Consecration to our Lady on this feast of the Holy Rosary

Two thousand years ago, Jesus sat at a wedding feast in Cana. The wine had run out, and, showing her constant concern for all, Mary simply turned to her Son and said, "They have no wine." Although Jesus responded, "My hour is not yet come," the Mother of our Lord, of course, knew her Son would listen to her, and, in a display of complete confidence, simply advised the servants to "Do whatever he tells you" (see Jn 2:1-5). Those were the final words of Our Lady recorded in the New Testament, which, unarguably, are an everlasting profession of what it means to be Christian. Our whole lives as Christians, are doing the will of the Father by following Jesus, with the light of the Holy Spirit.

Saints throughout the ages, through their words and their lives, have tried to express the great love and devotion they have for the Blessed Mother. Many of you may have heard of Saint Louis de Montfort and the true devotion to the Blessed Virgin. This book is a spiritual classic and being classic, means it also stems from a certain era in time, first being published in 1843 having been written over a century earlier. When I entered the convent, it was one of the first books which was given to me to read, and I must confess I struggled with the antiquated language and what seemed like a long list of prayers to say to our Lady. Many find the book a difficult one to read and yet Matt Talbot, an uneducated yet very saintly man, mastered it and took to himself the message of the book. It was one of the most marked books on his shelf, just as it was for Frank Duff, founder of the Legion of Mary who actually wrote to the foreword of the 1962 version of the book.

The book came back into my life about 8 years ago at a Youth 2000 retreat, where copies of ‘33 Days to Morning Glory’ had been donated by for the young people at the retreat. It is authored by Fr. Michael Gaitley, a priest from the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception, in the USA. 13 years ago the paths of Fr.  Michael and myself crossed as we studied in the same Polish language school in Poland. It is truly amazing to see how the Lord has used him as an instrument to spread firstly the message of Divine Mercy. The charism of his Congregation is to promote the life of St. Faustina and the message of Divine Mercy, and secondly the power of the consecration to our Lady to come closer to Jesus and his will for us. Millions of copies of this book have been distributed throughout the world and in different languages.

This book is a 33-day journey to Marian consecration with four giants of Marian spirituality:
St. Louis de Montfort, St. Maximilian Kolbe, Saint Teresa of Calcutta, and Saint Pope John Paul II.
Fr. Michael summarizes their teaching, making it easy to grasp and simple enough to put into practice, even just taking five minutes each day to set aside and pray. It is a beautiful journey divided into four parts. The first, looks at St. Louis de Montfort and his emphasis on why it is so important to give all of ourselves to Jesus through Mary, we don’t hold back anything, good or bad. The second part focuses on St. Maxmillian Kolbe’s mystical understanding of the interior union of Mary and the Holy Spirit in our lives, the third part looks at the experience of Mother Teresa, where Mary draws us into her heart, where Jesus keeps repeating ‘I thirst’ . Finally, the fourth part looks at St. John Paul II’s understanding that consecration to Mary brings us to the source of merciful love- the Divine mercy, which will change the world.

So why a consecration and what is involved?  The consecration is a freely made decision to consecrate your life to Jesus through Mary. And this might seem daunting. Others might ask, why do I need to do it at all? Are we not already under the protection of our Lady ? A consecration might sound like something that only nuns and priests do, or someone who is super holy. However, each one of us needs the guidance of a mother who wants only the best for us, who wants us to be holy and led to her Son. It doesn’t take away the crosses, but it does strengthen us to carry them and unite them to the sufferings of Jesus. It is our commitment to allow our lives to be moulded by the maternal hand of Mary, moulded into the image of Jesus.

The most direct way to become like Jesus is through Mary. The whole message that St. Louis de Montfort wanted to communicate was that the ‘shortest, easiest, most secure and most perfect way’ to Jesus is through Mary.  We live in difficult times and God wants his mercy to triumph through Mary, spouse of the Holy Spirit. It is Mary’s god-given task to form every human person into ‘another Christ’, that is, to unite everyone to the Body of Christ and form each person into a fully mature person of this Body.

They say that it takes at least 30 days to form any good habit, just ask someone who is trying to eat healthier or give up some vice, like smoking or alcohol. The time of preparation is 33 days. I find it’s helpful to choose a Marian feastday and then work backwards and mark the day to begin this spiritual journey. In the Consecration Book, there is a list of the different feastdays. Choose whichever you feel is a good starting point for you. 

For me, I am conscious that on the 13^th of October, next Friday, we celebrate the anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima. This could be a good day for someone to start this new journey with Mary. In fact, there are some meditations in the book on the message of Fatima and how Pope John Paul II’s solemn entrustment of the world to Mary’s immaculate heart was to change the course of history and was so instrumental in bringing down the Soviet regime. Mary had guided the bullet away from his heart on the 13^th of May. Within a week of this shooting, he recorded an address to the pilgrims gathered in the square, where he repeated his own consecration, saying: "Totus tuus ego sum-I am all yours. " This was the motto of his pontificate. Heaven knows that we indeed need the intercession of Mary as the war in the Ukraine rages- we entrust President Putin, whose birthday it is today, to her maternal heart, for a radical conversion of his heart. 

To prepare for the consecration, each day there is a reflection to guide your day, a short meditation on an aspect of Mary’s role in bringing us to Jesus. It means taking those few minutes to read, reflect and praying the short prayer at the end of each day. So, each day we move one step closer to the day of consecration. It can take some discipline to be faithful to that time of preparation each day but if we miss a day, that’s okay too. The beauty of the Christian life is that God appreciates and blesses our efforts.

There are indications in the booklet of how to prepare, the prayers that you might like to recite, or you can use your own words. In our Congregation we have a prayer that goes like this: “I am all yours, and all that I possess I offer to you my loving Jesus through Mary, your most Holy Mother.” In a way, this is the synthesis of the consecration. And it is a consecration which we renew every day. We strengthen the bonds with our Blessed Mother so that nothing can take us away from her Son.

In my experience, I have found that it has helped to do the retreat in preparation with someone else. It reminds us that we are in communion with each other as pilgrims and that at times, others carry us and at times we carry others. We have done this with different groups and often people will meet maybe once a week with a friend to see how the journey is going. With some of the youth groups, we used to have group and send a text each day to motivate and encourage it other. There are different ways. The important thing is to feel that maternal protection of Mary in our lives, and in our own way, offer and entrust ourselves to Mary that she, will guide us to her Son. We get to know Mary and Jesus through the Rosary because as St. John Paul II said: “ To recite the Rosary is nothing other than to contemplate with Mary the face of Christ. Contemplating the scenes of the Rosary in union with Mary is a means of learning from her to ‘read’ Christ, to discover His secrets and to understand His message.”

When we spend the time it takes to pray a Rosary in the company of our Saviour and His Mother, we start to find that they become a bigger part of our lives and that the events of their lives become part of our own.

United in prayer with you all as we ask Mary's intercession and care over us all.