Interior Practice of the Holy Slavery of Love
Its Guiding Formula
43. I have said that this devotion consists in doing all our
actions with Mary, in Mary, through Mary and for Mary.
Scope of This Formula
44. It is not enough to have given ourselves once as slaves to
Jesus through Mary, nor is it enough to renew that act of consecration every
month or every week. That alone would not make it a permanent devotion, nor
could it bring the soul to that degree of perfection to which it is capable of
raising it. It is not very difficult to enroll ourselves in a confraternity,
nor to practice this devotion in as far as it prescribes a few vocal prayers
every day; but the great difficulty is to enter into its spirit. Now its spirit
consists in this, that we be interiorly dependent on Mary; that we be slaves of
Mary, and through her, of Jesus.
I have found many people who, with admirable zeal, have
adopted the exterior practices of this holy slavery of Jesus and Mary, but I
have found only a few who have accepted its interior spirit, and still fewer
who have persevered in it.
MEANING AND EXPLANATION OF THIS FORMULA
Act with Mary
45. The essential practice of this devotion is to do all our
actions with Mary. This means that we must take Our Lady as the perfect
model of all that we do.
46. Before undertaking anything, we must renounce ourselves
and our own views. We must place ourselves as mere nothings before God, unable
of ourselves to do anything that is supernaturally good or profitable to our
salvation. We must have recourse to Our Lady, uniting ourselves to her and to
her intentions, although they are not known to us; and through Mary we must
unite ourselves to the intentions of Jesus Christ. In other words, we must
place ourselves as instruments in the hands of Mary, that she may act in us and
do with us and for us whatever she pleases, for the greater glory of her Son,
and through the Son, for the glory of the Father; so that the whole work of our
interior life and of our spiritual perfection is accomplished only by
dependence on Mary.
Act in Mary
47. We must do all things in Mary; that is to say, we
must become accustomed little by little to recollect ourselves interiorly and
thus try to form within us some idea or spiritual image of Mary. She will be,
as it were, the oratory of our soul, in which we offer up all our prayers to
God, without fear of not being heard; she will be to us a Tower of David, in
which we take refuge from all our enemies; a burning lamp to enlighten our
interior and to inflame us with Divine love; a sacred altar upon which we
contemplate God in Mary and with her. In short, Mary will be the only means
used by our soul in dealing with God; she will be our universal refuge. If we
pray, we will pray in Mary; if we receive Jesus in Holy Communion, we will
place Him in Mary, so that He may take His delight in her; if we do anything at
all, we will act in Mary; everywhere and in all things we will renounce
ourselves.
Act through Mary
48. We must never go to Our Lord except through Mary,
through her intercession and her influence with Him. We must never be without
Mary when we pray to Jesus.
Act for Mary
49. Lastly, we must do all our actions for Mary. This
means that as slaves of this august princess, we must work only for her, for
her interests and her glory - making this
the immediate end of all our actions - and
for the glory of God, which must be their final end. In everything we do, we
must renounce our self-love, because very often self-love sets itself up in an
imperceptible manner as the end of our actions. We should often repeat, from the
bottom of our heart: "O my dear Mother! It is for you that I go here or
there; for you that I do this or that; for you that I suffer this pain or
wrong."
