The Necessity of the Blessed Virgin and of Devotion to Her: Part One
by St. Louis de Montfort
Taken from the
Catholic Classic, TRUE DEVOTION TO MARY
with Imprimi Potest,
Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur, 1949
MARY WAS NECESSARY TO GOD IN THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD
14. I avow, with
all
the Church, that Mary, being a mere creature that has come from
the hands of the Most High, is in comparison with His Infinite
Majesty less than an atom; or rather, she is nothing at all,
because only He is "He Who Is" [Exod. 3: 14];
consequently that grand Lord, always independent and sufficient
to Himself, never had, and has not now, any absolute need of the
holy Virgin for the accomplishment of His will and for the
manifestation of His glory. He has but to will in order to do
everything.
15.
Nevertheless, I
say that, things being as they are now-----that
is, God having willed to commence and to complete His greatest
works by the most Holy Virgin ever since He created her-----we
may well think He will not change His
conduct in the eternal ages; for He is God, and He changes not,
either in His sentiments or in His conduct.
16. It was only through Mary that God the Father gave His Only-begotten to the world. Whatever sighs the patriarchs may have sent forth, whatever prayers the prophets and Saints of the Old Law may have offered up to obtain this treasure for full four thousand years, it was only Mary who merited it and found grace before God [Luke 1:30] by the force of her prayers and the eminence of her virtues. The world was unworthy, says St. Augustine, to receive the Son of God directly from the Father's hands. He gave Him to Mary in order that the world might receive Him through her.
The Son of God became Man for our salvation; but it was in Mary and by Mary. God the Holy Ghost formed Jesus Christ in Mary; but it was only after having asked her consent by one of the first ministers of His court.
17. God the Father communicated to Mary His fruitfulness, inasmuch as a mere creature was capable of it, in order that He might give her the power to produce His Son and all the members of His Mystical Body.
18. God the Son descended into her virginal womb as the New Adam into His terrestrial paradise, to take His pleasure there, and to work in secret marvels of grace.
God made man found His liberty in seeing Himself imprisoned in her womb. He made His omnipotence shine forth in letting Himself be carried by that humble maiden. He found His glory and His Father's in hiding His splendors from all creatures here below, and revealing them to Mary only. He glorified His independence and His majesty in depending on that sweet Virgin in His conception, in His birth, in His presentation in the temple, in His hidden life of thirty years, and even in His death, where she was to be present in order that he might make with her but one same sacrifice and be immolated to the Eternal Father by her consent, just as Isaac of old was offered by Abraham's consent to the will of God. It is she who nourished Him, brought Him up and then sacrificed Him for us.
Oh, admirable and incomprehensible dependence of God, which the Holy Ghost could not pass over in silence in the Gospel, although He has hidden from us nearly all the admirable things which the Incarnate Wisdom did in His hidden life-----as if He would enable us, by His revelation of that at least, to understand something of its excellence and infinite glory! Jesus Christ gave more glory to God the Father by submission to His mother during those thirty years than He would have given Him in converting the whole world by the working of the most stupendous miracles. Oh, how highly we glorify God when, to please Him, we submit ourselves to Mary, after the example of Jesus Christ, our sole Exemplar!
19. If we examine closely the rest of our Blessed Lord's life, we shall see that it was His will to begin His miracles by Mary. He sanctified St. John in the womb of his mother, St. Elizabeth, but it was by Mary's word. No sooner had she spoken than John was sanctified; and this was His first miracle of grace.
At the marriage of Cana He changed water into wine, but it was at Mary's humble prayer; and this was his first miracle of nature. He began and continued His miracles by Mary, and He will continue them to the end of ages by Mary.
20. God the Holy
Ghost, being in God-----that is to say, not producing another Divine
Person-----is become fruitful by Mary, whom He has
espoused. It was with her, in her, and of her that He produced
His Masterpiece, which is God made Man, and that He goes on
producing daily, to the end of the world, the predestinate and
the members of the body of that adorable Head. This is the reason
why He, the Holy Ghost, the more He finds Mary, His dear and
inseparable spouse, in any soul, the more active and mighty He
becomes in producing Jesus Christ in that soul, and that soul in
Jesus Christ.
E-Mail
HOME-------------------------------------MARY'S INDEX
www.catholictradition.org/Mary/mary15b.htm