways, in the truth of your virtues, in the communion of your mysteries. Rule over every adverse power, in your Spirit, for the glory of the Father. Amen.

St. Louis de Montfort, pray for us and obtain for us a true devotion to Jesus, the Incarnate Wisdom, through a true devotion to Mary.

LITANY TO ST. LOUIS
MARIE DE MONTFORT

St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort

SECOND DAY OF THE NOVENA (new meditations posted for each day)
Theme: A Call to Mary

Holy Scripture

“As He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in His sight in charity” (Ephesians 1:4).

“Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:48).

The Life of St. Louis de Montfort

During the first year at the Jesuit College at Rennes, he stayed with his maternal uncle, Fr. Alain Robert, at the Church of St. Savior. Louis-Marie's uncle, a priest of the Church of the Holy Savior in Rennes, became the youth's close confidant. That church had an ancient statue of Our Lady of Miracles and Louis often prayed before it.

As his brothers also needed higher education the Grignion family moved, in 1685, to the city of Rennes after Louis' first two years at the College in 1685 and Louis started staying with his parents. His family returned to the countryside home at Iffendie during the summers. The young student from the insignificant town of Montfort was considered by his teachers to be intelligent, studious, deeply religious, artistic in nature and somewhat shy. He was good at studies and he stood first in his class. From his childhood, he was indefatigably devoted to prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, and when, from his twelfth year, he was sent as a day pupil to the Jesuit college at Rennes, he never failed to visit the church before and after class.

His Jesuit professors and spiritual directors became his life-long friends. Their residences throughout Western France would always be his refuge in difficult times, a place where he could find support, rest and spiritual renewal.

It was here that Montfort formed lasting friendships, particularly with two fellow-students: Claude Poullart des Places, the first founder of the Holy Ghost Fathers, and especially with John Baptist Blain who also became the intimate friend of Saint John Baptist de la Salle, the founder of the Christian Brothers. One day seeing one poor student being made fun of by other students because of his torn clothes, Louis took a collection from the students themselves and got new clothes stitched for him. Louis had a strong physique and an artistic bent of mind. He showed a certain talent for sculpture and painting. His love for Mary made him join the sodality or society of young men, who, during holidays, ministered to the poor and to the incurables in the hospitals, and read for them edifying books during their meals.

A Passage from the Writings of St. Louis de Montfort

We must discover a simple means to obtain from God the grace needed to become holy. It is precisely this I wish to teach you. My contention is that you must first discover Mary if you would obtain this grace from God.

I explain;

(1) Mary alone found grace with God for herself and for every individual person (Luke 1:30). No patriarch nor prophet nor any other holy person of the Old Law could manage to find this grace;

(2) It was Mary who gave existence and life to the author of all grace and, because of this, she is called the “Mother of Grace.”

(3) God the Father, from Whom, as from its essential source, every perfect gift and every grace come down to us (James 1:17), gave her every grace when He gave her His Son. Thus, as St. Bernard says, the will of God is manifested to her in Jesus and with Jesus.

(4) God chose her to be the treasurer, the administrator and the dispenser of all His graces, so that all His graces and gifts pass through her hands. Such is the power that she has received from Him that, according to St. Bernardine, she gives the graces of the eternal Father, the virtues of Jesus Christ, and the gifts of the Holy Ghost to whom she wills, as and when she wills, and as much as she wills.

(5) As in the natural life a child must have a father and a mother, so in the supernatural life of grace a true child of the Church must have God for his Father and Mary for his mother. If he prides himself on having God for his Father, but does not give Mary the tender affection of a true child, he is an imposter and his father is the devil.

(6) Since Mary produced the head of the elect, Jesus Christ, she must also produce the members of that head, that is, all true Christians. A mother does not conceive a head without members, nor members without a head. If anyone, then, wishes to become a member of Jesus Christ, and consequently be filled with grace and truth, (John 1:14), he must be formed in Mary through the grace of Jesus Christ, which she possesses with a fullness enabling her to communicate it abundantly to true members of Jesus Christ, her true children.

(7) The Holy Ghost espoused Mary and produced His greatest work, the incarnate Word, in her, by her and through her. He has never disowned her and so He continues to produce every day, in a mysterious but very real manner, the souls of the elect in her and through her.

(8) Mary received, from God, a unique dominion over souls, enabling her to nourish them and make them more and more godlike. St. Augustine went so far as to say that, even in this world, all the elect are enclosed in the womb of Mary, and that their real birthday is when this good mother brings them forth to eternal life. Consequently, just as an infant draws all its nourishment from its mother, who gives according to its needs, so the elect draw all their spiritual nourishment and all their strength from Mary.

(9) It was to Mary that God the Father said, “Dwell in Jacob” (Ecclesiasticus 24:8,12) that is, dwell in my elect, who are typified by Jacob. It was to Mary that God the Son said, “My dear Mother, your inheritance is in Israel,” that is, in the elect. It was to Mary that the Holy Ghost said, “Place your roots in my elect.” Whoever, then, is of the chosen and predestinate, will have the Blessed Virgin living within him, and he will let her plant in his very soul the roots of every virtue, but especially deep humility and ardent charity.

(10) Mary is called by St. Augustine, and is indeed, the “living mold of God.” In her alone the God-man was formed in His human nature without losing any feature of the Godhead. In her alone, by the grace of Jesus Christ, man is made godlike as far as human nature is capable of it.

Meditation

Our Blessed Mother holds such a place in the economy of our redemption that some do not hesitate to state that devotion to her is a necessary condition of salvation.

St. Albert the Great (a Doctor of the Church), says: “They who are not thy servants, O Mary, shall perish.”

St. Bonaventure (a Doctor of the Church) repeats the same thought when he says: “They who neglect the service of Mary shall die in their sins.” And again: “For them, from whom Mary turns away her face, there is not even a hope of salvation.”

St. Ignatius of Antioch (a Father of the Church), a martyr of the second century, writes: “A sinner can be saved only through the Holy Virgin who, by her merciful prayers, obtains salvation for so many who, according to strict justice, would be lost.”

If a lack of devotion to her is a mark of eternal reprobation a constant love for her must be a sign of eternal salvation. Many spiritual writers state that devotion to Mary is a sign of predestination.

St. Alphonsus Liguori (a Doctor of the Church) says: “It is impossible that a servant of Mary be damned, provided he serves her faithfully and commends himself to her maternal protection.”

St. Anselm (a Doctor of the Church) writes: “He who turns to thee and is regarded by thee cannot be lost.”

St. Antonine is of the same opinion. He says: “As it is impossible for them from whom Mary turns away her eyes of mercy to be saved, so it is necessary that they to whom she turns her eyes of mercy and for whom she intercedes to be saved and glorified.”

Prayer
Great Apostle and son of Our Lady, St. Louis de Montfort, your only desire was to set aflame the world with the love of Jesus through Mary. We implore you to obtain for us a perfect and constant devotion to Mary that we may participate in the faith, hope, and charity of Our Lady and that we may receive the favor we ask of you in this novena....

[Mention Intention]

Pray:
Say the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

Final Invocation:
O Jesus, living in Mary, come and live in your servants, in the spirit of holiness, in the fullness of your power, in the perfection of your ways, in the truth of your virtues, in the communion of your mysteries. Rule over every adverse power, in your Spirit, for the glory of the Father. Amen.

St. Louis de Montfort, pray for us and obtain for us a true devotion to Jesus, the Incarnate Wisdom, through a true devotion to Mary.

LITANY TO ST. LOUIS
MARIE DE MONTFORT

St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort

THIRD DAY OF THE NOVENA (new meditations posted for each day)
Theme: A Call to to the Cross

Holy Scripture

“And Jesus said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!” (Luke 9:23).

“And bearing His own cross, He went forth to that place which is called Calvary, but in Hebrew Golgotha” (John 19:17).

“And they laid hold of one Simon of Cyrene, coming from the country; and they laid the cross on him to carry after Jesus” (Luke 23:26).

“Many walk, of whom I have told you often―and now tell you weeping―that they are enemies of the cross of Christ” (Philippians 3:18).

“The word of the cross, to them indeed that perish, is foolishness; but to them that are saved, that is, to us, it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18).

“With Christ I am nailed to the cross” (Galatians 2:19).

“God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world!” (Galatians 6:14).

The Life of St. Louis de Montfort

It was under the guidance of the Jesuits that Louis' priestly vocation matured. The decision to enter the priesthood was made, so he tells us, at the shrine of Our Lady in the Carmelite Church in Rennes. Thanks especially to his Jesuit directors and those in charge of the Sodality of Our Lady at the College, Montfort's solid devotion to the Mother of the Lord was already an integral part of his spiritual life.

Sometime between the ages of 16 and 18, he had a deep experience of God and he felt being called to priesthood. After completing philosophy and at the beginning of the academic year in 1692, Louis started to learn theology.

A certain Mademoiselle Montigny, from St. Sulpice parish in Paris came to stay with the Grignions to get legal help from Mr. John Baptist Grignion, Louis’ father. She, on her return to Paris got help from a rich lady, and offered to get Louis admitted into St. Sulpice Seminary.

Louis preferred to walk the whole distance of 230 miles from Rennes to Paris. His father gave him some money and his mother a new set of clothes. On the day of departure Louis bade goodbye to his parents and dear ones. His uncle Fr. Alain Robert, his brother Joseph and perhaps his friend Blain accompanied him as far as Cesson Bridge, some 2 miles from Rennes. On crossing the bridge, Louis knelt down and made the vow never to possess anything in his life. He gave away the money he had to the beggar and then he exchanged his new clothes with the old ones of another beggar. Having given up all, he trusted God and made a vow to subsist thenceforth only on alms.

Louis reached Paris absolutely worn out and met Miss Montigny. Her friend was not able to pay the high fees in the Great Seminary of St. Sulpice and so she got Louis admitted into Fr. Barmondiere’s Community, a hostel meant for poor seminarians. As for his studies he followed the theology course at the famous Sorbonne University.

During the winter of 1693-94, Louis’ benefactress was not able to pay the fees. His director allowed Louis to ask for alms and get some money by keeping watch over dead bodies. Fr. Barmondiere died in September 1694 and his community was closed down. The students were divided into two groups: the richer ones joined the Little Seminary of St. Sulpice and the poorer ones including Louis joined Fr. Boucher’s Community. The conditions there were very poor.

During the winter of 1693-94, Louis’ benefactress was not able to pay the fees. His director allowed Louis to ask for alms and get some money by keeping watch over dead bodies.

As the winter of 1694 began, Louis got very ill. He was admitted into the General Hospital. He was on the point of death. Miraculously he regained health and one Mrs. Alegre came forward to meet the major part of the fees in order to get him admitted into the Little Seminary of St. Sulpice. The rest of the fees Louis got from a chaplaincy in Nantes and thus Louis was admitted into the Little Seminary of St. Sulpice.

A Passage from the Writings of St. Louis de Montfort

Call yourselves “Friends of the Cross.” What a wonderful name! I must admit that it charms and fascinates me. It is brighter than the sun, higher than the heavens, more imposing and resplendent than any title given to king or emperor. It is the great name of Christ Himself, true God and true Man at one and the same time. It is the unmistakable title of a Christian.
4. Its splendor dazzles me but the weight of it frightens me. For this title implies that you have taken upon yourselves difficult and inescapable obligations, which are summed up in the words of the Holy Ghost: “A chosen generation, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people” (1 Peter 2:9).

A Friend of the Cross is one chosen by God from among ten thousand who have reason and sense for their only guide. He is truly divine, raised above reason and thoroughly opposed to the things of sense, for he lives in the light of true faith and burns with love for the Cross.

A Friend of the Cross is a mighty king, a hero who triumphs over the devil, the world and the flesh and their threefold concupiscence. He overthrows the pride of Satan by his love for humiliation, he triumphs over the world’s greed by his love for poverty and he restrains the sensuality of the flesh by his love for suffering.
A Friend of the Cross is a holy man, separated from visible things. His heart is lifted high above all that is frail and perishable; “his conversation is in Heaven” (Philippians 3:20); he journeys here below like a stranger and pilgrim. He keeps his heart free from the world, looks upon it with an unconcerned glance of his left eye and disdainfully tramples it under foot.

Thus, a perfect Friend of the Cross is a true Christ-bearer, or rather another Christ, so much so that he can say with truth: “I live now not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Galatians 2:20).

My dear Friends of the Cross, does every act of yours justify what the eminent name you bear implies? Or at least are you, with the grace of God, in the shadow of Calvary’s Cross and of Our Lady of Pity, really eager and truly striving to attain this goal? Is the way you follow the one that leads to this goal? Is it the true way of life, the narrow way, the thorn-strewn way to Calvary? Or are you unconsciously traveling the world’s broad road, the road to perdition? Do you realize that there is a highroad which to all appearances is straight and safe for man to travel, but which in reality leads to death?

Do you really know the voice of God and grace from the voice of the world and human nature? Do you distinctly hear the voice of God, our kind Father, pronouncing His threefold curse upon everyone who follows the world in its concupiscence: “Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth” (Apocalypse 8:13) and then appealing to you with outstretched arms: “Be separated, My chosen people” (Isaias 48:20; 52:11; Jeremias 50:8; 51:6), beloved Friends of the Cross of My Son, be separated from those worldlings, for they are accursed by My Majesty, repudiated by My Son (John 17:9) and condemned by My Holy Spirit (John 16:8-12). Do not sit in their chair of pestilence, take no part in their gatherings; do not even step along their highways (Psalm 1:1). Hurry away from this great and infamous Babylon (Isaias 48:20 ; Jeremias 51:6); hearken only to the voice of My Beloved Son; follow only in His footprints; for He is the One I have given to be your Way, Truth, Life (John 14:6) and Model: hear ye Him" (Matthew 17:5; Luke 9:35; Mark 9:6; 2 Peter 1:17).

Is your ear attentive to the pleading of the lovable and cross-burdened Jesus, “Come, follow Me he that followeth Me walketh not in darkness (John 8:12) have confidence, I have conquered the world” (John 16:33)?

Dear Brethren, these are the two groups that appear before you each day, the followers of Christ and the followers of the world. Our loving Savior’s group is to the right, scaling a narrow path made all the narrower by the world’s corruption. Our kind Master is in the lead, barefooted, thorn-crowned, robed in His blood and weighted with a heavy cross. There is only a handful of people who follow Him, but they are the bravest of the brave. His gentle voice is not heard above the tumult of the world, or men do not have the courage to follow Him in poverty, suffering, humiliation and in the other crosses His servants must bear all the days of their life.

To the left is the world’s group, the devil’s in fact, which is far superior in number, and seemingly far more colorful and splendid in array. Fashionable folk are all in a hurry to enlist, the highways are overcrowded, although they are broad and ever broadening with the crowds that flow through in a torrent. These roads are strewn with flowers, bordered with all kinds of amusements and attractions and paved with gold and silver (Matthew 7:13-14).

To the right, the little flock that follows Jesus can speak only of tears, penance, prayer and contempt for worldly things. Sobbing in their grief, they can be heard repeating: “Let us suffer, let us weep, let us fast, let us pray, let us hide, let us humble ourselves, let us be poor, let us mortify ourselves, for he who has not the spirit of Christ, the spirit of the Cross, is none of Christ’s. Those who are Christ’s have crucified their flesh with its concupiscence. We must be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ or else be damned!” “Be brave,” they keep saying to each other, “be brave, for if God is for us, in us and leading us, who dare be against us? The One Who is dwelling within us is stronger than the one who is in the world, no servant is above his master; one moment of light tribulation worketh an eternal weight of glory; there are fewer elect than man may think; only the brave and daring take Heaven by storm, the crown is given only to those who strive lawfully according to the Gospel, not according to the fashion of the world. Let us put all our strength into the fight, and run very fast to reach the goal and win the crown." Friends of the Cross spur each other on with such divine words.

Worldlings, on the contrary, rouse one another to persist in their unscrupulous depravity. “Enjoy life, peace and pleasure,” they shout, “Enjoy life, peace and pleasure. Let us eat, let us drink, let us sing, let us dance, let us play. God is good, He did not make us to damn us, God does not forbid us to enjoy ourselves; we shall not be damned for that; away with scruples; we shall not die.” And so they continue.

Meditation

The Imitation of Christ has a meditative passage that dovetails perfectly with what St. Louis has written above:

Jesus has always many who love His heavenly kingdom, but few who bear His cross. He has many who desire consolation, but few who care for trial. He finds many to share His table, but few to take part in His fasting. All desire to be happy with Him; few wish to suffer anything for Him. Many follow Him to the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking of the chalice of His passion. Many revere His miracles; few approach the shame of the Cross. Many love Him as long as they encounter no hardship; many praise and bless Him as long as they receive some comfort from Him. But if Jesus hides Himself and leaves them for a while, they fall either into complaints or into deep dejection. Those, on the contrary, who love Him for His own sake and not for any comfort of their own, bless Him in all trial and anguish of heart as well as in the bliss of consolation. Even if He should never give them consolation, yet they would continue to praise Him and wish always to give Him thanks.

Do not those who always seek consolation deserve to be called mercenaries? Do not those who always think of their own profit and gain prove that they love themselves rather than Christ? Where can a man be found who desires to serve God for nothing? Rarely indeed is a man so spiritual as to strip himself of all things. And who shall find a man so truly poor in spirit as to be free from every creature? His value is like that of things brought from the most distant lands.

If a man give all his wealth, it is nothing; if he do great penance, it is little; if he gain all knowledge, he is still far afield; if he have great virtue and much ardent devotion, he still lacks a great deal, and especially, the one thing that is most necessary to him. What is this one thing? That leaving all, he forsake himself, completely renounce himself, and give up all private affections. Then, when he has done all that he knows ought to be done, let him consider it as nothing, let him make little of what may be considered great; let him in all honesty call himself an unprofitable servant. For truth itself has said: “When you shall have done all these things that are commanded you, say: 'we are unprofitable servants.'“

Then he will be truly poor and stripped in spirit, and with the prophet may say: “I am alone and poor.” No one, however, is more wealthy than such a man; no one is more powerful, no one freer than he who knows how to leave all things and think of himself as the least of all.

To many the saying, “Deny thyself, take up thy cross and follow Me,” seems hard, but it will be much harder to hear that final word: “Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.” Those who hear the word of the cross and follow it willingly now, need not fear that they will hear of eternal damnation on the day of judgment. This sign of the cross will be in the heavens when the Lord comes to judge. Then all the servants of the cross, who during life made themselves one with the Crucified, will draw near with great trust to Christ, the judge.

Why, then, do you fear to take up the cross when through it you can win a kingdom? In the cross is salvation, in the cross is life, in the cross is protection from enemies, in the cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness, in the cross is strength of mind, in the cross is joy of spirit, in the cross is highest virtue, in the cross is perfect holiness. There is no salvation of soul nor hope of everlasting life but in the cross.

Take up your cross, therefore, and follow Jesus, and you shall enter eternal life. He Himself opened the way before you in carrying His cross, and upon it He died for you, that you, too, might take up your cross and long to die upon it. If you die with Him, you shall also live with Him, and if you share His suffering, you shall also share His glory.

Behold, in the cross is everything, and upon your dying on the cross everything depends. There is no other way to life and to true inward peace than the way of the holy cross and daily mortification. Go where you will, seek what you will, you will not find a higher way, nor a less exalted but safer way, than the way of the holy cross. Arrange and order everything to suit your will and judgment, and still you will find that some suffering must always be borne, willingly or unwillingly, and thus you will always find the cross.

The cross, therefore, is always ready; it awaits you everywhere. No matter where you may go, you cannot escape it, for wherever you go you take yourself with you and shall always find yourself. Turn where you will — above, below, without, or within — you will find a cross in everything, and everywhere you must have patience if you would have peace within and merit an eternal crown.

If you carry the cross willingly, it will carry and lead you to the desired goal where indeed there shall be no more suffering, but here there shall be. If you carry it unwillingly, you create a burden for yourself and increase the load, though still you have to bear it. If you cast away one cross, you will find another and perhaps a heavier one. Do you expect to escape what no mortal man can ever avoid? Which of the saints was without a cross or trial on this earth? Not even Jesus Christ, our Lord, Whose every hour on earth knew the pain of His passion.

The whole life of Christ was a cross and a martyrdom, and do you seek rest and enjoyment for yourself? You deceive yourself, you are mistaken if you seek anything but to suffer, for this mortal life is full of miseries and marked with crosses on all sides. Indeed, the more spiritual progress a person makes, so much heavier will he frequently find the cross, because as his love increases, the pain of his exile also increases.
(The Imitation of Christ, Book 2, chapters 11 & 12).

Prayer
Great Apostle and son of Our Lady, St. Louis de Montfort, your only desire was to set aflame the world with the love of Jesus through Mary. We implore you to obtain for us a perfect and constant devotion to Mary that we may participate in the faith, hope, and charity of Our Lady and that we may receive the favor we ask of you in this novena....

[Mention Intention]

Pray:
Say the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

Final Invocation:
O Jesus, living in Mary, come and live in your servants, in the spirit of holiness, in the fullness of your power, in the perfection of your ways, in the truth of your virtues, in the communion of your mysteries. Rule over every adverse power, in your Spirit, for the glory of the Father. Amen.

St. Louis de Montfort, pray for us and obtain for us a true devotion to Jesus, the Incarnate Wisdom, through a true devotion to Mary.

LITANY TO ST. LOUIS
MARIE DE MONTFORT

St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort

FOURTH DAY OF THE NOVENA (new meditations posted for each day)
Theme: A Call to Sincere Humility

"What steps will you take to reach the high level to which God is calling you? The means of holiness and salvation are known to everybody, since they are found in the Gospel; the masters of the spiritual life have explained them; the saints have practiced them and shown how essential they are for those who wish to be saved and attain perfection. These means are: sincere humility, unceasing prayer, complete self-denial, abandonment to divine Providence, and obedience to the will of God" (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of Mary).

Holy Scripture

“Where pride is, there also shall be reproach: but where humility is, there also is wisdom” (Proverbs 11:2).

“Thou wilt save the humble people; but wilt bring down the eyes of the proud!” (Psalm 17:28).

“Humiliation followeth the proud: and glory shall uphold the humble of spirit” (Proverbs 29:23).

“Let us humble our souls before Him, and continuing in an humble spirit, in His service” (Judith 8:16).

“The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a contrite heart: and He will save the humble of spirit” (Psalm 33:19).

“The greater thou art, the more humble thyself in all things, and thou shalt find grace before God” (Ecclesiasticus 3:20).

“Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, he is the greater in the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 18:4).

“Learn of Me, because I am meek, and humble of heart!” (Matthew 11:29).

The Life of St. Louis de Montfort

The differences between the Great Seminary and the Little Seminary were only in fees and meals. Louis gave up his studies at the Sorbonne. He was not interested in further qualifications. Louis was not a seminarian like the rest and he was considered singular. He gave much time to prayer, penance, solitude, etc. His spiritual guides were not sure whether he was genuine or not, and, hence, they wanted to test him. Louis chose Fr. Leschassier, the Superior of the Great Seminary as his spiritual director. He restricted Louis in his practice of prayer and penance, but Louis always obeyed him. He asked Fr. Brenier to be the spiritual director for Louis. Fr. Brenier tested Louis by humiliating him publicly before his companions and by curtailing all his initiatives. After six months he sent him back to Fr. Leschassier.

To distract Louis from his ‘over recollectedness’, his superiors appointed him Librarian of the Seminary of the Seminary. He made use of this appointment to read a large number of books especially those on Mary, the Bible and Spirituality. He did well as the Librarian.

In addition, he was appointed Master of Ceremonies and there too he did wonderfully well. His other duty was to teach catechism to children. By using simple stories, he successfully performed his duty and became an expert catechist. He wanted to be a preacher especially for the poor. While in the Seminary he started preparing sermon notes. He also composed a large number of hymns.

It was here, in Paris, that he was introduced to the writings of Father Boudon on “Slavery to the Blessed Virgin.” This beautiful devotion consumed him throughout the future years and inspired him to later write his most famous treatise–"True Devotion to Mary."

Even as a seminarian in Paris, Montfort was known for the veneration he had toward the angels: he "urged his confreres to show marks of respect and tenderness to their guardian angels." He often ended his letters with a salutation to the guardian angel of the person to whom he was writing: "I salute your guardian angel". He also saluted all the angels in the city of Nantes, a custom that, it appears, he repeated when he entered a new village or city.

One of the reasons why Saint Louis Marie de Montfort had such devotion to the angels is that veneration of the pure spirits was an integral part of his training and also of his culture. His college teachers, the Jesuits, were known for their zeal in propagating devotion to the angels. Montfort’s seminary training under the Sulpicians brought him into contact with the thought of Cardinal de Bérulle and Olier, both of whom had deep veneration for the angels. Furthermore, in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, manuals of piety and treatises on the pure spirits were numerous.

A Passage from the Writings of St. Louis de Montfort

Mary was singularly hidden during her life. It is on this account that the Holy Ghost and the Church call her Alma Mater—“Mother secret and hidden.” Her humility was so profound that she had no inclination on Earth more powerful or more constant than that of hiding herself, from herself as well as from every other creature, so as to be known to God only.

He heard her prayers when she begged to be hidden, to be humbled and to be treated as in all respects poor and of no account. He took pleasure in hiding her from all human creatures, in her conception, in her birth, in her life, in her mysteries, and in her resurrection and Assumption. Even her parents did not know her, and the angels often asked one another: “Who is that?” (Canticles 3:6; 8:5) because the Most High either had hidden her from them, or if He did reveal anything, it was nothing compared to what He kept undisclosed.

§4. God the Father consented that she should work no miracle, at least no public one, during her life, although He had given her the power to do so. God the Son consented that she should hardly ever speak, though He had communicated His wisdom to her. God the Holy Ghost, though she was His faithful spouse, consented that His Apostles and Evangelists should speak very little of her, and no more than was necessary to make Jesus Christ known.

Mary is the excellent masterpiece of the Most High, the knowledge and possession of which He has reserved to Himself. Mary is the admirable Mother of the Son, who took pleasure in humbling and concealing her during her life in order to favor her humility, calling her by the name of “woman” (John 2:4; 19:26), as if she were a stranger, although in His heart He esteemed and loved her above all angels and all men. Mary is the “sealed fountain” (Canticles 4:12), the faithful spouse of the Holy Ghost, to whom He alone has entrance. Mary is the sanctuary and the repose of the Holy Trinity, where God dwells more magnificently and more divinely than in any other place in the universe, not excepting His dwelling between the Cherubim and Seraphim. Nor is any creature, no matter how pure, allowed to enter into that sanctuary except by a great and special privilege.

I say with the saints, the divine2 Mary is the terrestrial paradise of the New Adam, where He was made flesh by the operation of the Holy Ghost, in order to work there incomprehensible marvels. She is the grand and divine world of God, where there are beauties and treasures unspeakable. She is the magnificence of the Most High, where He hid, as in her bosom, His only Son, and in Him all that is most excellent and most precious. Oh, what grand and hidden things that mighty God has wrought in this admirable creature, as she herself had to acknowledge, in spite of her profound humility: “He that is mighty hath done great things to me.” (Luke 1:49). The world knows them not, because it is both incapable and unworthy of such knowledge.

Meditation

Humility is considered in all Christian tradition as the foundation of the spiritual life, since it removes pride, which is, says Holy Scripture, the beginning of every sin because it separates us from God. Thus humility has often been compared to the excavation which must be dug for the erection of a building, an excavation which should be so much the deeper in proportion as the building is to be higher. From this point of view, as we have seen, the two principal pillars of the temple to be built are faith and hope, and its dome is charity.

Humility ought certainly to repress pride under all its forms, including intellectual and spiritual pride, which we have already discussed. But the principal, essential act and the highest act of humility is not, to be exact, the actual repression of movements of pride. It is evident, in fact, that in our Lord and in Mary there never was a first movement of pride to repress, and nevertheless there was in them and there still is the eminent exercise of the virtue of humility.

The act proper to humility consists in bowing toward the earth, called humus in Latin, from which the name of this virtue is derived. To speak without metaphor, its essential act consists in abasing ourselves before God and adore what is of God in every creature. To abase ourselves before the Most High is to recognize, not only in a speculative but in a practical manner, our inferiority, littleness, and indigence, manifest in us even though we are innocent, and, once we have sinned, it consists in recognizing our wretchedness.

Humility, by inclining us toward the earth, recognizes our littleness, our poverty, and in its way glorifies the majesty of God. It sings His glory as when the archangel Michael said: "Who is like to God?" The interior soul experiences a holy joy in annihilating itself, as it were, before God to recognize practically that He alone is great and that, in comparison with His, all human greatness is empty of truth like a lie.

Humility thus conceived is based on truth, especially on the truth that there is an infinite distance between the Creator and the creature. The more this distance appears to us in a living and concrete manner, the more humble we are. However lofty the creature may be, this abyss is always infinite; and the higher we ascend, the more evident does this infinite abyss become for us. In this sense, the highest soul is the most humble, because the most enlightened: the Blessed Virgin Mary is more humble than all the saints, and our Lord is far more humble than His holy Mother.

Prayer
Great Apostle and son of Our Lady, St. Louis de Montfort, your only desire was to set aflame the world with the love of Jesus through Mary. We implore you to obtain for us a perfect and constant devotion to Mary that we may participate in the faith, hope, and charity of Our Lady and that we may receive the favor we ask of you in this novena....

[Mention Intention]

Pray:
Say the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

Final Invocation:
O Jesus, living in Mary, come and live in your servants, in the spirit of holiness, in the fullness of your power, in the perfection of your ways, in the truth of your virtues, in the communion of your mysteries. Rule over every adverse power, in your Spirit, for the glory of the Father. Amen.

St. Louis de Montfort, pray for us and obtain for us a true devotion to Jesus, the Incarnate Wisdom, through a true devotion to Mary.

LITANY TO ST. LOUIS
MARIE DE MONTFORT

St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort

FIFTH DAY OF THE NOVENA (new meditations posted for each day)
Theme: A Call to Unceasing Prayer

"What steps will you take to reach the high level to which God is calling you? The means of holiness and salvation are known to everybody, since they are found in the Gospel; the masters of the spiritual life have explained them; the saints have practiced them and shown how essential they are for those who wish to be saved and attain perfection. These means are: sincere humility, unceasing prayer, complete self-denial, abandonment to divine Providence, and obedience to the will of God" (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of Mary).

Holy Scripture

"And Jesus spoke also a parable to them, that we ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1).

“Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

“And it came to pass in those days, that He went out into a mountain to pray, and He passed the whole night in the prayer of God” (Luke 6:12).

“And being in an agony, He prayed even longer” (Luke 22:43).

The Life of St. Louis de Montfort

On the death of M. de la Barmondière, his hostel was closed. Grignion found a place at Montaigu College, near the present-day Pantheon, which was also a community of poor students. This establishment was known for the excellence of its teaching, but also for the severity of its discipline and its inhuman diet: “the most miserable of all the colleges in this corner of Paris”. Monsieur Boucher, who was its director, had to confront the lack of financial means. The winter of 1693-1694 was severe and produced many victims in the capital. The superior proposed to his students that they should take on watching over the dead four or five nights a week, to make a bit of money.

Louis Grignion took advantage of this to prolong his mental prayer and to meditate on the vanities of existence. But, as a consequence, he took sick and was hospitalized in the Hôtel-Dieu, itself a house of the poor. His life was in danger, but he retained his trust and eventually came through. The following year, he was admitted to the Little Saint-Sulpice, a seminary of the second grade, for students of modest means. Nevertheless he was not completely without resources, for, beginning in 1695, he was awarded the revenues of a chaplaincy, and from 1697 his parents guaranteed him a modest dowry.

At Saint-Sulpice, his director was Monsieur Leschassier, who had great trouble understanding this young man who “did not go on ordinary paths.” On his recommendation, Louis Marie left the Sorbonne and continued his theological training at Saint-Sulpice itself, thanks to the evening courses. He was appointed seminary librarian and was to say himself that he had read “almost all the books that deal with devotion to the Blessed Virgin” (True Devotion, 118). Monsieur Blain is more precise: “almost all the books dealing with spirituality passed through his hands.”

In spirituality, he will have drawn heavily on the French School, reading Monsieur Boudon, Cardinal de Bérulle and Monsieur Olier. He himself is one of the lights of this school. And H. Brémond would say of him that he was “the last of the great Bérullians.”

After four years at Saint-Sulpice (summer 1699) he was chosen to go on pilgrimage ― on foot, of course ― to Chartres, with Monsieur Bardou, another seminarian. He went aside from his companions from time to time to speak with the people he encountered, to catechize them, to give them good advice. In Chartres, he went straight to the Cathedral where Mary has been honored since the far-off beginnings of Christian France. Forgetful of the tiredness he had accumulated, he remained for several hours before the statue of Our Lady of the Crypt. He returned the following morning early and received Communion at the Mass, then he stayed for six hours in prayer, “on his knees, immobile, and as though in a trance” (Blain).

The following year, Monsieur Leschassier, his spiritual director, judged that he was ready for the priesthood. On 5 June 1700 he was ordained a priest by Mgr. Bazan de Flamanville, the Bishop of Elne, near Perpignan. He had known this prelate in the seminary, and had taught catechism with him. A week later he celebrated his first Mass in the parish-church of Saint-Sulpice. One of his classmates said that he seemed “like an angel at the altar.”

A Passage from the Writings of St. Louis de Montfort

. It was only through Mary that God the Father gave His Only begotten to the world. Whatever sighs the patriarchs may have sent forth, whatever prayers the prophets and the saints of the Old Law may have offered up to obtain this treasure for full four thousand years, it was only Mary who merited it and found grace before God (Luke 1:30) by the force of her prayers and the eminence of her virtues.

The world was unworthy, says St. Augustine, to receive the Son of God directly from the Father’s hands. He gave Him to Mary in order that the world might receive Him through her.

At the marriage of Cana, Jesus changed the water into wine, but it was at Mary’s humble prayer; and this was His first miracle of nature.

Mary is infinitely below her Son, who is God, and therefore she does not command Him as a mother here below would command her child who is below her. Mary, being altogether transformed into God by grace and by the glory which transforms all the saints into Him, asks nothing, wishes nothing, does nothing contrary to the eternal and immutable will of God.

When we read then in the writings of Saints Bernard, Bernardine, Bonaventure and others that in Heaven and on Earth everything, even God Himself, is subject to the Blessed Virgin,5 they mean that the authority which God has been well pleased to give her is so great that it seems as if she had the same power as God; and that her prayers and petitions are so powerful with God that they always pass for commandments with His Majesty, who never resists the prayer of His dear Mother, because she is always humble and conformed to His will.

If Moses, by the force of his prayer, stayed the anger of God against the Israelites in a manner so powerful that the most high and infinitely merciful Lord, being unable to resist him, told him to let Him alone that He might be angry with and punish that rebellious people, what must we not, with much greater reason, think of the prayer of the humble Mary, that worthy Mother of God, which is more powerful with His Majesty than the prayers and intercessions of all the angels and saints both in Heaven and on Earth?

The greatest saints, the souls richest in graces and virtues, shall be the most assiduous in praying to our Blessed Lady, and in having her always present as their perfect model for imitation and their powerful aid for help.

Meditation

St. Augustine says: “What more excellent than prayer? What more useful and profitable? What sweeter and more delicious? What higher and more exalted in the whole scheme of our Christian religion?”

St. Bernard says that the angels receive our prayers an present them before God—as the angel said to Tobias: “When thou didst pray with tears, I offered thy prayer to God” (Tobias 12:12). St. Hilary says the same: “The angels preside over the prayers of the saints and offer them each day to God.”

When we pray, we enter into the presence of the majesty of God. St. John Chrysostom warns us: “Consider the height, dignity and glory to which the Lord has raised you.”

Pope Celestine, in a decree dealing with prayer says: “I know nothing better to say to you than what my predecessor Zozimus said: ‘What time is there in which we have no need of God?’ None. Therefore at all times, and in all cases, in all affairs we need to have recourse to Him by prayer and crave His favor. For it is a great pride for a weak and miserable man to presume anything by himself.”

St. Thomas, writing of prayer, says that what God decided from all eternity to grant us by His Divine Providence, He will give it to us by means of prayer, and on this depends the deliverance, salvation, conversion and cure of many souls and the progress and perfection of others. God has ruled that Matrimony begets children. Ploughing and sowing brings an abundance of crops. Prayer brings gifts and graces to the world.

“Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you. For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and the door shall be opened to him that knocked” (Matthew 7:7).

St. Augustine says that prayer is the key of Heaven that fits all the gates of Heaven and all the treasure chests of God. Elsewhere he says that what bread is to the body, prayer is to the soul. And “He knows how to live well, who knows how to pray well.”

Prayer
Great Apostle and son of Our Lady, St. Louis de Montfort, your only desire was to set aflame the world with the love of Jesus through Mary. We implore you to obtain for us a perfect and constant devotion to Mary that we may participate in the faith, hope, and charity of Our Lady and that we may receive the favor we ask of you in this novena....

[Mention Intention]

Pray:
Say the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

Final Invocation:
O Jesus, living in Mary, come and live in your servants, in the spirit of holiness, in the fullness of your power, in the perfection of your ways, in the truth of your virtues, in the communion of your mysteries. Rule over every adverse power, in your Spirit, for the glory of the Father. Amen.

St. Louis de Montfort, pray for us and obtain for us a true devotion to Jesus, the Incarnate Wisdom, through a true devotion to Mary.

LITANY TO ST. LOUIS
MARIE DE MONTFORT

St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort

SIXTH DAY OF THE NOVENA (new meditations posted for each day)
Theme: A Call to Complete Self-Denial

"What steps will you take to reach the high level to which God is calling you? The means of holiness and salvation are known to everybody, since they are found in the Gospel; the masters of the spiritual life have explained them; the saints have practiced them and shown how essential they are for those who wish to be saved and attain perfection. These means are: sincere humility, unceasing prayer, complete self-denial, abandonment to divine Providence, and obedience to the will of God" (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of Mary).

Holy Scripture

“Then Jesus said to His disciples: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me!’” (Matthew 16:24).

“And calling the multitude together with His disciples, He said to them: ‘If any man will follow Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me!’” (Mark 8:34).

"And He said to all: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me!’” (Luke 9:23).

“And behold one came and said to Jesus: ‘Good master! What good shall I do that I may have life everlasting?’ Who said to him: ‘Why asketh thou Me concerning good? One is good, God. But if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments!’ He said to Him: ‘Which?’ And Jesus said: ‘Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness. Honor thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself!’ The young man saith to Him: ‘All these I have kept from my youth! What is yet wanting to me?’

“Jesus saith to him: ‘If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven: and come follow Me!’ And when the young man had heard this word, he went away sad: for he had great possessions. Then Jesus said to His disciples: ‘Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!’

“And when they had heard this, the disciples wondered very much, saying: ‘Who then can be saved?’ And Jesus beholding, said to them: ‘With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible. Then Peter answering, said to him: ‘Behold we have left all things, and have followed Thee! What therefore shall we have?’ And Jesus said to them: ‘Amen, I say to you, that you, who have followed Me, and every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for My Name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting!” (Matthew 19:16-29).

The Life of St. Louis de Montfort

Various options were offered him; his heart was divided between different attractions. He was to write in December of this same year: “I find myself, as time goes on, torn by two apparently contradictory feelings. On one hand, I feel a secret attraction for a hidden life … On the other hand, I feel a tremendous urge to make our Lord and his holy Mother loved, to go in a humble and simple way to teach catechism to the poor in country places and to arouse in sinners a devotion to our Blessed Lady”.

The foreign missions were also a possibility that he looked at. He had come to know Mgr. de Saint-Vallier, the missionary bishop in Quebec, and he expressed a desire to go off with him: “By no means, Monsieur; you would lose yourself in the forests of that vast country.” This was the response of Monsieur Leschassier, who proposed also that he should stay at Saint-Sulpice to aid his former teachers in their formation of the seminarians. He could not accept this offer. Everything within him was pushing him towards a mission to the poorest people.

Montfort was directed towards the community of Saint-Clément in Nantes, where Abbé René Lévêque, who ran the community, had a reputation for apostolic zeal in the evangelization of the most humble people and for his devotion to Mary. At the end of a few months, Montfort expressed his disappointment: “I have not found here what I had hoped for… My intention was … to prepare for mission-work and especially for teaching catechism to the poor, since this is what attracts me most”. And this young priest who had only 6 months of priesthood behind him and had no pastoral experience, reveals the depth of his apostolic dream: “When I see the needs of the Church I cannot help pleading continually for a small and poor band of good priests to do this work (of missions) under the banner and protection of the Blessed Virgin”.

While he waited, he spent his time “performing charitable services for the poor.” Madame de Montespan, the converted former mistress of the King, was the instrument used to point our saint in the direction of the hospital in Poitiers. Louis Marie had two sisters in the Abbey of Fontevrault near Saumur. The Abbess, Mademoiselle de Rochchouart, happened to be the sister of Mademoiselle de Montespan who was there when Montfort went to assist at the reception of the habit by his sister Sylvie. She got him to talk about his plans: “I answered very simply telling her about the attraction you know I feel to work for my brothers, the poor…” In reply, the Marquise offered him a canonry that was in her gift and would assure his livelihood: “I thanked her humbly but promptly assured her that I would never exchange divine providence for a canonry or a benefice.”

Madame de Montespan was not surprised by his answer. She advised him to go to see Mgr. Antoine Girard, the Bishop of Poitiers, to speak to him of his intentions. Montfort had no real desire to go to meet the Bishop: “I obeyed her blindly believing this was God's holy will, which was all I wanted.”

A Passage from the Writings of St. Louis de Montfort

It was only through Mary that God the Father gave His Only begotten to the world. Whatever sighs the patriarchs may have sent forth, whatever prayers the prophets and the saints of the Old Law may have offered up to obtain this treasure for full four thousand years, it was only Mary who merited it and found grace before God (Luke 1:30) by the force of her prayers and the eminence of her virtues.

The world was unworthy, says St. Augustine, to receive the Son of God directly from the Father’s hands. He gave Him to Mary in order that the world might receive Him through her. At the marriage of Cana, Jesus changed the water into wine, but it was at Mary’s humble prayer; and this was His first miracle of nature. Mary is infinitely below her Son, who is God, and therefore she does not command Him as a mother here below would command her child who is below her. Mary, being altogether transformed into God by grace and by the glory which transforms all the saints into Him, asks nothing, wishes nothing, does nothing contrary to the eternal and immutable will of God.

When we read then in the writings of Saints Bernard, Bernardine, Bonaventure and others that in Heaven and on Earth everything, even God Himself, is subject to the Blessed Virgin,5 they mean that the authority which God has been well pleased to give her is so great that it seems as if she had the same power as God; and that her prayers and petitions are so powerful with God that they always pass for commandments with His Majesty, who never resists the prayer of His dear Mother, because she is always humble and conformed to His will.

If Moses, by the force of his prayer, stayed the anger of God against the Israelites in a manner so powerful that the most high and infinitely merciful Lord, being unable to resist him, told him to let Him alone that He might be angry with and punish that rebellious people, what must we not, with much greater reason, think of the prayer of the humble Mary, that worthy Mother of God, which is more powerful with His Majesty than the prayers and intercessions of all the angels and saints both in Heaven and on Earth?

The greatest saints, the souls richest in graces and virtues, shall be the most assiduous in praying to our Blessed Lady, and in having her always present as their perfect model for imitation and their powerful aid for help.

Meditation

Fr. Tanquerey, in The Spiritual Life, writes:

“We make use of the expression, the “three ways”, to conform to traditional usage. We must note however that it is not question here of three parallel or divergent ways, but rather of three different stages, of three marked degrees, which souls who generously correspond to divine grace pass through in the spiritual life. Each way in turn has many degrees …

“There are two excesses to be avoided with regard to self-denial:

(a) That of wishing to lead souls prematurely into the so-called way of love, whilst failing to train them to the stern discipline of daily self-denial. It is in this way that illusions are fostered and at times the ground made ready for regrettable falls. How many souls experiencing, those sensible consolations God dispenses to beginners, and thinking themselves well-grounded in virtue, expose themselves to occasions of sin and fall into grievous faults! A little more mortification, true humility, distrust of self, and a more determined fight against their passions, would have preserved them from such lapses.

(b) The other excess is to speak constantly of renouncement and mortification without making it clear that these are but means of arriving at the love of God, or manifestations of that love. Thus some persons possessed of good will, but as yet of little courage are disheartened, They would take more heart and be filled with greater strength, if they were shown how such sacrifices become so much easier if done for the love of God: “Where there is love, there is no labor.”

Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange quotes St. John of Cross on self denial:

“The teaching of St. John of the Cross confirms this doctrine. In The Ascent of Mount Carmel, he writes as follows:

‘Some consider any kind of retirement from the world and any correction
of excesses to be sufficient; others are content with a certain degree of virtue, persevere in prayer and practice mortification, but they do not rise to this detachment, and poverty, or self-denial, or spiritual pureness.... They render themselves spiritually enemies of the cross of Christ, for true spirituality seeks for bitterness rather than sweetness in God, inclines to suffering more than to consolation, and to be in want of everything for God rather than to possess; to dryness and afflictions rather than to sweet communications, knowing well that this is to follow Christ and deny self, while the other course is perhaps nothing but to seek oneself in God, which is the very opposite of love. . . . Would that I could persuade spiritual persons that the way of God consists, not in the multiplicity of meditations, ways of devotion or sweetness, though these may be necessary for beginners, but in one necessary thing only, in knowing how to deny themselves in earnest, inwardly and outwardly, giving themselves up to suffer for Christ’s sake, and annihilating themselves utterly. He who shall exercise himself herein, will then find all this and much more. And if he be deficient at all in this exercise, which is the sum and root of all virtue, all he may do will be but beating the air; utterly profitless, notwithstanding great meditations and communications. And when he [the spiritual man] shall have been brought to nothing, when his humility is perfect, then will take place the union of the soul and God, which is the highest and noblest estate attainable in this life.’”

Prayer
Great Apostle and son of Our Lady, St. Louis de Montfort, your only desire was to set aflame the world with the love of Jesus through Mary. We implore you to obtain for us a perfect and constant devotion to Mary that we may participate in the faith, hope, and charity of Our Lady and that we may receive the favor we ask of you in this novena....

[Mention Intention]

Pray:
Say the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

Final Invocation:
O Jesus, living in Mary, come and live in your servants, in the spirit of holiness, in the fullness of your power, in the perfection of your ways, in the truth of your virtues, in the communion of your mysteries. Rule over every adverse power, in your Spirit, for the glory of the Father. Amen.

St. Louis de Montfort, pray for us and obtain for us a true devotion to Jesus, the Incarnate Wisdom, through a true devotion to Mary.

LITANY TO ST. LOUIS
MARIE DE MONTFORT

St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort

SEVENTH DAY OF THE NOVENA (new meditations posted for each day)
Theme:  A Call to Abandonment to Divine Providence

"What steps will you take to reach the high level to which God is calling you? The means of holiness and salvation are known to everybody, since they are found in the Gospel; the masters of the spiritual life have explained them; the saints have practiced them and shown how essential they are for those who wish to be saved and attain perfection. These means are: sincere humility, unceasing prayer, complete self-denial, abandonment to divine Providence, and obedience to the will of God" (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of Mary).

Holy Scripture

“Therefore I say to you, be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than the meat: and the body more than the raiment? Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns: and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not you of much more value than they? And which of you by being anxious, can add to his stature by one cubit? And for clothing, why are you solicitous? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they labor not, neither do they spin. But I say to you, that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these. And if the grass of the field, which is today, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, God doth so clothe: how much more you, O ye of little faith? Be not solicitous therefore, saying, What shall we eat: or what shall we drink, or wherewith shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the heathens seek. For your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things. Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you. Be not therefore solicitous for tomorrow; for the morrow will be solicitous for itself. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof!” (Matthew 6:25-34).

The Life of St. Louis de Montfort

He had to wait for four days before the Bishop of Poitiers could see him. The Bishop then suggested that he go to the Hospital, where there lived sick and poor people of the town to the number of about 400. The first visit Montfort made there was for a long period of prayer, of four hours, in the chapel, and to serve at table. He was quickly appreciated by the inmates who set about making a collection for this poor priest so like themselves in his garb. “They are going about saying openly that I am to be their priest, that is, their director, for there has not been a regular director in the poorhouse for a considerable time, so abandoned has it become.”

The proposal was not finalized immediately and Montfort went back to Saint-Clément in Nantes, where Monsieur Lévêque entrusted him with the preaching of a mission in the parish of Grandchamp, then in Le Pellerin and elsewhere. He was now at ease: “When I am teaching catechism to the poor in town and country, I am in my element.” But the call of Poitiers was insistent: “Our poor people of Poitiers continue, Monsieur, to ask for you…,” Mgr. Girard wrote to him. He submitted despite the reluctance that he expressed to his director: “I do wish most sincerely to work for the spiritual welfare of the poor in general but I am not particularly anxious to settle down and be attached to a poorhouse.”

Nevertheless he made a great success of this mission and Providence caused him to meet there a young lady called Marie-Louise Trichet. He made her wait ten years but after such a long and trying novitiate she was to become the first Daughter of Wisdom and the Superior General of the congregation he was to found for “the instruction of children of the towns and of the countryside, in charitable schools, the good governance of the poor in hospitals and outside them… and the conducting of retreat houses…” (Primitive Rule of La Sagesse, 1).

A Passage from the Writings of St. Louis de Montfort

People who say the Lord’s Prayer carefully, weighing every word and meditating on them, may indeed call themselves blessed, for they find therein everything that they need or can wish for. When we say this wonderful prayer, we touch God’s heart at the very outset by calling Him by that sweet name of Father.

“Our Father,” He is the dearest of fathers: all‑powerful in His creation, wonderful in the way He maintains the world, completely lovable in His divine Providence, all good and infinitely so in the Redemption. We have God for our Father, so we are all brothers, and Heaven is our homeland and our heritage. This should be more than enough to teach us to love God and our neighbor, and to be detached from the things of this world.

So we ought to love our heavenly Father and say to Him over and over again: “Our Father Who art in Heaven” ... because nothing whatsoever can happen without divine Providence having foreseen it and having made it fit into his plans beforehand. No obstruction in the whole world can possibly prevent the will of God from being carried out ... All temporal goods come from His Providence ...

We show our trust in his Providence by asking for our daily bread, and we appeal to his mercy when we ask for the forgiveness of our sins. We look to his great power when we beg him not to lead us into temptation, and we show our Faith in his goodness by our hope that he will deliver us from evil.

Even though you do the best you can in the performance of your duty, you will still have to contend with contradiction, persecution and contempt which Divine Providence will send you against your will and without your choice.

Meditation

Nothing happens in the universe without God willing and allowing it. This statement must be taken absolutely of everything with the exception of sin. “Nothing occurs by chance in the whole course of our lives” is the unanimous teaching of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, “and God intervenes everywhere.”

“I am the Lord,” He tells us Himself by the mouth of the prophet Isaias, “and there is none else. I form light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things.”1 “It is I who bring both death and life, I who inflict wounds and heal them,” He said to Moses.2 “The Lord killeth and maketh alive,” it is written in the Canticle of Anna, the mother of Samuel, “He bringeth down to the tomb and He bringeth back again; the Lord maketh poor and maketh rich, he humbleth and he exalteth.” 3 “Shall there be evil (disaster, affliction) in a city which the Lord hath not done?” 4 asks the prophet Amos. “Good things and evil, life and death, poverty and riches are from God,” Solomon proclaims.5 And so on in numerous other passages of Scripture.

Perhaps you will say that while this is true of certain necessary effects, like sickness, death, cold and heat, and other accidents due to natural causes which have no liberty of action, the same cannot be said in the case of things that result from the free will of man. For if, you will object, someone slanders me, robs me, strikes me, persecutes me, how can I attribute his conduct to the will of God who, far from wishing me to be treated in such a manner, expressly forbids it? So the blame, you will conclude, can only be laid on the will of man, on his ignorance or malice. This is the defense behind which we try to shelter from God and excuse our lack of courage and submission.

It is quite useless for us to try and take advantage of this way of reasoning as an excuse for not surrendering to Providence. God Himself has refuted it and we must believe on His word that in events of this kind as in all others, nothing occurs except by His order and permission.

Let us see what the Scriptures say:
He wishes to punish the murder and adultery committed by David and He expresses Himself as follows by the mouth of the prophet Nathan: “Why therefore hast thou despised the word of the Lord, to do evil in my sight? Thou hast killed Urias the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Therefore the sword shall never depart from thy house, because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Urias the Hittite to be thy wife. Thus saith the Lord: Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thy own house, and I will take thy wives before thy eyes and give them to thy neighbor and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun. For thou didst it secretly, but I will do this thing in the sight of all Israel, and in the sight of the sun.”6

Later when the Jews by their iniquities had grievously offended Him and provoked His wrath, He says: “The Assyrian is the rod and the staff of my anger, and my indignation is in his hands. I will send him to the deceitful nation, and I will give him charge against the people of my wrath, to take away the spoils, and to lay hold on the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.”7

Could God more openly declare Himself to be responsible for the evils that Absalom caused his father and the King of Assyria the Jews? It would be easy to find other instances but these are enough. Let us conclude then with St. Augustine: “All that happens to us in this world against our will (whether due to men or to other causes) happens to us only by the will of God, by the disposal of Providence, by His orders and under His guidance; and if from the frailty of our understanding we cannot grasp the reason for some event, let us attribute it to divine Providence, show Him respect by accepting it from His hand, believe firmly that He does not send it us without cause.”

Replying to the murmurs and complaints of the Jews who attributed their captivity and sufferings to misfortune and causes other than the will of God, the prophet Jeremias says to them: “Who is he that hath commanded a thing to be done, when the Lord commandeth it not? Do not both evil and good proceed out of the mouth of the Highest? Why doth a living man murmur, a man suffering for his sins? Let us search our ways, and seek, and return to the Lord. Let us lift up our hearts with our hands to the Lord in the heavens, saying, We have done wickedly and provoked thee to wrath; therefore thou art inexorable.”8

Are not these words clear enough? We should take them to heart for our own good. Let us be careful to attribute everything to the will of God and believe that all is guided by His paternal hand.

How Can God Will or Allow Evil?
However, you will perhaps now say, there is sinfulness in all these actions. How then can God will them and take part in them if He is all‑holy and can have nothing in common with sin?

God indeed is not and cannot be the author of sin. But it must be remembered that in every sin there are two parts to be distinguished, one natural and the other moral. Thus, in the action of the man you think you have a grievance against there is, for example, the movement of the arm that strikes you or the tongue that offends you, and the movement of the will that turns aside from right reason and the law of God. The physical action of the arm or the tongue, like all natural things, is quite good in itself and there is nothing to prevent its being produced with and by God’s cooperation. What is evil, what God could not cooperate with, is the sinful intention which the will of man contributes to the act.

When a man walks with a crippled leg the movement he makes comes both from the soul and the leg, but the defect which causes him to walk badly is only in the leg. In the same way all evil actions must be attributed to God and to man in so far as they are natural, physical acts, but they can be attributed only to the will of man in so far as they are sinful and blameworthy.

If then someone strikes you or slanders you, as the movement of the arm or tongue is in no way a sin, God can very well be, and actually is, the author of it; for existence and movement in man not less than in any other creature proceed not from himself but from God, who acts in him and by him. “For in Him” says St. Paul, “we live and move and have our being.” 9 As for the malice of the intention, it proceeds entirely from man and in it alone is the sinfulness in which God has no share but which He yet permits in order not to interfere with our freedom of will.

Moreover, when God cooperates with the person who attacks or robs you, He doubtless intends to deprive you of health or goods, because you are making a wrong use of them and they will be harmful to your soul. But He does not intend that the attacker, or robber, should take them from you by a sin. That is the part of human malice, not God’s design.

An example may make the matter clearer. A criminal is condemned to death by fair trial. But the executioner happens to be a personal enemy of his, and instead of carrying out the judge’s sentence as a duty, he does so in a spirit of hate and revenge. Obviously the judge has no share in the executioner’s sin. The will and intention of the judge is not that this sin should be committed, but that justice should take its course and the criminal be punished.

In the same way God has no share at all in the wickedness of the man who strikes or robs you. That is something particular to the man himself. God, as we have said, wishes to make you see your own faults, to humble you, deprive you of what you possess, in order to free you from vice and lead you to virtue; but this good and merciful design, which He could carry out in numerous other ways without any sin being involved, has nothing in common with the sin of the man, who acts as His instrument. And, in fact, it is not this man’s evil intention, or sin, that causes you to suffer, humiliates or impoverishes you, but the loss of your well-being, your good name, or your possessions. The sin harms only the person who is guilty of it. This is the way we ought to separate the good from the evil in events of this kind, and distinguish what God operates through men, from what men add to the act by their own will.

PRACTICAL EXAMPLES
St. Gregory sets the same truth before us in another light. A doctor, he says, orders leeches to be applied. While these small creatures are drawing blood from the patient their only aim is to gorge themselves and suck up as much of it as they can. The doctor’s only intention is to have the impure blood drawn from the patient and to cure him in this manner. There is therefore no relation between the insatiable greed of the leeches and the intelligent purpose of the doctor in using them. The patient himself does not protest at their use. He does not regard the leeches as evildoers. Rather he tries to overcome the repugnance the sight of their ugliness causes and help them in their action, in the knowledge that the doctor has judged it useful for his health.

God makes use of men as the doctor does of leeches. Neither should we then stop to consider the evilness of those to whom God gives power to act on us or be grieved at their wicked intentions, and we should keep ourselves from feelings of aversion towards, them. Whatever their particular views may be, in regard to us they are only instruments of wellbeing, guided by the hand of an all‑good, all‑wise, all‑powerful God who will allow them to act on us only in so far as is of use to us. It is in our interest to welcome instead of trying to repel their assaults, as in very truth they come from God. And it is the same with all creatures of whatever kind. Not one of them could act upon us unless the power were given it from above.

This truth has always been familiar to the minds of those truly enlightened by God. We have a celebrated example in Job. He loses his children and his possessions; he falls from the height of fortune to the depths of poverty. And he says: “The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away. As it hath pleased the Lord, so is it done. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” 10 “Note” observes St. Augustine, “Job does not say ‘The Lord gave and the devil hath taken away’ but says, wise that he is, ‘The Lord gave me my children and my possessions, and it is He who has taken them away; it has been done as it has pleased the Lord.’”

The example of Joseph is no less instructive. His brothers had sold him into slavery from malice and for a wicked purpose, and nevertheless the holy patriarch insists on attributing all to God’s providence. God sent me, he says, before you into Egypt to save life.... “God sent me before you to preserve a remnant for you in the land, and to deliver you in a striking way. Not you but God sent me here, and made me a father to Pharaoh, lord of all his house, and ruler over all the land of Egypt.” 11

Let us now listen to Our Savior himself who came down from Heaven to teach us by His word and example. In an excess of zeal Peter tries to turn him aside from His purpose of submitting to His passion and prevent the soldiers laying their bands on Him. But Jesus said to him: “Shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?” 12 In fact He attributed the suffering and ignominy of His passion not to the Jews who accused Him, not to Judas who betrayed Him, nor to Pilate who condemned Him, nor to the soldiers who ill‑treated and crucified Him, nor to the devil who incited them all, though they were the immediate causes of His sufferings, but to God, and to God not considered as a strict judge, but as a loving and beloved Father.

Let us never then attribute our losses, our disappointments, our afflictions, our humiliations to the devil or to men, but to God as their real source. “To act otherwise” says St. Dorothy, “would be to do the same as a dog who vents his anger on the stone instead of putting the blame on the hand that threw it at him.” So let us be careful not to say “So‑and‑so is the cause of my misfortune.” Your misfortunes are the work not of this or that person, but of God. And what should give you reassurance is that God, the sovereign good, is guided in all His actions by His most profound wisdom for holy and supernatural purposes.

1. Is 45:6‑7;   2. Deut. 32:39;   3. 1 Kings 2:6‑7;   4. Amos 3:6;   5. Ecclus. 11:14;   6. 2 Kings 12:9‑12;   7. Is. 10:5‑6
8. Lam. 3:37‑42;   9. Acts 17:28;   10. Job 1:21;   11. Gen. 45:5‑8;   12. John 18:11

Prayer
Great Apostle and son of Our Lady, St. Louis de Montfort, your only desire was to set aflame the world with the love of Jesus through Mary. We implore you to obtain for us a perfect and constant devotion to Mary that we may participate in the faith, hope, and charity of Our Lady and that we may receive the favor we ask of you in this novena....

[Mention Intention]

Pray:
Say the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

Final Invocation:
O Jesus, living in Mary, come and live in your servants, in the spirit of holiness, in the fullness of your power, in the perfection of your ways, in the truth of your virtues, in the communion of your mysteries. Rule over every adverse power, in your Spirit, for the glory of the Father. Amen.

St. Louis de Montfort, pray for us and obtain for us a true devotion to Jesus, the Incarnate Wisdom, through a true devotion to Mary.

LITANY TO ST. LOUIS
MARIE DE MONTFORT

St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort

EIGHTH DAY OF THE NOVENA (new meditations posted for each day)
Theme:  A Call to Obedience to God's Will

"What steps will you take to reach the high level to which God is calling you? The means of holiness and salvation are known to everybody, since they are found in the Gospel; the masters of the spiritual life have explained them; the saints have practiced them and shown how essential they are for those who wish to be saved and attain perfection. These means are: sincere humility, unceasing prayer, complete self-denial, abandonment to divine Providence, and obedience to the will of God" (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of Mary).

Holy Scripture

“Jesus saith to them: ‘My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, that I may perfect His work … I cannot of Myself do anything, because I seek not My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me … Because I came down from Heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of him that sent Me!’” (John 4:34; 5:30; 6:38).

“And why call you Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).

“Not everyone that saith to Me: ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: but he that doth the will of My Father, Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Many will say to me in that day: ‘Lord! Lord! Have not we prophesied in Thy Name, and cast out devils in Thy Name, and done many miracles in Thy Name?’ And then will I profess unto them: ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me, you that work iniquity!’ Everyone therefore that heareth these My words, and doth them, shall be likened to a wise man that built his house upon a rock, and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded on a rock. And every one that heareth these My words, and doth them not, shall be like a foolish man that built his house upon the sand, and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall thereof!” (Matthew 7:21-27).

The Life of St. Louis de Montfort

At Easter 1703, Montfort had to give in before a movement of opposition to himself, and to leave the hospital in Poitiers. So he set off for Paris. His aim was to look for collaborators and to establish with them an Institute destined for the missions. Ever determined to put himself at the service of the poor, he made his way to the Salpétrière: “I am at the General Hospital where there are five thousand poor people,” he wrote to Marie-Louise Trichet. “I have to make them live for God and I have to die to myself.” He made contact again with his friend Claude Poullart des Places, to whom he confided his desire to found a society of missionaries. Poullart, himself, had opened a seminary: he promised to send Montfort recruits.

Expelled from the Salpétrière, Montfort tried to make contact again with M. Leschassier, his former director, but in vain. He took refuge in an indescribable lodging “in a small hole in a wretched house” (Blain) in the Rue du Pot de Fer. “It was a small recess under a flight of stairs which let in hardly any sun… He kept so well hidden and so few people knew he was there” (ibid). His life was slipping towards “a real Calvary of rejections, a Way of the Cross in isolation.” Monsieur Leschassier would say to Blain: “He is very humble, very poor, very mortified and very recollected. And yet I have difficulty in believing that he is led by a good spirit.”

But he was well. It is very likely that it was at this time that he wrote “The Love of Eternal Wisdom” of which Father Huré said: “This is a capital work. It is this, and this alone, that brings us Montfortian spirituality as a whole… essentially centered on Christ the Wisdom of God which he identifies with the Cross and which comes to us by means of Mary.”

During this period also he found himself entrusted with a rather strange mission by the archdiocese of Paris: to restore order among the Hermits of Mont Valérien, a community where disagreement was rife. Once agreement was reached there, he went back to the Rue du Pot de Fer, but held on tight to the memory of Mont Valérien and its giant Calvary which would inspire in him the future venture of Pontchâteau.

On 9 March 1704, Monsieur Leschassier received a letter which read: “We, four hundred poor people of Poitiers, beg you very humbly, by the great love and glory of God, to get our venerated pastor, he who so loves the poor, M. Grignion, to come back to us.” The message was passed on to the one concerned, who set off once more.

Montfort had already spoken of what attracted him: the service of the poor in general, but “I am not particularly anxious to settle down and be attached to a poorhouse.” Nevertheless he went back, and the administrators bestowed on him the post of director. He took up the rules and recalled for all those in charge their duties. The establishment began to be cleaner and more hygienic. The chapel was renovated: the Lord was now in charge.

But just like the first time, opposition arose, and the new Bishop, Mgr. de la Poype, while favorable to Montfort, advised him to leave the hospital. Marie-Louise Trichet would remain there: “My daughter,” he said to her, “you will remain at the hospital. Even if the establishment of the Daughters of Wisdom does not come about in ten years, God will be satisfied and his plans for you will have been fulfilled.”

A Passage from the Writings of St. Louis de Montfort

It is certain that Our Lord is still, in Heaven, as much the Son of Mary as He was on Earth; and that, consequently, He has retained the obedience and submission of the most perfect Child toward the best of all mothers. But we must take great pains not to conceive this dependence as any abasement or imperfection in Jesus Christ. For Mary is infinitely below her Son, who is God, and therefore she does not command Him as a mother here below would command her child who is below her. Mary, being altogether transformed into God by grace and by the glory which transforms all the saints into Him, asks nothing, wishes nothing, does nothing contrary to the eternal and immutable will of God. When we read then in the writings of Saints Bernard, Bernardine, Bonaventure and others that in Heaven and on Earth everything, even God Himself, is subject to the Blessed Virgin,5 they mean that the authority which God has been well pleased to give her is so great that it seems as if she had the same power as God; and that her prayers and petitions are so powerful with God that they always pass for commandments with His Majesty, who never resists the prayer of His dear Mother, because she is always humble and conformed to His will.

Meditation

Perfection is founded entirely on the love of God: “Charity is the bond of perfection;” and perfect love of God means the complete union of our will with God’s: “The principal effect of love is so to unite the wills of those who love each other as to make them will the same things.”

It follows then, that the more one unites his will with the divine will, the greater will be his love of God. Mortification, meditation, receiving Holy Communion, acts of fraternal charity are all certainly pleasing to God ― but only when they are in accordance with His will. When they do not accord with God’s will, He not only finds no pleasure in them, but He even rejects them utterly and punishes them.

To illustrate: A man has two servants. One works unremittingly all day long ― but according to his own devices; the other, conceivably, works less, but he does do what he is told. This latter of course is going to find favor in the eyes of his master; the other will not. Now, in applying this example, we may ask: Why should we perform actions for God’s glory if they are not going to be acceptable to Him? God does not want sacrifices, the prophet Samuel told King Saul, but He does want obedience to His will:

“Doth the Lord desire holocausts and victims, and not rather that the voice of the Lord should be obeyed? For obedience is better than sacrifices; and to hearken, rather than to offer the fat of rams. Because it is like the sin of witchcraft to rebel; and like the crime of idolatry to refuse to obey.”

The man who follows his own will independently of God’s, is guilty of a kind of idolatry. Instead of adoring God’s will, he, in a certain sense, adores his own.

The greatest glory we can give to God is to do His will in everything. Our Redeemer came on Earth to glorify His heavenly Father and to teach us by His example how to do the same. St. Paul represents Him saying to His eternal Father: “Sacrifice and oblation Thou wouldst not: But a body Thou hast fitted to Me!” . . . Then said “Behold, I come to do thy will, O God!” Thou hast refused the victims offered Thee by man; Thou dost will that I sacrifice My body to Thee. Behold Me ready to do thy will.

Our Lord frequently declared that He had come on Earth not to do His own will, but solely that of His Father: “I came down from Heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me.” He spoke in the same strain in the garden when He went forth to meet His enemies who had come to seize Him and to lead Him to death: “But that the world may know that I love the Father: and as the Father hath given Me commandment, so do I; arise and let us go hence.” Furthermore, He said He would recognize as His brother, him who would do His will: “Whosoever shall do the will of My Father who is in Heaven, he is My brother.”

To do God’s will ― this was the goal upon which the saints constantly fixed their gaze. They were fully persuaded that in this consists the entire perfection of the soul. Blessed Henry Suso used to say: “It is not God’s will that we should abound in spiritual delights, but that in all things we should submit to His holy will.”

“Those who give themselves to prayer,” says St. Teresa, “should concentrate solely on this: the conformity of their wills with the divine will. They should be convinced that this constitutes their highest perfection. The more fully they practice this, the greater the gifts they will receive from God, and the greater the progress they will make in the interior life.”

A certain Dominican nun was vouchsafed a vision of Heaven one day. She recognized there some persons she had known during their mortal life on Earth. It was told her these souls were raised to the sublime heights of the seraphs on account of the uniformity of their wills with that of God’s during their lifetime here on Earth. Blessed Henry Suso, mentioned above, said of himself: “I would rather be the vilest worm on Earth by God’s will, than be a seraph by my own.’’

During our sojourn in this world, we should learn from the saints now in Heaven, how to love God. The pure and perfect love of God they enjoy there, consists in uniting themselves perfectly to His will. It would be the greatest delight of the seraphs to pile up sand on the seashore or to pull weeds in a garden for all eternity, if they found out such was God’s will. Our Lord Himself teaches us to ask to do the will of God on Earth as the saints do it in Heaven: “Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.”

Because David fulfilled all His wishes, God called him a man after His own heart: “I have found David . . . a man according to My own heart, who shall do all My wills.” David was always ready to embrace the divine will, as he frequently protested: “My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready.” He asked God for one thing alone ― to teach him to do His will: “Teach me to do thy will.”

A single act of uniformity with the divine will suffices to make a saint. Behold while Saul was persecuting the Church, God enlightened him and converted him.

What does Saul do? What does he say? Nothing else but to offer himself to do God’s will: “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” In return the Lord calls him a vessel of election and an apostle of the Gentiles: “This man is to Me a vessel of election, to carry My Name before the Gentiles.”

Absolutely true ― because he who gives his will to God, gives him everything. He who gives his goods in alms, his blood in scourgings, his food in fasting, gives God what he has. But he who gives God his will, gives himself, gives everything he is. Such a one can say: “Though I am poor, Lord, I give Thee all I possess; but when I say I give Thee my will, I have nothing left to give Thee.” This is just what God does require of us: “My son, give Me thy heart.” St. Augustine’s comment is: “There is nothing more pleasing we can offer God than to say to Him: ‘Possess thyself of us’.’’ We cannot offer God anything more pleasing than to say: Take us, Lord, we give Thee our entire will. Only let us know thy will and we will carry it out.”

If we would completely rejoice the heart of God, let us strive in all things to conform ourselves to His divine will. Let us not only strive to conform ourselves, but also to unite ourselves to whatever dispositions God makes of us. Conformity signifies that we join our wills to the will of God. Uniformity means more ― it means that we make one will of God’s will and ours, so that we will only what God wills; that God’s will alone, is our will. This is the summit of perfection and to it we should always aspire; this should be the goal of all our works, desires, meditations and prayers. To this end we should always invoke the aid of our holy patrons, our guardian angels, and above all, of our mother Mary, the most perfect of all the saints because she most perfectly embraced the divine will.

Prayer
Great Apostle and son of Our Lady, St. Louis de Montfort, your only desire was to set aflame the world with the love of Jesus through Mary. We implore you to obtain for us a perfect and constant devotion to Mary that we may participate in the faith, hope, and charity of Our Lady and that we may receive the favor we ask of you in this novena....

[Mention Intention]

Pray:
Say the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

Final Invocation:
O Jesus, living in Mary, come and live in your servants, in the spirit of holiness, in the fullness of your power, in the perfection of your ways, in the truth of your virtues, in the communion of your mysteries. Rule over every adverse power, in your Spirit, for the glory of the Father. Amen.

St. Louis de Montfort, pray for us and obtain for us a true devotion to Jesus, the Incarnate Wisdom, through a true devotion to Mary.

LITANY TO ST. LOUIS
MARIE DE MONTFORT

St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort

NINTH DAY OF THE NOVENA (new meditations posted for each day)
Theme: A Call to Mary's Side

Holy Scripture

“Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalen. When Jesus therefore had seen his mother and the disciple standing whom he loved, he saith to his mother: Woman, behold thy son. After that, he saith to the disciple: Behold thy mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own” (John 19:25-27).

The Life of St. Louis de Montfort

Retiring from the Hospital, Montfort did not leave the diocese of Poitiers however. The Bishop approved his program: to give missions in the town and its suburbs, and to restore shrines that were in ruins. He even ensured his livelihood and his board by appointing him director of the House of the Penitents.

Public opinion was divided with regard to the missionary. But that did not prevent him working. Poitiers would be a source of crosses and difficulties for him. But it was also in this town that he began his foundation of the Daughters of Wisdom with Marie-Louise Trichet. And it was there that he met the first recruit for his future Company of Mary, in the person of Brother Mathurin Rangeard. Mathurin had the intention of joining the Capuchins, but Montfort persuaded him to follow him to help in his apostolic labors. He was to be faithful to this calling right up to his death 44 years later.

On the outskirts of Poitiers, in the suburb of Montbernage, Montfort gathered the children for catechism. The youth of that quarter used to frequent the barn of the Bergerie to dance there. He was going to transform it into a chapel. This was Our Lady of Hearts, which still exists today and retains the memory of the missionary. He would also restore the Baptistery of St John close to the Cathedral.

But above all, he was experimenting with his methods of evangelization and catechesis. He had people renew the vows of their Baptism. At the church of the Calvary, he decided to gather up all the scandalous publications and bad books near the shrine to burn them publicly. But while he was officiating at a celebration in the church, outside some people placed on the bonfire a figure of the devil. That aroused the hostility of certain people who went and warned the bishopric. The Vicar General came in person to the spot, interrupted the missionary in the middle of his sermon, and heaped reproaches on him. Montfort responded by silence and this invitation to the faithful: “Brethren, we were going to plant a cross at the door of this church. God does not want it, our superiors are against it. Let us plant it rather in our hearts, where it will be better placed…”

For all that, the mission was not a failure; on the contrary. But the enemies of the missionary were not yet finished. They obtained from Mgr. de la Poype an order that obliged him to leave the diocese. This was in the Spring of 1706. He had spent the first 6 years of his priesthood in uncertainty and in seeking a ministry that would correspond to his desires. It was apparently a failure. “I am like the ball in a game of tennis,” he wrote one day. He wondered if this might not be a sign from heaven authorizing him to follow up his old dream of going to the foreign missions. He shared his questions with his confessor, Father de la Tour, a Jesuit, and told him of his intention to go to Rome to ask the Pope. Father de la Tour was in agreement, and Montfort set off on his journey.

PILGRIMAGE TO ROME
At Saint-Sulpice, Montfort had learnt to consider the Pope as his “pole-star”. Neither the Jansenists nor the Gallicans would have approved. For him, the “Bishop of Rome” was “a vicar of Jesus Christ, an organ of the Holy Spirit” (H 147). Before going off to see him, he wrote to the people of Montbernage, “its fishwives, butchers, retailers and other shopkeepers,” a farewell message in which he encouraged them to continue the good example that they were giving to the whole town. And he asked for their prayers.

We know that he had a companion on the journey, a Spanish student, at least for part of the way. We do not know what route he took. Grandet tells us that he stopped in Loreto and spent two weeks there. The pilgrimage to Loreto was internationally known. M. Olier had been there, and so many other great personages. Montfort went there to venerate the mystery of the Incarnation.

At the end of May 1706, he arrived in Rome. We know for sure that he stayed at St Louis des Français between 20 and 26 May. We know also that he celebrated Mass on 6 June in the church of San Biaggio, which today has been handed over to the Catholics of the Armenian rite. This was exactly the day that, according to the explanation he gave to Blain, he had his audience with the Sovereign Pontiff. Pope Clement XI questioned him in French, and Montfort put before him his plans and desires. The Pope listened and then replied clearly:

“Monsieur, you have a wide enough field in France to exercise your zeal. Do not go elsewhere, and work always in perfect submission to the bishops in the dioceses to which you are called. By this means, God will bestow a blessing on your labors.” He added an orientation: “In your various missions, teach the truth with power to the people and the children, and get them to renew solemnly the promises of Baptism.”

Montfort left the audience strengthened with the title of “apostolic missionary” bestowed on him by the Pope, but especially with the clarity of the responses given to his questions. He knew in advance that it would not be easy to enter into the practice of what he had heard, but he would be faithful to it all his life, with a zeal and an obedience which still amaze us today.

All this journey, from Poitiers to Rome and back, he made on foot. Brother Mathurin was waiting for him at the Abbey of Ligugé. They met up there on 25 August 1706. Montfort was emaciated, and Mathurin had difficulty recognizing him. The Bishop of Poitiers had not changed his mind about him, so he set off with his companion towards his native Brittany.

A Passage from the Writings of St. Louis de Montfort

Jesus being at present as much as ever the fruit of Mary—as Heaven and Earth repeat thousands and thousands of times a day, “and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus”—it is certain that Jesus Christ is, for each man in particular who possesses Him, as truly the fruit and the work of Mary as He is for the whole world in general; so that if any one of the faithful has Jesus Christ formed in his heart, he can say boldly, “All thanks be to Mary! What I possess is her effect and her fruit, and without her I should never have had it.” We can apply to her more than St. Paul applied to himself the words: “I am in labor again with all the children of God, until Jesus Christ my Son be formed in them in the fullness of His age.” (Cf. Galatians 4:19).

St. Augustine, surpassing himself, and going beyond all I have yet said, affirms that all the predestinate, in order to be conformed to the image of the Son of God, are in this world hidden in the womb of the most holy Virgin, where they are guarded, nourished, brought up and made to grow by that good Mother until she has brought them forth to glory after death, which is properly the day of their birth, as the Church calls the death of the just. O mystery of grace, unknown to the reprobate, and but little known even to the predestinate!

God the Holy Ghost wishes to form the elect for Himself in her and by her, and He says to her: “Strike the roots,” My Well beloved and My Spouse, “of all your virtues in My elect” (Ecclesiasticus 24:13), in order that they may grow from virtue to virtue and from grace to grace. I took so much complacence in you when you lived on Earth in the practice of the most sublime virtues, that I desire still to find you on Earth, without your ceasing to be in Heaven. For this end, reproduce yourself in My elect, that I may behold in them with complacence the roots of your invincible faith, of your profound humility, of your universal mortification, of your sublime prayer, of your ardent charity, of your firm hope and of all your virtues. You are always My spouse, as faithful, as pure and as fruitful as ever. Let your faith give Me My faithful, your purity, My virgins, and your fertility, My temples and My elect.

When Mary has struck her roots in a soul, she produces there marvels of grace, which she alone can produce, because she alone is the fruitful Virgin who never has had, and never will have, her equal in purity and in fruitfulness.

Mary has produced, together with the Holy Ghost, the greatest thing which has been or ever will be—a God Man; and she will consequently produce the greatest saints that there will be in the end of time. The formation and the education of the great saints who shall come at the end of the world are reserved for her. For it is only that singular and miraculous Virgin who can produce, in union with the Holy Ghost, singular and extraordinary things.

When the Holy Ghost, her Spouse, has found Mary in a soul, He flies there. He enters there in His fullness; He communicates Himself to that soul abundantly, and to the full extent to which it makes room for His spouse. Nay, one of the greatest reasons why the Holy Ghost does not now do startling wonders in our souls is because He does not find there a sufficiently great union with His faithful and inseparable spouse. I say “inseparable” spouse, because since that Substantial Love of the Father and the Son has espoused Mary, in order to produce Jesus Christ, the Head of the elect, and Jesus Christ in the elect, He has never repudiated her, because she has always been fruitful and faithful.

Meditation

Fr. Faber, in his personal translation of St. Louis de Montfort's book, True Devotion to Mary, writes these immortal words in the Preface of his translation:

All those who are likely to read this book [True Devotion to Mary], love God, and lament that they do not love Him more; all desire something for His glory—the spread of some good work, the success of some devotion, the coming of some good time. One man has been striving for years to overcome a particular fault, and has not succeeded. Another mourns, and almost wonders while he mourns, that so few of his relations and friends have been converted to the Faith. One grieves that he has not devotion enough; another that he has a cross to carry which is a peculiarly impossible cross to him; while a third has domestic troubles and family unhappinesses which feel almost incompatible with his salvation; and for all these things prayer appears to bring so little remedy.

But what is the remedy that is wanted? What is the remedy indicated by God Himself? If we may rely on the disclosures of the saints, it is an immense increase of devotion to our Blessed Lady; but, remember, nothing short of an immense one. Here in England, Mary is not half enough preached. Devotion to her is low and thin and poor. It is frightened out of its wits by the sneers of heresy. It is always invoking human respect and carnal prudence, wishing to make Mary so little of a Mary that Protestants may feel at ease about her. Its ignorance of theology makes it unsubstantial and unworthy. It is not the prominent characteristic of our religion which it ought to be. It has no faith in itself. Hence it is that Jesus is not loved, that heretics are not converted, that the Church is not exalted; that souls which might be saints wither and dwindle; that the Sacraments are not rightly frequented, or souls enthusiastically evangelized.

Jesus is obscured because Mary is kept in the background. Thousands of souls perish because Mary is withheld from them. It is the miserable, unworthy shadow which we call our devotion to the Blessed Virgin that is the cause of all these wants and blights, these evils and omissions and declines. Yet, if we are to believe the revelations of the saints, God is pressing for a greater, a wider, a stronger, quite another devotion to His Blessed Mother. I cannot think of a higher work or a broader vocation for anyone than the simple spreading of this peculiar devotion of the Venerable Grignion De Montfort. Let a man but try it for himself, and his surprise at the graces it brings with it, and the transformations it causes in his soul, will soon convince him of its otherwise almost incredible efficacy as a means for the salvation of men, and for the coming of the kingdom of Christ. Oh, if Mary were but known, there would be no coldness to Jesus then! Oh, if Mary were but known, how much more wonderful would be our faith, and how different would our Communions be! Oh, if Mary were but known, how much happier, how much holier, how much less worldly should we be, and how much more should we be living images of our sole Lord and Saviour, her dearest and most blessed Son!

Prayer
Great Apostle and son of Our Lady, St. Louis de Montfort, your only desire was to set aflame the world with the love of Jesus through Mary. We implore you to obtain for us a perfect and constant devotion to Mary that we may participate in the faith, hope, and charity of Our Lady and that we may receive the favor we ask of you in this novena....

[Mention Intention]

Pray:
Say the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

Final Invocation:
O Jesus, living in Mary, come and live in your servants, in the spirit of holiness, in the fullness of your power, in the perfection of your ways, in the truth of your virtues, in the communion of your mysteries. Rule over every adverse power, in your Spirit, for the glory of the Father. Amen.

St. Louis de Montfort, pray for us and obtain for us a true devotion to Jesus, the Incarnate Wisdom, through a true devotion to Mary.