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90. Now that we have established these five basic truths, it
is all the more necessary to make the right choice of the true
devotion to our Blessed Lady, for now more than ever there are
false devotions to her which can easily be mistaken for true
ones. The devil, like a counterfeiter and crafty, experienced
deceiver, has already misled and ruined many Christians by
means of fraudulent devotions to our Lady. Day by day he uses
his diabolical experience to lead many more to their doom,
fooling them, lulling them to sleep in sin and assuring them
that a few prayers, even badly said, and a few exterior
practices, inspired by himself, are authentic devotions. A
counterfeiter usually makes coins only of gold and silver,
rarely of other metals, because these latter would not be
worth the trouble. Similarly, the devil leaves other devotions
alone and counterfeits mostly those directed to Jesus and
Mary, for example, devotion to the Holy Eucharist and to the
Blessed Virgin, because these are to other devotions what gold
and silver are to other metals.
91. It is therefore very important, first, to recognise false
devotions to our Blessed Lady so as to avoid them, and to
recognise true devotion in order to practise it. Second, among
so many different forms of true devotion to our Blessed Lady
we should choose the one most perfect and the most pleasing to
her, the one that gives greater glory to God and is most
sanctifying for us.
1. False devotion to our Lady
92. There are, I find, seven kinds of false devotion to Mary,
namely, the devotion of
- the critical,
- the scrupulous,
- the superficial,
- the presumptuous,
- the inconstant,
- the hypocritical,
- the self-interested.
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