The following resources are adapted from A Treatise on the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, written by Saint Grignion de Montfort and translated into English by Fr. Frederick Faber in 1863. The full translation of this work is in the public domain, and is available online here.
On this page:
Consecration Prayers
This Devotion at Holy Communion
Living this Devotion
Consecration Prayers
(p. 190-193)-
O Eternal and Incarnate Wisdom! O sweetest and most Adorable Jesus! True God and True Ian, only Son of the Eternal Father, and of Mary, always Virgin! I adore Thee profoundly in the bosom and splendors of Thy Father during eternity; and I adore Thee also in the Virginal bosom of Mary, Thy most worthy Mother, in the time of Thine Incarnation.
I give Thee thanks for that Thou hast annihilated Thyself, taking the form of a slave in order to rescue me from the cruel slavery of the devil. I praise and glorify Thee for that Thou hast been pleased to submit Thyself to Mary, Thy holy Mother, in all things, in order to make me Thy faithful slave through her. But, alas! Ungrateful and faithless as I have been, I have not kept the promises which I made so solemnly to Thee in my Baptism; I have not fulfilled my obligations; I do not deserve to be called Thy child, nor yet Thy slave; and as there is nothing in me which does not merit Thine anger and Thy repulse, I dare not come by myself before Thy Most Holy and August Majesty. It is on this account that I have recourse to the intercession of Thy most holy Mother, whom Thou hast given me for a mediatrix with Thee. It is through her that I hope to obtain of Thee contrition, the pardon of my sins, and the acquisition and preservation of wisdom.
Hail, then, O immaculate Mary, living tabernacle of the Divinity, where the Eternal Wisdom willed to be hidden and to be adored by angels and by men! Hail, O Queen of Heaven and earth, to whose empire everything is subject which is under God. Hail, O sure refuge of sinners, whose mercy fails no one. Hear the desires which I have of the Divine Wisdom; and for that end receive the vows and offerings which in my lowliness I present to thee.
I, N_____, a faithless sinner, renew and ratify today in thy hands the vows of my Baptism; I renounce forever Satan, his pomps and works; and I give myself entirely to Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Wisdom, to carry my cross after Him all the days of my life, and to be more faithful to Him than I have ever been before. In the presence of all the heavenly court I choose thee this day for my Mother and Mistress. I deliver and consecrate to thee, as thy slave, my body and soul, my goods, both interior and exterior, and even the value of all my good actions, past, present and future; leaving to thee the entire and full right of disposing of me, and all that belongs to me, without exception, according to thy good pleasure, for the greater glory of God in time and in eternity.
Receive, O benignant Virgin, this little offering of my slavery, in honor of, and in union with, that subjection which the Eternal Wisdom deigned to have to thy maternity; in homage to the power which both of you have over this poor sinner, and in thanksgiving for the privileges with which the Holy Trinity has favored thee. I declare that I wish henceforth, as thy true slave, to seek thy honor and to obey thee in all things.
O admirable Mother, present me to thy dear Son as His eternal slave, so that as He has redeemed me by thee, by thee He may receive me! O Mother of mercy, grant me the grace to obtain the true Wisdom of God; and for that end receive me among those whom thou lovest and teachest, whom thou leadest, nourishest and protectest as thy children and thy slaves.
O faithful Virgin, make me in all things so perfect a disciple, imitator and slave of the Incarnate Wisdom, Jesus Christ thy Son, that I may attain, by thine intercession and by thine example, to the fullness of His age on earth and of His glory in Heaven. Amen.-------------------------------
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Date
This Devotion at Holy Communion
(p. 185-190)-
1. You must humble yourself most profoundly before God.
2. You must renounce your corrupt interior, and your dispositions, however good your own self-love may make them look.
3. You must renew your consecration by saying, Tuus totus ego sum, et omnia mea tua sunt — I am all thine, with all 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 represent 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 stains, and without danger of being outraged or destroyed. Deus in medio ejus, non commovebitur. You will tell her confidently, that all you have given her of your good is a little matter to honour her; but that by the Holy Communion you wish to make her the same present as the Eternal Father gave her, and that you will honour her more by that than if you gave her all the goods in the world; and, finally, that Jesus, who loves her alone, still desires to take His pleasure and His repose in her, even in your soul, though it be filthier far and poorer than the stable where He made no difficulty to come, simply because she was there. You will ask her for her heart by these tender words: Accipio te in mea omnia, præbe mihi cor tuum, O Maria!
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On the point of receiving Jesus Christ, after the Our Father, you say three times, Domine non sum dignus.
Say the first one to the Eternal Father, telling Him you are not worthy, because of your evil thoughts and ingratitudes towards so good a Father, to receive His only Son; but that He is to behold Mary, His handmaid, — Ecce ancilla Domini, — who acts for us, and who gives us a singular confidence and hope with His Majesty: Quoniam singulariter in spe constituisti me.
You shall say to the Son, Domine non sum dignus; telling Him that you are not worthy to receive Him, because of your idle and evil words, and your infidelity to His service; but that nevertheless you pray Him to have pity upon you, that you may introduce 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. Tenui eum, nec dimittam donec introducam illum in domum matris meæ, et in cubiculum genitricis meæ (Cant. iii. 4). You will pray Him to rise, and come to the place of His repose, and into the ark of His Sanetification: Surge, Domine, in requiem tuam, tu et area sanctificationis tuæ. 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 the cares of Rebecca. Tell Him that, sinner and Esau as you are, you dare to approach His Sanctity, supported and adorned, as you are, with the virtues of His holy Mother.
You shall say to the Holy Ghost, Domine non sum dignus; 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 resistances to His inspirations; but that all your confidence is in Mary, His faithful Spouse. You shall say with St. Bernard, Hæc mea maxima fiducia, hæc tota ratio spei meæ. You can pray even Him to come Himself in Mary, His indissoluble Spouse, telling Him that her bosom is as pure, and her heart as burning as ever; and that without His descent into your soul neither Jesus nor Mary will be formed, nor yet worthily lodged.
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After Holy Communion, while you are 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 honourably, 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.
Or else you will keep yourself profoundly humbled in your heart, in the presence of Jesus residing in Mary. Or 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 one to the 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: Venite, adoremus, venite.
Or else you shall yourself ask of Jesus, in union with Mary, the coming of His kingdom on earth, through His holy Mother; or you shall sue for the 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, Ne respicias, Domine, peccata mea, — "Lord, look not at my sins;" Sed oculi tui videant æquitates Mariæ, — " But let your eyes look at nothing in me but the virtues and merits of Mary:" and then, remembering your sins, you shall add, Inimicus homo hoc fecit, — "It is I who have committed these sins ;" or you shall say, Ab homine iniquo et doloso erue me; or else, Te oportet crescere, me autem minui, — "My Jesus, you must increase in my soul, and I must decrease; Mary, you must increase within me, and I must be still less than I have been." Crescite et multiplicamini, — "O Jesus and Mary, increase in me, and multiply yourselves outside in others also."
There are an infinity of other thoughts which the Holy Ghost 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 leave Mary to act in your Communion, the more Jesus will be glorified. The more you leave Mary to act for Jesus, and Jesus to act in Mary, the more profoundly will you humble yourself, and will listen to them in peace and silence, without putting yourself in trouble about seeing, tasting, or feeling; for the just man lives throughout on faith, and particularly in Holy Communion, which is an action of faith. Justus meus ex fide vivit.
Living this Devotion
(p. 159 - 185)[Editor’s note: the following list is abridged from the original.]
1. External Practices
Although what is essential in this devotion consists in the interior, we must not fail to unite to the inward practice certain external observances. Hæc oportet facere, et ilia non omittere. We must do the one, yet not leave the other undone, both because the outward practices well performed aid the inward ones, and because they make a man remember, by reminding his senses, what he has done or ought to do; and also because they are suitable to edify our neighbor, who sees them, which inward practices cannot do. Let no worldling then or critic sneer at this. Let them not say that because true devotion is in the heart, we must avoid external devotion; or that devotion ought to he hidden, and that there may be vanity in showing it.
I will only allude briefly to some exterior practices, which I do not call ‘exterior' because we do them without any interior, but because they have something outward about them, to distinguish them from those which are purely inward.
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Perform the 33 day preparatory prayers as described, and then make the act of consecration. Renew your consecration on an annual basis. Monthly, or perhaps even daily, renew what you have done by these few words: Tuus totus ego sum, et omnia mea tua sunt, — "I am all for Thee, and all I have belongs to Thee, O my sweet Jesus, by Mary Thy holy Mother."
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Recite daily, without however making any burden of it, the Little Corona of the Blessed Virgin, composed of three Our Fathers and twelve Hail Marys, in honour of our Lady's twelve privileges and grandeurs.
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Wear, as a badge of your loving slavery, little iron chains, blessed with the proper benediction. Among Christians there is nothing more illustrious than the chains of Jesus; for they unchain us, and preserve us from the infamous fetters of sin and the devil. They set us at liberty, and chain us to Jesus and Mary; not by compulsion and constraint, like galley-slaves, but by charity and love, like children. Traham eos in vinculis charitatis, — "I will draw them to Me," said God by the mouth of the prophet, "by the chains of love."
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Have a very special devotion to the great mystery of the Incarnation of the Word on the 25th of March. We have here the first mystery of Jesus Christ, — the most hidden, the most exalted, and the least known. It is in this mystery that He has wrought all the other mysteries of His life. Jesus ingrediens mundum dicit, Ecce venio, ut faciam voluntatem tuam. Consequently this mystery is an abridgment of all mysteries, and contains the will and grace of all.
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Say often the Hail Mary and the Rosary. The Hail Mary well said, that is, with attention, devotion, and modesty, is, according to the Saints, the enemy of the devil, which puts him to flight, and the hammer which crashes him.
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Say often the Magnificat. It is, on the one hand, the most humble and grateful, and on the other hand, the most sublime and exalted, of all canticles. There are in that song mysteries so great and hidden, that the Angels do not know them.
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Greatly despise, hate, and eschew the corrupted world. Make use of those practices of the contempt of the world which we have given in the first part of this treatise.
2. Interior Practices for those who wish to be perfect
Besides the external practices of the devotion which we have been describing so far, there are some very sanctifying interior practices for those whom the Holy Ghost calls to high perfection. These may be expressed in four words: to do all our actions by Mary, with Mary, in Mary, and for Mary; so that we may do them all the more perfectly by Jesus, with Jesus, in Jesus, and for Jesus.
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That is to say, we must obey her in all things, and in all things conduct ourselves by her spirit, which is the Holy Spirit of God. Those who are led by the spirit of Mary are the children of Mary, and consequently the children of God.
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That is to say, we must in all our actions regard Mary as an accomplished model of every virtue and perfection which the Holy Ghost has formed in a pure creature, for us to imitate according to our little measure. We must therefore in every action consider how Mary has done it, or how she would have done it, had she been in our place.
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To comprehend thoroughly the practice of doing our actions in Mary, we must know that the most holy Virgin is the Sanctuary of the Divinity, the repose of the Most Holy Trinity, the throne of God, the city of God, the altar of God, the temple of God, the world of God. After we have obtained this illustrious grace by our fidelity, we must remain in the fair interior of Mary with complacency, repose there in peace, lean our weight there in confidence, hide ourselves there with assurance, and lose ourselves there without reserve.
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As we have given ourselves up entirely to her service, it is but just to do every thing for her, as a servant and a slave. It is not that we can take her for the last end of our services, for that is Jesus Christ alone; but we may take her for our proximate end, our mysterious means, and our easy way to go to Him. Like a good servant and slave, we must not remain idle, but must undertake and achieve great things for this august sovereign. We must defend her privileges when they are disputed; we must stand up for her glory when it is attacked; and we must entice all the world, if we can, to her service and to her true and solid devotion.