Marian Devotion

According to article 4 of our Constitutions, which expresses the charism proper to the Institute, we confess ourselves to be essentially “missionaries and Marian”[1] and manifest that we have a firm resolution of working “in supreme docility to the Holy Spirit and according to the example of the Virgin Mary”[2] in order to perpetuate the Incarnation in all things, “making a fourth vow of slavery to Mary according to the spirituality of Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort.”[3] Thus, “we can say that our spirituality is derived from the Person of the Word and His Mother.”[4]

Therefore, devotion to the Mother of the Incarnate Word is naturally an essential and non-negotiable element of the Institute. For—as our Founder very rightly points out—it is something that “cannot be lost without grave prejudice to our charism”[5] and which is, additionally, a “perennial source of supernatural fecundity for our small Religious Family.”[6]

So much is this the case that our spirituality, “which wants to be of the Incarnate Word,”[7] is “marked in a special way”[8] by the consecration to Mary in “‘filial slavery of love’ according to Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort’s commendable method”[9] upon the profession of our fourth vow, “so as to ‘marianize’ our whole life.”[10]

This fourth vow[11] implies, on one hand, surrendering to the Mother of God with courage all that we are, all that we have, “and all that may become ours in the future, in the orders of nature, grace and glory; and this we must do without the reserve of so much as one farthing … and we must do it also for all eternity; and we must do it, further, without pretending to, or hoping for, any other recompense for our offering and service except the honor of belonging to Jesus Christ through Mary and in Mary.”[12] And, on the other hand, it also implies that “it is our desire, it is our explicit intention to Marianize our whole life.”

For us, the total consecration to Jesus through Mary is a “beautiful plan of life,”[13] which permits us to live the evangelical counsels in the most perfect way. For “to consecrate oneself to the Virgin is to allow oneself to be led by Her to the Heart of Jesus so that Christ be formed in us.”[14] “She is the perfect model of the consecrated person, whom every religious should always contemplate and imitate,”[15] notes our proper law. Therefore, this devotion to the Mother of God is not something accessory or decorative, but rather is inherent in the daily life of each of the religious of the Institute. This we manifest, for example:

• by renewing every time that it is necessary, even multiple times a day, our consecration to the Virgin;
• by striving to be “apostles of Mary,”[16] for we are convinced that Marian devotion is part of the essential content of evangelization; and therefore, devotion to the Virgin Mary is of prime importance in all of our missions;
• by reciting the holy Rosary daily; the Angelus; by doing processions with the Virgin on popular missions; by celebrating her feasts with great solemnity; by wearing the scapular of the Virgin, etc.
• by trying by all means to imitate the virtues of our Heavenly Mother, in order thus to pronounce daily our fiat and, like Her, to make ourselves forever available for God’s will. She is the model from whom we learn “docility and readiness in the execution of the Holy Spirit’s requests … always work[ing] against the temptation to delay, against the fear to sacrifice and totally surrender.”[17] Also, together with Her at the foot of the Cross, we learn to suffer in silence and to give our lives for the sheep.

Knowing that we were born from the Immaculate Heart of Mary, devotion to the Mother of God is essential in us if we are to be faithful to our charism, if we are to carry out our mission with fruit. Therefore, we take the Virgin, particularly under the title of the Most Pure and Clean Conception of Luján, to all of the places where our Institute is found. The Virgin is our Queen, our Mother, and, after Jesus, the highest ideal and our great love.

Therefore, in the fundamental code of our spirituality, we say:

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). First Jesus, the God man; then Mary, the Mother of God. He, the Head; She, the Neck; we, the Body. 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.[18]

[1] Constitutions, 31.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Constitutions, 17.

[4] Constitutions, 36.

[5] Fr. Carlos Buela, IVE, Juan Pablo Magno, chap. 30; our translation.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Directorio de Vida Consagrada, 413; our translation.

[8] Directory of Spirituality, 19.

[9] Constitutions, 83.

[10] Directory of Spirituality, 19.

[11] Explained in our Constitutions, in numbers 82-89.

[12] Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary (Charlotte: Saint Benedict Press, TAN Books, 2010), no. 121.

[13] Fr. Carlos Buela, IVE, Totus tuus ego sum; our translation.

[14] Fr. Carlos Buela, IVE, Mi parroquia Cristo Vecino, Appendix, 1, Prologue, citing Gal 4:19; our translation.

[15] Directorio de Vida Consagrada, 410; our translation.

[16] Directory of Spirituality, 307.

[17] Directory of Spirituality, 16.

[18] Directory of Spirituality, 325.