Totally Consecrated

Guess what I’m doing right now? I’ll tell you: The Total Consecration To Jesus Christ Through Mary, which I am currently in the business of renewing. It is a method of Consecration to Christ written by Louis de Montfort, a 17th century Saint, which claims Mary the Mother of God as the surest way to her Son. I aim to renew my promise to be her slave.

“Woah now,” I hear the understandably misunderstanding voices cry. “Slave?” Yes, and in the only context which makes moral sense – in that I will it.

Why? Well, Saint Louis de Montfort wrote a whole book on ‘why’, but the reason I desire to submit myself entirely to her is summed up by him here:

Our good Master stooped to enclose himself in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, a captive but loving slave, and to make himself subject to her for thirty years. As I said earlier, the human mind is bewildered when it reflects seriously upon this conduct of Incarnate Wisdom. He did not choose to give himself in a direct manner to the human race though he could easily have done so. He chose to come through the Virgin Mary. Thus he did not come into the world independently of others in the flower of his manhood, but he came as a frail little child dependent on the care and attention of his Mother. Consumed with the desire to give glory to God, his Father, and save the human race, he saw no better or shorter way to do so than by submitting completely to Mary.

He did this not just for the first eight, ten or fifteen years of his life like other children, but for thirty years. He gave more glory to God, his Father, during all those years of submission and dependence than he would have given by spending them working miracles, preaching far and wide, and converting all mankind. Otherwise he would have done all these things.

What immeasurable glory then do we give to God when, following the example of Jesus, we submit to Mary! With such a convincing and well- known example before us, can we be so foolish as to believe that there is a better and shorter way of giving God glory than by submitting ourselves to Mary, as Jesus did?

The Consecration is intense. 12 days of renouncing the world, a week seeking greater knowledge of self, a week seeking greater knowledge of Mary, a week seeking greater knowledge of Jesus Christ, and then the Consecration itself. By consecrating ourselves to Jesus Christ through Mary, we give her full power over all “Our body with its senses and members; Our soul with its faculties; Our present material possessions and all we shall acquire in the future; Our interior and spiritual possessions, that is, our merits, virtues and good actions of the past, the present and the future.” The basic idea is this:

You, Holy Mother of Christ, know best what pleases Christ. Therefore replace my heart with your own, that He may find and love in me what He finds and loves in you.

I urge any that feel called to Consecrate themselves in a like manner to do so. It’s a definite move into Catholic badassery. The effects are wonderful. Louis de Montfort speaks on those Consecrated to Jesus Christ Through Mary:

They will be ministers of the Lord who, like a flaming fire, will enkindle everywhere the fires of divine love. They will become, in Mary’s powerful hands, like sharp arrows, with which she will transfix her enemies.

They will be as the children of Levi, thoroughly purified by the fire of great tribulations and closely joined to God. They will carry the gold of love in their heart, the frankincense of prayer in their mind and the myrrh of mortification in their body. They will bring to the poor and lowly everywhere the sweet fragrance of Jesus, but they will bring the odour of death to the great, the rich and the proud of this world.

They will be like thunder-clouds flying through the air at the slightest breath of the Holy Spirit. Attached to nothing, surprised at nothing, troubled at nothing, they will shower down the rain of God’s word and of eternal life. They will thunder against sin, they will storm against the world, they will strike down the devil and his followers and for life and for death, they will pierce through and through with the two-edged sword of God’s word all those against whom they are sent by Almighty God.

They will be true apostles of the latter times to whom the Lord of Hosts will give eloquence and strength to work wonders and carry off glorious spoils from his enemies. They will sleep without gold or silver and, more important still, without concern in the midst of other priests, ecclesiastics and clerics. Yet they will have the silver wings of the dove enabling them to go wherever the Holy Spirit calls them, filled as they are with the resolve to seek the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Wherever they preach, they will leave behind them nothing but the gold of love, which is the fulfilment of the whole law.

Lastly, we know they will be true disciples of Jesus Christ, imitating his poverty, his humility, his contempt of the world and his love. They will point out the narrow way to God in pure truth according to the holy Gospel, and not according to the maxims of the world. Their hearts will not be troubled, nor will they show favour to anyone; they will not spare or heed or fear any man, however powerful he may be. They will have the two-edged sword of the word of God in their mouths and the blood-stained standard of the Cross on their shoulders. They will carry the crucifix in their right hand and the rosary in their left, and the holy names of Jesus and Mary on their heart. The simplicity and self-sacrifice of Jesus will be reflected in their whole behaviour.

Our Mother brings us to her Son. Do it.