CrucisSt. Louis de Montfort
St. Louis de Montfort was born Louis-Marie Grignion on 31 January 1673 at Montfort-sur-Meu in Brittany, France, and died on 28 April 1716 at Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre. Ordained a priest in 1700, he devoted himself to parish missions among the poor of western France, preaching with such zeal that he met both fervent devotion and stubborn opposition; discouraged at one point, he made a pilgrimage to Rome, where Pope Clement XI confirmed his vocation and named him an apostolic missionary. He founded the Company of Mary (the Montfort Missionaries) and, with Blessed Marie Louise Trichet, the Daughters of Wisdom.
He is best remembered as one of the Church's great Marian theologians and the author of True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, which teaches total consecration to Jesus through Mary — a spirituality later embraced and popularized by Pope St. John Paul II, whose motto Totus Tuus was drawn from it. His writings on the rosary and Marian devotion have shaped Catholic piety ever since. He was canonized in 1947 by Pope Pius XII.
Selected quotes
“To Jesus through Mary — this is not a shortcut but the very path that the eternal Word Himself chose to come to us.”
“True devotion to Our Lady is not sentimental; it is a complete surrender of all that you are and all that you have into her hands, that she may give it to Jesus.”
“Mary is the mold of God — whoever is cast into her comes out conformed to Jesus Christ.”