PREPARING FOR CONSECRATION?

Preparation for Total Consecration

I n the waiting area here at The QUEEN’s office there is a small, table- top, self-standing sign which reads: “There are three kinds of people: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who wonder what happened.” I believe that St. Louis de Montfort, like all the Saints, was a person who made things happen!

This is particularly true with respect to his teachings on True Devotion to Mary and Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary, which he proposed as a way of spiritual life. He was concerned with putting into writing the truths about Our Blessed Mother. Writing about her role in our spiritual lives. He prayed that “in the near or distant future, the Blessed Virgin will have more.  More children, servants and slaves of love than ever before. And that through them Jesus, my dear Lord, will reign more than ever in the hearts of men”. (True Devotion, No. 113).

So he wrote his little book, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the hopes of “fashioning a true servant of Mary and a true disciple of Jesus . . . But my labor will be well rewarded if this little book falls into the hands of a noble soul and child of God and of Mary . . . My time will be well spent if by the grace of the Holy Spirit, after having read this book, he is convinced of the supreme value of this solid devotion to Mary I am about to describe”.

The Perfect Devotion to Mary, The Perfect Consecration to Jesus

And, in his burning zeal for souls, he continues; “If I thought that my guilty blood could help the reader to accept in his heart the truths that I set down in honor of my dear Mother and Queen, I, her most unworthy child and slave, would use it instead of ink to write these words”. (T.D. No. 112, 113).

That “solid devotion to Mary” our Saint refers to is the second half of his book, entitled: The Perfect Devotion to Mary, The Perfect Consecration to Jesus Christ, A Perfect Renewal of the Baptismal Promises. Anyone who has read and reread the True Devotion knows how meticulously Fr. de Montfort explains the nature of his total consecration to Jesus through Mary, as well as the motives for adopting it and its marvelous effects in a soul. Only a Saint like Montfort, who had lived it thoroughly, could have written what he wrote and the way he wrote it.

In 1863, the well known Spiritual Writer, Father Frederick William Faber, who made the first English translation of Montfort’s True Devotion, wrote in his preface to the book; “If I may dare to say, there is a growing feeling of something inspired and supernatural about it, as we go on studying it; and with that we cannot help experiencing, after repeated readings of it, that its novelty never seems to wear off.  Nor its fulness to be diminished, nor the fresh fragrance and sensible fire of its unction ever to abate”.

A Christo-centric Marian Spirituality

Being the kind of person who makes things happen, St. Louis had left no stone unturned. He even went so far as to encourage us to make a suitable preparation for this total consecration of ourselves to Jesus through Mary. A preparation which would introduce us into this beautiful way of Christo-centric Marian Spirituality. Practical preacher that he was, he outlined for us, in nos. 227- 233 of his book, a schedule which he recommended we follow in our individual and/or group preparation.

Briefly, it consists in a 33-day preparation during which, for the first 12 days we strive to rid ourselves of the spirit of the world, as opposed to the Spirit of Christ. Then, for the 1st week, we are asked to meditate on KNOWLEDGE OF SELF; 2nd week, KNOWLEDGE OF MARY; and 3rd week, KNOWLEDGE OF JESUS CHRIST.

At the end of these 33 days, Montfort says; “They should go to Confession and Holy Communion with the intention of consecrating them-selves to Jesus through Mary as His slaves of love. After Communion, they recite the Act of Consecration. .. and sign it that very day”.  This is your spiritual contract with Jesus and Mary.

Whenever I help prepare people for this Consecration, I seriously urge them; “Make sure you have it in your back pocket, when you meet St. Peter at the “pearly gates”! It will be your open sesame into the eternal presence of Jesus and Mary!