In the Footsteps of St. Louis Marie de Montfort
"Footsteps Online" - Last Issue
Spring 2008 (Volume 10, Issue 1)
A New Start
Welcome to the new "Footsteps", which, after a long hiatus, is now being published in a new format, necessitated in part by the cost of postage. The old A4 format would now be costing almost 1½ times what it did before to post, so we have decided to print it in A5 format which will keep our postage costs about the same. We would be happy to hear what you think of the new format.
The first issue of "Footsteps" appeared just before Christmas in 1995, so it is now 12½ years since we started. In the editorial of that first issue, we said: "Christmas is essentially for us a time of hope. In this issue of FOOTSTEPS, we would like to dwell on this theme of hope. It was a virtue dear to St. Louis Marie, as shown in his own life. And the Montfort Missionaries continue to try to give hope to our contemporaries by the work that they do." In twelve years, many things have changed, not least the number of members of the Montfortian religious congregations in the British Isles. Seventeen members of the British & Irish Province of the Company of Mary have died since that first issue, while others have left us for various reasons – some to enter a diocese. While we had one First Profession in that time, he did not remain with us, so that in all we have considerably decreased in numbers since the end of 1995 – we are now less than half as many as we were then.
But we do not give up hope! St Louis Marie always dreamed of a "small and poor band of good priests to… go in a humble and simple way to teach catechism to the poor in country places and to arouse in sinners a devotion to our Blessed Lady", as he expressed it in a letter to his spiritual director, Fr. Leschassier, on 6 December 1700. But he had to wait until less than a year before his death in 1716 before the first priest (Father Vatel) came to join his "small and poor band", and at his death there were still only two of them, along with a handful of Brothers, among them Brother Mathurin, the first to attach himself permanently to him. And for many years after his death, it really was a case of a "small and poor band" – until the French Revolution in 1789, there were never more than a dozen or so members of the Company of Mary. But St Louis Marie knew that this would be the case – prophetically, in his Prayer for Missionaries, he addresses them as "little flock". Yet, despite their small numbers, they were able to bring about a renewal of the Christian life in many parishes in the West of France by their missions. Smallness of numbers does not necessarily mean insignificant results. Especially when we have so many "Associates" to help us.
St. Louis Marie himself invited and attracted lay-people to help him in his work, wherever he went. We think, for example, of the Comte and Comtesse of La Garaye, in Dinan, who helped him establish a soup-kitchen and later gave themselves completely to the service of the poor and sick. We think of the Marquis de Magnanne, who also dedicated himself, inspired by St. Louis Marie, to charitable works, and who, after the saint’s death, lived and worked with his successors in Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre. And we must not forget the thousands who collaborated with him in the building of his Calvary in Pontchâteau. And there were so many others.
St. Louis Marie’s spiritual legacy – his insight that the best way to achieve real wisdom (by which he meant the knowledge and love of the "Eternal and Incarnate Wisdom of God", Jesus), was to go through a total consecration to Jesus through Mary – was not left just to the members of the congregations he founded. It belongs to the Church as a whole. And today we rely more and more on our lay "Associates" to carry this legacy to the people of God.
