Consecration, the Path to Supreme Freedom – Folha de S. Paulo, December 29, 1974

 

by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

 

Interior of the church where the relics of Saint Frei Galvão rest, Convento da Luz, in the capital of São Paulo

A reader writes:

“In your latest article, among other titles of glory, you attributed to Frei Galvão the title of ‘slave of Mary.’ This shocks me. This title brings no glory to either Friar Galvão or Mary. Slavery is the subjugation of one being to another by force. It results from the stronger robbing the weaker (whether through physical superiority or economic pressure, it matters little) of the essential attribute of personal dignity, the right of each to dispose of themselves according to their own understanding and interests. The word “slavery” brings to mind whips, flogging, shackles, malnutrition, and police persecution. How can Mary, whom Catholics venerate as the Queen of goodness, have slaves? How can anyone consider it an honor to be a slave, even to Mary? Let’s face it, all this is absurd.”

Such a relationship between Mary and one of her devotees would indeed be absurd. Whenever a sensible person does something that seems absurd, one must seek an interpretation that reveals the true, explainable, and sensible nature of their act. If the great Friar Galvão, so obviously sensible and virtuous, judged it honorable to his Franciscan habit and priesthood to make himself a slave of Mary, my letter writer would have the duty to assume there is a reasonable and lofty explanation for it. Such an explanation can easily be found in its best source, the Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary by St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, a book approved by the Catholic Church and generally considered one of the most eminent works of Mariology.

For the reader’s benefit, I will try to explain what this Marian slavery is, which St. Louis Marie calls the slavery of love, not of brute force or coercion.

*  *  *

Not too long ago, one of the highest compliments that could be paid to someone—a head of state, father, priest, magistrate, or military officer—was to describe them as a “slave to duty.” This meant he was willing to bear any risks or losses to avoid transgressing the duties inherent in his position, or even to do everything advisable to fulfill his mission in the most meticulous manner.

The statement that a head of state or family, a magistrate, or a military officer made their mission “a true priesthood” conveyed the same meaning.

Therefore, the word “slave” had a meaning entirely different from that mentioned by the reader. It described someone who, freely persuaded of the nobility and elevation of their duties and mission, had freely decided to sacrifice, if necessary, even their legitimate rights and most cherished interests for that cause.

In this “slavery” defined by love of duty, the ideal, and the mission, man is not even remotely a slave in the manner of Roman prisoners of war or of Blacks forcibly shipped to Brazil. On the contrary, he exercises his freedom rationally and to the highest degree, and makes an absolutely lucid and ennobling use of himself and all that is his.

This is the meaning St. Louis Grignion de Montfort gives to someone’s consecration as a “slave of Mary.”

He is a slave of love to Mary Most Holy, who, convinced without coercion of her sublime prerogatives as Mother of God and the moral perfections she exemplifies, freely and lovingly consecrates to her “his body and soul, his interior and exterior goods, and even the value of his past, present, and future good works, leaving her the full and entire right to dispose of himself and all that belongs to him, without exception, according to her will, for the greater glory of God in time and in eternity.” These are the words of the Saint. In exchange for this lucid and free consecration, Mary, Mother of Mercy, does not treat her slave with the base and violent selfishness of a Roman or slave trader, but with the fully maternal, affectionate, and considerate love of the most generous, affable, and indulgent of mothers.

Here I offer another illuminating analogy. This position of slave of love to Our Lady—understood as the selfless sacrifice of one’s rights and interests for the sake of a sacrosanct ideal, such as the service of the Virgin Mother—has much in common with the act by which a friar or nun joins a religious order, renouncing, in a supremely lucid and free gesture, the right to dispose of themselves and their patrimony through the vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity.

In a certain sense, those who consecrate themselves as slaves of Mary are even freer, because unlike friars or nuns, they do not take vows and thus retain the ability to withdraw from this sublime consecration at any time.

The ability to act in this way is considered freedom in every country on earth, except, of course, in communist countries. But what does it mean to be free in these countries? It literally means being a slave.

By the way, is the letter’s author an anticommunist?