The 300th Anniversary of St. Louis’ Death

St. Louis was born in Montfort, in Britany (France), the eldest surviving child of eighteen born to Jean-Baptiste and Jeanne Robert Grignion. His father was a notary. From this large family, God chose three priests and two sisters.

At the age of 12 he entered the Jesuit College of St. Thomas Becket in Rennes, where his uncle was a parish priest. There he became friends with Claude-François Poullart des Places, who would later found the Holy Ghost Fathers.

Listening to the stories of a local priest, Julien Bellier, about his life as an itinerant missionary, he was inspired to preach missions among the very poor.

He went to Paris to study at the renowned Seminary of Saint-Sulpice. He was ordained a priest in June 1700, and assigned to Nantes. His great desire was to go to the foreign missions, preferably to the new French colony of Canada, but his spiritual director advised against it.

He joined the Third Order of the Dominicans and asked permission not only to preach the rosary, but also to form rosary confraternities. He dedicated a special apostolate to the poor of the hospital of Rennes. He became one of them, winning their hear and receiving alms from them.

He set off to make a pilgrimage to Rome to ask Pope Clement XI what he should do. The Pope recognized his real vocation and sent him back with the title of "Apostolic Missionary". On his return from Rome, Montfort made a retreat at Mont Saint Michel "to pray to this archangel to obtain from him the grace to win souls for God, to confirm those already in God's grace, and to fight Satan and sin.”

For several years he preached missions in Brittany. Montfort saw in his time the Christian spirit diminish. He preached in order to wake up souls and lead them out of lukewarmness and error. He had an exceptional talent to touch souls. He invited Christians to revive the grace of their baptism; he showed them the love of Jesus Christ in Calvary and in the Eucharist. He taught a deep devotion to Mary and encouraged them to say the Rosary. He led souls to fervor and changed parishes. As his reputation as a missionary grew, he became known as "the good Father from Montfort".

The bishops of La Rochelle and of Luçon, acknowledging his fervor, called Montfort to preach in their dioceses. His missions made a great impact, especially in the Vendée. A mission typically lasted three weeks; the people came in the morning and in the evening in the church or a large barn. He gave instructions using large pictures. It included Mass, the Way of the Cross, and the Rosary prayed together. A special time was reserved for the examination of conscience and confessions. He used hymns and wrote multiple poems to replace the popular and not always edifying songs of the time. He organized a solemn renewal of baptismal vows with the consecration to the Incarnate Wisdom through the hands of Mary. The mission ended with the erection of a huge cross at one of the main crossings of the parish.

In La Rochelle, he opened a school. Montfort enlisted the help of Marie-Louise Trichet who was then running the hospital in Poitiers. In 1715, Marie-Louise and Catherine Brunet left Poitiers for La Rochelle to open the school there and in a short time it had 400 students. The same year, Trichet and Brunet, along with Marie Valleau and Marie Régnier from La Rochelle received the approbation of Bishop de Champflour of La Rochelle to perform their religious profession under the direction of Montfort. At the ceremony Montfort told them: "Call yourselves the Daughters of Wisdom, for the teaching of children and the care of the poor."

The devil hated the holy priest. Libertines, Calvinists, and Jansenists all took vengeance on his spiritual victories and tried to poison him. Although it did not prove fatal, it caused his health to deteriorate. Yet he continued, undeterred. He went on preaching and established free schools for poor boys and girls. He found the Brothers of Saint Gabriel for the education of boys and assistance for the missions.

The most painful opposition, however, came from the clergy: jealous priests or even bishops who expelled him from their dioceses, going so far as to forbid him to say Mass in certain dioceses. At Pontchateau he attracted hundreds of people, men of all conditions, working together to help him in the construction of a huge Calvary scene. They built a hill on top of which an immense Calvary was erected as a triumph to the Cross. On the vigil of the solemn blessing, as hundreds of people were already coming to Pontchateau, the king of France, under the influence of Jansenists, ordered to have the work destroyed. The following day the missionary, denounced and betrayed by one of his collaborators, received the order to leave the diocese. He left in peace and went on an eight-day retreat with the Jesuits.

Montfort's years of priesthood included many months of solitude, perhaps as many as a total of four years: at the cave of Mervent, amidst the beauty of the forest, at the hermitage of Saint Lazarus near the village of Montfort, and at the hermitage of Saint Éloi in La Rochelle.

Although constantly occupied in preaching missions, always traveling on foot between one and another, he also found time also to write: The Admirable Secret of the Rosary, True Devotion to Mary, The Love of Eternal Wisdom, The Secret of Mary, The Secret of the Rosary, Letter to the Friends of the Cross, Rules for the Company of Mary and the Daughters of Wisdom, and many hymns.

Worn out by hard work and sickness, he finally came in April 1716 to Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre to begin the mission which was to be his last. During it, he fell ill and died on April 28th of that year. He was 43 years old, and had been a priest for only 16 years. His last sermon was on the tenderness of Jesus and the Incarnate Wisdom of the Father. Thousands gathered for his burial in the parish church, and very quickly there were stories of miracles performed at his tomb.

Pope Leo XIII beatified Montfort in 1888 and decreed a plenary indulgence for those who practiced the Montfort Marian consecration.

St. Pius X adopted much of Montfort’s Marian language in his encyclical on the Immaculate Conception Ad diem illum writing “since it is through Mary that we attain to the knowledge of Christ, through Mary also we most easily obtain that life of which Christ is the source and origin.”

Pope Pius XII canonized Louis de Montfort on July 20, 1947, where he highly praised the new saint, saying,

[Montfort’s] great secret of attracting and giving souls to Jesus was his devotion to Mary. All his activity was founded upon her, all his confidence rested in her. In opposition to the joyless austerity, melancholy fear and depressing pride of Jansenism, he promoted the filial, trustful, ardent and expansive love in action of a slave of Mary.”