Exterior devotees and fickle devotees to Mary, Mary: Day 097

Exterior devotees and fickle devotees to Mary

In contrast to the characteristics of true devotion to Mary, St. Louis de Mont- fort identifies the signs of a merely exterior and presumptuous devotion.

Exterior devotees to Mary are persons who make all devotion to our Blessed Lady consist in outward practices. They have no taste except for the exterior of this devotion, because they have no interior spirit of their own. They will say quantities of Rosaries with the greatest hastiness; they will hear many Masses distractedly; they will go without devotion to processions; they will enroll themselves in all sorts of confraternities, without amending their lives, without doing any violence to their passions, or without imitating the virtues of that most holy Virgin. They have no love but for the part of devotion that appeals to their senses, without having any relish for its substance. If they don’t produce sweet feelings by their practices, they think they are doing nothing. They get all out of joint, throw everything away, or do everything at random. The world is full of these exterior devotees.

The fickle devotees to Mary are those who are devout to our Blessed Lady by intervals and whims. Sometimes they are fervent and sometimes lukewarm. Sometimes they seem ready to do anything for her, and then, a little afterwards, they are not like the same people. They begin by taking up all the devotions to her, and enrolling themselves in the confraternities; and then they don’t practice the rules faithfully. They change like the moon. They are inconstant and unwor- thy to be reckoned among the servants of that faithful Virgin whose devotees have for their special graces faithfulness and constancy. It were better for such persons to load themselves with fewer prayers and practices, and to fulfill them with faithfulness and love, in spite of the world, the Devil, and the flesh. —St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary

IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .
When I pray the Rosary or take part in other Marian devotions, do I ever fall into a mere exterior practice, or a fickle one? If so, how can I make my devotion more interior and constant?

CLOSING PRAYER
Mother of God, I can truly say to you what I say to your Son: “With the faithful, you show yourself faithful; with the blameless, you show yourself blameless; with the pure, you show yourself pure” (see Ps 18:25–26).

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