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Consecration Aids: 26: About Hurricanes
Fr. Christopher Lee, SMM
About Hurricanes
I’ve got hurricane fever on the brain these days. Guess it’s because we’ve just been lashed by two such monsters. The first hit us right square on the ”noggin” while the second sort of side-swiped us. Both, however, gave us a good tumble. So I hope you’ll forgive me if I get side-tracked on the hurricane question today.
Tell you why I’d like to linger with you on this subject: I learned a good lesson from it; a lesson I’d like to share with you; a lesson that helped me better understand the meaning of these words of my consecration to Mary, ”I give you my soul with all its faculties.”
But, first, what I observed. As I stumbled through the debris of twisted fences and fallen trees caused by one hurricane’s devastating wrath, I could not help but notice that about ninety-five per cent of the ”victims” were already partly eaten away from within. The wood-weevils, beetles and what-have-you, had already weakened them and prepared the way for the vengeful hurricane to topple them over by one gust of her destructive breath. Briefly, the hurricane proved to be nature’s timely scythe summoning them to the fire-heap, if only a little prematurely.
Keeping The Interior Being Healthy
This sorry spectacle got me thinking. (’Taint always easy to get a fellow like me thinking, I assure you!) It made me realize the importance of keeping the interior of myself healthy and sound if I hoped to weather the hurricanes of temptation and sin that forever blow against the ramparts of my soul. Yes, I got to thinking about my will – the bulwark of my soul – about temptations and about my consecration to Mary. The words of my consecration came back to me with new meaning: ”I give you my soul with all its faculties.”
Consecration: My Intelligence, My Will, and My Soul
Yes, the faculties of my soul: my intelligence and my will. It is true, by my consecration I had already given Mary ”my body with all its senses.” But to what avail, I thought, if my soul with its faculties were not also in her safe-keeping? Those trees I had just seen had full leafy branches, for the most part. No one, not even the gardener, perhaps, suspected they were already decaying from within. They looked strong and healthy and ready to withstand any storm. Then the real test came, however, they were forced to reveal their utter weakness.
As I said, it got me to thinking. My body with all its senses may appear strong and hardy, I thought, but if my will and my intelligence are not protected from decay, like those leafy giants I too may be felled by the wreck-less breath of temptation and sin. What a safeguard, I reflected, to have consecrated to Mary my soul with all its faculties – particularly my will. When the will belongs to Mary, her first concern is to protect it from its enemies: the devil, the world and the flesh. How could it be otherwise with the Immaculate, Satan’s Enemy No. 1?
Author: Fr. Christopher Lee, SMM
This is the Twenty-sixth in a series of articles covering Consecration Aids.
Silly to be doing one’s own will all day long, isn’t it, when you can be doing Mary’s – which is also God’s will? Silly also, isn’t it, to be afraid of the hurricanes of temptation and sin when you’re a slave of Mary!
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Mary’s Protective Influence
But Mary’s protective influence over my will is not merely like that of an insurance agency here below. The agency does not guarantee that your trees will not fall. It merely says, we shall compensate you (in part or in full) if they do fall. Mary’s protective influence over her children and slaves of love goes far beyond this. It reaches to the very interior of our soul. It consists in building up spiritual strength and resistance in my soul, particularly in my will. So much so that when the rains come and the winds blow my soul remains unshaken, because my will is strong with the strength that comes to me from God through Mary.
Fr. de Montfort’s words now come back to me: ”To secure them from the hawk and vulture, she puts herself round about them, and accompanies them ’like an army in battle array. This good Mother and powerful Princess of the heavens would rather dispatch battalions of millions of angels to assist one of her servants than that it should ever be said that a faithful servant of Mary, who trusted in her, had had to succumb to the malice, the number and the vehemence of his enemies”. (T.D. 210).
Praying Mary’s Will Is My Will
How reassuring this is for a poor sinner like myself! But, there is more to it. My will being Mary’s will, little by little, becomes one with hers. It is not that Mary makes the decisions for me; but she does give me the graces necessary to make the right ones, the decisions she herself would make if she were in my place.
Think of it: a sinner like myself doing things the way Mary would do them! Difficult? Not a bit. All I do is every time I’ve got a decision to make and incidentally, I’m forever making decisions! – or a temptation to overcome, I cast an interior glance upon Mary. This I do in the twinkling of an eye. Then, bingo! There you have it. I simply say to Our Blessed Mother: ”Blessed Mother let’s go !” And away we go! . . .
Silly to be doing one’s own will all day long, isn’t it, when you can be doing Mary’s – which is also God’s will? Silly also, isn’t it, to be afraid of the hurricanes of temptation and sin when you’re a slave of Mary!
