Alphonse-Antoine Baudin
He was born in Louvigny in 1868. At the age of twenty he entered the Carthusian monastery of Bosserville near Nancy, taking the name of Louis Marie. In 1901 he had to leave France and spent a few months in Switzerland. In the same year he was sent to the Charterhouse of Montalegre near Barcelona where he remained until 1919.
Then he was appointed superior of the Cervara Charterhouse in S. Margherita Ligure, which he left in 1923 to take over the priory of the Charterhouse of S. Marco in Vedana (Belluno). He returned to Cervara in 1924, where he remained until his death in 1926..
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Slavery of love
Mary is beautiful with a beauty that is more of heaven than of earth. Mary is holy with a holiness that fills her with grace. Mary is good of a goodness that one day will make her sacrifice her son for love. Mary is pure of a purity that overcomes the whiteness of snow. Mary is strong with a strength that accepts all martyrdom.
Mary is Mother of God
Devotion to the Holy Mother of God is as old as the Church and, one might even say, as old as humanity, because from the beginning of the world people have directed their gaze towards the Virgin promise that was to generate the Saviour. This cult, however, has covered over the centuries different forms, more or less glorious for Mary, and more or less sanctifying for souls.
But on the point of the importance of these forms, the complete light had to be made through the work of the Holy Spirit. Little by little it became; and it was reserved for a great apostle of the seventeenth century to fully reveal the desires of heaven in this regard: St. Grignion de Montfort. He wrote one day, "Predestined soul, this is the secret that the Most High taught me, and which I could not find in any old or new book; I trust you in the Holy Spirit" (the secret of Mary). This secret consists in becoming slaves of love of Jesus in Mary, in relying entirely, with all that one is and has, to the most holy Virgin, Queen of hearts, to better belong to our Lord, sovereign King.
What to do to answer this call? Let us apply ourselves to living in a habitual dependence on our Queen, offering her all our internal and external acts. This kingship of Mary, which Montfort particularly highlights and which he wishes to see honored and served by the slaves of love, is the means par excellence of glorifying the kingship of Christ. Since, by virtue of our holy bondage, everything in us has truly become the property of Mary, all that she will then present to Jesus, though coming from us, belongs fully to her; and so Jesus, directly glorified by Mary, gets all his glory.
Always
Among all women she alone deserves with all justice the title of "servant of the Lord". It is her true name, and she lived it in all its fullness during her mortal life. The true servant is the one who serves in everything, who always serves, and whose essential work consists in serving. So it was Mary to the looks of the Most High. Like her Son, she came into the world to serve God: "Behold, I come to do your will". And this first inclination of his Heart has done nothing but dilate in all of his earthly life, without ever shrinking.
Mary lived in obedience to God, like her divine Son: "My food is to do the will of him who sent me". She was ready to every word of God, to every possible request. She has always said of "yes" to the invitations of the Most High, in whatever form they were presented. And all that she did until the day she contemplated the Word become in her, one could say, the incarnate obedience, she prolongs it, to follow her example, until her assumption.
A child’s soul
Mary loves simple souls because they reflect, to her eyes so penetrating and transparent, something of the infinite simplicity of God and the unspeakable goodness of Jesus, who, wanting to make these souls similar to himself, Has she preserved or liberated them from all that could weigh them down or obscure them, and does she not look into them that virtue in which one could summarize all her own holiness? Mary was without comparison simple in her thoughts, her feelings, her actions. Jesus was everything to her. Seeing him, loving him, serving him and following him, was her whole life, with no return on herself. Whatever could be the internal or external tests that the incarnate Wisdom offered her, she said yes, always yes, and abandoned herself completely to the divine will.
Mary’s soul was, in the fullness of the evangelical sense of this expression, a child’s soul, and that is why she is the Queen of Saints "He who does not accept the kingdom of God as a child will not enter it". And the prince of the apostles exhorts us to imitate this perfect simplicity of our divine Mother "As children: just born".
Children feel the need to cling to their mother and follow her steps. We walk in this simple way we will find beside Mary the holiness and abundance of heavenly favors: "I walk on the paths of justice ... to endow with goods those who love me and fill their coffers". We are so poor! What resource we have, thanks to this simplicity: to deserve to be enriched by Mary! We will deserve the intimate gifts of the Virgin, simplifying ourselves more and more, especially in our relations with her, truly living with Mary as children completely abandoned to her guidance.
Open to the Infinite
The first movement of the Heart of Mary leads towards God, it aspires to the Infinite, its center and its end. The Heart of the Virgo has not known neither hesitations neither fights neither returns; from the first instant of its existence she has seen that God was everything and has chosen him as its only good: "I have placed the roots... in the portion of the Lord". His Heart has thirsted for this Good above any other good and has aspired to possess it with all the violence of its desires; it has wanted since here below the most intimate union with him, that the love can desire: "Kiss me with the kisses of its mouth!". The divine kiss that responded to this invitation is the incarnation.
Opening herself to the Infinite, who was the only one who could fill her, she also attracts him as the salvation of the world, as the ultimate goal of humanity. His Heart was all of flames for the interests of those who should have generated spiritually on Calvary; it was a fire where the poor sons of Adam were heated, in the expectation of the ardors of the inflamed Heart of Jesus.
The blessed hour came at last, when the Eternal Word, obeying the word of her who had to exercise the authority of Mother upon him, descended into her womb to taste the delicious fruits of her charity and to rest among the lilies, before running after his lost creatures. " May my beloved - the humble Virgin sighed - come to her garden and eat the exquisite fruits"; and the Beloved answered with the voice of his archangel: "Open me, my sister, my friend, my dove, my perfect". But Mary did not close herself in herself. Like Jesus she is God’s gift to the earth; her action is universal.
(Meditations cartusiennes, Retraite)
