De Montfort, Louis-Marie G. The Secret of Mary: Unveiled to the Devout Soul. Translated by A. P. J. Cruikshank. London: Art and Book Company, 1909.
“The secret of Mary” is that she is the most humble, most honorable, and most efficacious way to become a saint! Mary is the “great mold of God” (14) who continues to form her children into Christ (much easier than trying to chisel ourselves)!
We give to Mary the Queen all that we have in the order of nature and in the order of grace – past, present, and future – and she in turn purifies, increases, and perfects everything to present it to Jesus the King (image of handing an apple to her and she presents it on a golden platter).
We do everything “with Mary, in Mary, by Mary, and for Mary” (31) solely for the reason to do everything with Jesus, in Jesus, by Jesus, and for Jesus more perfectly!
“Oh, what an admirable work! dust changed into light, dirt into purity, sin into holiness, the creature into its Creator, and man into God! Admirable work, I repeat, but very difficult in itself, and impossible to mere nature; it is only God who, by His grace, and His abundant and extraordinary grace, can bring it to pass; the creation of the whole universe is not so great a masterpiece as this. (8-9)
“Mary is the great mould of God, made by the Holy Ghost, in order to form a God-Man by the Hypostatic Union, and a Man-God by grace. In this mould, no feature of the Godhead is wanting; whoever is cast in it, and allows himself to be freely handled, receives therein all the features of Jesus Christ, who is True God. And this is done in a gentle manner, and in proportion to his human weakness, without much agony or labour; in a sure manner, without fear of illusion, for the devil has never had, and never will have, access to Mary; and lastly, in a holy and spotless manner, without the shadow of the least stain of sin. Oh! what a difference there is between a soul formed in Jesus Christ by the ordinary ways, that is to say, by trusting, like the sculptor, to mere natural skill and ingenuity, and a soul thoroughly tractable, really detached, and well molten, which, without in any way leaning upon itself, suffers itself to be cast in Mary, and to be handled by the Holy Ghost! How many stains, how many defects, how much darkness, how many illusions, how much of what is merely natural, and human, is there in the first soul; and how pure, how divine, and like to Jesus Christ, is the second! (14-15).
Mary is the marvellous echo of God, who answers only “God,” when we say “Mary”; who glorifies only God, when with St. Elizabeth, we called her “Blessed” (17).
True devotion to Mary “consists in giving ourselves up entirely to the Most Holy Virgin, in the quality of slaves, in order to belong wholly to Jesus Christ; and in the next place to do all our actions with Mary, in Mary, by Mary, for Mary, in order to do them more perfectly with Jesus, in Jesus, by Jesus, and for Jesus, our Last End” (20-21).
“It must be here observed, that by this devotion, the soul sacrifices to Jesus, by the hand of Mary, all that it holds most dear, and of which not even any religious order would require the sacrifice; namely, the right which we have of disposing of the value of our prayers, our alms, and our mortifications, so as to leave the entire disposal of them to the Holy Virgin, to be applied, according to her will, to the greatest glory of God, which she alone perfectly knows” (22).
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