Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort (1673–1716)

Biography

From a very young age he was a great devotee of the Blessed Virgin, which helped him a lot to endure his father's angry outbursts. He studied at the Seminary of Saint Sulpice in Paris, and there he developed his great qualities as a preacher that later helped him preach missions. These missions were attended by crowds who then followed him from town to town, praying and singing. He really liked singing because he said it lit hearts and he himself composed the lyrics to many songs. On foot and by giving alms he went to Rome, asking God for the effectiveness of the word, and he obtained it in such a way that even the most hardened sinners were converted upon hearing his sermons. Pope Clement This was not forgiven by the Jansenists who said that we should almost never receive the sacraments because we are not worthy. Luis María strove, on the contrary, to spread frequent confession and communion, for which he was greatly persecuted. He founded the Community of the Montfortian Fathers and the Community of the Sisters of Wisdom. He wrote a work that has been one of the most famous about devotion to the Virgin Mary: Treatise on True Devotion to the Virgin Mary. Pope John Paul II has taken as his motto a phrase that this saint often repeated: “I am all yours, oh Mary, and everything I have is yours.”