What does it mean to be consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary?
When one is consecrated, he or she is made sacred by being set aside for the service of God. To consecrate oneself to Mary, means giving oneself to Jesus Christ through the Immaculate Heart of His Mother. We are all her spiritual children. As she once presented her Son Jesus in the Temple in the Spirit to the Father, so now, when we consecrate ourselves to Mary, we give ourselves totally to Mary; we recognize ourselves as her spiritual children and desire that she present us, united to her son Jesus in the Spirit to the Father. The spirit of Mary then lives within us and therefore the Holy Spirit dwells within us in a special way, as in a special temple “Consecration to the Mother of God”, says Pope Pius XII, “is a total gift of self, for the whole of life and for all eternity; and a gift which is not a mere formality or sentimentality, but effectual, comprising the full intensity of the Christian life – Marian life”. This consecration, the Pope explained, “tends essentially to union with Jesus, under the guidance of Mary”.
By our consecration we promise to become dependent on Mary in all things: to offer all our prayers and oblations to God through Mary, and to seek every gift from God through Mary. And we do this with the greatest confidence. Since she is our mother, she knows our needs better than we; and since she is Queen of Heaven, she has immediate access to the infinite treasury of graces in the Kingdom of her Divine Son. Mary is not only the Mother of Jesus, Son of the Eternal Father; she is also Mother of all the Father’s adopted children. As their Mother, she has been given the role of molding them into the likeness of Jesus. Every work of grace, every increase of grace, is a work of the Holy Spirit; but as in the Incarnation of the Divine Word God used human instruments, so does He in the sanctification of each individual soul. As He chose Mary as the instrument through whom He would come to us, so He chose Mary as the instrument through whom we should go to Him. And both the mystery of God coming to us through Mary, and our being led to God through Mary, is a work of the Holy Spirit. So when we speak of Mary’s unique role in our sanctification, she is but the instrument the Holy Spirit uses in sharing with us the divine life of grace. It is in this sense that Mary fashions us into the likeness of Christ. However, that this transformation – through Mary’s help – be accomplished in a notable degree, there must be an awareness of her role in our sanctification, a confidence in her maternal concern and in her power under God, a surrender of oneself into her hands, and a fervent, frequent and confident seeking of her aid. This usually comes through some form of consecration to the Mother of God. At Fatima Our Lady asked for consecration to her Immaculate Heart, a consecration which, among other things, calls for the devotion of the Five First Saturdays, which consists of going to Confession, receiving Holy Communion (in a state of grace), praying five decades of the Rosary and keeping Our Lady company for 15 minutes while meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary – all done in reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on the First Saturday of five consecutive months. It involves a striving to fulfill her requests for prayer and sacrifices for the conversion of sinners and in reparation for offenses against the Divine Majesty. In a word, it involves a striving to fulfill all that she asked for at Fatima, and trying to bring others to heed her requests. Consecration to Mary consists in an unconditional surrender to her of all we are and have in order to belong more perfectly to Jesus. This means that our thoughts, words, good works, prayers, joys, sorrows, graces possessions are given to Mary to deal with as she wills. Because she is our Mother and Queen, and because her will is one with Our Lord’s, what we give to Mary, she gives to Him. God wishes that Mary be known and loved as Co-redemptrix, Advocate and Mediatrix before His throne because He finds it easier to grant graces through her, who is “full of graces”. We are living in times where society has not only lost its sense of sin, it has exalted sin as something good and desirable. The threat for people, even Christians, not to know, love and serve God in this life so that they may live forever with Him in the next, is great if not greater than it has ever been in human history. Our first responsibility is to surrender ourselves completely to the Most Holy Trinity. We can do this through Mary by an act of total consecration to her Immaculate Heart. Then we must live out this consecration through prayer and action. We must also help bring as many souls as possible to God. We must share the simple but profound truths that Mary is our Mother, that she has special intercessory power for her children, that she is Spouse of the Holy Spirit, and that she has been chosen by Almighty God to bring her children into His very life.
Significance of Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Generally speaking, through the consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, our spiritual life is enhanced as to transform our souls from mere servants to close, intimate friends and partners of Jesus Christ. The consecration to her Heart is not merely one of Mary’s richest devotions but mainly it is CONVERSION, a radical change in lifestyles, abandoning “the old state of sin” in order to become “a new creature” having Christ as centre of our lives. Below are some specific reasons why we (all Catholics) should consecrate our lives to Jesus through Mary:
1. To provide the easiest, safest, fastest, most secure, and surest path to Jesus and to our own salvation
2. To obtain Our Lady’s help in bringing us from our own unworthiness to the level of conversion, holiness, and perfection in our lives needed to enable us to become saintly.
3. To turn our lives over completely and without reservation in service to Jesus through Mary to reflect our love and our trust in them now and for all eternity.
4. To obtain special graces and protection under Our Lady’s sheltering mantle.
5. To help bring others to Jesus through Mary for their conversion, holiness, and perfection through this total consecration devotion
6. To hasten the day of the Triumph of Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart and the day when Mary and Jesus will reign in all hearts
7. To fulfill Our Lady’s request for individual consecration of our lives to her Immaculate Heart, as given to us through Sister Lucia during the Fatima apparitions.
8. To become an effective counter-force to the legion of evil so prevalent in the world by offering up our prayers, sacrifices, and sufferings to Jesus through Mary.
9. To renew our Baptismal promises and to evangelize the world to Jesus through Mary. Preparation for Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
(a) Personal Consecration
Personal consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary can take many forms. It can be done simply by reciting with sincerity an act (prayer) of consecration when in a state of grace and in church before the Blessed Sacrament and or a Statue of Our Lady. The act itself can be repeated or renewed on all important feast days of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In consecrating oneself to Mary a Christian pays her homage, places himself in her service and under her protection and strives to imitate her virtues.
(b) The Montfort Way of Consecration
St. Louis De Montfort advises us to prepare for the consecration by exercises which certainly are not compulsory, but which assure its great efficacy because of the purity and other dispositions which they tend to develop in our souls. Two different periods are assigned for these exercises: A preliminary period of twelve days during which we endeavor “to free ourselves from the spirit of the world”; and A second period of three weeks: the first devoted to the knowledge of ourselves, the second to that of the Blessed Virgin and the third to that of Jesus Christ. These periods mentioned by St. Louis De Montfort do not constitute a rigorous and unchangeable division. According to circumstances, they may be lengthened or shortened. It involves reflections from the books, True Devotion to Mary, Imitation of Christ and the Secret of Mary for 33 days. According to St. Louis de Montfort, “at the end of the three weeks” (which follows the 1st 13 days), “they shall go to confession and to Communion, with the intention of giving themselves to Jesus Christ in the quality of slaves of love, by the hands of Mary. After Communion, which they should try to make according to the method given by St. Louis de Montfort, [See no. 266 of the book True Devotion to Mary], they should recite the formula of their consecration.
Continues NEXT WEEK
• Prof. Michael Ogunu is the International President of the World Apostolate of Fatima.