The Secret of Mary by St Louis Marie de Montfort (b. 31 January 1673 – d. 28 April 1716) is a book about the devotion to Mary.
The book is very short, probably less than ten thousand words. It is not a textbook on Mariology for there could be a multi-volume encyclopedic text written on the subject. The author does make a few basic explanations but otherwise seems to assume some knowledge.
The text is not about a particular devotion to Mary, like a particular prayer or practice, but rather how to be devoted to Mary. It is an instructional work, albeit brief and highly generalized.
It is a simple read. The paragraphs are numbered. Depending on the edition, the numbering may be continuous across sections. A few excerpts are reproduced below to provide a sense of the text. It is not intended to be a summary and it is probably easier to just read the book.
The author begins with a few warnings, one of them being
[t]hat you use this secret to become holy and worthy of heaven, for the more you make use of it the more benefit you will derive from it. Under no circumstances must you let this secret make you idle and inactive. It would then become harmful and lead to your ruin.
The purpose of man’s existence is to love God and be saved, which obviously requires Christ’s sacrifice and grace.
3. 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. 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.
5. 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. …
The way to Christ is Mary:
12. 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.
Having a devotion to Mary is to consecrate ourselves and all that we have to Mary:
29. We should choose a special feast day on which to give ourselves. Then, willingly and lovingly and under no constraint, we consecrate and sacrifice to her unreservedly our body and soul. We give to her our material possessions, such as house, family, income, and even the inner possessions of our soul, namely, our merits, graces, virtues and atonements. …
Just as Mary agreed to become a “slave” to God at the Annunciation, the author emphasizes that we too should become slaves to Mary.
32. I have said that this devotion consists in adopting the status of a slave with regard to Mary. We must remember that there are three kinds of slavery.
● There is, first, a slavery based on nature. All men, good and bad alike, are slaves of God in this sense.
● The second is a slavery of compulsion. The devils and the damned are slaves of God in this second sense.
● The third is a slavery of love and free choice. This is the kind chosen by one who consecrates himself to God through Mary, and this is the most perfect way for us human beings to give ourselves to God, our Creator.
Strictly speaking, no man should be dependent to this extent on anyone except his Creator.
He also makes the point that there is a distinction between a mere servant and a slave, the latter being that dependence is absolute.
A further explanation as to why one should devote themselves to Mary:
35. … In giving ourselves to Jesus through Mary’s hands, we imitate God the Father, who gave us his only Son through Mary, and who imparts his graces to us only through Mary. Likewise we imitate God the Son, who by giving us his example for us to follow, inspires us to go to him using the same means he used in coming to us, that is, through Mary. Again, we imitate the Holy Spirit, who bestows his graces and gifts upon us through Mary. “Is it not fitting,” remarks St Bernard, “that grace should return to its author by the same channel that conveyed it to us?”
Consecration to Mary involves giving everything to her, to give “all that we hold most dear and we let her dispose of it as she wishes in favour of the living and the dead”. This includes giving over our will—that is, “abandonment to divine Providence” and “obedience to the will of God”, that sort of thing.
This begs the often-asked and difficult question: What is the will of God beyond the obvious “doing the right thing given one’s state of life” and “attending to one’s daily duties faithfully and honorably”? (All that is, of course, already difficult.)
Unfortunately, the author does not directly answer that question. However, he does comment on the general mentality or “spirit” that one should adopt for this devotion: “performing all our actions with Mary, in Mary, through Mary, and for Mary.” It is as if the author is stating that by doing so, one is generally doing God’s will and will better discern His will going forward.
As a sidebar, the consecration should not be renewed merely once per year or month. It is living the spirit of it that is difficult. Two examples are provided below.
46. Before undertaking anything, we must forget self and abandon our own views. We must consider ourselves as a mere nothing before God, as being personally incapable of doing anything supernaturally worthwhile or anything conducive to our salvation. We must have habitual recourse to our Lady, becoming one with her and adopting her intentions, even though they are unknown to us. Through Mary we must adopt the intentions of Jesus. In other words, we must become an instrument in Mary’s hands for her to act in us and do with us what she pleases, for the greater glory of her Son; and through Jesus for the greater glory of the Father. In this way, we pursue our interior life and make spiritual progress only in dependence on Mary.
49. We must perform all our actions for Mary, which means that as slaves of this noble Queen we will work only for her, promoting her interests and her high renown, and making this the first aim in all our acts, while the glory of God will always be our final end. In everything we must renounce self-love because more often than not, without our being aware of it, selfishness sets itself up as the end of all we work for. We should often repeat from the depths of our heart: “Dear Mother, it is to please you that I go here or there, that I do this or that, that I suffer this pain or this injury.”
The saint seemingly makes a prophetic (predictive) statement and/or he is simply repeating what has been said. Although highly generalized, it is consistent with the prophecies regarding the Chastisement, the Miracle of Our Lady and the subsequent renewal or revival of the Church.
59. We are given reason to believe that, towards the end of time and perhaps sooner than we expect, God will raise up great men filled with the Holy Spirit and imbued with the spirit of Mary. Through them Mary, Queen most powerful, will work great wonders in the world, destroying sin and setting up the kingdom of Jesus her Son upon the ruins of the corrupt kingdom of the world. These holy men will accomplish this by means of the devotion of which I only trace the main outlines and which suffers from my incompetence.
The author also includes supplementary material, including a few prayers and a short section of commentary about the devotion, which he describes as the “Tree of Life” that the “Holy Spirit has planted in your soul”.
Usually, the Tree of Life is a symbol of Jesus and the Cross but the author’s take on the image makes sense too. Just as Mary’s fruit is Jesus, to cultivate this tree—that is, this devotion to Mary—will produce fruit which is Jesus. This requires us to rely on Mary and not ourselves or other people, even if it does require effort from us: to frequent the Sacraments and practice self-denial and self-discipline.
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