{"id":27515,"date":"2026-08-17T22:35:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T21:35:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/?p=27515"},"modified":"2026-08-17T22:35:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T21:35:18","slug":"think-of-me-and-i-will-think-of-you-true-devotion-and-merciful-love-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/2026\/08\/think-of-me-and-i-will-think-of-you-true-devotion-and-merciful-love-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"“Think of Me and I will Think of You” (True Devotion and Merciful Love, Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
The Statue of Our Lady of Knock at Silverstream<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Our Lady of Knock<\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a>Today Ireland celebrates the feast of Our Lady of Knock. Mary appeared next to an altar on which was the Lamb of God, standing as if slain, surrounded by angels. Saint Joseph and Saint John appeared together with her. The apparition occurred about 8 PM on Thursday, 21 August 1879, after First Vespers of the Octave of the Assumption. While Knock Shrine itself and those in County Mayo keep the feast on 21 August, the anniversary itself, the feast of Saint Pius X is given precedence on that day for the rest of Ireland. That is why the feast of Our Lady of Knock is kept today.<\/p>\n

A Generous Offering<\/h2>\n

It is a good day to continue our reflection on the subject of total consecration to Mary.<\/p>\n

In the previous post<\/a>, we discussed Saint Louis de Montfort’s interior practices<\/em> of true devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, which are to meditate upon her and contemplate her, to offer her acts of love, praise, and thanksgiving, to invoke her with one’s whole heart, to offer and unite oneself to her, to do all with the intention of pleasing her, and to begin, continue, and complete all through, with, and in her. This list implies a high degree of self-forgetfulness! How very disinterested<\/i> these are! Is not Saint Louis de Montfort is urging us to think of the interests of the Blessed Virgin Mary rather than our own?<\/p>\n

Jesus famously said to Saint Teresa of Avila, “You take care of My interests and I will take care of yours,\u201d and to Saint Catherine of Siena, “You think of Me, and I will think of you.” If we think of the interests of the Blessed Virgin, taking the desires and concerns of her heart into ours, she will certainly think of our interests. If we think of her, she will think of us.<\/p>\n

A Brave Child-Warrior<\/h2>\n

Saint Th\u00e9r\u00e8se’s Offering to Merciful Love<\/em> is also a disinterested offering. She desires “to love God and to make Him loved, to work for the glory of Holy Church by saving souls on earth and liberating those suffering in purgatory.” We have seen how Saint Th\u00e9r\u00e8se said: \u201cI hold nothing in my hands. Everything I have, everything I merit is for the Church and for souls. If I were to live to eighty, I will always be as poor as I am now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Saint Th\u00e9r\u00e8se is so generous! But is she is overly self-confident? Not at all! She knows her weakness! Sometimes it might seem like a generosity such as Saint Louis de Montfort and Saint Th\u00e9r\u00e8se describe can only be done by giants of magnanimity, but Saint Th\u00e9r\u00e8se knows otherwise. Consider how one day she said to her sister, Pauline (Mother Agnes) how she thought there was only one<\/em> area where she couldn’t afford to be unfaithful. “[I]f I committed only the slightest infidelity [in this one area],” said told Pauline, “I feel that I would pay for it with frightful troubles, and I would no longer be able to accept death. Thus I never cease to say to God: \u2018O my God, I beg You, preserve me from the misfortune of being unfaithful.'”\u00a0Pauline asked to what she referred.\u00a0Saint Th\u00e9r\u00e8se’s response? “A proud thought voluntarily entertained.<\/strong> For example, if I were to say to myself: I have acquired a certain virtue, and I am certain I can practice it. For then, this would be relying upon my own strength<\/strong>, and when we do this, we run the risk of falling into the abyss. However, I will have the right of doing stupid things up until my death<\/strong>, if I am humble and if I remain little. Look at little children: they never stop breaking things, tearing things, falling down, and they do this even while loving their parents very, very much. When I fall in this way, it makes me realize my nothingness more, and I say to myself: What would I do, and what would I become, if I were to rely upon my own strength?”<\/p>\n

Saint Th\u00e9r\u00e8se continued: “I understand very well why St. Peter fell. Poor Peter, he was relying upon himself instead of relying only upon God\u2019s strength. I conclude from this experience that if I said to myself: ‘O my God, You know very well I love You too much to dwell upon one single thought against the faith,’ my temptations would become more violent and I would certainly succumb to them. I\u2019m very sure that if St. Peter had said humbly to Jesus: \u2018Give me the grace, I beg You, to follow You even to death,\u2019 he would have received it immediately.”<\/p>\n

“I Have Never Wished to Grow Up”<\/h2>\n

Saint Th\u00e9r\u00e8se did not see her generosity as that of a giant to run its course, but as that of a child, albeit a child-warrior. As a child, she would always have the right of doing stupid things, but only so long as she remained a child. It was only by remaining little that she was able to be as brave and generous as she was. Saint Th\u00e9r\u00e8se explains:<\/p>\n

Even among the very poor a little child is always given what he needs. Once, however, he is grown up, his father will no longer feed him, but tells him to find work and earn his living. Well, I do not want to hear my Heavenly Father talk like this to me, and so I have never wished to grow up. I feel incapable of earning my livelihood-of earning Life Eternal. And so I have always tried to be as a little child, occupied merely in gathering flowers of love and sacrifice with which to please Almighty God. Again, being as a little child with God means that we do not attribute to ourselves the virtues we may possess, in the belief that we are capable of something. It implies, on the contrary, our recognition of the fact that God places the treasure of virtue in the hand of His little child for him to use as he needs it, though all the while it is God’s treasure. Finally, to keep little means not to lose courage at the sight of our faults. Little children often tumble, but they are too small to suffer grievous injury.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Because she saw things this was, Saint Th\u00e9r\u00e8se was able to say in writing to her aunt at the height of her sanctity, a mere 10 months before her holy death:<\/p>\n

I beg you, dear Aunt, pray to God that I may grow in wisdom just as the divine Child Jesus grew; I am not doing this, I assure you. Ask your dear little Marie of the Eucharist, and she will tell you that I am not lying; from day to day, I am becoming more wicked, and yet it will soon be nine years since I am in the Lord\u2019s house. I should, then, be already advanced in the ways of perfection, but I am still at the bottom of the ladder. This does not discourage me, and I am as happy as the grasshopper; like it, I am always singing, hoping at the end of my life to share in the riches of my sisters who are much more generous than the ant.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Littleness and Confidence<\/h2>\n

From the Saint’s point of view, it was her littleness that was the source of her confidence. Her generosity was not because she was big and magnanimous. No, in fact, as she expressed it herself five months before death:<\/p>\n

It is true that to find great souls one must come to Carmel; just as in virgin forests there grow flowers of a fragrance and brilliance unknown to the world, so Jesus in His mercy has willed that among these flowers there should grow littler ones; never will I be able to thank Him enough, for it is thanks to this condescension that I, a poor flower without splendour, find myself in the same garden as the roses, my Sisters.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But her littleness <\/em>did not hold her back from a holy boldness…and, perhaps, we too should have bold hopes together with her for that holiness that comes from being a spiritual child:<\/p>\n

[M]y own glory would not be evident to the eyes of mortals, that it would consist in becoming a great saint! This desire could certainly appear daring if one were to consider how weak and imperfect I was, and how, after seven years in the religious life, I still am weak and imperfect. I always feel, however, the same bold confidence of becoming a great saint because I don\u2019t count on my merits since I have none, but I trust in Him who is Virtue and Holiness. God alone, content with my weak efforts, will raise me to Himself and make me a saint, clothing me in His infinite merits.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

True Devotion Is for Spiritual Children<\/h2>\n

\"Saint<\/a>As with Saint Th\u00e9r\u00e8se, Saint Louis de Montfort indicates that — though true devotion is perfected by giving everything to Mary — this total, disinterested devotion is not the reward of big and strong souls: it is the refuge of the little. The motives that Saint Louis Marie brings forth for this devotion involve recognition of our weakness, littleness, and imperfection joined with confidence in our dear Mother.<\/em><\/p>\n

It is this word, Mother<\/em>, that I especially wish to emphasise. Total consecration — the height of Saint Louis Marie de Montfort’s devotion to Mary — presupposes an understanding that Mary is Mother — is our<\/em> mother. Perhaps in this period of the world especially, when the relationships of son and daughter, of father and mother, of wife and husband have so become confused, it is less intuitive than it was in the time of Saint Louis that no matter what disinterested, chivalric, or heroic heights Marian devotion reaches, the foundation of it is the tender relationship between a mother and her children.<\/p>\n

Applying the words of Saint Th\u00e9r\u00e8se to true devotion to Mary can be helpful: if we remain little, we can make all sorts of mistakes, but our good Mother will fix them; we can fall, but we won’t hurt ourselves very much; we may remain at the base of the ladder, but we can be as happy as grasshoppers, and our good Mother will provide for our needs, and so we will not be sent out to make our own living. Saint Louis de Montfort expresses this in his own way all throughout True Devotion<\/em>, such as when he says that our best deeds can seem like apples with rotten bits, but Mary knows how to prepare them, cutting out the bits that need to be cut out, and arranging them beautifully and elegantly on her own precious platter. In other words, she is not hard to please.<\/p>\n

We need not set out upon total consecration with the idea that we will be giants, doing great things to prove our love for the Blessed Virgin Mary, defend her honour, and bring glory to her. It is good and noble to desire them, but little children are not capable of the great things they would desire to do. Mary, like a mother whose little son brings her a bouquet of dandelions, face flushed from the excitement and exertion of collecting them, sees and values the love of what we give her. She treasures the little that her little ones are capable of. Her heart is moved by weakness, inability, poverty, and misery. Where someone who is not a mother could see weeds, Mary sees love.<\/p>\n

It is true that there are servants of Mary who have done great things for her and are motivated by working for her glory. This is highly praiseworthy. But for those who walk the way of spiritual childhood in their Marian consecration, we can apply to Mary the words Saint Th\u00e9r\u00e8se spoke on the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, a few months before her holy death. She said:<\/p>\n

The great saints worked for the glory of God, but I\u2019m only a little soul; I work simply for His pleasure, and I\u2019d be glad to bear the greatest sufferings when this would be for the purpose of making Him smile only once.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Could we not say: “The great servants of Mary worked to spread her glory. But I am only a little soul: I work simply for her pleasure, and I\u2019d be glad to bear even the greatest sufferings if only it would make her smile only once.”<\/p>\n

The Mansions of the Little Children of Mary<\/h2>\n
\"Saint<\/a>
Saint Philomena, Patron of the Children of Mary<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For those who follow this little Marian way, surely there are special mansions reserved for them in the household of Mary near the mansions of the great Marian souls. What Saint Th\u00e9r\u00e8se wrote must also apply to Mary!<\/p>\n

“If, then, there are mansions set apart for great souls, for the Fathers of the desert and for the martyrs of penance, there must also be one for little children. So a place is waiting for us there if we but love [Jesus] dearly together with Our Heavenly Father and the Spirit of Love.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Let us love her dearly, together with Our Heavenly Father, with her Divine Son, and with Spirit of Love Whose spouse she is. Then all the children and servants of Mary — the great and small alike — will rejoice in her company in the heavenly kingdom, together forever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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