Saint Louis Grignion de Montfort, Priest

Louis-Marie Grignion was born on 31 January 1673 at Montfort-la-Cane (Montfort-sur-Meu) in Brittany, the second of eighteen children of a deeply Christian family; he was baptized the day after his birth. He spent only a few weeks there before his early childhood at Iffendic on the family farm. Despite hardship, at twelve he entered the Jesuit College of Saint Thomas Becket in Rennes. He later went to Paris, studied at the Sorbonne, and entered the Seminary of Saint-Sulpice, where as librarian he deepened his knowledge of Marian spirituality and devotion to the angels.

On Pentecost, 5 June 1700 (sources also note June), at twenty-seven he was ordained a priest. Witnesses said he remained a whole day in adoration "like an angel at the altar." From the first his evangelizing work defended Catholic faith against rationalism, Protestantism, Gallicanism, and widespread Jansenism. Appointed chaplain of the hospital at Poitiers, he was greatly loved by the sick and the poor for his missionary zeal and unconditional dedication, yet some clergy judged him eccentric and he was removed from the post. There he met Marie Louise Trichet, who would later help found the Daughters of Wisdom.

Desiring the foreign missions, in 1706 he walked to Rome. Pope Clement XI conferred on him the title of Apostolic Missionary, gave him an ivory crucifix he always carried, and sent him back to re-evangelize France. Before returning he visited the Holy House of Loreto, drawn by the hidden life of Jesus in submission to Mary at Nazareth; he loved to call himself the "slave of Mary." Barred from the diocese of Poitiers, he preached among the rural people of Brittany and the Vendée, rebuilt chapels, spread the Rosary, and organized Marian processions, convinced that one follows Mary in order to "find Jesus Christ."

He founded the Daughters of Wisdom in 1703 for the teaching of children and care of the poor, and the Company of Mary in 1705 for missionary priests. At Pontchâteau he raised a great Calvary with the help of the faithful; the Bishop of Nantes refused the blessing and the work was destroyed and rebuilt more than once. Undismayed, Louis-Marie said: "If we cannot build the cross here, we will build it in our hearts." He joined the Third Order of Saint Dominic, formed Rosary confraternities, established free schools, and wrote True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin (1712), The Secret of Mary, and The Secret of the Rosary—the treatise remaining hidden in a chest for a hundred and fifty years until its discovery in 1842.

In his last years the bishops of Luçon and La Rochelle, openly anti-Jansenist, called him to preach. Worn by labor and illness—once poisoned yet undeterred—he fell ill of pneumonia during a mission at Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre and died on 28 April 1716 at the age of forty-three (or forty-four). The whole people gathered at his bedside for his blessing; his last sermon had been on the tenderness of Jesus, the Incarnate Wisdom. Thousands came to his burial; miracles were soon reported at his tomb. Beatified by Leo XIII in 1888 and canonized by Pius XII on 20 July 1947, he was placed on the general calendar in 1996 by Saint John Paul II, who drew his papal motto Totus tuus from Montfort's spirituality.

May Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort obtain for us a total consecration to Jesus through Mary, and may we imitate today his joyful fidelity to the Cross.

ON THE SOLEMN CANONIZATION

OF BLESSED LOUIS MARY GRIGNION DE MONTFORT, CONFESSOR,

CELEBRATED IN THE VATICAN BASILICA

HOMILY OF OUR MOST HOLY LORD POPE PIUS XII

July 20, in the Year of Our Lord 1947

[. . .] Then the Most Blessed Father, sitting upon the Chair, defined thus:

To the honor of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, for the exaltation of the Catholic Faith and the growth of the Christian Religion, by the authority of Our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by Our own, after mature deliberation having been made and divine aid having been frequently implored, and with the counsel of Our Venerable Brethren the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, Patriarchs, Archpipers, and Bishops present in the City, we decree and define Blessed Louis Mary Grignion de Montfort, confessor, to be a Saint, and we enroll him in the Catalog of Saints, establishing that his memory must be devoutly celebrated by the Universal Church each year on his natal day, namely the twenty-eighth day of April. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Venerable Brethren, Beloved Sons,

When Louis Mary Grignion de Montfort, whom we recently, by the inspiring grace of the Supreme Deity, adorned with the honors of sanctity, had sought this alma City so that he might venerate the tomb of Blessed Peter with a most pious spirit, he learned from Our Predecessor of happy memory, Clement XI, that he was not destined for foreign nations, as he desired, as a herald of evangelical truth, but rather for the happily restoring of Christian morals in his own homeland.

Wherefore, most willingly obeying this exhortation, he returned to France, and throughout the course of his entire life left nothing undone so that he might respond with active alacrity to the invitation and counsel undertaken from the Supreme Pontiff. He journeyed through all the regions of his Nation, not once alone, and mostly on foot; as an apostolic pilgrim he visited cities, towns, castles, and even solitary villages; and wheresoever the most zealous messenger of divine truth and arouser of virtue arrived, right there a certain most auspicious renewal of Christian life took place; discords were quieted, dissensions composed, hatreds extinguished; and the awakened faith revived, and charity brought forth most abundant and salutary fruits.

Errors which were creeping about everywhere, frequently disguised under the appearance of truth, found him a strenuous and indefatigable opponent; whereas forms of piety less correct that were being spread abroad and sometimes even alien from the precepts of the Church and from the norms and examples of holy men, he most bitterly resisted; and thus he obtained to the best of his ability that the integrity of Catholic doctrine be preserved unharmed, and that the Catholic Religion might not only shine forth in minds, but also salutarily influence private and public morals.

Now, that institute of Christian perfection which he himself had undertaken, and advanced until the very last breath of his life, he left as a sort of sacred inheritance to both Religious Sodalities founded by him. Which Sodalities indeed, if they diligently strive to follow his footsteps, as they do, if they emulate his charity above all toward God and neighbors, if they cultivate a burning piety toward the Virgin Mother of God, as he did, and imitate his lowliness of spirit, his love of evangelical poverty, and his intense zeal for prayer, then without doubt, like their lawgiving father and founder, they can best provide for their own salvation and that of others.

To exhort his religious offspring to accomplish this, on the occasion of this auspicious event, we deem superfluous; for the facts themselves speak. It pleases rather, point by point and briefly, to declare how he was able to lead back so vast a multitude of men to the divine Redeemer, to make so many indefatigable journeys, to victoriously overcome so many roughnesses of things and men, and above all to recall so many minds hardened in vices to penance for their faults and to a good life.

All these things, Venerable Brothers and beloved sons, are easily understood if one considers his most ardent love for Christ, and his burning, solid, and upright devotion toward the Mother of God. God was everything to him; therefore, he held nothing more precious, nothing sweeter or more delightful, than to behold Him in all things, to recognize Him, to love Him; and he desired to give himself entirely to fulfilling His will and increasing His glory. Moreover, when he preached to the people, the charity that burned within him shone forth with such flashes of thought and brilliance of imagery that he drew everyone to himself with a certain force; and, binding them to himself, he would recall and in a way compel them from errors to the truth, from vices to repentance, and from indifference and weariness of heavenly things to a salutary fervor and an earnest zeal in the pursuit of virtue.

Not only those, therefore, who have been enrolled in the Religious Institutes founded by him have much, very much, to learn and imitate, but all Christians as well, especially at this present time, while the Catholic faith is growing cold, while morals are languishing or being utterly ruined, and while, to the great common detriment, discords spread everywhere, neither restrained and held in check by duty as they ought to be, nor tempered, composed, and moderated by charity.

Would that the radiant and most sweet image of this heavenly Saint might return before the eyes and into the minds of all, and once again teach men that they were born not for the earth but for heaven; and thus urge them to follow Christian precepts, to attain fraternal concord, and finally to acquire that virtue with which, adorned by the inspiration and help of divine grace, they may one day enjoy eternal bliss in heaven. Amen.