A Perfect Means
Devotions to Mary
24. There are several
true devotions to Our Lady: here I do not speak of those that are
false.
1. Devotion without Special Practices
25. The first consists
in fulfilling our Christian duties, avoiding mortal sin, acting more
out of love than fear, praying to Our Lady now and then, honoring her
as the Mother of God, yet without having any special devotion to her.
2. Devotion with Special Practices
26. The second consists
in entertaining for Our Lady more perfect feelings of esteem and
love, of confidence and veneration. It leads us to join the
Confraternities of the Holy Rosary and of the Scapular, to recite the
five decades or the fifteen decades of the Rosary, to honor Mary's
images and altars, to publish her praises and to enroll ourselves in
her sodalities. This devotion is good, holy and praiseworthy, if we
keep ourselves free from sin; but it is not so perfect as the next,
nor so efficient in severing our soul from creatures or in detaching
us from ourselves, in order to be united with Jesus Christ.
3. The Perfect Devotion: The Holy Slavery of Love
27. The third devotion
to Our Lady, known and practiced by very few persons, is the one I am
now about to disclose to you, predestinate soul.
The Nature and Scope of this Devotion
Nature
28. It consists in
giving oneself entirely and as a slave to Mary, and to Jesus through
Mary; and after that to do all that we do, with Mary, in Mary,
through Mary and for Mary.
I shall now explain these words.
Scope: Total Surrender
29. We should choose a
special feast-day on which to give, consecrate and sacrifice to Mary
voluntarily, lovingly and without constraint, entirely and without
reserve: our body and soul, our exterior property, such as house,
family and income; and also our interior and spiritual possessions;
namely, our merits, graces, virtues and satisfactions. It should be
observed here that by this devotion the soul sacrifices to Jesus,
through Mary, all that it holds most dear, things of which even no
religious order would require the sacrifice; namely, the right to
dispose of ourselves, of the value of our prayers and alms, of our
mortifications and satisfactions. The soul leaves everything to be
freely disposed of by Our Lady so that she may apply it all according
to her own will for the greater glory of God, which she alone knows
perfectly.
Surrender of the Value of Our Good Works
30. We leave to her
disposal all the satisfactory and impetratory value of our good
works, so that after we have made the sacrifice of them
-
although not by vow
- we are
no longer the masters of any good works we may do; but Our Lady may
apply them, sometimes for the relief or the deliverance of a soul in
Purgatory, sometimes for the conversion of a poor sinner, etc.
31. By this devotion we
also place our merits in the hands of Our Lady, but only that she may
preserve, augment and embellish them, because we cannot communicate
to one another either the merits of sanctifying grace or those of
glory. However, we give her all our prayers and good works, inasmuch
as they have an impetratory and satisfactory value, that she may
distribute and apply them to whom she pleases. If, after having thus
consecrated ourselves to Our Lady, we desire to relieve a Soul in
Purgatory, to save a sinner, or to assist a friend by our prayers,
our alms-deeds, our mortifications and sacrifices, we must humbly ask
it of Our Lady, abiding, however, by her decision, which remains
unknown to us; and we must be fully persuaded that the value of our
actions, being dispensed by the same hand which God Himself makes use
of to distribute to us His graces and gifts, cannot fail to be
applied for His greater glory.
Three Kinds of Slavery
32. I have said that
this devotion consists in giving ourselves to Mary as slaves. But
notice that there are three kinds of slavery. The first is the
slavery of nature; in this sense all men, good and bad alike, are
slaves of God. The second is the slavery of constraint; the devils
and the damned are slaves of God in this second sense. The third is
the slavery of love and of free will; and this is the one by which we
must consecrate ourselves to God through Mary. It is the most perfect
way for us human creatures to give ourselves to God our Creator.
Servant and Slave
33. Notice again, that
there is a great difference between a servant and a slave. A servant
claims wages for his services; a slave has a right to none. A servant
is free to leave his master when he likes
- he
serves him only for a time; a slave belongs to his master for life
and has no right to leave him. A servant does not give to his master
the right of life and death over him; a slave gives himself up
entirely, so that his master can put him to death without being
molested by the law. It is easily seen, then, that he who is a slave
by constraint is rigorously dependent on his master. Strictly
speaking, a man must be dependent in that sense only on his Creator.
Hence, we do not find that kind of slavery among Christians, but only
among pagans.
Happiness of the Slave of Love
34. But happy and a
thousand times happy is the generous soul that consecrates itself
entirely to Jesus through Mary as a slave of love after it has shaken
off by Baptism the tyrannical slavery of the
devil!
There is then no
reason for being scared or repelled by the words "slave"
and "slavery." Consider the state,
not the word
which expresses the state of total, of lasting and disinterested
subjection and dependence on the Master through the Mother. One may
ask why not use other words? It is because there are none to express
adequately this special state of consecration.
