Searching for Jesus in the Wrong Places

If Mary, the Tree of Life, is well cultivated in our soul by fidelity to this devotion, she will in due time bring forth her fruit which is none other than Jesus.

I have seen many devout souls searching for Jesus in one way or another, and so often when they have worked hard throughout the night, all they can say is, "Despite our having worked all night, we have caught nothing."

To them we can say, "You have worked hard and gained little; Jesus can only be recognized faintly in you." But if we follow the immaculate path of Mary, living the devotion that I teach, we will always work in daylight, we will work in a holy place, and we will work but little. There is no darkness in Mary, not even the slightest shadow since there was never any sin in her. She is a holy place, a holy of holies, in which saints are formed and molded.

Please note that I say that saints are molded in Mary. There is a vast difference between carving a statue by blows of hammer and chisel and making a statue by using a mold. Sculptors and statue-makers work hard and need plenty of time to make statues by the first method. But the second method does not involve much work and takes very little time.

St. Augustine speaking to our Blessed Lady says, "You are worthy to be called the mold of God." Mary is a mold capable of forming people into the image of the God-man.

Anyone who is cast into this divine mould is quickly shaped and molded into Jesus and Jesus into him. At little cost and in a short time he will become Christ-like since he is cast into the very same mould that fashioned a God-man.

I think I can very well compare some spiritual directors and devout persons to sculptors who wish to produce Jesus in themselves and in others by methods other than this. Many of them rely on their own skill, ingenuity and art and chip away endlessly with mallet and chisel at hard stone or badly-prepared wood, in an effort to produce a likeness of our Lord.

At times, they do not manage to produce a recognizable likeness either because they lack knowledge and experience of the person of Jesus or because a clumsy stroke has spoiled the whole work.

But those who accept this little-known secret of grace which I offer them can rightly be compared to smelters and molders who have discovered the beautiful mould of Mary where Jesus was so divinely and so naturally formed.

They do not rely on their own skill but on the perfection of the mould.  They cast and lose themselves in Mary where they become true models of her Son.

You may think this a beautiful and convincing comparison.

But how many understand it?

I would like you, my dear friend, to understand it. But remember that only molten and liquefied substances may be poured into a mold.

That means that you must crush and melt down the old Adam in you if you wish to acquire the likeness of the new Adam in Mary.

(By Saint Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary)