Marvelous effects devotion to Our Lady produces in a faithful soul

Saint of the Day – April 4, 1992 – Saturday

 

 by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

 

“A Roman and Apostolic Catholic, the author of this text submits himself with filial devotion to the traditional teaching of Holy Church. However, if by an oversight anything is found in it at variance with that teaching, he immediately and categorically rejects it.”

 The words “Revolution” and “Counter-Revolution” are employed here in the sense given to them by Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira in his book Revolution and Counter-Revolution, the first edition of which was published in the monthly Catolicismo, Nº 100, April 1959.

 

Our Lady of Miracle (Madonna del Miracolo), Rome (photo by Kenneth Drake – 2009)

Tonight we will comment on an excerpt of the Treatise on True Devotion to Mary, Chapter 6, item 5, which deals with the “The marvelous effects that this devotion produces in a soul faithful to it” – Article 5,”Communication of the soul and spirit of Mary.”

In other words, it is as if Our Lady communicates her soul and spirit to us or infuses her soul and spirit into us.  St. Louis de Montfort says:

“The soul of Mary will be communicated to you to glorify the Lord. Her spirit will take the place of yours to rejoice in God, her Savior, but only if you are faithful to the practices of this devotion. “

So it reaffirms what I just said: “The soul of the most holy Virgin will be communicated to us to glorify the Lord.”

What is this communication of soul? It is the knowledge that we will have of the soul of Our Lady but a kind of infusion of the understanding and the will of Our Lady illuminating our own understanding and moving our will. And therefore it is a grace, a most high gift because we receive from Our Lady some of her intelligence and understanding, some of her willpower and sanctity, both of which are unfathomable and unattainable to us, who are only what we are.

Keep in mind that She is the highest of all creatures, higher than all the angels and saints together and inferior only to Our Lord Jesus Christ. No one is at the level of Our Lady, and a fortiori no one is superior to her except God Himself; and it is her soul and spirit that is communicated to us.

This is the promise that St. Louis Grignion de Montfort makes.

Mary will be established as the Sovereign Queen of Hearts

“When will that happy day come when God’s Mother is enthroned in men’s hearts as Queen…?”

Much more than Mistress and Sovereign of the Earth, She is the Mistress and Sovereign of all nations of the Earth. But to command all nations of the Earth is very little indeed, for nations come apart; they are like bubbles that pop up in History and then disappear. One has a clear notion of this when travelling in Europe: what a nation is and is not.

I cannot forget that once traveling in Spain I saw a large bridge made for heavy vehicles, and at a distance, a fragile little bridge. Both spanned across the river. On the large bridge it was written: “Roman bridge: for trucks;” and on the little one: “Modern bridge: common vehicles.”

In other words, today’s trucks would cross on the bridge of the Roman times. After thousands of years, this bridge continues to bear increasingly greater weights. For a Roman Legion to cross that bridge with their shields, lances and elms was nothing compared to four or five heavy modern semis loaded with merchandise. Yet heavy vehicles take the Roman bridge, while lighter vehicles take the modern one. In the final analysis, what is ancient endures, and what is modern does not.

On the other side one gets to a crossroads and you can see a few ruins. But they are in such a state that one asks why they don’t just take down the rest of it, since it serves no purpose. And the people traveling with us tell us that is a famous place: “Here the famous family of the Dukes of Alba was born.” The family was born and the castle imploded… and in the end so did the family. The last descendent from the Dukes of Alba is married to a Jesuit priest whom the Holy See dispensed from the vow of chastity and the religious state to marry her.

Everything merely human comes apart and turns to nothing, but what belongs to Our Lady remains 

Things crumble, and everything merely human comes apart and turns to nothing; but what is Our Lady’s remains.

And thus, by uniting ourselves to Our Lady we can do things that remain for an undetermined amount of time and might even stay to the end of the world. We can have the hope that if we practice this devotion faithfully and well, Our Lady may maintain the TFP alive until the end of the world. And that the famous apostles of the latter days who will reign and combat the Antichrist and fight until the end, when evil dominates the Earth to such a point that the world cannot go on and God sends the chastisement, the sons of Mary, the apostles of the latter times, will still be standing.

Who knows who will be my continuators, who knows whether they will be my continuators through you, who knows if from here to four, five, eight or ten generations, those who continue in the TFP and die in the TFP will pass on the standard to others, and when those glorious days arrive, the standard with the rampant lion is the one that rises: Tradition, Family, Property. Until the end of the world…

This is the durability of things done by those to whom Our Lady communicates her spirit and her soul. These are the marvelous effects of fidelity to Our Lady according to the devotion that St. Louis Maria Grignion teaches. In other words, it is first and foremost about being very faithful to Our Lady, but faithful through the devotion of Holy Slavery to Her which he teaches, and as far as I know is the most perfect form of devotion to Our Lady ever found.

I was saying that for Our Lady to be a Queen of Nations is little. She will be the Queen of hearts.

Our Lady will be Queen of Hearts. What does ‘heart’ mean?

We men have the impression we think with our head, so that when we know someone who can think very easily, we say: “He has a very good head.” But we know one does not think with the head. The soul animates the whole body, but it does not dwell in the head. The brain is the most important nervous center of the human body and is inside the skull. So we feel where our thought is and have the impression that our soul inhabits our skull. But that is not true. Yet in current language one can say that “he has a great head” – an expression I don’t like but which is used.

In antiquity people admitted that the soul is the center of thought but that the heart is the center of the will; and just as a man wants with his “head,” so also he wants with his “heart.” And for Our Lady to be the queen of all men’s wills is much more than simply the Queen of governments. For a government can fall, and a State can be dominated, conquered, etc. but no one can demolish Her reign upon men if they give their firm consent. And if all men give themselves to Her kingdom, the most powerful governments of the world can do nothing against Her.

He who reigns upon hearts is stronger than any government. Example of the power of Catholics in the Roman Empire 

You know the persecutions the Romans carried out against the early Catholics, how they were taken to the Coliseum, the circus and arenas to be devoured by ferocious animals; how they were burned alive etc., it was terrible. But here is what happened: At that time, the Roman Emperors were the authority under which those crimes were perpetrated. Therefore, they were responsible for them. But in spite of the persecutions and all the risks they ran, Catholics became so numerous in the Roman Empire that a Catholic polemicist in just before Constantine wrote a letter to the emperor saying:

“You persecute Catholics, yet you are emperor only because we want you to be. For we are so numerous that we fill the legions of your soldiers, the forum where your judges sit, we fill your own palace; and if Catholics were to leave your palace, you would be left all alone there. You, who persecute us, are something only because we want it; in the Roman Empire, Jesus Christ is everything!”

The Church gains liberty and no pagan dares to revolt; it is a proof that the Church already reigned in people’s hearts

And indeed, this is what happened:  a son of Saint Helen, Constantine, a Roman General candidate to become emperor, managed to have himself elected by the troops – that is how emperors were chosen at that time – but had to face other rivals who wanted the throne. And a battle took place between him and his rivals, called the battle of Ponte Milvio. And on the eve of the battle he was apprehensive about its outcome; he looked up to the sky and saw a luminous cross, and underneath it, the words: “In hoc signo vinces,” “In this sign you shall win” – the sign of the cross. So he promised Saint Helen, his mother, who was already a Catholic – that he would be baptized and convert if he won the battle. His enemies were crushed. He returned and decreed liberty for the Catholic Church in the whole Roman Empire. And the persecutions ceased forever.

One could have thought that the pagans – who had temples, many priests, riches, everything – would revolt. But at that point the pagan priests no longer reigned in people’s hearts and were powerless to such a point – for Jesus Christ had become the King of hearts – that in the final analysis they did nothing to revolt against the emperor. Seeing that, the emperor issued another decree closing pagan worship throughout the Roman Empire. The pagan priests simply deserted their temples, leaving them empty, and took up other jobs. One became a cobbler, another a tailor and so on, and they no longer thought about exercising their old function. Pagan churches were left empty and many were soon turned to Catholic worship.

Rome’s largest temple, dedicated to Jupiter, the king of gods, was also left empty and Catholics occupied it. It exists to this day. With all the characteristics of an ancient Roman temple, it seems to be so heavy that the ground settled underneath it and the houses around now sit on a higher level. And one looks at those stone columns and has the impression of a person who has become so old that he begins to dry up, and his bones show outside, that is what those columns of the temple look like. Inside was enthroned a statue of Jupiter, the king of gods, and on the façade was this writing: “Deo Optimo Maximo” – Jupiter was the best and supreme of their many gods. They took all that down and when I went there it had become the main parish church of Rome. And the old ladies would go there to pray and assist at the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament; young men would to attend catechism classes, there was Mass, etc. – Catholic worship had been tranquilly installed there for almost 2,000 years. And that was a temple erected for Jupiter!

Why did all that disappear? Because the power of Satan left the souls and in them entered the power of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

With the Revolution, the devil increasingly became lord of souls and everything began to crumble

In RCR (Revolution and Counter-Revolution) you see what happened with the Revolution. It was a series of sins through which the devil began to become lord of souls; and because he became king of souls, everything started to crumble. Empires crumbled, dynasties crumbled, the nobility fell, a great part of the clergy followed suit, and Protestantism entered many nations.

Why did it all happen in this way? It happened because the souls began to drive away from Our Lord through the work of a movement called the Revolution.

This is why we are the Counter-Revolution. And being the Counter-Revolution, our mission is to do everything for the Reign of Mary to be established in souls. And St. Louis Grignion de Montfort teaches us the way in which the Reign of Mary begins to be established in souls; because only when Our Lady reigns in us it is possible for us to make Her reign in others.

A TFP member who has the Reign of Mary in his soul, according to the method of St. Louis Grignion, is able to conquer great numbers

For example, you see how the TFP, thanks to Our Lady, is numerous. But how does the TFP manage to become numerous in such a hostile ambience? The TFP is always criticized and smeared from all sides, yet it goes forward… They do everything possible to prevent people from joining it. And yet our doors are wide open and our number increases, we exist in an ever larger number of countries.

But how is this achieved? It is attained when one is a good son and slave of Our Lady according to the method of St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort. So when you want to do great things, begin by making the spirit of Mary reign in you, by making her queen of your hearts, that is, of your will.

To be the queen of wills She must be the queen of minds; for the will wants what the minds presents, and therefore She must be queen of the whole man. Being queen of hearts is a way of saying that She is the spiritual queen of men.

This is to conquer the world! And we hope that with the Bagarre and the Reign of Mary, preceded by the Grand-Retour, Our Lady will reign over the whole world still in our days.

“When will that happy day come when God’s Mother is enthroned in men’s hearts as Queen, fully subjecting them to the dominion of her great and princely Son?”

Her only Son, Jesus, is completely Her king, and thus She is Queen and Christ the King reigns through Her.

The Treatise asks:

“When will the day arrive when souls will breath Mary as the body breathes air? What is to “breath Mary”?

For example, in this auditorium one can breathe Mary. What does that mean?

Compare any ambience out there with the ambience in this auditorium and you will understand how it is an entirely different ambience. And the soul feels this more or less like the body feels breathing.

Then, to “breathe” Mary is to be in an ambience fully impregnated with the presence of Mary, the spirit of Mary. This is what the souls need in order to have the strength to implant the standard of Our Lady all over the world.

“When that time comes wonderful things will happen on earth. The Holy Spirit, finding his dear Spouse present again in souls, will come down into them with great power. He will fill them with his gifts…”

Here is another thought. As you know, Our Lady is the Spouse of the Holy Ghost, that is, She conceived the Child Jesus by an action of the Holy Ghost.

When the angel presented himself to Her and made the annunciation, She said yes, She accepted. At the moment She accepted, the Holy Ghost penetrated Her and begot the Child Jesus.

In these conditions, Our Lady had all the necessary resources to beget Jesus in souls through the Holy Ghost. When we ask,“emitte Spiritum tuum et creabuntur, et renovabis faciem terrae”, that is, “send thy Spirit and all things will be created and Thou shalt renew the face of the Earth,” it means, send Thy Spirit – the Holy Ghost – and all things will be created. Souls will be restored, resurrected, and Thou shalt renew the face of the Earth. It is a moral renewal, a religious renewal, a renewal of mentalities; the face of the Earth changes with a simple breath of the Holy Ghost.

Today there is much talk about atomic bomb, nuclear war. You must have also heard of chemical warfare carried out by throwing poisonous gasses on cities. The bomb is dropped, explodes and the poisonous gas spreads and kills hundreds or thousands of people in a city. You also heard of bacteriological warfare, in which biological bombs with germs blow up over a city and epidemic spreads all over. These are forms of warfare, above all nuclear warfare, which is the most devastating of all.

While all this is a danger, it means nothing against people who have the spirit of Mary, people upon whom the Holy Ghost descends and spreads throughout the Earth. This is what St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort promises those who follow the method he proposes.

The excerpt they asked me to read tonight does not describe this devotion; it gives the rewards of it so the person feels like studying it carefully later to see how to practice the devotion. This explains the text I am reading for you.

“When will that happy time come, that age of Mary, when many souls, chosen by Mary and given her by the most High God, will hide themselves completely in the depths of her soul, becoming living copies of her, loving and glorifying Jesus?”

You see that he literally makes a prophecy here, in the form of a question: “My dear brothers, when will that day arrive when this will happen?” As if saying, this day will come, I don’t know when but it will come; and oh, the day it comes!

What will happen that day? He uses once again a metaphor:

… that age of Mary, when many souls, chosen…

Therefore it is not the soul of just anybody, but especially called souls.

… will hide themselves completely in the depths of her soul, becoming living copies of Mary… 

What does it mean “to hide themselves in the depths of her soul”?

It is a very beautiful expression, a little mysterious for someone who does not know Catholic doctrine. Each soul has depths, and the interior of each soul is a whole world, an abyss.

Who knows what goes on in other people’s souls? Extremely few are those to whom grace affords the gift of the discernment of spirits. Otherwise, no one knows what goes on inside a soul. But this proves how much there is inside each soul, how many riches God has placed in each soul, how much capacity it has to want, think, vibrate, and how each soul is unique in its own way.

In the Last Judgment we will have the notion that God made a mosaic with all the souls, forming a beautiful picture: this splendid ensemble is made up of the men God created

I do not know if you have in mind that each soul is unique and that God never creates equal souls. He can create similar souls, but no two souls are equal; each soul is unique. And when the day of the Last Judgment comes and we are gathered at the Valley of Josaphat to be judged by God, we will have the curious notion that God put together a kind of a mosaic, forming a beautiful picture with all souls, each different from the other, from Adam all the way to the faithful souls who will remain until the end, will not be judged but will go do Heaven without dying, such will be their fidelity during the last throes of the Catholic Church and of Civilization.

Seeing that mosaic one understands what human kind is. It is not each soul, but this splendid ensemble made up by the men that God created. And in it, each of us is a stone; this stone is unique, and all stones are different, so that it constitutes the marvel of marvels of God on this Earth. In Heaven He created the angels, but men are the marvel on this Earth.

One needs to acquire the habit to examine oneself to know oneself inside out and learn to judge oneself with severity

So then, each of these unique men has a whole universe inside his soul. And we need to acquire the habit of self-examination to know oneself from the inside out and to judge with severity so as to be able to point out his own defect or defects and to know how to combat them so that to combat the defect and make quality advance. And at the end the defect has taken such a beating that it is like a dying animal, while virtue attains so many victories that it is like a triumphant general.

Would that this happens the moment our soul is about to be called by God, so it appears splendid before God. It has ended up by achieving an interior life as God wanted when he created it. He gave it graces, teachers, advice, everything, and the soul said yes to everything and gradually modeled itself as God wanted. The soul achieves this masterpiece  entirely focused in the depths of its interior. What is this masterpiece? It has made of itself the sculpture that God wanted.

For example, the greatest masterpiece of St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest thinker of the Catholic Church bar none, was not the things he wrote, however marvelous; he was his own masterpiece, which made him a saint of the Catholic Church. Of course, he wrote marvelous things, but that is secondary: his masterpiece is Saint Thomas Aquinas.

Each of us is called to be a masterpiece of himself, and even more, to help many others become masterpieces

Each of us is called to be a masterpiece of himself, and even more, to help many others become masterpieces themselves. One is called to do apostolate to help the others sculpt themselves through counseling, the example of good actions, prayers for them, etc. so they will sculpt themselves to become what God wanted of them.

What glory it will be for each of us, in Heaven, to see a soul who coming in radiant and know that he is what he is in part because we have him support at a key moment. And how many thanks we will receive from souls we helped go to Heaven in this or that way, how these souls, arriving in Heaven, will thank those who helped them get there. And they look at Hell (for it is visible from Heaven) and can even make out the place that was destined for them had they failed to fulfill their duty. But they also look to the throne prepared for them in Heaven, where their guardian angel is taking them in a concert of joy throughout Heaven because that soul has been saved; and the soul understands: “This is the one who helped me, that one too.”

Take your case. You are a few hundred here in this auditorium. If each of you saves one thousand souls, we could have thousands of souls saved. And to save ten thousand souls or to help save a thousand souls is not much. These thousands of souls will be like children of yours; and for their part they will save others, who will be like your grandchildren. At the end of the world, what will all that amount to? You will be thanked for your part in all these things.

And here is St. Louis Grignion de Montfort saying: “In order to achieve this, do not become discouraged. It seems difficult, but Our Lady enters into us. She enters into us with her sanctity and heart. She renews us and makes us capable of what we are not capable now. Onward, therefore!”

Thus will be pried from the devil the enormous spaces he now dominates; one day Our Lady will take them away from him as an angel proclaims in Heaven: Mary wins, Mary reigns, Mary is the Queen of hearts.”

St. Louis says: “That day [when Mary is Queen of Hearts] will dawn only when the devotion I teach is understood and put into practice”

Pay attention. As long as the devotion that he teaches is not understood and not practiced, that day will not come. When it is understood and practiced, that day will come.

So, what must we do? Instead of sighing because the Bagarre does not come, let us teach this devotion, let us open the door. If the room is stuffy, let us open the windows and doors. If the atmosphere today is unbearable, let us open the doors of the Reign of Mary to the interior of our souls and move forward. She will do the rest.

And he finishes his text thus:

“Ut adveniat regnum tuum, adveniat regnum Mariae“.

It is a supplication addressed to Our Lord Jesus Christ: “Lord, that your kingdom may come, may the reign of Mary come!” Because where Mary is, everything is open to Thee and Thou reignest.

The persecutions and mistreatments St. Louis Grignion suffered

For you to see how complicated this story is, and how the devil hates it, St. Louis Grignion de Montfort was a simple, very poor priest ordained in a seminary in Brittany, France, if I am not mistaken, who decided to preach devotion to Our Lady everywhere. He was a popular preacher, not one of these great, cultured and intelligent preachers. He was a popular preacher and everywhere he went, large masses of workers would gather to hear him. And although he said things that required explanation, these masses gathered with real enthusiasm for him.

But France was living the preparation of the ignoble French Revolution that spread throughout the world, and St. Louis Grignion perceived that Revolution was coming. In several passages of the Treatise on True Devotion he speaks of an enormous Revolution that was coming as a consequence of a real flood of sins sweeping over France and Europe. So he spoke out and preached; but the clergy of his time, contaminated with those errors, scorned him and fought him.

He was very poor and at that time there were many convents. And he would usually go to convents asking for food. It was a beautiful habit of the Church of all time that when any priest knocked on a convent door asking for food they would feed him and let him rest a bit and then let him resume his journey without asking any questions. And that is how some convents treated him. But since there were a lot of smears going around against him, many convents began to treat him with scorn. At one time he was treated with so much scorn and spite that he finally left; and a person who saw what happened asked: “What do you have to say about this way of treating you?” With his soul of fire, but calmly, he answered: “I’ll say only one thing, I had never thought it possible for a priest to be treated in this way in a convent.” And then he went on his journey.

The government orders the destruction of a Calvary St. Louis had built

 One of St. Louis’ ways to propagate this devotion was to build open air “calvaries”
in Brittany. A calvary is a monument that represents the height of Calvary hill at the moment Our Lord expired. So you have Our Lord on the cross, the good thief, the bad thief, and at the foot of the cross, Our  Lady, St. John the Evangelist, at times also the holy women weeping, St. John profoundly impressed looking at the Divine Master, and Our Lady standing looking on also, but with a firmness second only to that of Our Lord, nailed to the cross.

He wanted to make calvaries into extraordinary centers of pilgrimage and devotion throughout France. And in fact when that calvary was being built, people already started coming etc. At a certain moment, a decree comes: “On the king’s orders, the calvary will be destroyed.” And so they leveled the calvary he had built after a long time and many efforts fund-raising, finding artists who would build it and so on.

A mysterious hand made the Treatise on True Devotion disappear for centuries

On the other hand, he wrote the Treatise on True Devotion to teach this devotion to the whole world. He was unable to spread the book very much; and when he died, some criminal hand – one does not know who it is – stole the book and hid it the depot of a small religious Order he had founded. And it disappeared. No one ever saw it again. And so it was a treasure unknown to the whole world. And he died with his work unaccounted for… all his life seemed to have been a failure. But he died in peace.

Even today you can see, at the motherhouse of the Religious Order he founded – Mr. Fernando Antúnez was with me when we visited the place – the table on which he wrote large part of the Treatise. It is a table one feels like bringing back here to build an altar with top-notch marbles and gold, I don’t know how to sufficiently honor such a relic.

Only in the 19th century someone found his work in some chest. It was a surprise. They verified his handwriting and it was proven that the whole work was his. But if I am not mistaken, one-third of its pages had been torn off and disappeared. And we do not know the whole Treatise, we only know most of it. I have great hope that before the Bagarre this part will come into our hands. But it was obviously the hidden enemy that gradually St. Louis’ whole work apart by every possible means.

How did the Treatise on True Devotion fall into Dr. Plinio’s hands?

I was still young, about 21, and I was hankering very much for Our Lady to give me two things: money so I did not have to work in any profession and could be free to work for the Catholic cause; and at the same time, I greatly wanted to find a good book for the spiritual life. I had already read many books but was not entirely satisfied, I wanted something else. So I made a promise to St. Therese of the Child Jesus, I don’t remember what the promise was – asking to hit a lotto jackpot. So I bought a ticket and the jackpot was rather small – 400 contos – but it was enough for me to live from the interest. So, I asked for 400 contos and a book. And I did not know which book it was.

So I prayed, made the promise and the novena to St. Therese the Little Flower. And I went to a bookstore run by the Heart of Mary priests – which they still have today – to look for the book. I went in and looked, checked one thing or the other, and two books particularly called my attention. I do not remember what one of them was. The other was the Treatise on True Devotion, by St. Louis Grignion de Montfort, who at the time was still Blessed Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, whom I knew nothing about. But two reasons led me to buy the book: first, it was about Our Lady; and second, because its layout was very pleasing and in very good taste so I was attracted to it. When I got home I began to read it and understood I had found the book of my life.

St. Therese heeded the first part of my request, but not the second. I did not hit the jackpot and had to work hard for a living, to the prejudice of my apostolate. But I began to do her novena and have not stopped to this day. Let us see if she gives me something before the end of my days. My dear friends, that moment has not arrived but my time is up, as I have to go to another meeting.

As Holy Week approaches, I advise you to meditate on the Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the redemption of mankind. And I recommend that you prepare for Holy Week by saying the Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Litany of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, one day that of the Heart of Jesus and the other day that of the Heart of Mary through Holy Week, including Resurrection Sunday.