Second Truth

From St. Louis de Montfort, A Treatise on the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, tr. F. W. Faber (London: Burns and Lambert, 1863). Wording reflects its time. Public domain; the text is given word for word as printed.

Second Truth. We must conclude, from what Jesus Christ is with regard to us, that we do not belong to ourselves, but, as the Apostle says, are entirely His, as His members and His slaves, whom He has bought at an infinitely dear price,—the price of all His Blood. Before Baptism we belonged to the devil, as his slaves; but Baptism has made us true slaves of Jesus Christ, who have no right to live, to work, or to die, except to bring forth fruit for that God-Man, to glorify Him in our bodies, and to let Him reign in our souls, because we are His conquest, His acquired people, and His inheritance. It is for the same reason that the Holy Ghost compares us, 1. to trees planted along the waters of grace in the field of the Church, who ought to bring forth their fruit in their seasons; 2. to the branches of a vine, of which Jesus Christ is the stock, and which must yield good grapes; 3. to a flock of which Jesus Christ is the shepherd, and which is to multiply and give milk; 4. to a good land, of which God is the labourer, in which the seed multiplies itself, and brings forth thirty-fold, sixty-fold, and a hundred-fold. Jesus Christ cursed the unfruitful fig-tree, and gave sentence against the useless servant, who had not made any profit on his talent. All this proves to us that Jesus Christ wishes to receive some fruits from our wretched selves, namely, our good works, because those good works belong to Him alone: Creati in operibus bonis in Christo Jesu,—"Created in good works in Christ Jesus,"—which words show both that Jesus Christ is the sole principle, and ought to be the sole end of all our good works, and also that we ought to serve Him, not as servants on wages, but as slaves of love. I will explain myself:

Here on earth there are two ways of belonging to another, and of depending on his authority, namely, simple service and slavery,—what we mean by a servant, and what we mean by a slave.

By common service amongst Christians a man engages himself to serve another, during a certain time, at a certain rate of wages or of recompense.

By slavery a man is entirely dependent on another for his whole life, and must serve his master without pretending to any wages or reward, just as one of his beasts, over which he has the right of life and death.

There are three sorts of slavery: a slavery of nature, a slavery of constraint, and a slavery of the will. All creatures are slaves of God in the first sense: Domini est terra et plenitudo ejus,—"The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness of it." The demons and the damned are slaves in the second sense; the just and the Saints in the third. The slavery of the will is the most glorious to God, who looks at the heart, claims the heart, and calls Himself the God of the heart; that is, of the loving will, because by that slavery we make choice of God and His service above all things, even when nature does not oblige us to it.

There is an entire difference between a servant and a slave: 1. A servant does not give all he is, all he has, and all he can acquire by himself or by another, to his master; but the slave gives himself whole and entire to his master, all he has and all he can gain, without any exception. 2. The servant exacts wages for the services which he performs for his master; but the slave can exact nothing, whatever assiduity, whatever industry, whatever energy, he may have at his work. 3. The servant can leave his master when he pleases, or at least when the time of his service shall be expired; but the slave has no right to quit his master at his will. 4. The master of the servant has no right of life and death over him, so that if he kill him like one of his beasts of burden, he would commit an unjust homicide; but the master of the slave has by the law a right of life and death over him, so that he may sell him to any body he likes, or kill him, as if he stood on the same level as one of his horses. 5. Lastly, the servant is only for a time in his master's service; the slave is for always.

There is nothing among men which makes us belong to another more than slavery. There is nothing among Christians which makes us more absolutely belong to Jesus Christ and His holy Mother than the slavery of the will, according to the example of Jesus Christ Himself, who took on Him the form of a slave for love of us,—Formam servi accipiens,—and also accordto the example of the holy Virgin, who is called the servant and the slave of the Lord. The Apostle calls himself, as by a title of honour, Servus Christi,—"The slave of Christ." Christians are often called in the Holy Scriptures Servi Christi, "Slaves of Christ,"—which word servus, as a great man has truly remarked, signified in old times nothing but a slave, because there were no servants then like those of the present day. Masters were served only either by slaves or by freedmen. It is this which the catechism of the Holy Council of Trent, in order to leave no doubt about our being slaves of Jesus Christ, expresses by an unequivocal term, in calling us Mancipia Christi,—"Slaves of Jesus Christ."

Having premised this, I say that we ought to be to Jesus Christ and to serve Him not only as mercenary servants, but as loving slaves, who, by an effect of great love, give themselves up to serve Him in the quality of slaves, for the simple honour of belonging to Him. Before Baptism we were the slaves of the devil; Baptism has made us the slaves of Jesus Christ: Christians must needs be either the slaves of the devil or the slaves of Jesus Christ.

What I say absolutely of Jesus Christ, I say relatively of our Blessed Lady. Jesus Christ, having chosen her for the inseparable companion of His life, of His death, of His glory, and of His power in heaven and upon earth, has given her by grace, relatively to His Majesty, all the same rights and privileges which He possesses by nature. Quidquid Deo convenit per naturam, Mariæ convenit per gratiam,—"All that is fitting to God by nature is fitting to Mary by grace," —say the Saints; so that, according to them, Mary and Jesus having but the same will and the same power, the two have the same subjects, servants, and slaves.

We may, therefore, following the sentiments of the Saints and of many great men, call ourselves, and make ourselves, the loving slaves of the most holy Virgin, in order to be by that very means the more perfectly the slaves of Jesus Christ. Our Blessed Lady is the means our Lord made use of to come to us. She is also the means which we must make use of to go to Him. For she is not like all the rest of creatures, who, if we should attach ourselves to them, might rather draw us away from God than draw us near Him. The strongest inclination of Mary is to unite us to Jesus Christ her Son; and the strongest inclination of the Son is, that we should come to Him by His holy Mother. It is to honour and please Him, just as it would be to do honour and pleasure to a king, to become more perfectly his subject and his slave, by making ourselves the slaves of the queen. It is on this account that the holy Fathers, and St. Bonaventure after them, said that our Lady was the way to go to our Lord: Via veniendi ad Christum est appropinquare ad illam.

Moreover, if, as I have said, the holy Virgin is the Queen and Sovereign of heaven and of earth, then is it not true what has been said by St. Anselm, St. Bernard, St. Bernardine, and St. Bonaventure,—has she not as many subjects and slaves as there are creatures? Imperio Dei omnia subjiciuntur, et Virgo; ecce imperio Virginis omnia subjiciuntur, et Deus. Is it not reasonable that amongst so many slaves of constraint, there should be some of love, who of their own good will, in the quality of slaves, should choose Mary for their mistress? What! are men and devils to have their voluntary slaves, and Mary to have none? What! shall a king hold it to be for his honour that the queen, his companion, should have slaves over whom she has the right of life and death, because the honour and power of the one is the honour and power of the other, and yet are we to think that our Lord, who, as the best of all Sons, has divided His entire power with His holy Mother, shall take it ill that she too has her slaves? Has He less respect and love for His Mother than Ahasuerus had for Esther, or than Solomon for Bathsebee? Who shall dare to say so, or even to think it?

But whither is my pen hurrying me? Why am I stopping here to prove a thing so plain? If we do not wish to call ourselves slaves of the Blessed Virgin, what matter? Let us make ourselves and call ourselves slaves of Jesus Christ; for that is to be the slave of the holy Virgin, inasmuch as Jesus is the fruit and the glory of Mary; and it is this very thing which we do, by the devotion of which we are hereafter to speak.

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