Une Minute avec Marie
Faire connaître et aimer Marie
John Paul II's Letter to the Montfort Religious Family summarizes with great clarity the Montfortian and Vatican II’s doctrine of "Mary, Mother of the Church":
The Council itself contemplates Mary as "the Mother of the members of Christ" (cf. ibid., nn. 53, 62), and consequently, Paul VI proclaimed her as Mother of the Church. The doctrine of the Mystical Body that most forcefully expresses Christ's union with the Church is also the biblical foundation of this affirmation. "The head and the members are born of one and the same Mother" (Treatise on True Devotion, n. 32), as St Louis Marie reminds us. In this sense, we can say that, through the work of the Holy Spirit, the members are united and conformed to Christ the Head, the Son of the Father and of Mary, in such a way that "a true child of the Church must have God for his Father and Mary for his Mother" (The Secret of Mary, n. 11).
In Christ, the Only-Begotten Son of the Father, we are truly children of the Father, and at the same time, sons and daughters of Mary and of the Church. In a certain way, it is the whole of humanity that is reborn in the virgin birth of Jesus. "These words can be attributed better to the Mother of the Lord than to St Paul of himself: "My little children, with whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you!' (Gal 4: 19). Every day I give birth to the children of God until Jesus Christ my Son be formed in them in the fullness of his age" (Treatise on True Devotion, n. 33).
This doctrine is expressed most beautifully in the prayer: "O Holy Spirit, give me great devotion to Mary, your faithful spouse; give me great confidence in her maternal heart and an abiding refuge in her mercy, so that by her you may truly form in me Jesus Christ" (The Secret of Mary, p. 81).