Why Marian consecration? Here's why...

In 33 Days to Morning Glory, Fr. Gaitley talks about Mother Theresa's perspective on consecration. Mother called it a Covenant and below is her covenant agreement as well as a list of her duties as a consecrated daughter to our lady and our lady's duties as our mother who we have consecrated ourselves to. I keep the lists in my spiritual journal to make sure I am following up on my end of the bargain as well as to remind myself what our lady does for me and try to recognize our lady's direct work in my life. It is easy to forget unless I refer to it once in a while.

COVENANT

Moved by an ardent desire to live in the closest union with you [Mary] possible in this life, so as to more surely and fully arrive at union with your Son; I hereby pledge to live the spirit and terms of the following Covenant of Consecration as faithfully and generously as I am able.

MARY'S DUTIES
1. To give of her spirit and heart.
2. To possess, protect, and transform me.
3. To inspire, guide, and enlighten me.
4. To share her experience of prayer and praise.
5. Responsibility for my sanctification.
6. Responsibility for all that befalls me.
7. To share with me her virtues.
8. To provide for my spiritual and material needs.
9. Union with her heart.
10. To purify me and my actions.
11. Right to dispose of me, of my prayers and intercessions and graces.
12. Total freedom in and around me, as she pleases in all things.

MY DUTIES
1. Total gift of all I have and am.
2. Total dependence on her.
3. Responsiveness to her spirit.
4. Faithfulness to prayer.
5. Trust in her intercession.
6. Accept all as coming from her.
7. Imitate her spirit.
8. Constant recourse to her.
9. Remembrance of her presence.
10. Purity of intention; self-denial.
11. Right to avail myself of her and her energies for the sake of the kingdom.
12. Right to enter into her heart, to share her interior life.

 

From True Devotion to Mary:

It is quite true that the example of other people, no matter how holy, can sometimes impair union with God, but not so our Blessed Lady, as I have said and shall never weary of repeating. One reason why so few souls come to the fullness of the age of Jesus is that Mary who is still as much as ever his Mother and the fruitful spouse of the Holy Spirit is not formed well enough in their hearts. If we desire a ripe and perfectly formed fruit, we must possess the tree that bears it. If we desire the fruit of life, Jesus Christ, we must possess the tree of life which is Mary. If we desire to have the Holy Spirit working within us, we must possess his faithful and inseparable spouse, Mary the divinely- favoured one whom, as I have said elsewhere, he can make fruitful.

 

From True Devotion to Mary:

Rest assured that the more you turn to Mary in your prayers, meditations, actions and sufferings, seeing her if not perhaps clearly and distinctly, at least in a general and indistinct way, the more surely you will discover Jesus. For he is always greater, more powerful, more active, and more mysterious when acting through Mary than he is in any other creature in the universe, or even in heaven. Thus Mary, so divinely-favoured and so lost in God, is far from being an obstacle to good people who are striving for union with him. There has never been and there never will be a creature so ready to help us in achieving that union more effectively, for she will dispense to us all the graces to attain that end. As a saint once remarked, "Only Mary knows how to fill our minds with the thought of God." Moreover, Mary will safeguard us against the deception and cunning of the evil one.

 

That's quite an effective sales pitch, PS! I think I'll buy one.

Safe in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary!

 

Hi Tater,
I have forgotten- what date do you choose to begin? I think I am so ready and anxious to delve again- soon soon soon?

 

Consecration is May 13th so we begin April 10th. Can't wait...I need it! In another week or so I will start a thread to call out for those who want to join us.

 

Potato Sack;

Thanks so much for your contributions to this thread - I think this qualifies you as a good and faithful servant of the handmaid of the Lord!

 

thanks Kathy! I felt the nudge to do this thread some time ago. the best threads on this forum are the ones divinely inspired, and therefore, not really our own making.

 

from True Devotion to Mary:

Transformation into the likeness of Jesus
218. If Mary, the Tree of Life, is well cultivated in our soul by fidelity to this devotion, she will in due time bring forth her fruit which is none other than Jesus. I have seen many devout souls searching for Jesus in one way or another, and so often when they have worked hard throughout the night, all they can say is, "Despite our having worked all night, we have caught nothing." To them we can say, "You have worked hard and gained little; Jesus can only be recognised faintly in you." But if we follow the immaculate path of Mary, living the devotion that I teach, we will always work in daylight, we will work in a holy place, and we will work but little. There is no darkness in Mary, not even the slightest shadow since there was never any sin in her. She is a holy place, a holy of holies, in which saints are formed and moulded.

219. Please note that I say that saints are moulded in Mary. There is a vast difference between carving a statue by blows of hammer and chisel and making a statue by using a mould. Sculptors and statue-makers work hard and need plenty of time to make statues by the first method. But the second method does not involve much work and takes very little time. St. Augustine speaking to our Blessed Lady says, "You are worthy to be called the mould of God." Mary is a mould capable of forming people into the image of the God-man. Anyone who is cast into this divine mould is quickly shaped and moulded into Jesus and Jesus into him. At little cost and in a short time he will become Christ-like since he is cast into the very same mould that fashioned a God-man.

 

de Montfort continues:

220. I think I can very well compare some spiritual directors and devout persons to sculptors who wish to produce Jesus in themselves and in others by methods other than this. Many of them rely on their own skill, ingenuity and art and chip away endlessly with mallet and chisel at hard stone or badly-prepared wood, in an effort to produce a likeness of our Lord. At times, they do not manage to produce a recognisable likeness either because they lack knowledge and experience of the person of Jesus or because a clumsy stroke has spoiled the whole work. But those who accept this little-known secret of grace which I offer them can rightly be compared to smelters and moulders who have discovered the beautiful mould of Mary where Jesus was so divinely and so naturally formed. They do not rely on their own skill but on the perfection of the mould. They cast and lose themselves in Mary where they become true models of her Son.

221. You may think this a beautiful and convincing comparison. But how many understand it? I would like you, my dear friend, to understand it. But remember that only molten and liquefied substances may be poured into a mould. That means that you must crush and melt down the old Adam in you if you wish to acquire the likeness of the new Adam in Mary.

 

It is true that you will change if you live this consecration. Before my consecration, I had been trying to change aspects of my life as I had been dealt some crosses and I knew God was trying to get my attention to change. But since I am such a stubborn person who is resistant to change, it felt like I was a rock and Jesus had a hammer and chisle trying to whittle away parts of my life. It was painful!! I read what I have posted above and Mary moulding us and I knew I had to go through with this consecration because I wanted to change my life but was not having much success. But our lady will give you holy inspirations and you just follow where she leads you. It is not painless (changes in your life never are), but was not nearly as painful as what I had been experiencing. If I may add a little of what I have been reading about in the 24 Hour Passion of Jesus from the Divine Will, I believe these holy inspirations are similer to what was called "Divine craftings" where we allow changes in our life due to holy inspirations. When we accept the grace to follow through on these holy inspirations or divine craftings, we receive sanctity. But if we don't, we lose that sanctity. I don't think I truly followed through on divine inspirations to change my life until my consecration, which is why it felt like someone was applying a hammer to me!! Mould is much better

 

from True Devotion:

This devotion, when faithfully undertaken, is a perfect means of ensuring that the value of all our good works is being used for the greater glory of God. Scarcely anyone works for that noble end, in spite of the obligation to do so, either because men do not know where God's greatest glory is to be found or because they do not desire it. Now Mary, to whom we surrender the value and merit of our good actions, knows perfectly well where God's greatest glory lies and she works only to promote that glory. The devout servant of our Lady, having entirely consecrated himself to her as I have described above, can boldly claim that the value of all his actions, words and thoughts is used for the greatest glory of God, unless he has explicitly retracted his offering. For one who loves God with a pure and unselfish love and prizes God's glory and interests far above his own, could anything be more consoling?

 

Fr. Gaitley, on what the "Morning Glory" means in his book title 33 Days to Morning Glory:

I chose this part of the title because I think it best captures what Marian consecration is all about: A new way of life in Christ. The act of consecrating oneself to Jesus through Mary marks the beginning of a gloriously new day, a new dawn, a brand new morning in one's spiritual journey. It's a fresh start, and it changes everything.

 

from True Devotion:

I think I can very well compare some spiritual directors and devout persons to sculptors who wish to produce Jesus in themselves and in others by methods other than this. Many of them rely on their own skill, ingenuity and art and chip away endlessly with mallet and chisel at hard stone or badly-prepared wood, in an effort to produce a likeness of our Lord. At times, they do not manage to produce a recognisable likeness either because they lack knowledge and experience of the person of Jesus or because a clumsy stroke has spoiled the whole work. But those who accept this little-known secret of grace which I offer them can rightly be compared to smelters and moulders who have discovered the beautiful mould of Mary where Jesus was so divinely and so naturally formed. They do not rely on their own skill but on the perfection of the mould. They cast and lose themselves in Mary where they become true models of her Son.

 

de Montfort follows up the above quote with this:

You may think this a beautiful and convincing comparison. But how many understand it? I would like you, my dear friend, to understand it. But remember that only molten and liquefied substances may be poured into a mould. That means that you must crush and melt down the old Adam in you if you wish to acquire the likeness of the new Adam in Mary.

Crushing and melting down the old Adam in us is the dying to self aspect of marian consecration. as you live your consecration prayfully, you slowly die to self, looking for ways to change your life to be more aligned to the will of God...in other words, removing sin and aspiring to live in the divne will. As we do this, we start to acquire the likeness of the new Adam in Mary.

 

from True Devotion to Mary:

If you live this devotion sincerely, you will give more glory to Jesus in a month than in many years of a more demanding devotion.

 

from True Devotion to Mary:

1. Since you do everything through the Blessed Virgin as required by this devotion, you naturally lay aside your own intentions no matter how good they appear to you. You abandon yourself to our Lady's intentions even though you do not know what they are. Thus you share in the high quality of her intentions, which are so pure that she gave more glory to God by the smallest of her actions, say, twirling her distaff, or making a stitch, than did St. Laurence suffering his cruel martyrdom on the grid-iron, and even more than all the saints together in all their most heroic deeds! Mary amassed such a multitude of merits and graces during her sojourn on earth that it would be easier to count the stars in heaven, the drops of water in the ocean or the sands of the sea-shore than count her merits and graces. She thus gave more glory to God than all the angels and saints have given or will ever give him. Mary, wonder of God, when souls abandon themselves to you, you cannot but work wonders in them!

 

PS,

You've taken your task to heart. I recall that those who promote Divine Mercy are greatly loved by Jesus. I'm sure Our Lady is delighted with you in a way similar to her joy with Padraig in starting the forum.

Safe in the Refuge of the Immaculate Heart!

 

you are too kind Mario...but I am really just a copy/paste machine

 

from True Devotion:

In this devotion we set no store on our own thoughts and actions but are content to rely on Mary's dispositions when approaching and even speaking to Jesus. We then act with far greater humility than others who imperceptibly rely on their own dispositions and are self- satisfied about them; and consequently we give greater glory to God, for perfect glory is given to him only by the lowly and humble of heart.