The route was planned: from Poitiers he would go to Lyon; from there he would cross Piedmont to reach Bologna, Rimini, Loreto and, finally, the much-desired Rome. And from the Eternal City he would go to Canada, Japan or any other remote part of the world where no one had heard of Jesus and His Mother. The apostolic zeal of St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort had found no faster and more direct way to achieve his missionary hopes.
It was a fast and direct path, yes, but not at all straight or easy. The young priest would be exposed to the attacks of men and the weather, to humiliations, to the most dire poverty and to physical and psychological exhaustion. But he did not care! The scorn of the clergy, the distrust of the people, the nights spent under the cold starlight: none of this would prevent him from addressing the Holy Father, to speak to him about the conquest of the pagan world for the Holy Church. France, his homeland, did not want to hear him; he would then turn to the Gentiles, to the immense multitude of peoples yet to be baptized.
With such intentions, Father Louis-Marie finally entered Rome. A few days later, on June 6, 1706, Pope Clement XI received the pilgrim and listened with pleasure to his fervent dissertation. He spoke to the Vicar of Christ about the Chinese who had never heard the Gospel, about the Holy Places of Jerusalem that lacked worthy souls to venerate them, about the immense Canada that awaited more preachers…
While Father Louis-Marie was speaking, the Roman Pontiff smiled, because he saw in him a man sent by Providence to… France, where heresy and schism were rampant. Jansenism had firmly established itself there, separating the faithful from Jesus in the Eucharist, and Gallicanism threatened to separate the French nation from the Roman Church. The battlefield was therefore not Lapland, Mongolia, or Indonesia.
“You have”, replied the Pope at the end of Father Louis-Marie’s words, “a very large field in France to exercise your zeal; you need not go anywhere else.” The fiery priest bowed his head and, doubling his enthusiasm, obeyed.
God had placed within St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort ardent desires to fight for the conversion of souls. And the Saint had interpreted the divine voice as a call to distant missions. When, however, he heard the Holy Father’s order, he did not take it as contrary to the Lord’s promises. Rather, he subjected his criteria to the ineffable judgments of the Almighty. There was some magnificent and unknown design in this.
He therefore bravely embarked on an apostolate among his countrymen, especially in the Vendée and Brittany. And, had he lived there until the end of the century, he would have seen the august intention of God fulfilled through that apparent misapprehension. Indeed, it was only in those regions that the French Revolution encountered fearless and organized opposition. Only from the soil watered by the preachings of St. Louis did resistance spring forth against that eruption of atheism that persecuted the Church and expelled God from the altar. Only there was an epic Christian saga of heroism and suffering written.
