On Devotion To Our Blessed Mother

True devotion to Mary leads us closer to Jesus

The following is a letter Pope John Paul II wrote on St. Louis de Montfort's “Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin”

On December 8, 2003, Pope John Paul II wrote a letter to the Montfort religious family, on the occasion of the 160th Anniversary of the publication of the Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, written by St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort. Here are large excerpts from this letter:

A work destined to become a classic of Marian spirituality was published 160 years ago. St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort wrote the Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin at the beginning of the 1700s, but the manuscript remained practically unknown for more than a century. When, almost by chance, it was at last discovered in 1842 and published in 1843, the work was an instant success, proving extraordinarily effective in spreading the “true devotion” to the Most Holy Virgin.

I myself, in the years of my youth, found reading this book a great help. “There I found the answers to my questions”, for at one point I had feared that if my devotion to Mary “became too great, it might end up compromising the supremacy of the worship owed to Christ” (Gift and Mystery). Under the wise guidance of St. Louis Marie, I realized that if one lives the mystery of Mary in Christ, this risk does not exist. In fact, this Saint's Mariological thought “is rooted in the mystery of the Trinity and in the truth of the Incarnation of the Word of God” (ibid.).

Since she came into being, and especially in her most difficult moments, the Church has contemplated with special intensity an event of the Passion of Jesus Christ that St. John mentions: “Standing by the Cross of Jesus were His mother, and His mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing near, He said to His mother, ‘Woman, behold, Your son!’. Then He said to the disciple, ‘Behold, Your mother!’ And from that hour the disciple took Her to his own home” (Jn 19: 25-27). . . Read More @ http://www.michaeljournal.org/montfort.htm