The Spiritual Instruments of the Eurasianist Battle: The Burning Prayer of St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort

Presentation

    More than fifty years have passed since the commemoration that the scholar, intellectual and expert in runology Gianni Vannoni (1949-2017) made of Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort on the four-hundredth anniversary of his birth, proposing for the Dominican review of Ascetics and Mysticism a brief introductory article - which we republish here expunged from most of the Documentary Notes he rigorously produced of only specialist interest, in which case we refer to the original text in the Note - and a personal translation from French of the Breton saint's famous Preghiera Infuocata - the content of which we have taken the liberty here of modernising through an alternative version in the traditional area, in order to make it more usable for readers interested in spirituality [1].

    St Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort (1673-1716) is undoubtedly the most eschatological saint of modernity. At first impression, he looks like an ancient Christian parachuted from the early Middle Ages into the heart of the Baroque age, complete with wedge-shaped lorica, broadsword and axe, but this is not the case. His spirituality, his visions of the future about the final struggle between the Woman Clothed with the Sun and Leviathan, his rude apostolic ways of acting during the Missions that Vannoni reminds us of, remind us that if in the ruling classes of the High Clergy, the Nobility and the increasingly rampant and replacement Bourgeoisie, the process of decay from the narcissistic and neo-pagan anthropocentrism of the Renaissance to the effeminate and lascivious world of the French Rococo was by now dominant, in the People, on the other hand, although influenced by the worldly customs of the wealthy classes, the Christian spirit of the origins and medieval Christendom still resisted. An active popular resistance that manifested itself in historically acquired rights and local ethnic customs, in loyalty to the liturgical year with its heartfelt penitential fulfilments and popular joy during religious and civil festivities. A resistance to the evil of the century, sustained by the indefatigable spiritual work of hermits, monks, priests and country curates, who individually or as a congregation, firmly and gently pushed the Christian people themselves beyond worldly corruption towards the final goal of eternal Life, still making them breathe in the scent of God that like air penetrated everything.

    Montfort acted as an authentic iconoclast of worldly life, of fashions, of the bourgeois and violently anti-Christian spirit that raged underground and began to emerge through the Masonic Lodges in France at the time, with the clear aim of distancing Christians from the Faith, pointing out to them the corruption and inconsistency of part of the High Clergy and Nobility as justification. This desecrating spirit, fuelled by the false enlightenment of Diderot and D'Alembert's Encyclopédie, in its extremes ranging from De Sade to Voltaire, would become the existential cliché in the new world born of the French Revolution, the world of liberalism, of which today within the mephitic and icy liquefaction of Postmodernism, we are forced to experience its ultimate and paradoxical outcomes of a totalitarian order, through the domination of the Black Enlightenment that has bent the West to its will and is currently attempting to aim for planetary hegemony.

    With his way of living, acting and behaving, Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort can certainly be portrayed as an ante litteram Radical Subject, a prefiguration of him, just as such a comparison can be attributed to other saints of eschatological orientation, who have lived in the Church of the East and West throughout the ages in the expectation of the Return of the Incarnate Word. Montfort, with his archaic and arcane spiritual violence never moves from his centre, from the essential core of his faith in the Tradition of Christ and reminds us of what Aleksandr Dugin writes about the Radical Subject:

    "The Radical Subject is immortal, it passes through death and constitutes the root of the normal subject - it is a Black Sun situated in the deepest, inner abyss. It is an apophatic subject (term for the not-yet-manifested) situated within the positive subject, of which it constitutes the immortal, invisible and indestructible root. (...) What differentiates it from the surrounding world is the fact that, in modernity, it keeps its inner qualities intact, as if it were in the space of Tradition: it is a kind of lost angel'. [2]

    Montfort's typically intransigent mentality, common in the heyday of medieval Christendom, can today be visibly found only in the other great religions as they are lived within their own countries of origin, even amidst the difficulties imposed by the atheistic pressure of globalism. Branded as integralism and fundamentalism by Masonic-liberal totalitarianism, made ridiculous and held up to contempt in its outward practices - except when displayed in a new-age way the most disparate devotions of a Western-style Buddhism that has little to do with the Buddha's true teaching -, in reality this intransigent mentality, lost by almost all Western Catholics after the turning point propounded by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, is once again central to today's times. In fact, with the advent of the multipolar geopolitical vision of the States-Civilisations conceived by the Fourth Political Theory and realised by the extended alliance of the BRICS, the spiritual and/or philosophical-ethical constituent part is recovered in the sense of Tradition (as in the case of the 'desired' rebirth of Confucianism in Communist China), which once again becomes the centre, the heart, the soul of the Peoples, who are finally free or who are freeing themselves from the yoke of American imperialism, from the power of the dollar, from French colonial exploitation influences in the African continent.

    We give you this precious document, necessary for the Eurasianist Struggle to return to an uncompromising Aryan mentality like that of the great man of Brittany, the Saint of Montfort, that is, a weltanschauung that does not want to yield on principles. So as not to indulge instead in a reductively aesthetic or falsely initiatic conception of the future Imperium, which does not involve personal life but remains only a pure intellectual exercise or an obscure Promethean liturgy of the few, enclosed within the four walls of esoteric circles of individuals who, believing themselves to be superhumans, despise the vulgar but do nothing to improve themselves and the Land of the Fathers. For the Imperium demands the will to individual and collective conversion: to be once again People and Peoples who freely choose to walk the Way of God, to be once again People of God. Indeed, true initiation, true gnosis, the higher knowledge passes through conversion to God, denying one's ego in order to give birth to the new man in Christ, using the means of such initiation, which in the vision of the Christian Tradition are: profound prayer, meditation, asceticism and, above all, the help of the Holy Spirit through the reading of Sacred Scripture and the spiritual nourishment of the Sacraments, which will lead us to true gnosis. Because true gnosis only coincides, however, with holiness, be it Christian, philosophical, hermetic, alchemical or any other historical religion, because to be holy is to live in the presence of God and to do his will, where Being is revealed in Dasein through the Event, and Dasein contemplating Being in the Event opens up to Being and allows it to live in itself...

     We also urge you to find in the spiritual content of the Burning Prayer, in which Montfort invokes the coming of an Age of the Holy Spirit, those interior and eschatological elements that produced in the Indo-European peoples the conversion to the Logos. Who, first through his Apostles and martyrs and then through his itinerant monks, came to announce that the face of God is to be the Father. Thus permitting the gradual birth of Christendom, or rather of Christian Europe, which, if only for some ten centuries, remained united as "one heart and one soul" from Sicily to Scandinavia and from Lisbon to Moscow, whose conjoined ends formed the great Cross and the two-headed Eagle of so many Christian kingdoms and the two great Russian and Roman-Germanic Empires, the former heir to the magnificence of Byzantium and the latter to the glories of Rome, under the Imperium of the Holy Spirit.

Gianni Vannoni: The fiery prayer of St Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort three hundred years after his birth: 31 January 1673

    Preaching once in Brittany, St Vincent Ferreri predicted the coming of a mighty missionary, "whom the Almighty will bring forth in times yet far off". Nearly three centuries had passed, and no one was thinking about that prophecy by then, when one of the most overwhelming missionaries the Lord had sent to earth was born in the Breton citadel of Montfort, from the noble family of Grignion: St. Louis Marie. Seventy-seven years after his death, he would always stir the hearts of the Vendeans, who in 1793 engaged in battle against the 'infernal' armies of the Revolution to the song of religious hymns composed and taught by him [3]. [3] The life of this Saint appears, to those who look into it, like the stained-glass window of a Gothic cathedral: decorated with marvellous narratives, resplendent with vivid and strong colours, all imbued with a supernatural light. We would say that he is a saint from another era, if saints were not above time, fixed like eagles in the splendour of God, and if his time were not tragically similar to ours, as ours is marked by the mark of latent schism and overt heresy.

    The fact is that St Louis Marie had a great fear of God, but no fear of the world. Even as an adolescent he demonstrated this: having found a bad book in his father's library, he threw it into the fire, defying the wrath of his choleric parent. Then, as a student, he serenely suffers the mockery of the know-it-alls who at the Sorbonne see him kneel every time, at the beginning and end of lessons, to pray to the Blessed Virgin to make him find Jesus among the doctors. But it was in his maturity, during the missions, that his holy violence unfolded magnificently. One Sunday in August 1707, he arrived at Moncontour, and found the town square invaded by a crowd of girls and young men intent on dancing. The first to suffer are the musicians: the Saint grabs the musical instruments and throws them on the ground. Then, Rosary in hand, he kneels down and says: "Whoever is of God's party, do as I do". Someone does not take him seriously, but thinks better of recanting as soon as Montfort leaps to his feet again and repeats his invitation. Then no one laughs any more, but everyone takes the way to the church; and the Saint obtains from the mayor the promise of penal sanctions against anyone who would persist in the vice of organising public balls on the Lord's Day. This is how St. Louis Marie began the mission of Moncontour, offering an inexhaustible source of meditation to those clergymen in clergyman's uniforms who use a pop orchestra as the slyest device to attract young people to church [4].

    Moncontour's mission is one of many, and examples could be multiplied. At Nantes, the saint threw himself into the middle of a melee of soldiers and artisans furiously fighting each other; and after separating the contenders, he disposed of the cause of the scandal: a card table, which he smashed with his foot. The mission of Saint-Donatien was threatened by an opposition party, a coven of idlers and 'strong spirits' who were meeting in a tavern near the church. The saint went in there, knelt down just long enough to chant a Hail Mary, then got up, smashed the orchestra and overturned the tables in a ruin of bottles and glasses. The patrons confronted him at gunpoint; St Louis Marie stretched out his arms grasping the Crucifix and the Rosary beads: a hasty escape of the 'strong spirits'. Another time he decided to put an end to the bad habit of holding fairs on Sundays. So he organised a procession of penitents who, reciting the Rosary, made their way to the fair; when they reached the place, at a sign from the Saint they pounced on the stalls and made desert. This time, too, the method proved effective; in fact, from that day on, it was deemed appropriate to reserve Sunday for pious exercises.

    Montfort's holy violence certainly stemmed from his temperament, but it was always the fire of faith that ignited that human store of dynamite. It should be added that the Lord visibly protected him. During Bréal's mission, a bully reacted to his reproaches by brandishing an axe; the Saint threw himself down on his knees and offered his head to receive martyrdom: the impious man railed and ranted, but was unable to strike the blow, as his arms remained paralysed. Miracles are not numbered in the life of St Louis Marie. We will describe a few of them, the first of which is dedicated to parish priests who take care to transform the image of God into that of a sweet Father Christmas. It was 24 December 1712 and the missionary saint was in Esnandes. The hotel of the Palais Royal, very close to the place where the Cross was to be planted, was overflowing with people happily feasting, in a time of fasting and abstinence. The Saint went to the hotelier, a certain Morcant, to point out to him his responsibility in that grave impropriety; but business is business, and the man replied with a shrug of his shoulders. St Louis Marie knelt for a moment; then, rising, he said: 'Wretch, go ahead. You will perish miserably, you and your whole family". It was not long before Morcant was stricken with paralysis, with a constant trembling that earned him the nickname 'the trembler'. His wife indulged in a drinking habit and ended up in shame. His children lived in disgrace until the lineage of Morcant died with them. In the eyes of the people, the Palais Royal changed its name to the Hotel of the Curse, and when it had collapsed, they hastened to bless the new house that had sprung up on the site.

    Another such miracle occurred during the mission of Saint Christophe-du-Ligneron. A moneylender called Tangaran had been so impressed by Montfort's words that he confessed to him that he invited him home to destroy all his loan-sharking contracts. However, when the saint went to the moneylender, he found him of an entirely different opinion, thanks to the arguments that his wife had in the meantime amply illustrated. "Behold!" said St. Louis Marie, "is the voice of a woman then able to prevent you from following your conscience?". But before he left, he added: "You are attached to earth's goods and despise heaven's goods; your children will not succeed, they will leave no offspring; you will become miserable and you will not even have enough to pay for your own funeral". The woman with the ready tongue replied: "Oh! We will have at least thirty money left to pay for the bells. "And I tell you," replied the saint, "that you will not even be honoured by the ringing of the bells at your funeral". Everything was accomplished. Their children married, but had no offspring. The ill-gotten money dissolved, to make way for the blackest misery. Tangaran's wife died in 1730, the moneylender in 1738, but both on Maundy Thursday, with funerals on Friday, in the time that the bells are tied.

    The third miracle we want to recount is related to the salvation of a soul, to the mercy rather than the justice of God. It happened during Vallet's mission in 1708, when a woman went to confession at Montfort's without, however, finding the strength to declare three sins of particular ugliness. She had not been ashamed to commit them, but was now ashamed to confess them, because of self-love. The saint said nothing; he only gave her a handkerchief, with a request to wash it. The woman washed and rubbed it over and over again, but could not remove three stains that seemed indelible. Then she understood, went back to the confessional and overcame her self-love, after which it was enough to wet the handkerchief so that no trace of the stains remained.

    But the supernatural light that surrounded St Louis Marie emanated especially from the Blessed Virgin, towards whom Montfort had such an intense devotion that he associated Her name with his own forever. All his biographers speak on several occasions of the conversations he had with a beautiful white-clad Lady, who was hovering in the air: at one time it was a boy who saw him, at another a peasant, at another another a cattle merchant... Fidelity to Mary, together with that to the Archangel Michael, is the fundamental characteristic of Montfort's spirituality. "When I am about to give a mission somewhere," said the Saint, "the devil always precedes me; but when I arrive I am always the strongest because I have Mary and St Michael the Archangel with me." On his return from Rome, where the Pope had appointed him apostolic missionary, St Louis Marie went on pilgrimage to Mont-Saint-Michel "to pray to the Holy Archangel to obtain for him the grace of winning souls to Christ". In the missions, devotion to the Prince of the angelic militia was nurtured with the foundation of a confraternity of "Soldiers of St Michael", that to the Mother of God with the daily recitation of the Rosary and the "holy slavery of love". In fidelity to the angelic creature and the human one who are most faithful to God, Montfort, bonus miles Christi, advocated the indissoluble unity of fides and fidelitas; a conception, this one, which found its seal in the renewal of baptismal promises, the central act and solemn commitment of every mission.

    Moreover, St. Louis Marie, by his very birth prophesied by St. Vincent Ferreri, is an incarnated symbol of God's fidelity, who always keeps the promises made through the mouths of his saints, despite the passage of time and the contrary appearance. In the Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, Montfort delivered a prophecy, as one who, having fulfilled one of the Lord's promises by his coming into the world, leaves another before returning to God. The prophecy concerns the last times, and goes like this:

    "We are to understand that the first famous prediction and curse of God, hurled in the earthly Paradise against the serpent, refers primarily to these last and cruel persecutions of the devil, which will become more and more severe every day until the reign of the antichrist. It is appropriate to explain it here, for the glory of the Blessed Virgin, the salvation of her children and the confusion of the devil. "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed; she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt bruise her heel" (Genesis 3:15). God has placed not only enmity, but enmities between Mary and the devil, as well as between the offspring of the Blessed Virgin and the offspring of the devil; that is to say, God has placed enmities, antipathies and secret hatreds between the true children and servants of the Blessed Virgin and the children and slaves of the devil: they do not love one another and have no inner correspondence with one another. The children of Belial, the slaves of Satan, the friends of the world (for it is the same thing), have hitherto always persecuted, and will persecute more than ever, those who belong to the Blessed Virgin, as Cain once persecuted his brother Abel, and Esau his brother Jacob, who are the figures of the reprobate and the predestined. But the humble Mary will always bring victory over the proud one, and so great a victory that she will go so far as to crush his head in which his pride resides; she will always uncover his serpent's malice; she will foil his infernal deceptions; she will dispel his diabolical plans; she will safeguard until the end of time his faithful servants against his cruel claw. But Mary's power over all devils will shine forth especially in the last times, when Satan will undermine his heel, that is, the humble slaves, the poor children whom she will raise up to wage war against him. According to the world, they will be small and poor and lowered before all as the heel, pressed down and trodden down as the heel is before the other members of the body; but in return they will be rich in God's graces that Mary will abundantly distribute to them, they will be great and elevated in holiness before God, superior to every creature by their animated zeal, and so strongly supported by divine help, that with the humility of their heel, in union with Mary, they will crush the devil's head and make Jesus Christ triumph". They "will be the true apostles of the last times: to them the Lord of virtues will give the word and the strength to work wonders and to win glorious spoils from his enemies. They shall sleep without gold or silver, and, what is more, without trouble among the other priests, clergy and clerics, inter medios cleros (Ps. 67, 14); and yet they shall have the silver wings of the dove, to go where the Holy Spirit shall call them, with the pure intention of the glory of God and the salvation of souls; and they shall leave behind them, in the places where they have preached, only the gold of charity, which is the fulfilment of the whole law (Rom. 13, 10). Lastly, we know that they will be true disciples of Jesus Christ, who will walk in the footsteps of his poverty, his humility, his contempt for the world and his charity, who will teach the narrow way of God in pure truth, according to the holy Gospel and not according to the maxims of the world, without any partiality, without sparing, listening to or fearing any mortal, however powerful he may be. They shall have in their mouths the two-edged sword of the word of God; they shall carry on their shoulders the bloody banner of the Cross, the crucifix in their right hand, the rosary in their left, the sacred names of Jesus and Mary on their hearts, and the modesty and mortification of Jesus Christ in all their conduct. These are the great men to come, whom Mary will form, by the command of the Most High, to extend her empire over the ungodly" [5].

    The prophecy exhales the same aroma as the Fiery Prayer, with which the Saint asked the Lord to send those prodigious men. The Saint asked precisely for "priests": which is only right; because, according to Blanc de Saint Bonnet's felicitous expression, "the clergy is the aristocracy of the nation"; and the presence of the "great" is irreplaceable, it is the driving force of the minores, such as the laity. Only from the branches of a firmly established priestly tree can a lay aristocracy devoted to the Lord naturally flourish, a new chivalric nobility at the service of the King of kings, a legion of soldiers of the Archangel Michael planting the banner of the Cross not only on the hearts of men, but also at the summit of civil society. It is with this wish that we reproduce here in its entirety the Burning Prayer, imploring the Divine Majesty to listen to the voice of his humble servant St Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, for mercy on us who remain on this earth.

Fiery Prayer of St Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort

To the Father

[1] Memento Domine Congregationis tuae, quam possedisti ab initio! Remember, Lord, your community which you have possessed from the beginning! (1). You possessed her in your spirit from eternity, when you turned your thoughts to her. You possessed her in your hands, when you drew the universe from nothing. You possessed her in your heart, when your beloved Son, dying on the cross, consecrated her by irrigating her with his own blood and entrusting her to his holy Mother.

[2] Lord, fulfil thy plans of mercy. Raise up the men of your right hand (2), whom you have shown in prophetic visions to some of your greatest servants: St Francis of Paola, St Vincent Ferreri, St Catherine of Siena and so many others of the last century and also of our own (3).

[3] Remember, Almighty God, this company! Commit the strength of your unweakened arm (4) to bring it into being and bring it to perfection. Renew the signs and perform other wonders; let us feel the help of thy arm (5). Thou who canst draw from rough stones as many sons of Abraham (6), speak one divine word and send good labourers to thy harvest (7) and good missionaries to thy Church.
(4) Remember, merciful God, the love shown to thy people of old, and by the same love remember this congregation. Remember the repeated promises made by you through the prophets and your own Son to grant our just requests. Remember the prayers addressed to you by your servants and servants over so many centuries in this regard. Let their yearnings, their heartfelt tears and their shed blood come before you to effectively solicit your mercy. But remember above all your beloved Son: look upon the face of your anointed one (8). His agony, his agony, his groaning in love in the Garden of Olives when he said: "What profit is there in my death?" (9), his cruel torment and his shed blood cry out to thee: mercy! Through this congregation may Christ's kingdom rise steadfast over the ruins of that of your enemies.

[5] Remember, Lord, this congregation to fulfil your justice. It is time for you to act according to your promise. They have violated your law (10), your gospel has been forsaken, torrents of iniquity are sweeping over the earth and overwhelming even your servants. The whole earth is in a deplorable state (11), ungodliness sits enthroned, your sanctuary is desecrated and abomination has come to the holy place (12). Lord, righteous God, will you in your zeal let everything go to ruin? Will everything eventually become like Sodom and Gomorrah? Will you always keep silent and always be patient? Shall not thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and shall not thy kingdom be established? Have you not long since revealed to some of your friends a future renewal of the Church? Must not the Jews acknowledge the truth? (13) All this awaits the Church. All the saints in heaven cry out: will you not do justice? (14). All the righteous of the earth implore: Amen. Come, Lord! (15). All creatures, even the least sensitive, groan under the weight of the countless crimes of Babylon and invoke your coming to restore all things: for we know well that all creation groans... (16).

To the Son

[6] Remember, Lord Jesus, your community! Remember to give your Mother a new Company to renew all things. Thus through Mary you will conclude the years of grace, which you inaugurated through her. Give children and servants to your Mother, otherwise let me die! (17). Give children and servants to your Mother... For your Mother I beseech you. Remember her who begot thee, and reject me not. Remember whose son you are, and fulfil me. Remember what your Mother is to you and you to her, and fulfil my wishes. What do I ask of you? I ask what you can, nay; I dare affirm; you must grant me, as a true God, to whom all power in heaven and on earth has been given (18), and as an exemplary son who loves his Mother immensely.

[7] What do I ask of you? Liberos! Free priests according to your freedom, freed from everything, detached from father, mother (19), brothers, sisters, relatives according to the flesh, friends according to the world; without possessions, impediments and worries, even without attachment to your own will (20).

[8] Liberos! Men totally dedicated to you out of love and available to your will, men according to your heart. Not diverted nor held back by their own designs, let them fulfil all your designs and strike down all your enemies, like new Davids holding the staff of the Cross and the sling of the rosary (21).

[9] Liberos! Men like clouds raised from the earth and saturated with heavenly dew, ready to fly wherever the breath of the Holy Spirit impels them. The prophets also saw them when they asked: Who are they that fly like clouds? (22). They went wherever the Spirit directed them (23).

[10] Liberos! People always at your disposal, always ready to obey the call of your superiors, like Samuel: Here I am! (24), always ready to run and all endure with you and for you, like the Apostles: We also yearn to die with him! (25).

[11] Liberos! True children of Mary, your holy Mother, conceived and begotten by her love (26), carried in her womb, nourished, educated with care, sustained and enriched with graces.

[12] Liberos! True servants of the Blessed Virgin. Like St Dominic, they will go everywhere with the bright and burning torch of the Gospel in their mouths and the Rosary in their hands. They will bark like dogs, they will blaze like torches, they will light up the darkness of the world like the sun (27). They will have a true devotion to Mary, that is interior and not hypocritical, exterior and not hypercritical, wise and not superstitious, affectionate and not insensitive, constant and not unstable, holy and not presumptuous. By it they shall crush the head of the ancient serpent wherever they go, that the curse foretold by you may be fully realised: I will put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head (28).

[13] It is true, great God! As thou hast foretold, the devil shall lay great snares at the heel of this mysterious woman, that is, at the little company of her children, who shall come to the end of the world. There will be great enmity between this blessed race of Mary and the accursed race of Satan; but it will be a totally divine enmity, the only one of which you are the author. The struggles and persecutions that the offspring of Belial (29) will bring upon the descendants of your Mother will only serve to make clear how efficacious is your grace, how courageous their virtue, and how powerful your Mother. For to her thou hast entrusted from the beginning of the world the task of crushing with heel and humble heart the head of the proud.

[14] Else let me die! My God, is it not better for me to die than to see You so cruelly and with impunity offended every day, and to find myself more and more in danger of being overwhelmed by the swelling torrents of iniquity? I would prefer death a thousand times over! Send me help from heaven, or take my life! If I did not have the hope that sooner or later you would fulfil this poor sinner in the interest of your glory, as you have fulfilled so many others (30), I would pray to you without hesitation with a prophet: Take my life! (31) But trust in your mercy urges me to declare with another prophet: I will not die, I will remain alive and proclaim the works of the Lord (32), until I can exclaim with Simeon: Now let your servant go in peace, O Lord, for my eyes have seen your salvation (33).

To the Holy Spirit

[15] Holy Spirit, remember to beget and form children of God with Mary, your holy and faithful spouse. You formed in her and with her the head of the elect, therefore with her and in her you must form all his members. You do not form any divine Person within the Godhead, but only you form all the divine Persons out of the Godhead. All the saints of the past and of the future until the end of the world are works of your love united with that of Mary.

[16] The special reign of God the Father lasted until the flood and ended with a flood of water. The reign of Jesus Christ ended with a flood of blood. But your kingdom, Spirit of the Father and of the Son, continues to this day and will end with a flood of fire of love and righteousness (34).

[17] When will come this flood of fire of pure love, which you are to kindle over the whole earth so sweetly and so vehemently that it will inflame and convert even Muslims, pagans and Jews? Nothing escapes its heat (35). Therefore let this divine fire, which Jesus Christ came to bring to the earth (36), be kindled, before the fire of your wrath blazes, which will reduce the whole earth to ashes. Send forth your Spirit and all are created, and renew the face of the earth (37). Send this Spirit all fire into the earth and create priests all fire! By their ministry may the face of the earth be renewed and your Church reformed.

[18] Remember your community. It is a congregation, an assembly, a group of chosen ones in the world and from the world: I have chosen you out of the world (38). It is a flock of tame lambs to be gathered among many wolves (39), a company of chaste doves and golden eagles among many crows, a swarm of bees among many bumblebees, a herd of agile deer among many tortoises, a flock of intrepid lions among many timid hares. Lord, gather us from among the peoples (40), gather us together, make us united, that your holy and mighty name may be fully glorified.

[19] Thou hast foretold this distinguished company to thy prophet, who speaks of it in very obscure and mysterious, but totally divine terms:

10. A plentiful rain, O God, didst thou set apart for thy inheritance. This was exhausted, but thou hast invigorated it.

11. Thy animals dwelt in it. In your goodness, O God, you provided for the poor.

12. The Lord will give the word to those who proclaim the glad tidings with great strength.

13. The king of hosts is in favour of the favoured people, and the women, the ornament of the house, already divide the spoils.

14. When you rest among the flocks you are like doves with silver wings and feathers the colour of gold.

15. When the King of Heaven smote the kings of Canaan, it snowed on Mount Selmon.

16. Fertile mountain is the Mount of God, a compact and lush mountain.

17. Why envy ye, ye mountains of lofty summits, the mountain which God hath chosen for His dwelling-place? The Lord will dwell there forever! (41).

[20] What, O Lord, is this abundant rain which Thou hast separated and chosen to invigorate Thy exhausted inheritance? Are they not these holy missionaries, children of Mary thy bride, whom thou hast chosen and gathered together for the good of thy Church so weakened and stained by the sins of her children?

[21] Who are these animals and these poor, who shall dwell in thy land and be nourished by the sweet food thou hast prepared for them? Are they not these poor missionaries, abandoned to Providence and sated by the abundance of your delights? Are they not the mysterious animals of which Ezekiel speaks? (42). They will have the goodness of man, because they will love their neighbour with selflessness and commitment; the courage of the lion, because they will burn with holy indignation and prudent zeal in the face of the demon children of Babylon; the strength of the ox, because they will undertake apostolic labours and the mortification of the body, and finally the agility of the eagle, because they will contemplate God. Such will be the missionaries you want to send to your Church. They will have a man's eye for their neighbour, a lion's eye for your enemies, an ox's eye for themselves, and an eagle's eye for you.

[22] These imitators of the apostles will preach with such power (43), so great and resounding that they will shake all minds and hearts wherever they go. For to them you will give your word, indeed your tongue and wisdom, which no adversary will be able to resist (44).

[23] As the king of the virtue of thy Son Jesus Christ, thou shalt find thy favour among these beloved ones, for in all their missions they shall have the sole purpose of ascribing to thee the glory of the trophies brought back upon thy enemies.

[24] Because of their abandonment to Providence and devotion to Mary, they will have the silver wings of the dove, that is, purity of doctrine and life. They shall also have golden shoulders, that is, a perfect charity towards their neighbour to tolerate his faults and a great love for Jesus Christ to bear his cross.

[25] Only you, King of Heaven and King of kings, will separate these missionaries from the masses as kings. Thou wilt make them whiter than the snow of Selmon, the mountain of God, fertile and luxuriant, solid and compact, where God wonderfully pleases, dwells and will dwell forever. Lord, God of truth, who is this mysterious mountain of which you reveal so many wondrous things, if not Mary, your dear Bride? She is the mountain you have erected on the summit of the highest mountains (45), her foundations are on the holy mountains (46). Blessed, very blessed, are the priests chosen by you and destined to dwell with you on this fertile and holy mountain. Here they shall become kings for eternity through detachment from the earth and elevation into God. They will become whiter than snow because they will be united with Mary, your totally beautiful, pure and immaculate bride. They will be enriched with the dew of heaven and the abundance of the earth (47), with every temporal and eternal blessing with which Mary is filled. From the top of this mountain, like Moses, with their ardent prayers they will shoot arrows at their enemies to strike them down or convert them (48). On this mountain they will learn from the very mouth of Jesus Christ, who always dwells there, the meaning of the eight beatitudes. On this mountain of God they will be transfigured with Christ as on Tabor, they will die with him as on Calvary, they will ascend to heaven with him as on the Mount of Olives.

[26] Remember "your" community. It is for you alone to establish this community with your grace. If man first sets his hand to it, he will do nothing with it; if he puts something of his own into it, he will ruin and upset everything. Great God, it is exclusively your task! Carry out this wholly divine work. Gather, call, gather from all parts of your kingdom your chosen ones to make them an army corps against your enemies.

[27] Behold, Lord God of hosts! Captains mobilise whole companies, kings raise numerous armies, sailors form full fleets, merchants throng the markets and fairs. How many thieves, the impious, drunkards and dissolute gather in great numbers every day with such ease and readiness against you! It is enough to give a whistle, beat a drum, show the blunt end of a sword, promise a dry branch of laurel, offer a piece of yellow or white earth! It is enough, in short, to promise a puff of honour smoke, a paltry interest and a miserable animal pleasure... and in an instant the thieves are gathered, the soldiers are massed, the battalions are united, the merchants are assembled, the houses and the fairs are filled, and the land and the sea are covered with an innumerable multitude of perverts! Though divided among them because of distance of place or difference of character or diversity of interest, they all join together unto death to make war on you under the banner and leadership of the devil.

[28] And as for you, great God? Will there be hardly anyone who will take your cause to heart even though there is so much glory, usefulness and sweetness in serving you? Why so few soldiers under thy banner? Hardly anyone will cry out in the midst of his brethren for the zeal of your glory like St Michael: Who is like God? (49). Let me then cry out everywhere: Fire! Fire! Fire!... Help! Help! Help!... There is fire in the house of God! There is fire in souls! There is fire even in the sanctuary... Help! They are murdering our brother! Help! They are killing our children! Help! they are stabbing our good father!... (50)

[He who is with the Lord, come to me! (51). All the good priests scattered throughout the Christian world, whether they are still in the thick of the fight or have withdrawn from the fray in deserts and solitudes, come and join us (52). Let us form together, under the banner of the cross, an army lined up and ready for battle, to attack compactly the enemies of God who have already sounded the alarm: they are sounding the alarm, they are quivering (53), they are gnashing their teeth (54), they are growing in number (55). "Let us break their chains, let us cast away their bonds". He who dwells in the heavens laughs at them, the Lord mocks them from on high (56).

(30) Let God arise, let his enemies disperse! (57). Awake, why do you sleep, Lord? Awake! (58). Lord, arise! Why do you pretend to sleep? Arise with all your almightiness, mercy and justice. Form a chosen company of bodyguards, to protect your house, defend your glory and save souls, that there may be one fold and one shepherd (59) and all may glorify you in your temple (60). Amen.

DIO SOLO!

Notes
(1) Ps 74:2. (2) In the Bible, the right hand is a symbol both of God's power, of which man can be an instrument, and of the favour and blessing that God grants to his friends...
(3) In his Treatise on True Devotion to Mary, nos. 47-48, Montfort reports the mystical testimonies of St Vincent Ferreri (+1419) and Marie des Vallées (+1656). St Francis of Paola (+1507) also speaks in his letters of a congregation of crucifiers that will bear much fruit for the Church (cf. CORNELIO ALAPIDE, in Apoc. 17, in fine). St Catherine of Siena (+1380) reports divine communications about the "renewal and exaltation of the Church, which she must have in the time to come" (Lettere, Florence, 1940, t. III, p. 267), through "the reformation of saints and good pastors" (Il Dialogo, Rome, 1968, p. 33) . Montfort's contemporaries include Olier (+1657), who asks the Lord to raise up "people who will renew the divine order of pastors" (Mémoires autobiographiques).
(4) Is 59,1.
(5) Sir 36,5 (Vulg. 36,6): "Renew signs and perform other wonders, glorify your hand and your right arm".
(6) Cf Mt 3,9; Lk 3,8. (7) Mk 10,2. (8) Ps 84 (83), 10. (9) Ps 30 (29), 10. (10) Ps 118 (119), 26. (12) Cf Dan 9,27; Mt 24,15; Mk 13,14. (13) Cf Rom 11,25-26.
(14) In the original text there is "Vindica"; cf Rev 6:10 Vulg: "et clamabant voce magna dicentes usquequo Domine sanctus et verus non iudicas et vindicas sanguinem nostrum de his qui habitant in terra; Breviarium Romanum, Fest. SS. Innocentium, ant. V.
(15) Cf Rev 22,20. (16) Cf Rom 8,22.
(17) Cf Gen 30,1. At this point Montfort quotes the Latin phrase Da Matri tuae liberos alioquin moriar (Gen30,1) and comments on it, insisting on the word liberos which he repeats six times at the beginning of each number (from 7 to 12). The Latin word liber (plural liberos) has a double meaning: as an adjective it means 'free', not servant; as a noun it means 'son'. The Romans called sons liberos precisely to distinguish them from servants. With the term liberos Montfort's prayer also expresses a double intention: it asks God for missionaries who are "free" (nos. 7-10), but who are at the same time "sons" of Mary (nos. 11-12).
(18) Mt 28:18.(19) Cf Heb 7:3. Of Melchizedek, king and priest, the letter to the Hebrews says that "he is without father, without mother, without genealogy" (Heb 7,3).
(20) Cf Mk 10,29; Lk 14,26.
(21) In baculo cruce et in virga virgine. Cf. Num 17,23; 1 Sam 17,43; S. PIER DAMIANI, Sermon for the Assumption, PL 144, 721 C.
(22) Is 60,8; cf. VD 57. (23) Ez 1,12. (24) 1 Sam 3,16. (25) Jn 11,16.
(26) Cf St Augustine, The Holy Virginity 6,6 PL 40,399: "Mary is undoubtedly the mother of her members, which are us, in the sense that she has co-operated through love to generate the Church of the faithful, who form the members of that head".
(27) Cf JORDAN OF SASSONIA, Libellus de principiis ordinis praedicatorum, ed H.C. Schebeen, Moph Roma, 1935. Mention is made here of the heavenly omens that would have preceded the birth of St Dominic of Gusman: "his mother dreamt that she carried a little dog in her womb with a lighted torch in her mouth that set the whole world on fire" (cf Encyclopaedia Catholica, Vatican City, c. l825).
(28) Gen 3:15. (29) Cf. 2 Cor 6:15. (30) Ps 34:7: "This poor man cries out and the Lord hears him". (31) 1 Kings 19:4. (32) Ps 118:17. (33) Lk 2:29-30.
(34) The image of the three floods is found in a revelation of Marie des Vallées, reported by Renty (ms. 3177, Bibl. Mazarine), which Montfort quotes in VD 47. Montfort adds to the three floods the idea of three kingdoms, making the negative view of Marie des Vallées more positive. Cf. S. DE FIORES, "Lo Spirito Santo e Maria negli ultimi tempi secondo S. Luigi Maria da Monftort", in Quaderni Monfortani, 4 (1986), pp. 3-48.
(35) Ps 19,7. (36) Cf Lk 12,49.
(37) Ps 104,30. In the second Italian edition of the Works (S. LUIGI MARIA DA MONTFORT, Opere, vol. I, Scritti Spirituali, Roma: Ed. Montfortane, 1990), the prayer which Montfort here expresses in the words of Ps 104, has been moved to the beginning of n. 18 of the PI. I have preferred to re-establish the numbering of the critical edition (Paris: Seuil, 1966, reprinted 1988) in order to unify the mode of quotation.
(38) Jn 15:19. (39) Cf Lk 10:3. (40) Ps 105,47.
41 Ps 68, 10-17. Psalm 68 "is among the most difficult in the Psalter" (M. Sales). Montfort comments on it in the following numbers (20-25) following the version of the Vulgate, which often offers a plausible interpretation of the Hebrew text. This is why our translation of the Psalm departs from that of the CEI (which remains one of the possible readings of the text). More profoundly, Montfort perceives the dynamics and contents of Psalm 68. He "shares with the psalmist a reading of the history of salvation understood as an equal search for a dwelling place for God and then for the people. The history of the God who intervenes to procure a dwelling is now directed towards Mary, the Salmon of the new economy' (M. ZAPPELLA, 'Il Salmo 68 e la preghiera infocata. Annotazioni esegetiche, in Quaderni Montfortani, 4 (1986), p. 116.
(42) Cf Ez 1, 5-14.
(43) To the expression virtute multa of Psalm 68 Montfort adds virtute magna of Acts 4,33.
(44) Cf Lk 21,15. (45) Is 2,2. (46) Ps 87,1. (47) Cf Gen 27,28. (48) Cf Ex 17,13.
(49) Cf St GREGORIO MAGNO, Homily 34 on the Gospel, PL 125 l A. Montfort draws directly from OLIER, Lettres, Paris: Lecoffre, 1885, t. II, p 576.
(50) Montfort takes the cue to shout To the fire! from a text by Saint JOHN EUDES (Lettre XXXIX, 23.7.1659, in Oeuvres complétes X, p. 432), but with his own developments or emphases.
(51) Ex 32,26. (52) Vis unita fit fortior. (53) Cf Ps 45,4; 2,1. (54) Cf Ps 34,14. (55) Cf Ps 68,5. (56) Ps 2, 3-4. (57) Ps 67,1. (58) Ps 43,24. (59) Jn 10,1. (60) Cf Ps 28,9.
[1] Extract from Rassegna di Ascetica e Mistica, N. 2, Florence 1973, Convento PP. Dominicans of S. Marco - Florence.
[2] Aleksandr Dugin, The Midnight Sun. Aurora del Soggetto Radicale, AGA Edizioni, Milan 2019, pp. 11,25.
[3] Cf. the introduction to the Obras de San Luis Maria Grignion de Montfort, Madrid 1954, p. 63: 'The fruit that these canticles produced during the missions and afterwards is incalculable. They aroused and maintained religious feeling and fervour during the mission and later served as a reminder of the truths learned in it. Many years after the Montfort's death they continued and still continue to do good among the French people. "They were not forgotten by the people of the West," wrote the magazine Etudes in 1888, "When they fought for religion and the king, the peasants of the Vendée and Brittany sang them against the Carmagnola and Ça ira that resounded in the enemy camp. On the work of the Montfortians in the Vendée, cf. the book by Monsignor Laveille, Le Bienheurex Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort et ses familles religieuses, Paris 1916, p. 404: "They had been able to communicate to the peasants a faith so ardent as to make of them, in the hour of the great revolutionary iniquities, a people of soldiers and martyrs". The importance of the Montfortian apostolate in the framework of the Vendée uprising is now unanimously recognised; see, for example, the popular booklet by M. Lidove, Les Vendéens de 93, Paris 1971, p. 31.
[4] In these last words of Vannoni's, the open polemic against the abandonment of the cassock by priests is evident, and against the new rite of Paul VI's Mass, which, undermining the ancient rite of St. Pius V, privileges the communitarian aspect of a theatrical type to the sacredness and verticality that had always characterised the previous liturgy of the Church of Rome. It is therefore not a polemic against the introduction of national languages into the liturgy, but against the nature of the new rite itself.
[5] Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, nn. 51-59, Ed. Paoline, Year and pp. not cited.