Montfort divides the preparation into four periods and assigns to each its prayers and its subject. For the first twelve days, work at emptying the spirit of the world, whose maxims are contrary to those of the Gospel. Then keep three weeks: the first given to the knowledge of oneself and to sorrow for sin; the second to the knowledge of the Blessed Virgin; the third to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, to whom the whole devotion is directed. Each day carries prayers Montfort assigns — the Veni Creator Spiritus, the Ave Maris Stella, the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Rosary, the Magnificat — together with a daily examination and a concrete act of renunciation. At the end of the thirty-three days the act of consecration is made, ideally on a Marian feast and, if possible, after confession and Communion. Montfort asks that the consecration then be renewed: briefly each day, and in full each year on the same feast. Keep the doctrine straight throughout, since it is what the practice depends on: this is not a devotion that terminates in Mary but a way of belonging entirely to Christ, giving him everything through the hands of his Mother, whose whole office is to lead souls to her Son.

St Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort (d. 1716) set out the devotion and its preparation in his Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin. St John Paul II, whose motto Totus tuus is drawn from this tradition, acknowledged his debt to Montfort in Rosarium Virginis Mariae, and Redemptoris Mater sets Marian entrustment within the Church's pilgrimage of faith.

Other

Montfortian

Thirty-three days of preparation; the consecration renewed daily and yearly

other