There is no one who equals Mary in purity and fruitfulness. Miracles of grace can be found in every soul where she has established her roots. St. Louis De Montfort tells us that Mary, together with the Holy Spirit, has produced the God-Man—Jesus Christ, Who is greater than anything that has or will ever be. Consequently, Mary, in union with the Holy Spirit, will produce the greatest saints that have ever walked the face of the earth, and this will happen at the end of the world. These great saints will be formed and educated by Mary.
St. Louis De Montfort writes:
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. (T.D., no. 36)
Considering the above, this great saint tells us that we may conclude that God has given Mary an extraordinary grace that causes her to have supremacy over the elect souls, including their bodies. She takes her residence in these souls, preparing them and leading them to eternal life. He tells us that because of a certain grace, Mary is the Queen of Heaven and earth, while Jesus is the King of Heaven and earth by “nature and by conquest.” Mary, with her Son, is more glorified in these elect souls than in “all visible creatures.” Therefore, we and the saints call her Queen of All Hearts.
Necessary for Salvation
In his book, St. Louis De Montfort makes it very clear that the necessity of being devoted to the Blessed Mother takes precedence over the necessity of devotion to all the other saints. He tells us that many holy people, including St. Augustine, St. Bernard, St. Bernardine, and St. Bonaventure, to name a few, believe that Mary is necessary in order for souls to attain salvation. Interestingly, he mentions that a well-known heretic before his time by the name of Oecolampadius, as well as some other heretics, consider those who have no admiration, respect, or love of the holy Virgin Mary to have the “infallible mark of reprobation.” And these heretics also believe the opposite to be true: Those who are devoted to and love Mary have the “infallible mark of predestination.”
To expand on the above, St. Louis De Montfort continues:
The figures and words of the Old and New Testaments prove this. The sentiments and the examples of the saints confirm it. Reason and experience teach and demonstrate it. Even the devil and his crew, constrained by the force of truth, have often been obliged to avow it in spite of themselves. Among all the passages of the holy Fathers and Doctors, of which I have made an ample collection in order to prove this truth, I shall for brevity’s sake quote but one: “To be devout to you, O holy Virgin,” says St. John Damascene, “is an arm of salvation which God gives to those whom He wishes to save.” (T.D., no. 41)
St. Louis De Montfort has many stories that prove everything he stated above, and he mentions one that is found in the chronicles of St. Francis. This saint was in ecstasy when he saw a huge ladder that ascended into Heaven, and at the top of the ladder stood the Blessed Virgin Mary. He was shown that in order to reach Heaven, he must ascend that ladder. Another story is found in the chronicles of St. Dominic in which there was an unfortunate heretic near a place called Carcassonne, where St. Dominic was preaching the Rosary. This heretic was possessed by a legion of fifteen thousand devils.
These evil spirits were compelled, to their confusion, by the command of our Blessed Lady, to avow many great and consoling truths touching devotion to the Blessed Virgin; and they did this with so much force and so much clearness that it is impossible to read this authentic account and the eulogy which the devil made, in spite of himself, of devotion to the most holy Virgin Mary, without shedding tears of joy, however lukewarm we may be in our devotion to her. (T.D., no. 42)
Still More Necessary for a Special Calling
If being devoted to Mary is necessary for everyone to attain salvation, it is still more so for the souls who are called to any special perfection. St. Louis De Montfort doesn’t believe that anyone can obtain an intimate union with God Almighty and a perfect allegiance to the Holy Spirit if they do not have a strong union with the Blessed Virgin Mary and an immense dependence on her assistance. He says that Only Mary has found grace before God (Lk. 1:30) without the assistance of any other creature, and it is only through her that anyone who has since found grace or has yet to find grace before God has found and will find it at all. In Lk. 1:28 we are reminded that Mary was full of grace when the Archangel Gabriel greeted her, and in Lk. 1:35 we read that she was superabundantly filled with grace by the Holy Spirit when He overshadowed her.
and she has so augmented this double plenitude from day to day and from moment to moment that she has reached a point of grace immense and inconceivable—in such wise that the Most High has made her the sole treasurer of His treasures and the sole dispenser of His graces to ennoble, to exalt and to enrich whom she wishes; to give entry to whom she wills into the narrow way of Heaven; to bring whom she wills, and in spite of all obstacles, through the narrow gate of life; and to give the throne, the scepter and the crown of king to whom she wills. Jesus is everywhere and always the Fruit and the Son of Mary; and Mary is everywhere the veritable tree who bears the Fruit of life, and the true Mother who produces it. (T.D., no. 44)
In True Devotion to Mary, some of St. Louis De Montfort’s sentences and even entire paragraphs are almost poetic in nature, and I think it would be doing a disservice to his writing if I were to paraphrase these poetic lines of text rather than quote them, word for word. This next section is one such examples of that:
It is Mary alone to whom God has given the keys of the cellars (Cant. 1:3) of divine love and the power to enter into the most sublime and secret ways of perfection, and the power likewise to make others enter in there also. It is Mary alone who has given to the miserable children of Eve, the faithless, entry into the terrestrial paradise; that they may walk there agreeably with God, hide there securely against their enemies, feed themselves there deliciously, without further fear of death, on the fruit of the trees of life and of the knowledge of good and evil, and drink in long draughts the heavenly waters of that fair fountain which gushes forth there with abundance; or rather, since she is herself that terrestrial paradise, that virgin and blessed earth from which Adam and Eve, the sinners, have been driven, she gives no entry there except to those whom it is her pleasure to make saints. (T.D., no. 45)
According to St. Bernard, from age to age, and especially at the end of the world, the greatest saints, “the souls richest in graces and virtues,” will seek Mary’s face and be the most diligent in praying to her. She will be “their perfect model for imitation and their powerful aid for help.”
As Mother Angelica used to say: “We are all called to be great saints. Don’t miss the opportunity!
