72. Slaves of Jesus Through Mary: Against the False Liberty of Revolution

St. Louis de Montfort's language of holy slavery can shock modern ears because modern man has been trained to worship autonomy. Yet Montfort is not degrading the soul. He is naming the only freedom that can save it: total belonging to Jesus Christ through Mary.

Every soul serves someone. The question is not whether man will be bound, but whether he will be bound to God or to sin.

Revolution promises liberty from authority, doctrine, nature, sacrifice, and obedience. It calls this freedom. In truth it leaves man enslaved to passions, fashions, fear, lust, anger, pride, and public opinion.

The devil's liberty is always a chain with a flattering name. It begins by telling man that he may possess himself apart from God. It ends by making him unable to govern even his own thoughts, appetites, and speech.

Holy slavery exposes that lie. The Catholic does not belong to himself. He was created by God, redeemed by the Blood of Christ, and called to be a temple of the Holy Ghost. Consecration through Mary teaches him to live according to that truth.

Mary does not possess the soul as an end in herself. She receives the soul in order to give it more perfectly to Christ. Her whole office is maternal, Christ-bearing, and ecclesial. She forms servants who can say with her: "Be it done to me according to thy word."

To give oneself to Jesus through Mary is therefore to reject self-ownership at its roots. The will is offered. The body is offered. Speech, memory, imagination, work, suffering, and prayer are offered. Nothing is kept as private territory where Christ may not reign.

This is especially necessary in a time when many want Catholic conclusions without Catholic surrender. Montfort permits no such divided life.

Holy slavery must become practical or it remains only a phrase. A soul consecrated to Jesus through Mary should ask:

• Does my speech belong to Christ?
• Does my household belong to Christ?
• Does my use of time belong to Christ?
• Does my body belong to Christ?
• Does my anger submit to Christ?
• Does my devotion to Mary produce obedience, purity, and reparation?

The answer is not despair when weakness is found. The answer is return. Mary is Mother of mercy, but her mercy leads the soul out of compromise, not deeper into it.

Holy slavery is the Catholic answer to revolutionary liberty. It does not make the soul less human. It restores the soul to the truth of its creation and redemption. The freest soul is the one most completely possessed by God.

See also Conversion as Obedience: The Return of the Will to God and Lawful Rule, First Saturdays and Reparation to the Immaculate Heart, and Obedience: The Virtue Modernism Must Redefine.

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