The apostolate of the MI 3 | Militia Immaculatae

THE MILITIA OF THE IMMACULATA must embrace everything because the whole earth must belong to the Immaculate. For this, we also need knights who realize this great ideal to the extreme, “to the point of heroism”, to the point of total gift of themselves to the Immaculate. This ideal can be realized through consecrated life in a community where everything is directed towards this supreme goal.

Such a community is called house, city, or garden of the Immaculate, Niepokalanów. Currently a community in the Philippines (DOMUS MARIAE) has been approved by the General Superior. In this community, each member must work to become more and more the property of the Immaculate, and to strive for perfection in exclusive union with the will of the Immaculate, which is realized by the perfect and supernatural obedience to superiors. (See Saint Maximilian’s quote below)

This ideal can be realized individually, if someone consecrates himself entirely to the Immaculata by giving her all his time, committing himself to devote himself body and soul to the apostolate of the Immaculata: In daily life , nothing extraordinary apparently but what is precious in MI 3 is that everything is secret, hidden. From morning to evening we have plenty of time to imitate the Immaculata: her discretion, her silence, her skilfulness to develop her talents, the sense of service rendered but without expecting a return…She takes full possession of the soul that if it is very docile, there is no fear of becoming embittered, grumpy or melancholy.

The MI 3 is not compatible with stinginess, nor a quiet little life. MI 3 is Carmel without the gates, it is heroicity at hand but in such a hidden way.

Poverty is chosen every day by the renunciation of one’s little comforts, of these little sweets, even legitimate ones. Obedience to the neighbor, to the other members of MI 3, is chosen in the simplest duties (preparation of packages for the knights, cleaning of the premises, making of the rosaries, preparation of the publications every quarter, work on the means of modern technology…).

Chastity is chosen and loved by this voluntary renunciation not only of the foundation of a family but until the perfect acceptance of affective solitude, solitude which will not be a rejection of society or of friendship but a completion in the Immaculate of the precept of charity: To love one’s neighbor as oneself through God, in God and for God. This is how, for example, the CENTRALE of the Immaculata works in Warsaw. These two kinds of life (in the Philippines and in Poland) are the current expressions of MI 3.

“Such a convent is called Niepokalanów, City of the Immaculate, because it belongs entirely to the Immaculata, is consecrated to her without limits, with all the hearts beating within its walls, with all machines, all engines, tools, cares, difficulties and debts. In a word, it is her goods and her property.” (Article: Cel Niepokalanowa (The Goal of Niepokalanów) in the pamphlet Z życia Niepokalanowa, 1934, pp. 5–6.)

In these houses, the ideal of total gift to the Immaculata must reach a heroic degree, where man with his own desires, opinions, inclinations disappears completely to give way to God alone as the only goal of existence, and to the Immaculata, as the most perfect and best way to attain divine love. Here we will use all possible and available means to exercise the most varied forms of Marian apostolate, to realize the ideal of the M.I.

Each house will be a school of holiness, where the apostles of the last times will be formed, of whom Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort speaks, who was for Father Maximilian and his work the great model and the spiritual father. In addition, members will have to deepen the importance and role of the Blessed Virgin in souls, her greatness and her preeminent role in the last times of the history of the world.

Niepokalanów should be a place of study where the truths concerning Mary are always deepened, where the broad theological lines of the last pre-conciliar popes are continued to be followed, and where these truths are distributed to souls so that be their food and show them the right path.

It is also necessary to form knights consecrated to God who inflame the groups of the M.I. 2 with zeal, by conferences, visits, retreats, and who maintain relations with the combatants of the M.I. 1, at least by regular correspondence.

This is the only way to keep the flame of the M.I. alive throughout the world and to ignite always new souls with love for the Immaculata.

Other brothers, especially gifted manually, will be trained in different works and techniques to extend the apostolate to all areas of life. Thus there were in Niepokalanów, the Polish “City of the Immaculate”, specialists who distinguished themselves by complicated technical inventions, craftsmen who in the exercise of their art reached a perfection that their colleagues who remained in the world.

What is particularly striking in the history of Niepokalanów is that in a very short time, vocations multiplied in an extraordinary way. Father Maximilien was aware that the Church can only be maintained and renewed by the vocations of zealous people tending to holiness. Niepokalanów must become a nursery of priests and brothers whom the Immaculata will form herself, and who will then set out to conquer the world for her. This is where the knights will return after their missions:

“Drawn like a magnet, to find refuge there after labors, to purify themselves from the dust of the world, to heal the wounds caused by the world, to draw new spiritual energies and to renew their strength for future missions.” (Letter to Father Koziura, from Nagasaki, 21.12.1931; BMK, p. 245.)

Mediocrity would be the death of the M.I. 3. Father Kolbe often and clearly insisted that the member of Niepokalanów must be ready to perform any work that the Immaculata would require of him through the will of the superiors.

TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE APOSTOLATE OF THE M.I.

MI APOSTOLATE (6 × 2 po)