To find God’s grace, one must find Mary

To find God’s grace, one must find Mary

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 to Mary the tender affection of a true child, he is an impostor and his father is the devil.

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, 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.

Saint Louis de Montfort
The Secret of Mary § 11-12

The holy Rosary is a blessed blending of mental and vocal prayer

The holy Rosary is a blessed blending of mental and vocal prayer

The Rosary is made up of two things: mental prayer and vocal prayer. In the Holy Rosary mental prayer is none other than meditation of the chief mysteries of the life, death and glory of Jesus Christ and of His Blessed Mother.

Vocal prayer consists in saying fifteen decades of the Hail Mary, each decade headed by an Our Father, while at the same time meditating on and contemplating the fifteen principal virtues which Jesus and Mary practiced in the fifteen mysteries of the Holy Rosary.

In the first five decades we must honor the five Joyous Mysteries and meditate on them; in the second five decades the Sorrowful Mysteries and in the third group of five, the Glorious Mysteries. So the Rosary is a blessed blending of mental and vocal prayer by which we honor and learn to imitate the mysteries and virtues of the life, death, passion and glory of Jesus and Mary.

Saint Louis de Montfort
The Secret of the Rosary, Part 1, first Rose

By her and through her, each soul goes to Jesus in a much easier way than without her

By her and through her, each soul goes to Jesus in a much easier way than without her

Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish Conventual Franciscan friar, volunteered to die in the place of a family man in the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz. As a child, he had a vision of the Virgin of Czestochowa, who appeared to him and presented him with two crowns, one white, the other red, as symbols of purity and martyrdom.

As she invited him to choose one, his generous heart prompted him to accept them both. Later on that day, this beloved child of the Virgin Mary resolved in his heart to “become better day after day.” (…)

The writings of Saint Louis de Montfort taught him that “God wishes to reveal Mary, his masterpiece, and make her more known in these latter times, when Mary must shine forth more than ever in mercy, power and grace” (Treatise on True Devotion to the Virgin Mary).

Maximilian gave his life to the Virgin Mary, saying: “As the Immaculate belongs to Jesus and to God, each soul can belong to Jesus and to God by her and through her, in a much easier way than without her.” (…) He was ordained on April 28, 1918.

The weapon of the Christian is the Rosary!

The weapon of the Christian is the Rosary!

Predestinate souls, you who are of God, cut yourselves adrift from those who are damning themselves by their impious lives, laziness and lack of devotion — and, without delay, recite often your Rosary, with faith, with humility, with confidence and with perseverance.

Anyone who really gives heed to this Our Master’s commandment will surely not be satisfied with saying the Rosary once a year or once a week but will say it every day and will never fail in this—even though the only obligation he has is that of saving his own soul.

Saint Louis de Montfort
The Secret of the Rosary, Rose 47

As though the Holy Rosary and contemplation were incompatible

Similarly, not a few clever people and learned scholars may occasionally try to dissuade you from saying the Rosary (but they are, of course, proud and self willed). They would rather encourage you to say the Seven Penitential Psalms or some other prayers. If a good confessor has given you a Rosary for your penance and has told you to say it every day for a fortnight or a month, all you have to do to get your penance changed to prayers, fasts, Masses or alms, is to go to confession to one of these others.

If you consult certain people in the world who lead lives of prayer, but who have never tried the Rosary, they will not only not encourage it but will turn people away from it to get them to learn contemplation—just as though the Holy Rosary and contemplation were incompatible, just as if all the Saints who have been devoted to the Rosary had not enjoyed the heights of sublime contemplation.

Your nearest enemies will attack you all the more cruelly because you are so close to them. I am speaking of the powers of your soul and your bodily senses—these are distractions of the mind, distress and uncertainty of the will, dryness of the heart, exhaustion and illnesses of the body—all these will combine with the devil to say to you: “Stop saying your Rosary; that is what is giving you such a headache! Give it up; there is no obligation under pain of sin. If you must say it, say only part of it; the difficulties that you are having over it are a sign that Almighty God does not want you to say it. You can finish it tomorrow when you are more in the mood, etc. … etc.

Finally, my dear Brother, the daily Rosary has so many enemies that I look upon the grace of persevering in it until death as one of the greatest favors Almighty God can give us.

Persevere in it and if you are faithful you will eventually have the wonderful crown which is waiting for you in Heaven: “Be thou faithful until death: and I will give thee the crown of life.”

Saint Louis de Montfort
The Secret of the Rosary, Fortieth Rose: Perseverance

The Rosary Delivers Souls from Purgatory

A young girl of noble station named Alexandra had been miraculously converted and enrolled by Saint Dominic in the Confraternity of the Rosary. After her death, she appeared to him and said she had been condemned to seven hundred years in purgatory because of her own sins and those she had caused others to commit by her worldly ways. So she implored him to ease her pains by his prayers and to ask the Confraternity members to pray for the same end. Saint Dominic did as she had asked.

Two weeks later she appeared to him, more radiant than the sun, having been quickly delivered from purgatory by the prayers of the Confraternity members. She also told Saint Dominic that she had come on behalf of the souls in purgatory to beg him to go on preaching the Rosary and to ask their relations to offer their Rosaries for them, and that they would reward them abundantly when they entered into glory.

Saint Louis de Montfort
The Secret of the Rosary, § 153