True Devotion to Mary 
The Rev. R. Garrigou-Lagrange
We are not speaking here of an entirely exterior, presumptuous, inconstant, hypocritical, and interested devotion, but of true devotion which St. Thomas defines as “promptness of the will in the service of God.”[1] This promptness of the will, which should subsist despite aridity of the sensible part of the soul, inclines us to render to our Lord and His holy Mother the worship that is due them.[2] As Jesus is our Mediator with His Father, in the same way we should go to our Savior through Mary. The mediation of the Son throws light on that of His holy Mother.
They are deluded who claim to reach union with God without having continual recourse to our Lord. They will hardly attain to an abstract knowledge of God, and not to that sweet knowledge called wisdom; a lofty knowledge at once practical, living, and experiential, which makes us discover the ways of Providence in the most insignificant things. The quietists were mistaken in holding that Christ’s sacred humanity was a means useful only at the beginning of the spiritual life; they did not sufficiently recognize the universal mediation of our Savior.
Another error consists in wishing to go to our Lord without passing through Mary. This was one of the errors of the Protestants. And even some Catholics do not see clearly enough how expedient it is to have recourse to the Blessed Virgin in order to enter the intimacy of Christ. As St. Grignion de Montfort says, they know Mary “only in a speculative, dry, fruitless, indifferent manner.…They fear that devotion toward her is abused and that injury is done to our Lord by paying excessive honor to His holy Mother.…If they speak of devotion to Mary, it is less to recommend it than to destroy the abuses of it.”[3] They seem to consider Mary “a hindrance in reaching divine union,”[4] whereas all her influence is exercised in order to lead us to it. It would be just as sensible to say that the holy Curé of Ars was a hindrance to his parishioners in their progress toward God.
To neglect the Mediators whom God has given us because of our weakness, shows a lack of humility. Intimacy with our Lord in prayer will be greatly facilitated by frequent recourse to Mary.
Notes:
[1] Summa, IIa IIae, q.82, a.I: “Devotion is apparently nothing else but the will to give oneself readily to things concerning the service of God.”
[2] A distinction must be made, however, between the worship of latria due to God and the humanity of the Savior personally united to the Word, and the worship of hyperdulia, due to the Blessed Virgin.
[3] Treatise on the True Devotion to Mary, chap. 2, a.i.
[4] Ibid., chap. 4, a.6.
* The Three Ages of the Interior Life: Prelude of Eternal Life by The Rev. R. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. translated by Sister M. Timothea Doyle, O.P., TAN Books and Publishers, Inc., P. 265-266
