Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, SMM (French pronunciation: [lwi maʁi ɡʁiɲɔ̃ də mɔ̃fɔʁ]; 31 January 1673 – 28 April 1716) was a French Catholic priest known for his influence on Catholic Mariology. He wrote a number of books that went on to become classic Catholic titles, including Secret of the Rosary and True Devotion to Mary, and influenced several popes. He also founded several religious communities, including the Company of Mary.
Pope Pius XII canonised him on 20 July 1947. A "founder's statue" created by Giacomo Parisini is located in an upper niche of the south nave of St. Peter's Basilica.
Montfort was born in 1673 in Montfort-sur-Meu, the eldest surviving child of eighteen born to Jean-Baptiste and Jeanne Robert Grignion. His father was a notary. Louis-Marie passed most of his infancy and early childhood in Iffendic, a few kilometers from Montfort, where his father had bought a farm. At the age of 12, he entered the Jesuit College of St. Thomas Becket in Rennes, where his uncle was a parish priest. At the end of his ordinary schooling, he began his studies of philosophy and theology, still at St. Thomas in Rennes.
Listening to the stories of a local priest, the Abbé Julien Bellier, about his life as an itinerant missionary, Montfort was inspired to preach missions among the very poor. Bellier was propagating among his students a consecration and entrustment to Mary. Under the guidance of Bellier and other priests, de Montfort began to develop his strong devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Through a benefactor, opportunity arose to go to Paris to study at the renowned Seminary of Saint-Sulpice towards the end of 1693. When Montfort arrived in Paris, it was to find that his benefactor had not provided enough money for him, so he lodged in a succession of boarding houses, living among the very poor, in the meantime attending the Sorbonne University for lectures in theology. After less than two years, he became very ill and had to be admitted to hospital. He survived this, despite the blood letting that was common practice at that time.
Leaving hospital, he was surprised to find his place had been kept open for him at the Little Saint-Sulpice, which he entered in July 1695. This seminary had been founded by Jean-Jacques Olier, one of the leading experts of what came to be known as the French school of spirituality. He was appointed the seminary's librarian, which gave him the opportunity to study most of the available works on spirituality and, in particular, on the Virgin Mary's place in the Christian life. This later led to his focus on the Holy rosary and Montfort's acclaimed book, The Secret of the Rosary.
Even as a seminarian in Paris, Montfort was known for his veneration of angels: he "urged his confreres to show marks of respect and tenderness to their guardian angels" and often ended his letters with a salutation to the guardian angel of the person to whom he was writing. When, later, he arrived in Nantes, he saluted all the angels of the city. Apparently, this was something he repeated whenever he entered a village or town.
One reason behind Montfort's showing such devotion to angels is that veneration of the pure spirits was an integral part of his training, and also of his culture. His college teachers, all Jesuits, were known for their zeal in propagating devotion to the angels. Montfort's seminary training under the Sulpicians brought him into contact with the thought of Cardinal de Bérulle and Olier, both of whom had deep veneration for the angels. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, manuals of piety and treatises on the pure spirits abounded.
Louis was ordained a priest in June 1700, and assigned to Nantes. His great desire had been the foreign missions, preferably in the new French colony of Canada, but his spiritual director advised against it. Letters of this period show he felt frustrated by the lack of opportunity to preach as he felt he was called to.
In November 1710 he joined the Third Order of Saint Dominic and asked permission not only to preach the rosary, but also to form rosary confraternities. He began to consider forming a small company of priests to preach missions and retreats under the standard and protection of the Blessed Virgin. This was to eventually lead to the founding of the Company of Mary.
Around this time, Louis de Montfort was appointed chaplain of the hospital in Nantes. This was when he was first introduced to Marie Louise Trichet, a meeting that launched her 34 years' service to the poor. During Louis de Montfort's time, France was beginning to face a mounting economic crisis: a rapidly growing population was outpacing the food supply.
Desiring to be a missionary, Montfort made a pilgrimage to Rome to ask the advice of Pope Clement XI. The Pope recognized his real vocation and, telling him there was plenty of opportunity for its exercise in France, sent him back with the title of Apostolic Missionary. On his return from his long pilgrimage to Rome, Montfort made a retreat at Mont Saint Michel "to pray to this archangel to obtain from him the grace to win souls for God, to confirm those already in God's grace, and to fight Satan and sin". These occasions gave him time to think, contemplate and write.
For several years he preached in missions from Brittany to Nantes. As his reputation as a missioner grew, he became known as "the good Father from Montfort". At Pontchateau he attracted hundreds of people to help him in the construction of a huge calvary. However, on the very eve of its blessing, the Bishop, having heard it was to be destroyed on the orders of the King of France under the influence of members of the Jansenist school, forbade its benediction. It is reported that upon receiving this news, he simply said, "Blessed be God."
Montfort left Nantes and the next several years were extraordinarily busy for him. He was constantly occupied in preaching missions, always walking between one and another. Yet he found time also to write his True Devotion to Mary, The Secret of Mary and the Secret of the Rosary, rules for the Company of Mary and the Daughters of Wisdom, and many hymns. His missions made a great impact, especially in the Vendée. The heated style of his preaching was regarded by some people as somewhat strange and he was poisoned once. Although it did not prove fatal, it caused his health to deteriorate. Yet he continued, undeterred. He went on preaching and established free schools for the poor boys and girls.
The bishop of La Rochelle had been impressed with Montfort for some time and invited him to open a school there. Montfort enlisted the help of his follower Marie Louise Trichet, who was then running the General Hospital in Poitiers. In 1715 Marie Louise and Catherine Brunet left Poitiers for La Rochelle to open the school there and in a short time it had 400 students.
On 22 August 1715 Trichet and Brunet, along with Marie Valleau and Marie Régnier from La Rochelle, received the approbation of Bishop de Champflour of La Rochelle to make their religious vows under the direction of Montfort. At the ceremony Montfort told them: "Call yourselves the Daughters of Wisdom, for the teaching of children and the care of the poor." The Daughters of Wisdom grew into an international organization and the placing of Montfort's founders statue in Saint Peter's Basilica was based on that organization.
Montfort's 16 years of priesthood include many months of solitude, perhaps as many as a total of four years; at the cave of Mervent, amidst the beauty of the forest, at the hermitage of Saint Lazarus near the village of Montfort, and at the hermitage of Saint Eloi in La Rochelle.
Worn out by hard work and sickness, he finally came in April 1716 to Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre to begin the mission which was to be his last. During it, he fell ill and died on 28 April of that year. He was 43 years old, and had been a priest for only 16 years. His last sermon was on the tenderness of Jesus and the Incarnate Wisdom of the Father. Thousands gathered for his burial in the parish church, and very quickly there were stories of miracles performed at his tomb.