I understand that as a loyal Catholic I should honour the Blessed Virgin. Perhaps I should pray to her more frequently. I firmly believe that I ought to give her a more prominent place in my piety. I realize that with her help it would be easier for me to resist certain temptations. If I were more intimate with her, undoubtedly I should also be more intimate with Christ. I am ready to follow the directives of Pius X more faithfully and to seek the Son at the side of the Mother.

However, even though the Blessed Virgin ought to play a more active role in my prayer life, I do not see why I should give her a place in my life as a militant. My earthly Mother has devoted herself to me and still sacrifices herself for me without counting the cost. She shares my joys and consoles me in my sorrows. But she has little to do with my apostolate, except that she gives me a lot of advice which more often than not irritates me: “Do not tire yourself so much. You return too late from your meetings, and you do not get enough sleep. Avoid any squabble with the Reds… and with the police. It seems that some good Catholic people look unfavorably upon your movement.

They say that you are playing the game of the socialists.” My dear mother, I am not angry at you. But a woman can’t understand the ideas and the dreams of young men. A mother’s place is in the home, not on the field of battle. I think that the same is true for my Mother in Heaven. She will help me in my interior life, but what part could she play in my life as a militant? Christ loved His Mother with an immeasurable love; He must have spent many hours of infinitely sweet intimacy with her at Nazareth. But He did not associate her in His apostolate. He did not say to her: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (Matt. 28: 19-20). No, He did not address this order to her. But He did associate her in His mission more than He associated James and John, and Philip and Andrew, and even Saint Peter and all the Apostles taken together. He has made her a perfect Militant, a Militant who influences all men without exception. He made her so great a Militant that all other militants merely participate in her mission, and without her would be absolutely powerless to achieve the least success. The apostolic action of this great Militant ought to be particularly evident in the times in which we are living, ever more and more extensively as times goes on. To her is reserved a great victory in our days, a victory which she will share with all those who combat under her orders. She is the Queen of Militants, to whom you must consecrate your life and your strength if you wish to be successful always and to be a one hundred percent militant.

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