Day 6: Renounce the spirit of the world

227. First practice. Those men and women who wish to enter into this particular devotion, which is by no means erected into a confraternity, although that were to be wished, after having, as I have said in the first part of this preparation for the Reign of Jesus Christ, spent twelve days at least in emptying themselves of the spirit of the world, contrary to that of Jesus Christ, shall spend three weeks in filling themselves with Jesus Christ through the Most Blessed Virgin. Here is the order they may keep:

St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary §227. Our complete English edition.

90. These five truths being presupposed, it is now more than ever necessary to make a good choice of true devotion to the Most Blessed Virgin, for there are now more than ever false devotions to the Blessed Virgin, which it is easy to take for true devotions. The devil, like a counterfeiter and a cunning and experienced deceiver, has already deceived and damned so many souls by a false devotion to the Most Blessed Virgin that he makes daily use of his diabolical experience to damn many others by it, amusing them and lulling them to sleep in sin, under the pretext of a few prayers badly said and a few exterior practices that he inspires in them. As a counterfeiter ordinarily counterfeits only gold and silver, and very rarely the other metals, because they are not worth the trouble, so the evil spirit does not counterfeit the other devotions so much as those of Jesus and of Mary, devotion to Holy Communion and devotion to the Blessed Virgin, because they are, among the other devotions, what gold and silver are among the metals.

91. It is therefore very important to know, first, the false devotions to the Most Blessed Virgin in order to avoid them, and the true one in order to embrace it; secondly, among so many different practices of true devotion to the Blessed Virgin, which is the most perfect, the most pleasing to the Blessed Virgin, the most glorious to God, and the most sanctifying for us, so that we may attach ourselves to it.

1- False devotees and false devotions to the Blessed Virgin

92. I find seven kinds of false devotees and false devotions to the Blessed Virgin, namely: 1. the critical devotees; 2. the scrupulous devotees; 3. the exterior devotees; 4. the presumptuous devotees; 5. the inconstant devotees; 6. the hypocritical devotees; 7. the self-interested devotees.

1. The critical devotees.

93. The critical devotees are, ordinarily, proud scholars, freethinking and self-sufficient minds, who at bottom have some devotion to the Blessed Virgin, but who criticize almost all the practices of devotion to the Blessed Virgin which simple people render simply and holily to this good Mother, because these practices do not suit their fancy. They call into doubt all the miracles and accounts reported by trustworthy authors, or drawn from the chronicles of religious orders, which bear witness to the mercies and the power of the Most Blessed Virgin. It is only with pain that they can see simple and humble people on their knees before an altar or image of the Blessed Virgin, sometimes at a street corner, praying to God there; and they even accuse them of idolatry, as if they adored the wood or the stone; they say that, for their part, they have no love at all for these exterior devotions, and that their minds are not so weak as to give credence to so many tales and little stories that are told about the Blessed Virgin. When the admirable praises which the holy Fathers give to the Blessed Virgin are quoted to them, either they answer that the Fathers spoke as orators, by exaggeration, or they put a bad interpretation on their words. These kinds of false devotees and of proud and worldly people are greatly to be feared, and they do infinite harm to devotion to the Most Blessed Virgin, and they effectively turn the people away from it, under the pretext of destroying its abuses.

St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary §§90–93. Our complete English edition.