Interior Practices of True Devotion to Mary

Manner of Practicing this Devotion When We Go to Holy Communion

Before Holy Communion

266. l.)You must humble yourself most profoundly before God. 2.) You must renounce your corrupt interior and your dispositions, however good your self-love may make them look. 3.) You must renew your consecration by saying: "I am all thine, my dear Mistress, with all that I have." 4.) You must implore that good Mother to lend you her heart, that you may receive her Son there with the same dispositions as her own. You will explain to her that it touches her Son's glory to be put into a heart so sullied and so inconstant as yours, which would not fail either to lessen His glory or to destroy it. But if she will come and dwell with you, in order to receive her Son, she can do so by the dominion which she has over all hearts; and her Son will be well received by her, without stain, without danger of being outraged or unnoticed: "God is in the midst thereof, it shall not be moved" (Ps 45:6). You will tell her confidently that all you have given her of your goods is little enough to honor her; but that by Holy Communion you wish to make her the same present as the Eternal Father gave her, and that you will honor her more by that than if you gave her all the goods in the world; and finally, that Jesus, who loves her in a most special manner, still desires to take His pleasure and repose in her, even in your soul, though it be far filthier and poorer than the stable where He did not hesitate to come, simply because she was there. You will ask her for her heart, by these tender words: "I take thee for my all. Give me thy heart, O Mary" (7).

At Holy Communion

267. After the Our Father, just before receiving Jesus Christ, you say three times: "Lord, I am not worthy." Say the first one to the Eternal Father, telling Him you are not worthy, because of your evil thoughts and ingratitude toward so good a Father, to receive His only Son; but that He is to behold Mary, His handmaid—"Behold the handmaid of the Lord" (Lk 1:38)—who acts for you and who gives you a singular confidence and hope with His Majesty: "For thou singularly hast settled me in hope." (Ps 4:10).

268. You will say to the Son: "Lord, I am not worthy"; telling Him that you are not worthy to receive Him because of your idle and evil words and your in fidelity to His service; but that nevertheless you pray Him to have pity on you, because you are about to bring Him into the house of His own Mother and yours, and that you will not let Him go without His coming to lodge with her: "I held Him; and I will not let Him go, till I bring Him into my Mother's house into the chamber of her that bore me." (Song 3:4). You will pray to Him to rise, and come to the place of His repose and into the ark of His sanctification: "Arise, Lord, into Thy resting place: Thou and the ark which Thou hast sanctified." (Ps 131:8). Tell Him you put no confidence at all in your own merits, your own strength and your own preparations, as Esau did; but that you trust only in Mary, your dear Mother, as the little Jacob did in Rebecca. Tell Him that, sinner and Esau that you are, you dare to approach His sanctity, supported and adorned as you are with the virtues of His holy Mother.

269. You will say to the Holy Spirit: "Lord, I am not worthy"; telling Him that you are not worthy to receive this masterpiece of His charity, because of the lukewarmness and iniquity of your actions, and because of your resistance to His inspirations; but that all your confidence is in Mary, His faithful spouse. You will say, with St. Bernard: "She is my greatest security; she is the source of all my hope" (8). You can even pray Him to come Himself in Mary, His in separable spouse, telling Him that her bosom is as pure and her heart as burning as ever; and that, with out His descent into your soul, neither Jesus nor Mary will be formed nor worthily lodged.

After Holy Communion

270. After Holy Communion, inwardly recollected and holding your eyes shut, you will introduce Jesus into the heart of Mary. You will give Him to His Mother, who will receive Him lovingly, will place Him honorably, will adore Him profoundly, will love Him perfectly, will embrace Him closely, and will render to Him, in spirit and in truth, many homages which are unknown to us in our thick darkness.

271. Or else you will keep yourself profoundly humbled in your heart, in the presence of Jesus residing in Mary. Or else you will sit like a slave at the gate of the King's palace, where He is speaking with the Queen; and while they talk to each other without need of you, you will go in spirit to Heaven and over all the earth, praying all creatures to thank, adore and love Jesus and Mary in your place: "Come, let us adore" (Ps 94:6) (9).

272. Or else you will yourself ask of Jesus, in union with Mary, the coming of His kingdom on earth, through His holy Mother; or you will sue for divine wisdom, or for divine love, or for the pardon of your sins, or for some other grace; but always by Mary and in Mary; saying, while you look aside at yourself: "Lord, look not at my sins" (10); "but let Your eyes look at nothing in me but the virtues and merits of Mary" (11). And then, remembering your sins, you will add: "It is I who have committed these sins" (Cf. Matt 13:28); or you will say: "Deliver me from the unjust and deceitful man" (Ps 42:1); or else: "My Jesus, You must increase in my soul, and I must decrease" (Jn 3:30); Mary, you must increase within me, and I must be still less than I have been. "O Jesus and Mary, increase in me, and multiply yourselves outside in others also." (Cf. Gen 1:22 ff.).

273. There are an infinity of other thoughts which the Holy Spirit furnishes, and will furnish you, if you are thoroughly interior, mortified and faithful to this grand and sublime devotion which I have been teaching you. But always remember that the more you allow Mary to act in your Communion, the more Jesus will be glorified; and you will allow Mary to act for Jesus and Jesus to act in Mary in the measure that you humble yourself and listen to them in peace and in silence, without troubling yourself about seeing, tasting or feeling; for the just man lives throughout on faith, and particularly in Holy Communion, which is an action of faith: "My just man liveth by faith." (Heb 10:38).

This article was excerpted from True Devotion to Mary, Tan, 1985.

Notes

(1) Cf. nos. 29, 30.

(2) Cf. no. 217.

(3) Canonized by Leo XIII, Jan. 15, 1888. St. Alphonsus Rodriguez (1531-1617) is not to be confused with Father Alphonsus Rodriguez (+1616), the author of Christian Perfection.

(4) Cf. nos. 218, 219, sqq.

(5) Cf. no. 248.

(6) Ps 86:5; cf. no. 32.

(7) Adaptation of two texts, Jn 19:27 and Prov 23:26.

(8) De Aquaeductu, no. 7.

(9) With reference to Mary, St. Louis de Montfort is obviously using the word "adore" (French adorer) in its secondary meaning, that is, to give homage and veneration to, rather than to denote that worship which is due to God alone. Cf. no. 14.

(10) Prayer before Communion, Roman Missal.

(11) Ps 16:2, applied to the Blessed Virgin.