Rome, Italy
October 10, 2016
Dear Fathers, Brothers, and Seminarians,
In Article 4 of our Constitutions, which deals with the proper charism of our Institute, we profess to be essentially missionaries and Marian,[1] and it states that we desire to work “in supreme docility to the Holy Spirit and according to the example of the Virgin Mary,”[2] to make “a fourth vow of slavery to Mary according to the spirituality of St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort…[which will] secure her indispensable help in perpetuating the Incarnation in all things.”[3]
Such an affirmation becomes an essential and non-negotiable element for our Institute. Thus, as our founder, Father Buela, clearly points out, our Marian consecration is something “that cannot be lost without serious damage to our charism.” In addition, it becomes “a perennial source of supernatural fecundity for our small Religious Family.”[4] Both aspects are of great importance.
Our spirituality “that longs to be of the Incarnate Word”[5] is “marked with a special prominence”[6] because of our consecration to Mary “‘in maternal slavery of love’ according to the admirable method taught by St. Louis Grignion de Montfort” [7] in professing our fourth vow, “so as to “marianize” our whole life.”[8]
This is what we say in the fundamental code of our spirituality: “Not Jesus or Mary; not Mary or Jesus. Neither Jesus without Mary; nor Mary without Jesus. Neither only Jesus, but also Mary; not only Mary, but also Jesus. Always Jesus and Mary; always Mary and Jesus. To Mary through Jesus: Behold, your mother! (Jn 19: 27). To Jesus through Mary: Do whatever he tells you (Jn 2: 5). Everything through Jesus and through Mary; with Jesus and with Mary; in Jesus and in Mary; for Jesus and for Mary. In short, simply: Jesus and Mary; Mary and Jesus. And through Christ, to the Father, in the Holy Spirit.”[9]
For this reason, and particularly as the year 2016 commemorates the 300th anniversary of the death of that gigantic apostle of the Mother of God who was St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, by means of this circular letter I would like to offer to the consideration of all, in the first place, the magnificent example given by this “authentic apostle of the last times,”[10] and secondly, to say something about the great obligation that we have as religious of the Incarnate Word to live with the same spirit with which he lived, that is, in “total surrender to Mary so as to better serve Jesus Christ.”[11]
1. Saint Louis-Marie, an Apostle Formed by Mary
Saint Louis Marie had particularly imprinted in his soul the word “more!” […] He was authentically magnanimous because he “directed his soul to great acts”[12] concerning himself with great things… “carrying out great works in all virtue.”[13]
Whether for his ardent missionary zeal,[14] for his wise and enflamed preaching,[15] his preference for the poor,[16] for the prolific spiritual legacy that he left in his writings,[17] or for his “ardent love for Christ,”[18] the life of this “apostle of the Divine Truth,” as Pius XII called him, is exemplar, no matter under which aspect one considers it.
Nevertheless, above all else, “as the two poles of the life and apostolate of Montfort” emerge his passion for “the Cross of Jesus and the Mother of Jesus.”[19]
In the first place and briefly, through this Circular Letter I would like to recall in this anniversary certain events of his life which set him apart under the august title of the true son of Mary, of whom he was proud to be a slave.
While he was still a seminarian, in the midst of a time which “placed opposition between Marian devotion and the worship due to God and the Incarnate Word, Jesus Christ,”[20] his devotion to the Blessed Mother found a favorable environment to grow and take root in the small Seminary of St. Sulpice, where the saint totally dedicated himself to the practices of Marian devotion.
“Sensitive to the objections of his fellow seminarians –who reproached him for making of the Blessed Virgin a divinity, or for recalling or loving the Mother more than the Son,” although far from leaving aside his devotion to Mary, he was concerned with providing theological foundations to his “innate love of Mary.”[21] So, after having read all of the books of the seminary library which dealt with the Blessed Virgin Mary, and with great conviction, he proposed to the Superior General of St. Sulpice to change the formula “slaves of Mary” for that of “Slaves of Jesus in Mary.”
For this St. John Paul II affirmed: “St. Louis Marie surprises us above all for his theocentric spirituality … The person of Christ dominates his thought.”[22] Since he understood that “if we establish a sound devotion to the blessed Virgin, it is only in order to establish devotion to our Lord more perfectly, and to provide a smooth and certain way of reaching Jesus Christ.”[23]
On June 5, 1700, at 27 years of age, he is ordained a priest. In his sixteen years of priestly ministry he always had the desire to lead a “hidden life” and “to go in a humble and simple way to teach catechism to the poor in country places and to lead sinners to devotion to the Most Holy Virgin.”[24] And from the beginning he dreamt of founding for this purpose “a small company of good priests who would exercise this ministry gathered under the standard and the protection of the Blessed Virgin.”[25]
St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort “in a particular way, showed his greatness of soul amidst tribulations and difficulties, which were great and numerous.”[26] He always continued onwards trusting, as he himself reminded his sister: “There is an unshakeable truth, a divine and eternal axiom, as true as the existence of one God[…] that we must ‘seek first the kingdom of God and his justice and all the rest will be added unto you’[27] […] Thus, if we put into practice the first part of this sentence, God, who is infinitely faithful, will fulfil the second; that is, if you serve God and his holy Mother faithfully you will want for nothing in this world or the next.”[28]
This is why St. John Paul II said: “Poor among the poor, profoundly integrated into the Church despite the lack of understanding he had to face, St. Louis-Marie adopted as his motto these simple words: God alone. He sang: ‘God alone is my tenderness, God alone is my support, God alone is my every good, my life and my wealth’”[29]. His love for God was total. It was with God and for God that he went towards other people and walked the roads of the mission. Constantly aware of the presence of Jesus and Mary, his entire being was a witness to the theological virtue of charity which he desired to share with everyone. His deeds and his words had only one aim, to call people to conversion and to motivate them to live for God.”[30]
This “Gospel wayfarer inflamed by the love of Jesus and of his holy Mother, he knew how to touch the hearts of the crowds, and how to make them love the Redeeming Christ, contemplated on the Cross,”[31] dedicating himself with great zeal to the preaching of popular missions. Although his works ended in apparent failure, “he was a missionary of extraordinary brilliance.”[32]
The priestly ideal of St. Louis Marie can be inferred from what he himself asked of the Incarnate Word in his Prayer for Missionaries: “priests who are free with the freedom that comes from you, detached from everything,” “slaves of your love and your will” […] “with the Cross for their staff and the Rosary for their sling,” “men always available,” “true sons of Mary,” “true servants of the Blessed Virgin who […] will range far and wide, with the holy Gospel issuing from their mouths like a bright and burning flame, and the Rosary in their hands […] and that through their authentic devotion to Mary […] will crush the head of the serpent wherever they go.”[33] Certainly, as St. John Paul II well said, “He lived in complete fidelity to this vocation.”[34]
The great secret of this Saint and the very source of his apostolic drive to win souls for Jesus Christ was, without a doubt, his devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Convinced that “through the Blessed Virgin Mary Jesus came into the world, and it is also through her that he must reign in the world,”[35] he wrote Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin. He proposes the Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary in condition of total slaves of Mary, as a most effective means to achieve holiness, following the footsteps of Jesus Christ who subjected himself completely by becoming incarnate in her womb. He himself explains it as he writes: “Mary is the great mould of God in which no feature of the divinity is missing. Everyone who casts himself into it and allows himself to be moulded will acquire every feature of Jesus Christ, true God.”[36] He also adds: “She is a holy place, the Holy of holies, in which saints are formed and moulded.”[37]
He exhorted all to enter into the spirit of the consecration, which is not reduced to mere external practices, but which rather implies being “completely possessed and governed by the spirit of Mary,”[38] since, in the end it all means “doing everything through Mary, with Mary, in Mary, and for Mary, in order to do it more perfectly through Jesus, with Jesus, in Jesus, and for Jesus.”[39]
During the last years of his life, tireless in his missionary initiatives, he founded free schools for boys and girls, as well as the Company of Mary and the Daughters of Wisdom.[40]
On April 28, 1716, with his soul bathed in humility, after having fought for some time with the infernal enemy, he was heard to have said: “It is useless for you to attack me. I am between Jesus and Mary. Thanks be to God and the Virgin. I have come to the end of my path: I will sin no more.”[41] It was only the sixteenth year of his priestly ministry and he was only forty-three years old.
2. Our Responsibility to Live in This Spirit
We, “by the grace of God, by inspiration of the Virgin, consecrate ourselves to her with a fourth vow according to the writings and spirit of St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort.”[42]
For us as religious of the Incarnate Word, this fourth vow[43] implies on the one hand, surrendering to the Mother of God with great courage all that we are, all that we have, “as well as everything we shall acquire in the future in the order of nature, of grace, and of glory in heaven. This we do without any reservation […] and for all eternity without claiming or expecting, in return for our offering and our service, any other reward than the honor of belonging to our Lord through Mary and in Mary.”[44] We place absolutely everything in her hands because we recognize ourselves as her slaves of love. And on the other hand, this consecration by means of a vow implies that it “is our desire, our explicit intention to marianize our entire lives, which means doing all things through Mary, with Mary, in Mary, and for Mary, so as to do all through Jesus, with Jesus, in Jesus, and for Jesus […] entering into that mysterious current of life which was brought to us by our Heavenly Mother, and with her to learn to give glory to our Heavenly Father by the grace of the Holy Spirit.”[45]
The total consecration to Jesus through Mary is a “beautiful plan of life,” and it grants us religious the most perfect way of living the evangelical counsels. For, “consecrating oneself to the Virgin means allowing oneself to be brought by her to the Heart of Christ so that Christ may be formed in us (Gal. 4: 17).” [46]
The consecration “should accompany us during our entire lives,”[47] deepening evermore the sense of our consecration and the practical consequences that it has in the lives of each one of us in the different circumstances in which we find ourselves. Particularly by the study and reading of the beautiful book Treatise of True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin[48] and “renewing as many times as necessary, even several times a day, our consecration. By doing such, we learn each time more to belong entirely to Mary, and so we may be ever more entirely of Jesus.” St. Louis Marie pointed out: “It is not enough to give ourselves just once as a slave to Jesus through Mary; nor is it enough to renew that consecration once a month or once a week […] It is necessary to enter into its spirit, which requires an interior dependence on Mary, and effectively becoming her slave and the slave of Jesus through her.”[49] Because “we would not be devout children if we do not know how to imitate the virtues of the Mother.”[50]
Let us then be “apostles of the Consecration, ‘apostles of Mary,’”[51] following the eloquent example we received from St. John Paul II, the Spiritual Father of our Religious Family. Since Marian devotion is an essential part of evangelization, let us follow the splendid motion of St. Louis Marie: “Since we have given ourselves completely to her service, it is only right that we should do everything for her […] like every good servant and slave we must not remain idle, but, relying on her protection, we should undertake and carry out great things for our noble Queen.”[52]
For this reason, I encourage you to put into practice the various initiatives which our love for the Blessed Virgin may inspire in us, especially those which are directed to honor, promote, and spread the Total Consecration so as to increase the number of those truly devoted to the Mother of the Incarnate Word, thus extending the Kingdom of Christ.
Although there is great variety and value among the different apostolates which our religious throughout the world carry out to this end, I wanted to share with all of you something that—by the grace of God—we did in our parish Our Lady of Peace, in California. It could be of some motivation and help to some of you. With the help of some of our laity we planned a program to invite people to the total consecration to Jesus through Mary following the method set forth by St. Louis Marie.[53] After an introductory talk, usually on the Saturday previous to the feast of St. John Paul II, we gave them materials to carry out the prayers and daily practices of piety. Five other talks followed, both in English and Spanish, with the help of the Sisters. Thirty-three days before the consecration, which usually took place on the feast of Christ the King, at the end of the daily mid-day Mass for those who were able to attend, we prayed the preparatory prayer for the Consecration. We thought that we might attract a few hundred people from our parish. The fact was that the first year, around three thousand people consecrated themselves, and the next year four thousand more. Together with the help of our parishioners, we created a website[54] to register and get access to the conferences and the material distributed (in English and Spanish). Such an initiative has become for many of the parishioners a concrete apostolate which they carry out with great enthusiasm and generosity. As a matter of fact, they themselves offer to all our missionaries all that would be necessary, whether help or materials to carry forth this apostolate of Total Consecration in other parts of the world.[55]
Another valuable initiative, directed towards revitalizing the spirit of our Consecration under the form of vow, was carried out recently by the Province “Our Lady of Loreto” (Italy), following the directives of St. Louis Marie, doing a one-month preparation to renew annually the total consecration to the Blessed Virgin.
Thus, dear all, may the Blessed Virgin continue to bless our beloved Religious Family with true sons of Mary who have “a courageous faith which inspires… to undertake and carry out without hesitation great things for God and the salvation of souls.”[56] Wishing you all fruitful Marian apostolates, I greet you in Christ, the Incarnate Word and his Most Holy Mother,
Fr. Gustavo Nieto, IVE
General Superior
[1] Constitutions, 31.
[2] Constitutions, 30.
[3] Constitutions, 17.
[4] P. Carlos Buela, IVE, Juan Pablo Magno, (Washington DC: IVE Press, 2012), chapter 30.
[5] Directory of Consecrated Life, 413.
[6] Directory of Spirituality, 19.
[7] Constitutions, 83.
[8] Directory of Spirituality, 19.
[9] Directory of Spirituality, 325.
[10] St. Louis-marie Grignion de Montfort, Treatise of the True Devotion to Mary, 58.
[11] Constitutions, 82.
[12] St. Thomas Aquinas, STh 2-2, 129, 1.
[13] Fr. Carlos Buela, IVE, Servidoras I, (New York: IVE Press, 2010), Part II, chapter 1, 4.
[14] Our Directory of Popular Missions point him out as one of those “wise and pragmatic men, who considered ‘Popular Missions” to be of the upmost value”, see Directory of Popular Missions, 51.
[15] Directory of Preaching of the Word of God, 105-110; Constitutions, 182.
[16] Pius XII, Homily, July 21, 1947 (the day after the canonization of St. Louis-Marie).
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Ibid.
[20] FR. Arturo Ruiz Freites, IVE, (IVE Press: New York, 2009), Todo Tuyo Esclavo de Maria, chapter 3. (Our translation from the Spanish edition).
[21] P. Pio Suarez and P. Luis Salaún, San Luis María Grignion de Montfort-Obras, Tratado de la Verdadera Devoción a María, Introduction.
[22] Cf. St. John Paul II, Message to the Montfortian Religious Family on the Celebrations of the 50th Anniversary of the Canonization of Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, June 21, 1997.
[23] St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, 62.
[24] Saint Louis Maríe Grignion de Montfort, Complete Works, Letters, Letter to P. Leschassier, (6.XII.1700).
[25] Fr. Arturo Ruiz Freites, IVE, Todo Tuyo Esclavo de María, chapter 4.
[26] P. Carlos Buela, IVE, Servidoras I, Part II, chapter 1, 4.
[27] Mt 6: 33.
[28] Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, Complete Works, Letters, 7.
[29] Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, Canticle 55, 11.
[30] St. John Paul II, Message to the Montfortian Religious Family on the Celebrations of the 50th Anniversary of the Canonization of Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, June 21, 1997.
[31] Ibid.
[32] Ibid.
[33] Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, Prayer for Missionaries, 7, 8, 10, 11, and 12.
[34] St. John Paul II, Message to the Montfortian Religious Family on the Celebrations of the 50th Anniversary of the Canonization of Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, June 21, 1997.
[35] St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, Treatise of True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, 1.
[36] St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, The Secret of Mary, 17.
[37] St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, Treatise of True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, 218.
[38] Idem, 258.
[39] Idem, 257.
[40] Both founded between 1714-1715.
[41] Fr. Arturo Ruiz Freites, IVE, Todo Tuyo Esclavo de María, chapter 19.
[42] Fr. Carlos Buela, IVE, Homilía “Todo lo hace Ella”, on the 25th anniversary of his priestly ordination, Basilica of Saint Mary Major (Rome), October 7, 1996.
[43] Explained in our Constitutions nn. 82-89.
[44] St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, Treatise of True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, 121.
[45] Fr. Carlos Buela, IVE, Homilía “Todo lo hace Ella”.
[46] Fr. Carlos Buela, IVE, Mi parroquia, Cristo Vecino, (New York: IVE Press, 2011) Appendix, 1, Prologue.
[47] Ibid.
[48] Fr. Buela deals specifically with our consecration to Mary under the form of vow in the book Ars Participandi.
[49] St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, Complete Works, The Secret of Mary, 44.
[50] Cf. P. Carlos Buela, IVE, Sacerdotes para Siempre, Part I, chapter 6, 3.
[51] P. Carlos Buela, IVE, Servidoras I, Part II, chapter 3, 6.
[52] Cf. St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, Complete Works, Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, 265.
[53] Described by the saint in nn. 227-233 of Treatise of True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin.
[54] http://www.consecrationgroup.org/
[55] Those who would like to receive help or suggestions can contact the group’s president Glenda Dubsky at dubskyglenda@gmail.com.
[56] St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, Complete Works, Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, 214.
