Legion of Mary  |  Legion of Mary Handbook

APPENDIX  5

THE CONFRATERNITY OF MARY,
QUEEN OF ALL HEARTS

  1. St. Louis-Marie de Montfort, in his treatise on the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, expresses the desire that all those who practise this devotion should be grouped together into a Confraternity. This wish was realised in the year 1899, when the Confraternity of Mary, Queen of All Hearts, was established at Ottawa, Canada. It is under the care of the Company of Mary or the Montfort Missionaries.

  2. The Confraternity is composed of those faithful who wish to live out their baptismal vows by means of a total consecration to Christ by the hands of Mary, that is, by the perfect practise of true devotion to Mary as taught by St. Louis de Montfort and summed up by him in the following words:
    "This devotion consists in giving oneself entirely to Mary in order to belong entirely to Jesus through her. It requires us to give:
    1. our body, with its senses and members;
    2. our soul with its faculties;
    3. our present material possessions and all we shall acquire in the future;
    4. our interior and spiritual possessions, that is, our merits, virtues and good actions of the past, the present and the future.

    In other words we give her all we possess both in our natural life and in our spiritual life as well as everything we shall acquire in the future in the order of nature, of grace and of glory in heaven. This we do without reservation, not even of a penny, a hair, or the smallest good deed. And we give for all eternity without claiming or expecting, in return for our offering and our service, any other reward than the honour of belonging to our Lord through Mary and in Mary, even though our Mother were not - as in fact she always is - the most generous and appreciative of all God's creatures." (TD 121)

  3. The conditions of enrolment are:
    (a) The consecration of oneself to Jesus Christ, Eternal and Incarnate Wisdom, by the hands of Mary, according to the formula of St. Louis de Montfort. A suitable preparation should be made and it is fitting that a special day be chosen, such as one of Our Lady's feasts, for the consecration. It should be renewed each day using some such formula as: "I am all yours, and all that I have I offer to you, O most loving Jesus, through Mary your holy Mother." This form would also satisfy the morning offering of the Apostleship of Prayer. Another form would be that so dear to the Legion: " I am all yours, my Queen, my Mother, and all that I have is yours."
    (b) The inscription of one's name at any centre. The principle centres are:

    England:
    Montfort House, Burbo Bank Road, Liverpool L23 6TH
    USA:
    Montfort Fathers, 26 South Saxon Ave., Bay Shore, N.Y. 11706
    France:
    2 rue des Couvents, 85290 Saint-Laurent-Sur-Sevre
    Belgium:
    Dietsevest 25 - 3000 Leuven
    Canada:
    4000 Bossuet, Montreal, Quebec H1M 2M2
    Italy:
    via Romagna 44, 00187 Roma

    (c) To live habitually and always (this is the essence of the devotion) in a state of complete dependence on Mary's will, after the example given by the Son of God at Nazareth; doing all our actions through her, with her, in her, and for her, in such manner that we consider her as acting always in union with us, directing all our efforts and administering all their fruits. See chapter 6 on The Duties of Legionaries towards Mary.

  4. "Membership in this Association brings with it spiritual communion with the entire Montfortian family. Members will want to celebrate those liturgical feasts that are both a symbol and fulfilment of this communion. They will especially celebrate: the Annunciation of the Lord, March 25 which is the principal feast of the Association; the Nativity of Our Lord, December 25; the Immaculate Conception, December 8; the feast of St. Louis de Montfort, April 28.
    Members likewise share in the spiritual riches with which the Montfortian family has been endowed by Mary who 'gives herself completely in a wondrous manner to him who gives all to her.'" (Queen, May-June, 1992, p.25)

  5. For the proper understanding and practise of this devotion it is essential that one read not once but frequently St. Louis-Marie de Montfort's True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and his smaller work, The Secret of Mary.

"St. Pius X, especially, has set out vividly the doctrine of the universal mediation of Mary and of her spiritual Maternity in his beautiful Encyclical Ad Diem Illum, which is substantially but a transposition of St. Louis-Marie de Montfort's book of the True Devotion. The Holy Pontiff was a fervent admirer of this celebrated little treatise. He particularly recommended all to read it, and he conferred his Apostolic Benediction on those who would do so. Moreover, in that Encyclical of his on Mary are to be found not only the most familiar thoughts of the great servant of Mary, but often his very expressions." (Mura: Le Corps Mystique du Christ)
"Loving slaves of Jesus in Mary should hold in high esteem devotion to Jesus, the Word of God, in the great mystery of the Incarnation, March 25, which is the mystery proper to this devotion, because it is inspired by the Holy Spirit for the following reasons:
(a) That we might honour and imitate the wondrous dependence which God the Son chose to have on Mary, for the glory of his Father and for the redemption of man. This dependence is revealed especially in this mystery where Jesus becomes a captive and slave in the womb of his Blessed Mother, depending on her for everything.
(b) That we might thank God for the incomparable graces he has conferred upon Mary and especially that of choosing her to be his most worthy Mother. This choice was made in the mystery of the Incarnation.
These are the two principal ends of the slavery of Jesus in Mary." (St. Louis-Marie de Montfort: Treatise on True Devotion, Par. 243)