Coredemption and Maternal Mediation of the Immaculate "Reparatrix of the Human Race" according to de Montfort

4. The Immaculate Mother and Her Cooperation in the Entire Work of the Redemption

An attentive reading of the plan of the Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, as well as the Secret of Mary, suffices for one to note that Montfort expatiates at much greater length on the developments which would be identified today with the theological "discipline" (TD 90-273; SM 23-78) known as spiritual theology than on those which more properly belong to dogmatic theology (TD 1-89; SM 1-22). But the doctrinal foundations which situate the place of the Virgin Mary and true devotion to her in the dynamic of trinitarian christocentrism, linked to the mysteries of the creation, of salvation, and of the Church, are not for that reason any less solid and irreproachable. Expounded brilliantly from the outset and with the genius of synthesis, they constitute the rock on which all the rest is harmoniously built: "The Son of God became man for our salvation but only in Mary and through Mary" (TD 16).

Although Saint Louis-Marie de Montfort was apparently never concerned to entreat openly for the proclamation of a new Marian dogma, an attentive reading of his writings leads one to recognize that the two Marian dogmas (the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption) which, at the time of Grignion de Montfort, had not yet been declared as such, would not have constituted for him any the less truths of the faith which belong to Catholic doctrine. The references to the Assumption are altogether explicit in his works (cf. TD 3, 116; H 90, 31; SR 64) and one must also recognize that our author was in his own way an authentic precursor, discreet but at the same time convinced about the truth of the Immaculate Conception:

19. She was born
Immaculate
Sin has never
Tarnished her beauty.

20. I am astounded
That this is disputed:
God could easily do it
I maintain that he should (H 75).

Besides this Marian hymn employing the argument from "appropriateness," other passages from the writings of Montfort affirm that Mary was conceived without sin. In the Treatise on True Devotion, Mary is presented as the "direct and immaculate way to Jesus and the perfect guide to him" (TD 50). And this "immaculate way of Mary" which is Mary herself, is further qualified as "a road without stain or spot, without original sin or actual sin, without shadow or darkness" (TD 158). The judgment of René Laurentin, according to which "Montfort does not speak thus of Mary conceived without sin,"¹ would deserve to be nuanced.² This reference to Mary All Holy and Immaculate, culminates when Louis-Marie evokes the motherhood of Mary as a "holy place" taking up again the patristic symbolism of the Virgin Earth or of Paradise, applied to Mary.³ In his Letter to the Men and Women Religious of the Montfort Families (2003), Pope John Paul II did not neglect to recall that "in the Treatise on True Devotion, Mary appears as the 'true terrestrial paradise of the New Adam,' the 'virginal and immaculate earth' of which he was formed" (TD 261).⁴

In adapting to his own use and rehabilitating the patristic commentaries on the second chapter of Genesis⁵ which he took from good sources (Carthegena, Poiré, Spinelli) as his Notebook⁶ testifies, Louis-Marie explains in symbolic terms which his reader ought to know in order to accomplish all of his actions in Mary:

I declare with all the saints: Mary is the earthly paradise of the new Adam, where he became man by the power of the Holy Spirit, in order to accomplish in her wonders beyond our understanding. She is the vast and divine world of God where unutterable marvels and beauties are to be found ... The saints have said wonderful things of Mary, the holy City of God ... We must do everything in Mary. To understand this we must realize that the Blessed Virgin is the true earthly paradise of the new Adam and that the ancient paradise was only a symbol of her. There are in this paradise untold riches, beauties, rarities and delights, which the new Adam, Jesus Christ, has left there. It is in this paradise that he 'took his delights' for nine months, worked his wonders and displayed his riches with the magnificence of God himself. This most holy place consists of only virgin and immaculate soil from which the new Adam was formed and nourished, with neither spot nor stain by the operation of the Holy Spirit who lives there ...' (TD 6; 7; 261).

All of the writings of Father de Montfort translate a very vivid consciousness of the unity of the Eternal Wisdom in the same way as in the history of salvation.⁷ In the perspective of Montfort, an heir of Bérulle and by way of him, the Greek Fathers, without forgetting Saint Ambrose, the Incarnation recapitulates the Creation and already contains the Mysteries of the Redemption and of the Church: "The Incarnation is not only an extrinsic preparation for the Redemption, a simple condition to be met in order to render it possible: it required a God-Man who could accomplish acts of satisfaction adequate to the infinite offense of sin. It is ... the Redemption itself, intrinsically begun."⁸

As to the symbols of the earthly paradise of the New Adam and of the new immaculate and virgin earth, by which this recapitulation of the Creation is developed, they manifest the unity of Montfort's mariology: by virtue of her Immaculate Conception, Mary is the new paradise of God, the new creation. By virtue of her Assumption, Mary represents the eschatological paradise, anticipated in her. By virtue of her divine and virginal maternity, Mary appears as the place where God is totally received, the enclosed garden of the espousals of God and of humanity in the Incarnate Word. The act of Consecration to Jesus Christ Incarnate Wisdom by the hands of Mary contains this beautiful greeting: "I greet you, then, O Mary immaculate, living tabernacle of the Divinity, where the Eternal Wisdom willed to receive the adoration of both angels and men" (LEW 224).

And it is precisely because Grignion recognizes in Mary the "Immaculate Mother of the God-Man Jesus Christ" (TD 145) that he considers sin as outraging "the Mother as well as the Son" (TD 99):

I admit that to be truly devoted to Our Lady, it is not absolutely necessary to be so holy as to avoid all sin, although this is desirable. But at least it is necessary (note what I am going to say), (i) to be genuinely determined to avoid at least all mortal sin, which outrages the Mother as well as the Son; (ii) to practice great self-restraint in order to avoid sin ... (TD 99).

The All Holy and Immaculate Virgin Mary is the human person who has loved Jesus more than any other: "Mary, the living antithesis of sin by virtue of her Immaculate Conception," writes the Dominican M.-Th. Poupon, "has a totally innate capacity to suffer for sin."⁹ That is why it is certain for Montfort that every mortal sin "outrages the Mother as well as the Son" (TD 99). And "How can we truthfully claim to love and honor the Blessed Virgin when by our sins we pitilessly wound, pierce, crucify and outrage Jesus Christ her Son?" (TD 98).

Here one recognizes a profound expression of the Marian dimension of the cumpunctio cordis [compunction of the heart], particularly dear to Saint Anselm of Canterbury, that great theologian of the Redemption (1033-1109) who is evoked twice by the author of the Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin (TD 40; 76) .¹⁰

Paradise of God, transparency of God, the Immaculate Virgin is truly then, for Saint Louis-Marie as well as for the great Doctor, the perfect creature and cooperator in grace, in the work of God. And if it is necessary to perform all actions in Mary, as Montfort teaches, that is because the "worthy Mother of God" (TD 12; 27; 115; 145) is also the worthy Mother of men.

With regard to the mystery of the Immaculate, another important text of Saint Louis-Marie, although it is very rarely cited by the commentators, is found in the Letter to the Friends of the Cross:¹¹

Consider the countless apostles and martyrs who were bathed in their own blood; the virgins and confessors who were reduced to poverty, humbled, persecuted, or exiled. They can all say with St. Paul, Look upon Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, the faith we have in him and in his Cross; it was necessary that he should suffer and so enter through the Cross into his glory. At the side of Jesus Christ, see Mary his Mother, who was never stained with any sin, original or actual, yet whose pure and loving heart was pierced through by a sword. If I had time to dwell on the sufferings of Jesus and Mary, I could show that what we suffer is nothing compared to theirs. (LFC 31).

A simple reading of this text is sufficient to note that not only does the author affirm that original sin had no hold on Mary, but it also makes explicit reference to the prophecy of the old man Simeon (cf. Lk 2:35), one of the gospel texts most expressive of Marian coredemption.¹² By means of the symbol of the "piercing sword which penetrates to the innermost tender and innocent heart of Mary" (LFC 31), Saint Louis-Marie thus evokes the Passion of Jesus and his Mother with profound mystical intensity. Hymn 74 on The Sufferings of Mary at the Foot of the Cross translates exactly the same content in the literary genre of popular choral poetry dear to our missionary: