Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange: Consecration to Our Lady's Immaculate Heart

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The Angelus - March 2010

Consecration to Mary

Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. 

Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange explains the doctrine, meaning, and importance of the Consecration to Mary as taught by St. Louis de Montfort. 

In his Treatise of True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, St. Louis de Montfort distinguished a number of different degrees of true devotion to the Mother of God. He speaks only briefly of the forms of false devotion—that which is altogether exterior, or presumptuous, or inconstant, or hypocritical, or self-interested—since his main concern is true devotion.

Like the other Christian virtues, true devotion grows in us with charity, advancing from the stage of the beginner to that of the more proficient, and continuing up to the stage of the perfect. The first degree or stage is to pray devoutly to Mary from time to time, for example, by saying the Angelus when the bell rings. The second degree is one of more perfect sentiments of veneration, confidence and love; it may manifest itself by the daily recitation of the Rosary—five decades or all fifteen. In the third degree, the soul gives itself fully to Our Lady by an act of consecration so as to belong altogether to Jesus through her.1

What does this Consecration mean?
This act of consecration consists in promising Mary to have constant filial recourse to her and to live in habitual dependence on her, so as to attain to more intimate union with Our Blessed Lord and through Him with the Blessed Trinity present in our souls. The reason for making it lies, St. Louis de Montfort says, in the fact that God has willed to make use of Mary for the sanctification of souls, having already made use of her to bring about the Incarnation (Treatise on True Devotion, ch. I, a. I, no. 44).

St. Louis continues:

I do not think that anyone can attain to great union with Our Blessed Lord or perfect fidelity to the Holy Ghost without being closely united to Our Lady and depending very much on her help....She was full of grace when she was saluted by the Archangel Gabriel, she was superabundantly filled with grace by the Holy Ghost when He overshadowed her, she so advanced in grace from day to day and from moment to moment as to arrive at an inconceivable summit of grace; on which account the Most High has made her His unique treasurer and the unique dispenser of His graces, so that she may ennoble, enrich and elevate whom she wills, and make whom she wills enter the narrow gate of Heaven....Jesus is everywhere and always the Son and the fruit of Mary; Mary is everywhere the true tree which bears the fruit of life and the true mother who produces it.

In the same chapter, a little earlier, we read:

We may apply to Mary with even more truth than St. Paul applies them to himself the words: “My little children, of whom I am in labor again, until Christ be formed in you. I am in labor daily with God’s children till Jesus be formed in them in the fulness of His age.” St. Augustine says that the predestined are in this world hidden in the womb of Mary in order to become conformed to the image of the Son of God; and there she guards, nourishes, and supports them and brings them forth to glory after death, which is the true day of their birth—the term by which the Church always speaks of the death of the just. O mystery of grace unknown to the reprobate and little understood by the predestined! Mary is truly the mother of the just, conceiving them spiritually and bringing them forth after death by their entry into glory, which is their definitive spiritual birth. It is clear then that it would be a falling short in humility to neglect to have frequent recourse to the Universal Mediatrix whom Divine Providence has given us as our true spiritual mother to form Christ in us. It is clear also that theology cannot but recognise that it is lawful and more than lawful to consecrate oneself to Mary, Mother and Queen of all men.2

Consecration to Our Lady is a practical form of recognition of her universal mediation and a guarantee of her special protection. It helps us to have continual childlike recourse to her and to contemplate and imitate her virtues and her perfect union with Christ. In the practice of this complete dependence on Mary, there may be included—and St. Louis de Montfort invites us to it—the resignation into Mary’s hands of everything in our good works that is communicable to other souls, so that she may make use of it in accordance with the will of her Divine Son and for His glory.

I choose thee this day, O Mary, in the presence of the whole court of Heaven, as my Mother and Queen. I give and consecrate to you as your slave my body and my soul, my interior and exterior possessions, and even the value of my past, present and future good actions, allowing you the full right to dispose of me and of all that belongs to me, without any exception whatever, according to your good pleasure, for the greater glory of God, in time and in eternity.

This offering is really the practice of the so-called heroic act, there being a question here not of a vow but of a promise made to the Blessed Virgin.3

We are recommended to offer our exterior possessions to Mary, that she may preserve us from inordinate attachment to the things of this world and inspire us to make better use of them. It is good also to consecrate to her our bodies and our senses that she may keep them pure.

The act of consecration gives over to Mary also our soul and its faculties, our spiritual possessions, virtues and merits, all our good works past, present and future. It is necessary, however, to explain how this can be done. Theology gives us the answer by distinguishing what is communicable to others in our good works from what is incommunicable.

What in our good works is communicable to others?

To begin at the other end of the problem, our merits de condigno, which constitute a right in justice to an increase of grace and to eternal glory, are incommunicable. Our merits de condigno differ in that from those of Our Blessed Lord. He was Head of the human race and could in justice communicate His merits to us. If, therefore, we offer our merits de condigno to Mary, it is not in order that she may give them to others but that she may keep them for us, that she may help us to make them bear fruit, and, if we have the misfortune to lose them by mortal sin, that she may obtain for us the grace of truly fervent contrition.

There is, however, something in our good works which we can communicate to others whether on earth or in purgatory.4 There is in the first place the merits de congruoproprie, founded on the rights of friendship with God by grace. God gives grace to some because of the good intentions and good works of others who are His friends. There are, in the second place, our prayers; we can and should pray for our neighbor, for his conversion and his spiritual progress. We should pray also for the dying and for the souls in Purgatory.

There are finally our acts of satisfaction. We can make satisfaction de congruo for others, for example, by accepting our daily crosses to help expiate their sins. We may even, if God moves us to do so by His grace, accept the penalty due to their sins as Mary did at the foot of the Cross, and thereby draw down the Divine Mercy on them.5 This the saints did frequently. An example is found in the life of St. Catherine of Siena. To a young Sienese whose heart was full of hate of his political enemies she said: “Peter, I take on myself all your sins. I shall do penance in your place; but do me one favour; confess your sins.” “I have been frequently to Confession,” answered Peter. “That is not true,” replied the saint. “It is seven years since you were at Confession,” and she proceeded to enumerate all the sins of his life. Confounded, he repented and pardoned his enemies. Even without having all of St. Catherine’s generosity, we can accept our daily crosses to help other souls to pay the debt they owe to the Divine justice.

We can also gain indulgences for the souls in purgatory, opening to them the treasury of the merits and satisfactions of Christ and the saints and hastening the day of their liberation.

There are, therefore, three things which we can share with others: our merits de congruo, our prayers, and our satisfaction. And if we put these in Mary’s hands for others, we ought not to be surprised if she sends us crosses—proportionate, of course, to our strength—to make us really work for the salvation of souls.

Who are those who may be advised to make this act of consecration? It certainly should not be recommended to people who would make it for merely sentimental reasons or through spiritual pride, and would not understand its true meaning. But those who are truly spiritual may be recommended to make it for a few days at first and then for some longer time; when finally they are prepared they may make it for their whole lives.

Someone may say that to give everything to Our Lady is to strip oneself, to leave one’s own debts unpaid, and so to add to one’s term in purgatory. This is in fact the difficulty the devil suggested to St. Brigid of Sweden when she thought of making the act of donation to Mary. Our Blessed Lord, however, explained to the saint that the objection sprang from self-love and made no allowance for Mary’s goodness. Mary will not be outdone in generosity: her help to us will far exceed what we give her. The very act of love which prompts our donation will itself obtain remission of part of our purgatory.

Others wonder if making the act of donation to Mary leaves them free to pray for relatives and friends afterwards. They forget that Mary knows the obligations of charity better than we do: she would be the first to remind us of them. There may even be some among our relatives and friends on earth and in purgatory who have urgent need of prayers and satisfactions without our knowing who they are. Mary, however, knows who they are, and she can help them out of our good works if we have put them at her disposal.

Thus understood, consecration and donation make us enter more fully, under Mary’s guidance, into the mystery of the Communion of Saints. It is a perfect renewal of the baptismal promises.6

Fruits of this Consecration

“This devotion,” St. Louis de Montfort tells us,
 gives us up altogether to the service of God, and makes us imitate the example of Our Blessed Lord, Who willed to be “subject” in regard to His Blessed Mother (Lk. 2:51). It obtains for us the special protection of Mary, who purifies our good works and adorns them when she offers them to her Divine Son. It leads us to union with Our Blessed Lord; it is an easy, short, perfect and safe way. It confers great interior freedom, procures great benefits for our neighbor, and is an excellent means of assuring our perseverance.7

The Saint develops each of these points in a most practical way. He speaks of the easiness of the way in Ch. 5, A. 5:

It is an easy way, one followed and prepared for us by Our Blessed Lord in His own coming, one where there are no obstacles in reaching Him. It is true that one can arrive at union with God by following other roads; but there will be many more crosses and trials, and many more difficulties which it will not be easy to surmount—there will be combats and strange agonies, steep mountains, sharp thorns, fearful deserts. But the way of Mary is sweeter and more peaceful.

Even along the way of Mary there are stern battles and great difficulties; but our good Mother makes herself so near and present to her faithful servants to enlighten them in their doubts, to strengthen them in their fears, and to sustain them in their battles, that in truth the Virgin’s way to Jesus is a way of roses and honey compared with all others.

The Saint adds that the truth of this can be seen from the lives of the Saints who have followed this way most particularly: St. Ephrem, St. John Damascene, St. Bernard, St. Bonaventure, St. Bernardine of Siena, and St. Francis de Sales.

A little further on in the same chapter, the Saint states that Mary’s servants “receive from her Heaven’s greatest graces and favors which are crosses;  but it is the servants of Mary who bear the crosses with most ease, merit and glory; and what would hold back another makes them advance,” for they are more aided by the Mother of God, who obtains for them the unction of love in their trials. It is wonderful how Mary makes the cross at the same time easier to bear and more meritorious: easier to bear because she helps us, and more meritorious because she obtains for us greater charity, which is the principle of greater merit.

It is a short way...one advances more in a little while of submission to and dependence on Mary than in many years of self-will and self-reliance....We can advance with giant strides along the path by which Jesus came to us....In a few years we shall arrive at the fulness of the perfect age.8 It is a perfect way, chosen by God Himself....The Most High descended to us by way of the humble Mary without losing anything of His Divinity; it is by Mary that little ones can rise perfectly and divinely to the Most High without fear. 

 It is finally a safe way, for the Blessed Virgin preserves us from the illusions of the devil and our imagination. She preserves us from sentiment as well, calming and ruling our sensibility, giving it a pure and holy object, and subordinating it to the rule of the will vivified by charity.

In consecration to Mary, we find great interior liberty: this is the reward of putting ourselves in such complete dependence on Mary. Scruples are banished; the heart dilates with confidence and love. The Saint confirms this point by referring to what he read in the life of the Dominican, Mother Agnes de Langeac, who, suffering great anguish of soul, heard a voice which said to her that if she wished to be delivered and to be protected from her enemies, she should make herself at once the slave of Jesus and His Holy Mother....When she had done so all her anguish and scruples ceased, and she found herself in a state of great peace, as a result of which she determined to teach the devotion to others...among whom was M. Olier, the founder of the seminary of Saint-Sulpice, and many other priests of the same seminary.

It was in the same seminary that St. Louis de Montfort received his priestly formation.

Finally, this devotion is one which procures the good of our neighbor and it is for those who live by it an admirable means of persevering in grace...for by it one gives to Mary, who is faithful, all that one has....It is on her fidelity that reliance is placed...that she may preserve and increase our merits in spite of all that could make us lose them....Do not commit the gold of your charity, the silver of your purity, the waters of heavenly graces, or the wine of your merits and virtues...to broken vessels such as you yourselves are; else you will be despoiled by robbers, that is by the demons, who watch day and night for a favorable opportunity. Put all your treasures, all your graces and virtues, in the womb and in the heart of Mary: she is a spiritual vessel, a vessel of honor, a singular vessel of devotion.

Souls who are not born of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God and of Mary, understand and relish what I say; and it is for them that I write....If a soul gives itself to Mary without reserve, she gives herself to it without reserve and helps it to find the road which leads to the eternal goal.

Such are the fruits of this consecration: Mary loves those who commit themselves to her fully; she guides, directs, defends, protects, supports and intercedes for them. It is good to offer ourselves to her so that she may offer us to her Son according to the fulness of her prudence and her zeal.

There are also fruits of a higher order which this devotion produces, fruits which are strictly mystical.

According to St. Louis de Montfort (ch. I, a. 2, no. 3), devotion to Our Blessed Lady will be more specially necessary in the last ages of the world, when Satan will make an effort such “as to deceive (if possible) even the elect” (Mt. 24:24). “If the predestined,” he says, “enter with the grace and light of the Holy Ghost into the interior and perfect practice of this devotion, they will see clearly as far as faith permits this beautiful star of the sea, and they will arrive safely in harbour, in spite of pirates and tempests. They will learn the greatness of their Queen, and they will consecrate themselves entirely to her service, as her subjects and slaves of love” to combat what St. Paul calls the slavery of sin (cf. Rom. 6:20). They will have experience of her motherly tenderness, and they will love her as her well-beloved children. The expression “holy slavery” used by St. Louis has been sometimes criticized. This is to forget that it is a slavery of love which accentuates rather than diminishes the filial character of our love of Mary. Besides, as Bishop Garnier, Bishop of Luçon, remarked in a pastoral letter of March 11, 1922, if there are in the world slaves of human respect, of ambition, of money, and of shameful passions, there are also, thank God, slaves of conscience and of duty. The holy slavery belongs to this group. The expression “holy slavery” is a striking metaphor, opposed to the slavery of sin. 

This article is taken from Chapter 15, Article III, of the book The Mother of the Saviour by Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange. It was granted the nihil obstat in 1941 and the imprimi potest in 1948. 

1 That is why St. Louis de Montfort speaks in his formula of “Consecration of oneself to Jesus by the hands of Mary.” In the course of his treatise he usually says it more briefly, “Consecration to Mary,” meaning thereby consecration to Jesus through her.

2 Cf. Dict. de Theol. Cath., s.v. “Marie,” cols. 2470 sqq. Pius X has made his own the teaching of St. Louis de Montfort, and sometimes of his very expressions, in the Encyclical Ad Diem IlIum on Mary, universal Mediatrix.

3 Even religious who have taken solemn vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience can make this offering which will introduce them further into the mystery of the Communion of Saints.

4 Cf. Treatise of True Devotion, ch. iv, a. I.

5 Cf. Summa Theologica, III, Q. 14, Art. 1; Q. 48, Art. 2; Suppl., Q. 13, Art. 2: “Onus pro alio satisfacere potest, in quantum duo homines sunt unum in caritate.”

6 Cf. Treatise of True Devotion, ch. iv, a. 2.

7 Ibid., ch. v.

8 St. Francis of Assisi learned one day in a vision that his sons were endeavoring vainly to reach Our Blessed Lord by a steep ladder which led directly to Him. St. Francis was shown instead a ladder much less steep, at the top of which was Mary, and he heard the words: “Tell your sons to make use of the ladder of My Mother.”



The Consecration to Russia

Sadly, the consecration of Russia has yet to be done. In 1925, Sr. Lucy stated:
“It was Our Lady of Fátima...with a crown of thorns...and she said to me: ‘The moment has come in which God asks the Holy Father in union with all the Bishops of the world to consecrate Russia to My Immaculate Heart, promising to save it by this means.’”

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The Angelus - March 2010

The Consecration of the Human Race to the Immaculate Heart of Mary

Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.

Fr. Garrigou- Lagrange here explains the bigger picture: beyond the personal consecration to Mary, the whole social order depends on Her as well. Although written in 1932, the article even offers a keen analysis of contemporary politics.

Before the great perils of the present hour that no one ignores, one feels the need to have recourse to the redemptive Love of Christ and to have recourse to it through the most powerful intercession, that of Mary Mediatrix.

A good number of the French bishops, meeting together at Lourdes at the Second National Marian Congress, on July 29, 1929, expressed to the Sovereign Pontiff their desire for a consecration of the human race to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This desire had already been formulated some years previously by the pastors of several dioceses in France and Italy.1

For the evil from which we are suffering the most, they saw no other efficacious remedy than an appeal full of faith and confidence to the great mediators that God has given us because of our weakness. In the economy of salvation, as in the piety of the faithful, Mary is inseparable from her Son and, more than anyone, she can bring down upon us by her prayer all the graces that the merciful Love of the Saviour wants to give us. It is not surprising, then, that after the consecration of the human race to the Sacred Heart, the idea was formed of making a similar consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.2

One of the great dangers of the present hour, obviously, is international Communism, a materialist movement that denies the existence of God, of the future life, that destroys the dignity of the human person, the family, and the country. It seeks to conquer Europe and dreams about a world-wide revolution which would be the end of Christianity and all religion, according to the program of the atheist league of those who deny God which Bolshevism is spreading in several countries.

In order to resist this Communist movement, in various places there is a nationalism arising, which, when it is not merely defensive but offensive, often surpasses just limits; it can elevate certain people who were bogged down in a completely egotistical individualism, but it can also bring down those who were living in a Christian spirit, a higher and more universal notion of the great spiritual needs of every human soul. Here and there exaggerated nationalism tends even to become a pagan adoration of the State, more or less deified. And in order to react against a form of materialist naturalism, some fall into another form of the same error, to the detriment of the life of souls, who can thus become so disorientated that they can no longer find the true path.

Certainly, we must have in our hearts a love for our family and our country that goes to the point of heroism, but one feels also more and more the need to ascend above this human conflict between Communism and nationalism by a deeper contact with the superior sources of life by sincere prayer, inspired by a great spirit of faith and confidence in God.

The more virtuous souls, those who have more faith and zeal, among the peoples that so many conflicts divide, feel the need of a common prayer that unites before God the profoundly Christian souls of different countries in order that the kingdom of the Lord might progressively come in us. Without Him, peace, the tranquillity of order, can not be firmly restored and maintained in the life of individuals, in the family, the State, and among nations.

In order to render this common prayer of all believers more confident and more efficacious, all we have to do is recall and live the doctrine of Christ, head of humanity and of the City of God, as St. Augustine liked to say, the city which begins here below and is consummated in eternal life. It is towards it, under the direction of the Saviour and the Church, that all men, of whatever race they may be, must tend; in it must be united the souls of good will of all the countries of the world as in the Fatherland par excellence.

The Saviour came precisely so that men of all races and all peoples might have the life that never ends: “ut vitam habeant, et abundantius habeant.”

With this idea, at the beginning of the century, Leo XIII consecrated to the Sacred Heart the whole human race, not just the faithful, but also the non-believers, the Muslims, the Buddhists, even those who call themselves atheists, all men, in order to place them, by this consecration, more fully in the stream of graces that come from Christ, who died for all without exception. As St. Thomas teaches,3 when a child, even a non-believer, arrives at the age of reason, he must choose between the path of duty, which leads to God, the sovereign good, or the path of disordered pleasure, which leads us to love ourselves above all things and turn away from God. At that moment the soul of the child, even a non-believer, is solicited by an antecedent grace, by a divine prevention. If he doesn’t resist, he takes the straight road, which leads finally, from grace to grace, right up to a good death and salvation. Certainly the consecration of the human race to the Sacred Heart put the souls of non-believers under a more intense influence of graces of light, attraction, and strength.

Today, before the perils that threaten us, several bishops have thought it fitting to ask the Holy Father to renew this consecration by praying Mary Mediatrix, Mother of all men, to present it herself to her Son.

After the prayer that remains always in the Heart of Our Lord, and which is like the soul of the sacrifice of the Mass that is celebrated unceasingly all over the world, the greatest prayer, the one that is strongest against the spirit of evil, against the spirit of pride which divides individuals, classes and peoples, is the prayer of Mary.

God wills not to accord certain benefits except in answer to fervent supplications, except when a certain number of souls will have truly given the first place in themselves to supernatural charity and sanctification, above and beyond natural activity.

The conflict that divides souls at this time is above all spiritual, a conflict between the imprescriptible rights of God and the so-called rights of atheistic reason that does not want to admit the order of grace and the divine gift of Redemption which is proclaimed incessantly by the Church. This reason, which claims as a right its absolute autonomy or independence, often prefers to deny itself, to deny the validity of its own first principles, rather than admit the existence of God, the author of salvation.

In order to triumph in this battle, we must put above all things the spirit of the three theological virtues, the spirit of faith, of confidence in Providence, and of love of God and of souls. Without this supernatural spirit, what could all the effort of human science do, finally, against the evils of atheism and materialism and against the evils of an even worse false idealism that doesn’t conserve of God anything but the name and that turns towards man himself the adoration due to the Creator?

The gravity of the present evil comes from the reversal of the scale of values: salvation is sought in the solution to economic crises, from which is born the unemployment we see presently, and these crises are insoluble if one turns away from the true last end of human activity and from the help from above without which one cannot attain this end. The pursuit of pleasure and earthly interests makes the great majority of men completely forget the first line of Christian doctrine: “I was created and put in the world in order to know God, love Him, serve Him and by these means obtain eternal life.” Little by little this doctrine of our true last end is replaced by another that is formulated without the least allusion to God, to the Sovereign Good: “The end of man is the full development of his personality.” And this development is sought by making the secondary, exterior and derivative activity the principal one, and the principal one secondary.

Thus man ends up practically loving himself more than God; the axis of his life has changed. The vivifying principle being no longer at its true place, everything declines. The secondary activity itself that one wanted to place too high, by preferring it to what is primary, ends up being worth nothing. It is like an organism where the overdevelopment of certain organs, at the expense of the principal ones, brings on death. The salt loses its savor and is no longer worth anything, as the Gospel says. That is what happens, little by little, when one prefers natural activity, intellectual and social activity, to the spirit of faith, confidence in God, and charity, when one prefers natural virtues to theological virtues. Even very elevated souls would thus come to lose their savor by neglecting what is primary; such would be the priest who ends up rushing through his Mass in 15 minutes in order to give himself up to activity that he would pursue without any fruit because he would no longer have the true light.

Little by little the scale of values is completely reversed and the full development of the personality to which one aspires makes one think of the personality of him who said: “Non serviam,” rather than the personality of the saints who had understood that this full development consists in dying to the self which is made up of pride, self-love, and unconscious egoism, in order to live truly by God and for God.

This path leads to the destruction of all wisdom. Instead of judging all things by their highest cause and by their last end, one judges what is greater by what is lowest, by the things that are most material. Utility, which has no meaning except in relation to an end, becomes the last end. This reversal of the scale of values or of order obviously banishes all peace, which is defined as the tranquillity of the order established by God.

In the midst of such general confusion, to what superior force must we have recourse?

If we knew where we could find the holiest soul on earth at this time, many would be happier to listen to her rather than the greatest philosopher or the greatest statesman of our time.

No one knows here below where this soul, holier than all others, is found. This soul herself, more than anyone, knows the price of the hidden life like that of St. Alexis, or St. Benedict-Joseph Labre, a holy Curé of Ars, a St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus. Her prayer must certainly be singularly efficacious.

But if we don’t know where to find the holiest soul of our generation, we do know where to find the supreme Pastor, who has the infallibility to guide us, and we know also which is, after the holy soul of Christ, the soul that is incontestably the holiest of all human generations, and the soul whose prayer is the most powerful. It is most certainly the soul of Mary.

It is the prayer of Mary, Mother of all men, that will obtain for us from the Saviour the strength we need in the general confusion of the present hour. The prayer of Mary is universal in the largest sense of the word. The Blessed Virgin prays not only for all individual souls on earth and in Purgatory, but also for families and for all the peoples who must live under the radiance of the light of the Gospel, under the influence of the Church. She prays that the kingdom of God and of Christ Jesus might come everywhere in the world and take the place of the reign of covetousness and pride.

The merciful love of Mary for all men surpasses that of all the saints together. Consequently, her prayer is very powerful against the spirit of division that opposes to each other individuals, classes and peoples. If a formal pact with the devil to which one fully consents can have horrible consequences in the life of a soul, what spiritual effect will not be produced by a consecration to Mary that is made with a great spirit of faith and is renewed each day with a greater fidelity? The supplication of the Virgin for us is that of a very clairvoyant, very loving, very powerful Mother who watches continually over her children, over all men who are called to receive the fruits of Redemption. He who consecrates every day to Mary all his labors, all his spiritual works, and all he undertakes experiences this. He finds again faith and confidence when all seems lost.

If our personal consecration to Our Lord by Mary, as explained by St. Louis de Montfort, can, when we live it, bring down upon us great graces of light, love and strength; if she thus makes us enter more deeply into the mystery of the Communion of saints, what would not be the fruits of a consecration of the human race made to the Saviour by Mary herself, at the request of the common Father of the faithful, especially if, in the circumstances we find ourselves in, all the believers of different countries unite in order to live by it, in a fervent prayer often renewed at the moment of the Mass?

Above internationalism, which refuses to recognize the spirits and traditions of different peoples, and nationalism, which often forgets the higher aspirations of humanity, must rise the “supranationalism” of the Catholic, that is universal, Church, which must unite souls of different nations under the same light of the Gospel, in the same supernatural hope and the same love of God. May the Mother of the Saviour deign by her prayer to place the believing souls of different peoples under the radiance of this word of Christ: “And the glory which thou hast given me, I have given to them; that they may be one, as we also are one” (Jn. 17:22).

In order to obtain this grace, prayerful souls should often do their mental prayer with Mary, uniting themselves very intimately to her dazzling purity and her merciful love for sinners. Prayer done in this way with the Virgin brings peace, even in the most anguished hours when one thinks of the dangers that threaten so many souls who risk damnation. In the great questions of God’s universal will of salvation and predestination our intelligence could easily go astray, either in the direction of Pelagianism, or in the opposite direction of Calvinism, but when one prays intimately the Mother of God, it isn’t rare that, without the noise of any words, and only as a mother can, she makes descend in us, with something of her gentleness and holiness, the light of life that pacifies all things. She reminds us that we are under the governance of God and that His merciful love shines out upon souls, even those of non-believers, in order to “make them desire truth and salvation more than we think.”


What is the most precious thing we can offer to Mary for the salvation of souls?

Masses. More than anyone she knows the price of the Precious Blood of her Son. And she continues to unite herself to His oblation while teaching us to do it ourselves as well. Concretely, for some time now, the initiative has been taken to have Masses celebrated every day for each one of the three following great intentions: for Russia, for the conversion of China and Japan, and for that of the Muslims and the other infidels of Africa. It is good as well to have the holy sacrifice celebrated for the countries where persecution rages, as in Spain and in Mexico, while uniting oneself to these Masses with a veritable spirit of prayer and penance or reparation.

The first bulletin of the Eucharistic Union for the Conversion of the Muslims recalls these words of Fr. Charles de Foucauld, who died a victim of his generous love for the infidels:

Every man must appear to us as a brother covered, as with a mantle, with the Blood of Jesus….What must we not give to souls whose price is the blood of Jesus?…He died for each one of them. Every Christian must be an apostle. Do all I can for the salvation of non-believing peoples with a perfect forgetfulness of myself. The good a soul does is completely proportionate to her interior spirit…

Offer your life to God, by the hands of Our Mother, the Most Holy Virgin, in union with the sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ and all the intentions of His Heart.

All your sufferings, all your tears, are souls.

Never lose a communion by your own fault; a communion is worth more than a life, more than all the goods of the world, more than the whole universe, it is God Himself, it is Me, Jesus.—A Mass glorifies God more than the praise of all the angels and the martyrdom of all men. The martyrdom of all men and the adoration of all the angels is something finite, a Mass is infinite.

The blood sacramentally poured out on the altar at every hour of the day is the blood of the Lamb that takes away the sins of the world. The sacrifice of the Mass, by thus perpetuating in substance the sacrifice of the Cross, applies to us its fruits and permits us to participate in it by the oblation and by Holy Communion.

Thus is fulfilled what is said in the Apocalypse: 

Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ; because the accuser of our brethren is cast forth, who accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb. (Apoc. 12:10)

The daily celebration of Masses for Russia is not less important at the present hour. Nothing is more pitiful than the state in which this nation finds itself: the situation of children raised in atheism and enthusiasm for a progress that is purely material, the destruction of marriage and the family, the affliction of all those who still want to be faithful to their duties towards God and to strive for their salvation.

The spirit of evil fears nothing so much as a Mass, especially when it is celebrated with great fervor and when many unite themselves to it with a spirit of faith.

When the enemy runs up against some insurmountable obstacle, it’s because in a church some weak, poor priest has offered with faith the all-powerful victim and the blood of Redemption.

Let us remember that “Christ always living never ceases to make intercession for us” (Heb. 7:25). He does so especially at Holy Mass. At the precise moment when the words of the double consecration are pronounced, Jesus wills that they produce what they signify. He wills it at that precise moment and He does it. He wishes to continue thus to offer Himself in order to apply to the different generations of men the merits of His Passion and His death.

Following the example of Mary Mediatrix of all graces, and relying on her very powerful intercession, let us unite ourselves to this interior act of oblation that is always living in the Heart of Christ, and which is like the soul of the sacrifice of the Mass. Let us unite ourselves to it by the supernatural and generous acceptance of our daily sufferings. But let us offer above all the Precious Blood of her Son in a spirit of adoration, reparation, supplication and thanksgiving. The conversion of souls is the work of the Redeeming Blood.

The prayer that is most powerful over the Heart of Christ is that of Mary, universal Mediatrix, Mother of all men, who more than anyone, after her Son, knows the immense spiritual needs of the present hour.

“It is fitting,” wrote Cardinal Mercier, “that children express to their Father their most intimate desires.” We can hope that one day, when the providential hour will come, His Holiness Pius XI, called the Pope of the missions, in consideration of the wishes expressed by the bishops and the faithful, will consecrate the human race to the Holy Heart of Mary, so that she herself might present us more insistently to her Son. Let us turn to her with the greatest confidence, remembering the words that she addresses us in the liturgy: “Qui me invenerit, inveniet vitam, et hauriet salutem a Domino: He that shall find me, shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord.”

 
Translated exclusively for Angelus Press. Originally published in Vie Spirituelle (March 1932).

1 Some Italian bishops asked Leo XIII the authorisation to consecrate their dioceses to the Most Pure Heart of Mary; Bishop Dedolle, Bishop Touchet and Cardinal Couiné had proclaimed Mary Queen of the universe.

2 Father Deschamps, S.J., en 1914, Cardinal Richard, Archbishop of Paris, in 1906, Fr. Le Doré, Superior-General of the Eudists, in 1908 and 1912, Fr. Lintelo, S.J., in 1914, took the initiative of making petitions to the Sovereign Pontiff in order to obtain the universal consecration of the human race to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

By a collective act the bishops of France, at the beginning of the war, in December 1914, consecrated France. Cardinal Mercier, in 1915, in a pastoral letter on Mary Mediatrix, hailed Mary as Mother of the human race, as Sovereign of the world. Reverend Father Lucas, new Superior-General of the Eudists, and the Legion of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, approved by numerous bishops, obtained in a few months more than 300,000 signatures in order to hasten, by this consecration, the peace of Christ in the reign of Christ.

One must recall also the fact that in December 1836 the venerable Pastor of Notre-Dame des Victoires in Paris, while celebrating Mass at the altar of the Virgin, his heart broken at the thought of the fruitlessness of his ministry, heard these words: “Consecrate your parish to the Most Holy and Immaculate Heart of Mary,” and, when the consecration was accomplished, the parish was transformed.

3 I-II, q. 89, a. 6: “Primum quod tunc homini cogitandum occurrit, est deliberare de seipso. Et si quidem seipsum ordinaverit ad debitum finem, per gratiam conseauetur remisionem originalis peccati: The first thing that a man things of at that moment is to deliberate about himself. And if he orientates himself to the due end, by grace he will receive the remission of original sin.”

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A reminder...