[00:00] Our Lord is the one good Shepherd, and we are His sheep. We hear His voice, and we follow Him. Now there are many sheep that do not listen to Our Lord and go astray more often than not, but Our Lord still takes care of them in His providence. Our

[00:30] Lord doesn't come down and greet every single person face-to-face and literally, physically drag them to the Church, but Our Lord, as I said, in His providential care, uses others. He uses us. He uses His priests. He uses our neighbor in order to

[01:01] teach us and to draw us to the faith. So we see that the Apostles become shepherds. The Apostles become the means by which thousands are brought into the Church and hundreds of thousands in the future. And then obviously His successors, the Apostles, and all those who become missionaries in the sense of dedicating their whole lives to God.

[01:35] And then also those who are true Christians, who are prophets. We're all priests, prophets, and kings, but we are prophets because we testify to the truth. And we are prophets because we, in a care for others, want to bring as many people to heaven as possible. We want to populate heaven. Every soul that reaches heaven means more happiness for us. And that's sort of selfish in a way, but it's not because we want everyone in heaven to be the most happy

[02:13] they can be with Our Lord and whatever else that Our Lord wants to give us. And we want to be part of Our Lord's mission of shepherding His sheep, no matter who we are. Because, as I said, we're all priests, prophets, and kings in a different way. There's the sacramental priesthood, then there's the priesthood of the faithful, but we're all called to have that same spirit. A priest to sacrifice. What does a good shepherd do? He sacrifices. That's the example

[02:44] that we have. We sacrifice for ourselves, in a way, and then for others. We're prophets. We testify to the truth. We bring others to the truth. We witness to the truth. We are kings because we first become victorious over sin and death in everything in Our Lord. He is the true High Priest. He is the true Good Shepherd. And everyone else just follows Him more or less

[03:18] faithfully. And one of those who followed Our Lord faithfully was St. Louis Grignion de Montfort. St. Louis de Montfort. He was born in 1673, and he dedicated himself early on to studying the Gospels and working with the poor. He became a priest, studied theology, and he didn't really

[03:54] know exactly where he was supposed to be. In fact, they said that St. Louis de Montfort, everywhere he went, nobody could get along with him. He just had this, I don't know whether it was like a social defect or whatever, but nobody could get along with him at all. And many times, he had to be recalled by the bishop because of the way that he would teach and everything. He was sort of a, not so much of an amiable person, but he was totally dedicated to God.

[04:30] He tried to found two religious orders, which almost went extinct by the time he died. But he eventually did find his calling, which was to be a missionary priest in his own country. He actually wanted to go to Canada because he thought that everything I, he actually said, "Everything I do here falls apart." So he thought, well, maybe if I go amongst the natives of Canada, like the Jesuits, then he would find his place in it.

[05:04] And Our Lord had different plans for him. And he eventually found his place by becoming a missionary priest to rural parishes, going from parish to parish and teaching the Gospel, but especially spreading his true devotion, true devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and true devotion or true worship of Our Lord. And that's what we mostly know St. Louis de Montfort for, is his Marian doctrine, his Marian spirituality, by which he teaches, he taught so many people

[05:43] that true devotion comes in the form of consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary, consecrating our lives to her. And he taught that the greatest thing that we can do here on earth, as far as our spirituality, is becoming as close as we can to Our Lord Jesus Christ. In this way, we gain His grace and His life within us, the life that we began at Baptism, that supernatural life of grace. But there's no sure way to draw closer to Our Lord and union with

[06:22] Him than through His mother, who was associated with Him by Him, by Him with His mission in such a way that she, He made her His mother. And St. Louis de Montfort would say that that is the basis of our devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary is in her motherhood, both by which we receive Jesus, our brother, but also how we come close to Our Lord by being her spiritual children. So both

[07:01] the motherhood, divine motherhood of Jesus and her spiritual motherhood, form the basis of our devotion to her and our consecration. Because we go to her as our mother, and to the degree that we place our spiritual life in her hands will be the degree of how closely we come to union with Our Lord and becoming, as Our Lord asked us to, to become more perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. St. Louis de Montfort's total consecration to Our Lady was one of the greatest

[07:38] benefits to the Church, and Our Lord required of him great sacrifice. There's a lot of sacrifice in him not seeming to be able to get along with anyone, not really knowing for a while where he was supposed to go, and to the point where he being a saint was looking at what he had accomplished and said, "Everywhere I go, everything just falls apart," being recalled by the bishop here and there until finally, he visited the pope in Rome one time, and the pope actually gave him the mandate

[08:16] to continue his apostolate to the churches, to the rural churches in the area, and that's what he did. So St. Louis de Montfort, by faithful perseverance, finally found his way, and by being a faithful servant and doing his best in shepherding, becoming like the good Shepherd in shepherding Our Lord's flock, he drew many souls to true devotion and to union with Jesus Christ.

[08:50] So we ask Our Lord to be instruments, as St. Louis de Montfort was, to testify in our vocation as prophets, to testify to the truth to those around us, and ask Our Lord even when it seems like we can't do much, even when it seems like we butt heads with people, we have those human tensions just like St. Louis de Montfort had, that Our Lord look at our heart and look at the little fish and bread that we have, and let Him multiply it. And we ask Our Lord to be able to sacrifice, to have

[09:28] that love to sacrifice for others. We ask Our Lord that through our vocation to be priests, to be able to sacrifice, and then to be kings, to overcome our sinful nature, to be victorious, and rule over sin and death, and ultimately to give us the grace as St. Louis de Montfort had and he taught to put our spiritual life in the hands of Our Lady because she is our spiritual mother, and we

[10:05] consecrate ourselves to her in order that we might have a chance to become like the saints, growing closer to Our Lord, but through her help, her guidance, and her role as divine mother and spiritual mother of all of us, her children.