Transformation into Our Lady has been spoken of by the saints for many centuries. In
True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, St. Louis de Montfort, repeats the words of St. Ambrose, writing, “The soul of Mary will be communicated to you to glorify the Lord. Her spirit will take the place of yours to rejoice in God, her Savior…”(1). It is St. Maximilian, however, who has given this transforming union its boldest and most descriptive formulation: “transubstantiation into the Immaculate.”
The Eucharistic terminology is very enlightening. St. Maximilian speaks of Mary’s devotees being changed, as it were, into Our Lady. One becomes, “in a certain sense, her living, speaking and working in this world” (2). Negatively, this means the uprooting of sin and imperfection. Positively, it entails growth in Charity and sanctity. “Let yourselves be led by the Immaculate, let Her form you with an ever greater freedom and you will become like Her, because She will make you ever more immaculate and She will nourish you with the milk of Her grace” (3).
At a certain point, this transforming union becomes so radical, the term “transubstantiation,” used analogously, becomes a very descriptive and accurate way to express the extent of Marianization. St. Maximilian writes, “We want to be so much the Immaculate’s that there remains nothing in us that is not Hers, that instead we come to be annihilated in Her, changed into Her, transubstantiated into Her, that She herself alone remains. That we might be thus Hers, as She is God’s” (4).
St. Maximilian thus draws an analogy between the relationship we seek to have with Our Lady, and her own union with God. Describing this union, he gives the Latin formulation:
Filius incarnatus est: Jesus Christus. Spiritus Sanctus quasi incarnatus est: Immaculata (5). That is, “The Son is incarnate: Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is quasi incarnate: the Immaculata.” St. Maximilian elaborates:
The Holy Spirit manifests his share in the work of Redemption through the Immaculate Virgin who, although she is a person entirely distinct from him, is so intimately associated with him that our minds cannot understand it. So, while their union is not of the same order as the hypostatic union linking the human and divine natures in Christ, it remains true to say that Mary’s action is the very action of the Holy Spirit (6).
Mary’s actions are the very actions of the Holy Spirit, and as St. Maximilian points out elsewhere, the Holy Spirit acts always (by His own divine decree) through Mary. These two persons operate as if they are, so to speak, one person. This union is founded on the grace of the Immaculate Conception: Our Lady’s first grace, and that which radically conforms her to her Spouse, such that, in the words of St. Maximilian, she is the created Immaculate Conception, whereas the Holy Spirit is the Uncreated Immaculate Conception (7). The Blessed Virgin is a manifestation of her Spouse. St. Maximilian writes, “Just as the Son, to show us how great his love is, became a man, so too the third Person, God-who-is-Love, willed to show his mediation… by means of a concrete sign. This sign is the heart of the Immaculate Virgin…” (8).
Transubstantiation into the Immaculate means being changed into her, such that one’s actions are truly hers. We become concrete manifestations of the Blessed Virgin, “in a certain sense, her living, speaking and working in this world” (9). In this way, we become hers, as she is God’s.
Both the positive and negative dimensions of this transubstantiation are achieved through total consecration to the Immaculate. Such a consecration means entrusting ourselves to her maternal Heart; placing all of our goods, corporeal and spiritual, at her disposal; and doing everything for her honor. It further entails a real striving to imitate Our Lady interiorly and exteriorly, and to fulfill her will in all things. “Let us strive to live in such a way that every day, every moment, we become ever more the property of the Immaculate, fulfilling always more perfectly the will of the Immaculate” (10).
It is interesting to note that St. Maximilian promoted total consecration without having knowledge of St. Louis de Montfort’s
True Devotion. He became familiar with this classic little treatise only later in life. Instead, his devotion is drawn from the Franciscan tradition, which profoundly shaped all of his theological insights. He wrote to a confrere:
For seven centuries we strove for the recognition of the truth of the Immaculate Conception, and our efforts were crowned with the proclamation of the dogma and the apparition of the Immaculate at Lourdes. Now we move on to the second part of the story: the sowing of the seed of this truth in souls, fostering its growth and ensuring that it produce fruits of sanctity. And this in all souls who are and who will be until the end of the world (11).
In St. Maximilian’s view, the Immaculate Conception may be likened to a blueprint. In the first chapter of Franciscan history, the order strove to make this blueprint known by all the Church‒ an effort which ended with a definitive victory in 1854. Now, according to St. Maximilian, the blueprint must be implemented throughout the Church by means of Marian consecration. With this consecration, lived out authentically, the faithful can be increasingly transubstantiated into the Immaculate, and thus, patterned ever more closely on the Immaculate Conception‒ Our Lady herself.
The more this transformation takes hold, the more one becomes, as it were, an extension of Mary. The soul acquires an increasingly profound insertion into the depths of the Holy Trinity. Exteriorly, however, the person appears no different from any other. Here we see again, how carefully chosen and enlightening St. Maximilian’s terminology really is. At Holy Mass, the accidents of bread and wine remain in place, even after the consecration. Likewise, transubstantiation into the Immaculate entails a radical change, but leaves the exterior appearance intact. No one could guess, simply by looking at a true Marian devotee, the degree to which his soul is flooded with grace.
The analogy is likewise instructive as to the proper mode of evangelization for Catholics. If one’s sanctity consists in being Marianized, then hiding the truth about Our Lady amounts to concealing the means of sanctification. Obfuscating Mary’s necessity, beauty, and queenship, can be likened to hiding the truth about the Blessed Sacrament.
St. Maximilian’s formulation, “transubstantiation into the Immaculate,” also draws attention to the relationship between the Holy Eucharist and the Blessed Virgin. Eucharistic mediation is profoundly Marian, and Marian mediation cannot be other than Eucharistic. Jesus and Mary are indissolubly united, including in the Blessed Sacrament and, “Therefore what God has joined together, let no man separate,” (12).
The Church and Our Lord are united in a spousal manner. As in all spousal unions, however, a real distinction remains. The Personhood of Christ is that of the Son of God, while the personality of the Church is strictly Marian. Herein lays the distinction between Christ and the Church. Reflection on this point cannot fail, however, to also shed light on the union between Christ and His Church, since, “Jesus and Mary always go together,” as St. Bernadette puts it.
The genius of St. Maximilian’s terminology lies, in part, in his succinctly locating the Christification of the Church (we might say, transubstantiation into the Eucharist), and each of its members, precisely in Marianization. The Holy Spirit is the “Soul” of the Church, and Our Lady is the Spouse, or better still, Quasi-Incarnation, of the Holy Spirit. This accounts for the Marian presence which pervades the entire Church, which Bl. John Paul II writes of in
Redemptoris Mater. It also illustrates why sanctification‒ that is, Christification‒ can only mean Marianization.
The reflections and insights of the Franciscan saints on Our Lady have developed within a unique, yet thoroughly Catholic tradition. The thought of St. Maximilian is no exception. His insights, like those of St. Bonaventure, Bl. John Duns Scotus, St. Bernardine of Siena, and St. Leonard of Port Maurice, have developed in a manner congruous with the charism and spirituality of the Seraphic Father. It has rightly been said that Franciscan theology flows from the stigmatized heart of St. Francis.
The content of Franciscan Mariology can be found in the thought of St. Francis himself, albeit, stripped of academic terminology. He calls Our Lady the “Spouse of the Holy Spirit” rather than the Immaculate Conception; instead of Co-redemptrix, “Handmaid”; and rather than Type or Exemplar of the Church, “Virgin made Church.” These themes have formed the core of Franciscan Mariological thought, centered on the Immaculate Conception as the metaphysical basis for Marian mediation‒ both in its mode (virginal-maternal, whether we speak of the objective or subjective redemption) and in its end, namely, the growth of the Church and each of its members into the likeness of the Immaculate.
The thought of St. Maximilian represents a simple development in this Mariology. At San Damiano, Christ gave St. Francis, and the Franciscan Order, a mission: “Rebuild my Church.” Franciscans of every age have held that Mary, qua Immaculate Conception, is both the blueprint to be followed and the means of success in this mission.
Notes
(1) Bay Shore, NY: Montfort Publications, 2001, p. 112
(2) SK# 486
(3) SK# 1334
(4) SK# 508
(5) Bonamy, 63, quoting from
Sketch by Kolbe, 1940
(6)
Miles Immaculatae. I, 1938. Emphasis added
(7) H. M. Manteau-Bonamy, O.P.,
Immaculatae Conception and the Holy Spirit, trans. Richard Arnandez, F.S.C. (Kenosha, Wisc.: Prow Books/Franciscan Marytown Press, 1977), 2-3, quoting from
Final Sketch
(8)
Miles Immaculatae. I, 1938
(9) SK# 486
(10)
SK# 1232
(11)
SK# 485
(12) Mark 10:9
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