Speech by His Holiness Pope Pius XII to pilgrims gathered in Rome for the Canonization of Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort (July 21, 1947)
Hello first to you, pilgrims of Brittany and the coast of the Ocean. You claim it as yours and it is yours indeed. Breton by birth and by the education of his adolescence, he remained Breton in heart and temperament in Paris, in Poitou and in Vendée; he will remain so everywhere and to the end, even in his missionary hymns, where by a pious industry - which would perhaps succeed less happily in a more critical and readily cheeky era - he adapted religious words to the popular tunes of his country. He is a Breton through his piety, his very interior life, his very lively sensitivity, which a delicate reserve, not exempt from some conscientious scruples, caused to be taken by rash young people, and even by some of his Superiors, for left-handedness and singularity. He is a Breton by his inflexible righteousness, his harsh frankness, which certain minds, more complacent, more flexible, found exaggerated and accused with humor of absolutism and intransigence.
It was by maliciously spying on him without his knowledge, by seeing and hearing him dealing with the little and the poor, teaching the humble and the ignorant, that more than one discovered with surprise, beneath the surface a little rough of a nature which he mortified and which he heroically forged, the treasures of a rich intelligence, of an inexhaustible charity, of a delicate and tender kindness.
It was sometimes believed that we could contrast him with Saint Francis de Sales, thus proving that we knew both only superficially. Different, certainly, they are, and this is enough to dispel the prejudice which leads us to see in all the saints so many identical examples of a type of virtue, all cast in the same mold! But we seem to be completely unaware of the struggle, through which Francis de Sales had softened his naturally sour character, and the exquisite gentleness with which Louis-Marie helped and instructed the humble. Moreover, the cheerful friendliness of the Bishop of Geneva is no more important than the austerity of the Breton missionary, sheltered from hatred and persecution on the part of Calvinists and Jansenists and, On the other hand, the fiery harshness of one, as well as the patience of the other in the service of the Church, earned them both the admiration and devotion of the faithful.
Louis-Marie's own characteristic, and what makes him authentic Breton, is his persevering tenacity in pursuing the holy ideal, the only ideal of his entire life: winning men to give them to God. In pursuit of this ideal, he brought together all the resources he had from nature and grace, so that he was in truth on all terrains - and with what success! — the apostle par excellence of Poitou, Brittany and Vendée; it was even possible to write recently, without exaggeration, that “the Vendée of 1793 was the work of his hands”.
Greetings to you, priests of all ranks and all ministries of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, who all carry on their hearts this worry, this anguish, this “tribulation”, of which Saint Paul speaks (2 Cor 1:8) and which is today, almost everywhere, the sharing of priests worthy of their beautiful name of pastors of souls. Your gaze, like that of thousands of your brothers in the priesthood, looks up with pride towards the new saint and draws confidence and enthusiasm from his example. Through the high awareness he had of his priestly vocation and through his heroic fidelity in corresponding to it, he showed the world the true type - often so little and so poorly known - of the priest of Jesus Christ and what such a priest is capable of achieving for the pure glory of God and for the salvation of souls, for the very salvation of society, since he devotes his entire life to it, without reservation, without condition, without sparing, in the full spirit of the Gospel. Look at him, don't let yourself be impressed by unflattering exteriors: he has the only beauty that counts, the beauty of an illuminated soul, set ablaze by charity; he is for you an eminent model of virtue and priestly life.
Greetings to you, members of religious families, of which Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort was the Founder and Father. You were, during his lifetime and during his premature death, only an imperceptible grain of wheat, but hidden in his heart as in the bosom of fertile soil, but swollen with the nourishing juice of his superhuman abnegation, of his merits. superabundant, of his exuberant holiness. And now the seed has germinated, grown, developed and spread far and wide, without the wind of revolution having dried it up, without violent persecution or legal harassment being able to suffocate it.
Dear sons and dear daughters, remain faithful to the precious heritage bequeathed to you by this great saint! Magnificent heritage, worthy that you continue, as you have done until now, to dedicate to it, to sacrifice without counting your strength and your life! Show yourself the heirs of his tender love for the humblest people, of his charity for the poor, remembering that he took bread from his mouth to feed them, that he stripped himself of his clothes to cover their nakedness, the heirs of his concern for the children, privileged with his heart, as they were with the heart of Jesus.
The charity ! here is the great, let us say the only secret of the surprising results of the short, multiple and eventful life of Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort: charity! here is for you too, be deeply convinced, the strength, the light, the blessing of your existence and of all your activity. Finally, greetings to you too, pilgrims who have come from various countries and apparently very different from each other, but whose love for Mary creates unity, because you all see in the one you have come to honor the guide who leads you to Mary and from Mary to Jesus. All the saints, undoubtedly, were great servants of Mary and all led souls to her; he is undoubtedly one of those who worked most ardently and most effectively to make her loved and served.
The Cross of Jesus, the Mother of Jesus, the two poles of his personal life and his apostolate. And this is how this life, in its brevity, was full, how this apostolate, exercised in Vendée, in Poitou, in Brittany for barely a dozen years, has been perpetuated for more than two centuries and extends over many regions. It is because Wisdom, this Wisdom to the conduct of which he had given himself, made his labors bear fruit, crowned his labors which death had only apparently interrupted: “complevit labores illius” (Wis. 10 , 10). The work is all of God, but it also bears on it the imprint of the one who was its faithful cooperator. It is only fair to discern it.
Our eye, almost dazzled by the splendor of the light which emanates from the figure of our Saint, needs, so to speak, to analyze its radiance. He first focuses on natural, more external gifts, and is surprised to find that nature had not been as miserly towards him as it might have seemed at first sight. Louis-Marie did not offer, it is true, the charm of pleasant features which suddenly win sympathy, but he enjoyed - in reality much more appreciable advantages - a bodily vigor which enabled him to withstand great fatigue in his missionary ministry and still engage in harsh and very harsh penances. Without amusing himself by dazzling his audience with the easy artifices of the beautiful mind, with the phantasmagorias of a refined and subtle elegance, he knew how to place within the reach of the simplest people the treasure of a solid and profound theology - in which he excelled. — and which he coined in such a way as to enlighten and convince minds, to move hearts, to shake wills with a force of persuasion which resulted in courageous and effective resolutions. Thanks to his tact, to the finesse of his psychology, he could choose and dose what suited each person, and if he had, out of self-sacrifice and to be more entirely devoted to studies and piety, renounced the fine arts, to whom he had great taste and remarkable dispositions, he had retained the riches of imagination and sensitivity, which his artistic soul knew how to use to produce in minds the image of the divine model. All human qualities, no doubt, but with which he used to lead sinners to repentance, the righteous to holiness, the errant to the truth, conquering to the love of Christ the hearts parched by the icy and arid breath of the 'selfishness.
Incomparably more than his own human activity, he brought into play the divine assistance that he attracted through his life of prayer. Always on the move, always in contact with men, he was at the same time always collected, always delivered to divine intimacy, fighting, so to speak, against the severe justice of God to obtain from his mercy the victorious graces of obstinacy of the most hardened; he seemed, like the patriarch struggling against the angel, to constantly repeat the irresistible prayer: “I will not leave you until you have blessed me” (Gen. 32, 27).
He was also aware that, without penance, self-denial, continual mortification, prayer alone is not enough to overcome the spirit of evil: “in oratione et ieiunio” (Mark. 9, 29). And our missionary added to the fatigue of the most intrepid apostles the holy cruelties of the most austere ascetics. Did he not observe almost to the letter the instructions given by the Master to his envoys: “Take nothing for the journey, neither stick, nor bread, nor bag, nor money, and do not have two tunics” (Luke 9, 3)? The only cassock, worn and patched, that he carried with him was so poor that the beggars who met him felt it their duty to assist him with their alms.
Crucified himself, he had the right to preach with authority the crucified Christ (cf. 1 Cor. 1, 23). Everywhere, against all odds, he erected Calvaries and rebuilt them with unfailing patience, when the spirit of the age, inimicus crucis Christi (cf. Phil. 3, 18), had them torn down. He was less tracing a life program than he was painting his own portrait in his letter “ to the Friends of the Cross ”: “A man chosen by God from among ten thousand who live according to the senses and reason alone, to be a man completely divine, raised above reason and completely opposed to the senses, by a life and light of pure faith and an ardent love for the Cross.
The great spring of his entire apostolic ministry, his great secret for attracting souls and giving them to Jesus, is devotion to Mary. On it he bases all his action: in it is all his assurance, and he could not find a more effective weapon in his time. To the joyless austerity, to the dark terror, to the proud depression of Jansenism, he opposes the filial, trusting, ardent, expansive and effective love of the devout servant of Mary, towards her who is the refuge of sinners, the Mother of divine Grace, our life, our sweetness, our hope. Our lawyer too; lawyer who placed between God and the sinner is all busy invoking the clemency of the judge to bend his justice, in touching the heart of the guilty to overcome his obstinacy. In his conviction and experience of this role of Mary, the missionary declared with his picturesque simplicity that “no sinner has ever resisted her, once he has put his hand to her collar with her rosary”.
It still has to be a sincere and loyal devotion. And the author of the “ Treatise on true devotion to the Blessed Virgin ” distinguishes in precise features this from a more or less superstitious false devotion, which would allow itself to use some external practices or some superficial feelings in order to live according to its meaning. will and remain in sin counting on a miraculous grace of the last hour.
True devotion, that of tradition, that of the Church, that, we would say, of Christian and Catholic common sense, tends essentially towards union with Jesus, under the guidance of Mary. Form and practice of this devotion can vary according to time, place and personal inclinations. Within the limits of sound and secure doctrine, orthodoxy and the dignity of worship, the Church leaves its children a fair margin of freedom. She is also aware that true and perfect devotion to the Blessed Virgin is not so linked to these modalities that none of them can claim a monopoly on it.
And this is why, dear sons and dear daughters, We ardently hope that, above the varied manifestations of piety towards the Mother of God, Mother of men, you all draw, from the treasure of the writings and examples of our saint, which formed the basis of her Marian devotion: her firm conviction of the very powerful intercession of Mary, her resolute desire to imitate as much as possible the virtues of the Virgin of virgins, the vehement ardor of her love for her and for Jesus.
With the intimate confidence that the Queen of hearts will obtain for you from the Author of all good this triple favor, We give as pledge to you, to all those who are dear to you, to all those who recommend themselves to the patronage of Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort and who invoke him in union with you, Our Apostolic Blessing.
taken from the excellent Catholic blog : le-petit-sacristain.blogspot.com