(From the Introduction) All to Jesus, I surrender; All to Him I freely give.
I will ever love and trust Him, In His presence daily live.
I surrender all, I surrender all,
All to thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all.
These words were composed almost two centuries after St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort completed his earthly pilgrimage, yet they provide a fitting summary of his approach to holiness, consecration and true devotion to Mary. It is in surrendering all to Jesus through the hands of the Virgin Mary that the Christian faithfully renews his baptismal promises and chooses to live, with the help of Mary, as a consecrated servant of Jesus Christ. Total surrender means total trust, total sacrifice, total humility, total dependence. Mary, the ever-faithful handmaid of the Lord, is a Mother worthy of our trust and devotion; we know we can depend on her to keep, protect and make fruitful all that we entrust to her, to the greater glory of God. In surrendering ourselves to the Holy Virgin, we are taking the same humble path to Jesus as He first took in coming to us.
St. Louis-Marie’s original manuscript had neither title nor chapter headings. For this new translation, I have chosen to select a title different from other English translations of the past. By using the title of the above song, I hope to stimulate new interest in this timeless work and thus in devotion to Mary. I have taken the liberty of adding chapter headings, but have limited the number of headings to nine, plus an additional tenth chapter of prayers which are not part of the manuscript but which are pertinent to the reader who desires to follow this devotion. The main goal of the chapter divisions is to provide a broad outline of the flow of the work, but to let the original text speak for itself.
In doing the actual translation, I have attempted to be faithful to the structure of the original French, preserving the phraseology, sentence composition and paragraph flow as much as possible. I have done this in order to give the English reader some experience of the beauty and complexity of the original French text, and also to endow the work with a feeling of something beyond the ordinary. I have left intact the Latin phrases, and have provided footnoted translations only where the meaning is not clear from the surrounding text. Other footnotes have been kept to an absolute minimum.
The author of this work, St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort (1673 - 1716) was, from a very early age, a deeply spiritual man with a burning desire for the salvation of souls. Ordained to the priesthood in Paris in 1700, he spent the last 16 years of his life preaching missions to the poor and leading people to holiness through devotion and consecration to the Holy Virgin. His was a life of joyous penance, heroic sacrifice, and patient perseverance in the face of setbacks, misunderstandings, and opposition even from within the Church. The many inspired writings he authored, the religious orders he founded, and the lasting effects of his preaching attest to the holiness of this humble servant of Mary. Beatified in 1888, and canonized in 1947, St. Louis-Marie continues his apostolic work today from his glorious home in Heaven.
In re-offering this work to the public, my prayer is that St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort will find a new and receptive group of readers who will choose to become faithful servants of the Most Holy Virgin Mary by embracing this True Devotion. I pray with St. Louis- Marie that a great army of faithful soldiers may be raised up to do battle against evil under the direction and guidance of the Holy Virgin. Then, and only then, will Jesus Christ reign triumphant in the hearts of His faithful ones.
Glory to Jesus in Mary!
