WE MUST HAVE GREAT DEVOTION TO MARY (C10)

We shall always look on her as our mother.
In the joys and sorrows of our missionary life, we feel close to her who is the Mother of Mercy. (Constitution 10)

After a year as seminarian in St Sulpice in Paris, Eugene reveals in his journal on the place of Mary in his spirituality:

But devotion to the Blessed Virgin must excel all others; for the glorious Mother of God is called by the Church: our life and our hope. It is morally impossible for a soul to make any progress in the ways of perfection if it lacks this tender and sincere devotion to the most holy Mother of God.

General counsels for achieving perfection, notes taken in 1809, EO XIV n.39

Fifteen years later, he rejoiced that Mary Immaculate continued to have a special devotion in his Missionary Family, as it continues to have today.

May we really understand who and what we are! I hope the Lord will grant us this grace with the help and by the protection of our holy Mother, Mary Immaculate. In our Congregation, we must have great devotion to her.

To Fr. Tempier in Marseilles, 20 March 1826, EO VII n. 231