Tag Archives: Mary

Emptying ourselves Day 7 – Victory through love, patience, not power

Day 7 – Victory through love, patience, not power

A Reading from the Letter of Saint Paul to the Romans:

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope; because creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning with labor pains together until now; and not only creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (Romans 8:18-25)

Pope Benedict XVI’s Inaugural homily April 25, 2005:

In the Ancient Near East, it was customary for kings to style themselves shepherds of their people. This was an image of their power, a cynical image: to them their subjects were like sheep, which the shepherd could dispose of as he wished. When the shepherd of all humanity, the living God, himself became a lamb, he stood on the side of the lambs, with those who are downtrodden and killed. This is how he reveals himself to be the true shepherd: “I am the Good Shepherd . . . I lay down my life for the sheep”, Jesus says of himself (Jn 10:14f). It is not power, but love that redeems us! This is God’s sign: he himself is love. How often we wish that God would show himself the stronger, that he would strike decisively, defeating evil and creating a better world. All ideologies of power justify themselves in exactly this way, they justify the destruction of whatever would stand in the way of progress and the liberation of humanity. We suffer on account of God’s patience. And yet, we need his patience. God, who became a lamb, tells us that the world is saved by the Crucified One, not by those who crucified him. The world is redeemed by the patience of God. It is destroyed by the impatience of man.

Reflection:

Do I wish for the destruction of my enemies? Do I pray that God would show Himself the stronger and strike decisively against those who could hurt me? Do I suffer because of God’s patience? Try to make an act of trust that God is taking care of everything and working out His plan of salvation. Make an act of love to unite your sufferings to the sufferings of Christ.

The first threat that Jesus faced was from King Herod. We can think of the helplessness of Jesus when He was threatened by Herod’s power. He was effectively still in the womb of Mary, with no voice, no understanding, no plan, no defense. Rather than destroying Herod, Joseph was warned in a dream and He took Mary and the child and went to Egypt. He remained hidden and helpless. Learning the patience of Mary’s little lamb is so hard but also possible when we can place our trust in Mary and Joseph that they take care of us as they took care of Jesus.

Prayers:

Veni Sancte Spiritus

Ave Maris Stella or Sub Tuum Praesidium

Litany of Penance or Radiating Christ

Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary

Emptying ourselves Day 6 – The sign of a child

Day 6 – The sign of a child

Pope Benedict XVI’s Midnight Mass Homily 2006:

We have just heard in the Gospel the message given by the angels to the shepherds during that Holy Night, a message which the Church now proclaims to us: “To you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger” (Lk 2:11-12). Nothing miraculous, nothing extraordinary, nothing magnificent is given to the shepherds as a sign. All they will see is a child wrapped in swaddling clothes, one who, like all children, needs a mother’s care; a child born in a stable, who therefore lies not in a cradle but in a manger. God’s sign is the baby in need of help and in poverty. Only in their hearts will the shepherds be able to see that this baby fulfils the promise of the prophet Isaiah, which we heard in the first reading: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder” (Is 9:5). Exactly the same sign has been given to us. We too are invited by the angel of God, through the message of the Gospel, to set out in our hearts to see the child lying in the manger.

God’s sign is simplicity. God’s sign is the baby. God’s sign is that he makes himself small for us. This is how he reigns. He does not come with power and outward splendour. He comes as a baby – defenceless and in need of our help. He does not want to overwhelm us with his strength. He takes away our fear of his greatness. He asks for our love: so he makes himself a child. He wants nothing from us other than our love, through which we spontaneously learn to enter into his feelings, his thoughts and his will – we learn to live with him and to practise with him that humility of renunciation that belongs to the very essence of love. God made himself small so that we could understand him, welcome him, and love him.

Reflection:

Let us meditate on the little God who comes to us and welcome him into our arms and our hearts and love him.

We learn to see Him better as we become more like Him. When we choose to become little and we accept our weakness we draw closer to the Baby Jesus in the womb of Mary. As we love Him, we enter into his feelings, his thoughts and his will and we enter into the heart and into the womb of Mary, to whom He first entrusted His life. We find ourselves pressed up against Him like two twins in the womb, experiencing His paradise in that place of perfect love.

Prayers:

Veni Sancte Spiritus

Ave Maris Stella or Sub Tuum Praesidium

Litany of Penance or Radiating Christ

Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary

Emptying ourselves Day 5 – God reveals himself to the childlike

Day 5 – God reveals himself to the childlike

A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew:

At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. (Matthew 11:25-27)

From Benedict XVI’s homily to the International Theological Commission (Dec. 1, 2009):

We have heard that our Lord praises the Father because he concealed the great mystery of the Son the Trinitarian mystery, the Christological mystery from the wise and the learned, from those who did not recognize him. Instead he revealed it to children, the nèpioi, to those who are not learned, who are not very cultured. It was to them that this great mystery was revealed.

…[I]n our time there have also been “little ones” who have understood this mystery. Let us think of St Bernadette Soubirous; of St Thérèse of Lisieux, with her new interpretation of the Bible that is “non-scientific” but goes to the heart of Sacred Scripture; of the saints and blessed of our time: St Josephine Bakhita, Bl. Teresa of Calcutta and St Damien de Veuster. We could list so many!

But from all this the question arises: “Why should this be so?”. Is Christianity the religion of the foolish, of people with no culture or who are uneducated? Is faith extinguished where reason is kindled? How can this be explained? Perhaps we should take another look at history. What Jesus said, what can be noted in all the centuries, is true. Nevertheless, there is a “type” of lowly person who is also learned. Our Lady stood beneath the Cross, the humble handmaid of the Lord and the great woman illumined by God. And John was there too, a fisherman from the Sea of Galilee. He is the John whom the Church was rightly to call “the theologian”, for he was really able to see the mystery of God and proclaim it: eagled-eyed he entered into the inaccessible light of the divine mystery. So it was too that after his Resurrection, the Lord, on the road to Damascus, touches the heart of Saul, one of those learned people who cannot see. He himself, in his First Letter to Timothy, writes that he was “acting ignorantly” at that time, despite his knowledge. But the Risen One touches him: he is blinded. Yet at the same time, he truly gains sight; he begins to see. The great scholar becomes a “little one” and for this very reason perceives the folly of God as wisdom, a wisdom far greater than all human wisdom.

We could continue to interpret the holy story in this way. Just one more observation. These erudite terms, sofòi and sinetòi, in the First Reading are used in a different way. Here sofia and sìnesis are gifts of the Holy Spirit which descend upon the Messiah, upon Christ. What does this mean? It turns out that there is a dual use of reason and a dual way of being either wise or little. …

Then there is the other way of using reason, of being wise—that of the man who recognizes who he is; he recognizes the proper measure and greatness of God, opening himself in humility to the newness of God’s action. It is in this way, precisely by accepting his own smallness, making himself little as he really is, that he arrives at the truth. Thus reason too can express all its possibilities; it is not extinguished but rather grows and becomes greater. Sofìa and sìnesis in this context do not exclude one from the mystery that is real communion with the Lord, in whom reside wisdom and knowledge and their truth.

Let us now pray that the Lord will give us true humility. May he give us the grace of being little in order to be truly wise; may he illumine us, enable us to see his mystery in the joy of the Holy Spirit.

Reflection:

Do I see my own littleness? Do I see the greatness of God? Let us pray for true humility and the grace of littleness.

Mary’s womb is the Seat of Wisdom where we can be both little and wise. It is where we learn the Wisdom of Jesus who saved us by becoming small and weak. When we place ourselves in Mary’s womb and do all of our reasoning from that perspective, we take ourselves less seriously, empty out our intellectual pride and learn to delight in the wonders of God. We can think of the Baby Jesus in Mary’s lap as He reaches out to discover the world from that place of perfect love and safety.

Prayers:

Veni Sancte Spiritus

Ave Maris Stella or Sub Tuum Praesidium

Litany of Penance or Radiating Christ

Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary

Emptying ourselves Day 4 – God hears our cry

Day 4 – God hears our cry

A Reading from the Letter of Saint Paul to the Romans:

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. So then it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. …

So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh—for if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. (Romans 7:15-20; 8:12-17)

From Pope Benedict XVI Urbi et Orbi Christmas Message 2011:

This is the great evil, the great sin, from which we human beings cannot save ourselves unless we rely on God’s help, unless we cry out to him: “Veni ad salvandum nos! – Come to save us!”

The very fact that we cry to heaven in this way already sets us aright; it makes us true to ourselves: we are in fact those who cried out to God and were saved (cf. Esth [LXX] 10:3ff.). God is the Saviour; we are those who are in peril. He is the physician; we are the infirm. To realize this is the first step towards salvation, towards emerging from the maze in which we have been locked by our pride. To lift our eyes to heaven, to stretch out our hands and call for help is our means of escape, provided that there is Someone who hears us and can come to our assistance.

Jesus Christ is the proof that God has heard our cry. And not only this! God’s love for us is so strong that he cannot remain aloof; he comes out of himself to enter into our midst and to share fully in our human condition (cf. Ex 3:7-12). The answer to our cry which God gave in Jesus infinitely transcends our expectations, achieving a solidarity which cannot be human alone, but divine. Only the God who is love, and the love which is God, could choose to save us in this way, which is certainly the lengthiest way, yet the way which respects the truth about him and about us: the way of reconciliation, dialogue and cooperation.

Reflection:

Do I recognize that I cannot save myself? Do I believe that God will always hear my cry? Can I see that Jesus Himself is the answer to my cry, that He is God who has come close to me and He will never abandon me. He is my Savior.

We are crying for a home, crying to belong, crying for the things we need to grow, crying to make sense of the pain and find support, crying for others. When we cry out, Mary responds to us and brings us into her arms and even into that tighter, safer more beautiful embrace in her womb. In coming to share our human condition, Jesus made her womb the perfect place for all our needs to be met and also the place that we can always find Him, who is always the Son of God and also the Son of Mary.

Prayers:

Veni Sancte Spiritus

Ave Maris Stella or Sub Tuum Praesidium

Litany of Penance or Radiating Christ

Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary

Emptying ourselves – Day 3 – Self-sufficiency

Day 3 – Save us from the prideful presumption of self-sufficiency

A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke:

[T]he Pharisees and their scribes murmured against his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:30-32)

From Pope Benedict XVI Urbi et Orbi Christmas Message 2011:

This is how Christ is invoked in an ancient liturgical antiphon: “O Emmanuel, our king and lawgiver, hope and salvation of the peoples: come to save us, O Lord our God”. Veni ad salvandum nos! Come to save us! This is the cry raised by men and women in every age, who sense that by themselves they cannot prevail over difficulties and dangers. They need to put their hands in a greater and stronger hand, a hand which reaches out to them from on high. Dear brothers and sisters, this hand is Christ, born in Bethlehem of the Virgin Mary. He is the hand that God extends to humanity, to draw us out of the mire of sin and to set us firmly on rock, the secure rock of his Truth and his Love (cf. Ps 40:2).

This is the meaning of the Child’s name, the name which, by God’s will, Mary and Joseph gave him: he is named Jesus, which means “Saviour” (cf. Mt 1:21; Lk 1:31). He was sent by God the Father to save us above all from the evil deeply rooted in man and in history: the evil of separation from God, the prideful presumption of being self-sufficient, of trying to compete with God and to take his place, to decide what is good and evil, to be the master of life and death (cf. Gen 3:1-7). This is the great evil, the great sin, from which we human beings cannot save ourselves unless we rely on God’s help, unless we cry out to him: “Veni ad salvandum nos! – Come to save us!”

Reflection:

God does not answer prayers that cause us to need Him less. He is trying to save us from being alone and from needing no one. Generally when we go to an earthly physician, we hope that it will work well enough that we never need to see him again. This is not the approach of the Divine Physician—He seeks to treat us so that we never try to go without Him again, because He Himself is the cure. Let us reflect on the ways we try to use God in order to need God less.

A baby in the womb is so radically dependent on his/her mother, but never better off by being outside of the womb. Even if a baby must be born prematurely, the doctors care for it best by creating a womb-like environment as much as possible. But a baby with a perfect, loving mother cannot find a better place to grow in love and life than in the womb. This is true for us with Mary as well, until we are ready to be born into Eternal Life (which is a new kind of womb where God is in us and we are in God).

Prayers:

Veni Sancte Spiritus

Ave Maris Stella or Sub Tuum Praesidium

Litany of Penance or Radiating Christ

Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary

Emptying Ourselves Day 2 – Original sin poisons our thinking

A Reading from the Letter of Saint Paul to the Philippians:

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any incentive of love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. (Phil 2:1-8)

From Pope Benedict XVI’s homily for the Immaculate Conception, December 8, 2005:

Dear brothers and sisters, if we sincerely reflect about ourselves and our history, we have to say that with this narrative [in Gen 3:1-7] is described not only the history of the beginning but the history of all times, and that we all carry within us a drop of the poison of that way of thinking, illustrated by the images in the Book of Genesis.

We call this drop of poison “original sin”. Precisely on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, we have a lurking suspicion that a person who does not sin must really be basically boring and that something is missing from his life:  the dramatic dimension of being autonomous; that the freedom to say no, to descend into the shadows of sin and to want to do things on one’s own is part of being truly human; that only then can we make the most of all the vastness and depth of our being men and women, of being truly ourselves; that we should put this freedom to the test, even in opposition to God, in order to become, in reality, fully ourselves.

In a word, we think that evil is basically good, we think that we need it, at least a little, in order to experience the fullness of being. We think that Mephistopheles – the tempter – is right when he says he is the power “that always wants evil and always does good” (J.W. von Goethe, Faust I, 3). We think that a little bargaining with evil, keeping for oneself a little freedom against God, is basically a good thing, perhaps even necessary.

If we look, however, at the world that surrounds us we can see that this is not so; in other words, that evil is always poisonous, does not uplift human beings but degrades and humiliates them. It does not make them any the greater, purer or wealthier, but harms and belittles them.

Reflection:

Do I ever think that if I am “too good” life will be boring? Do I think that goodness is boring? Do I try to leave a little room for evil in my life, maybe on the weekend or just on Friday night or on vacation or after everyone has gone to bed? Am I only good when my spouse is nearby or an authority figure? Do I gloss over my sinfulness and justify it, even in the Confessional, with a phrase like, “Boys will be boys,” or “You gotta have a little fun!” Can I hear God calling me to a deeper conversion, to shut down these outlets and pursue goodness more whole-heartedly?

No one lived a more exciting life than Jesus and Mary, starting from when Jesus was conceived in the womb of Mary at the Annunciation and then she carried Him to her cousin Elizabeth. When we are willing to live in such a constant dependent relationship with Mary by being in her womb, life becomes more exciting, full and rich.

Prayers:

Veni Sancte Spiritus

Ave Maris Stella or Sub Tuum Praesidium

Litany of Penance or Radiating Christ

Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary

Emptying Ourselves Day 1 – Dependence on God

First Part – Emptying ourselves of the spirit of the world

One of the consequences of original sin is that we have been tainted by a spirit of the world. That spirit of independence, self-sufficiency, and grasping at control is very much with us. We need to see it intellectually as far as we are able. For this we seek the wisdom God gave us through one of the greatest teachers of our time, Pope Benedict XVI. This will help to expose the taint of original sin that has invaded our thinking. We also need the grace to turn away from it. For this we must pray earnestly. Some other forms of self-sacrifice will help us well. In this regard we can target those areas that further the spirit of the world. Intellectually we would do well to fast from content on media that propagates the lies—TV, Facebook, Netflix, secular news sources and other forms social media reinforce the thinking that is poisoned by original sin. We can also cut back on those things and activities we turn to as a substitute for prayer. That could include comfort food, alcohol, shopping, romance novels, over-exercising, excessive work, or others. Some self-knowledge is important here and also consultation with a close spiritual friend or spiritual director.

Day 1 – Dependence on God

A Reading from the Book of Genesis:

Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. (Genesis 3:1-7)

From Pope Benedict XVI’s homily for the Immaculate Conception, December 8, 2005:

If we set ourselves with the believing and praying Church to listen to this text, then we can begin to understand what original sin, inherited sin, is and also what the protection against this inherited sin is, what redemption is.

What picture does this passage show us? The human being does not trust God. Tempted by the serpent, he harbours the suspicion that in the end, God takes something away from his life, that God is a rival who curtails our freedom and that we will be fully human only when we have cast him aside; in brief, that only in this way can we fully achieve our freedom.

The human being lives in the suspicion that God’s love creates a dependence and that he must rid himself of this dependency if he is to be fully himself. Man does not want to receive his existence and the fullness of his life from God.

He himself wants to obtain from the tree of knowledge the power to shape the world, to make himself a god, raising himself to God’s level, and to overcome death and darkness with his own efforts. He does not want to rely on love that to him seems untrustworthy; he relies solely on his own knowledge since it confers power upon him. Rather than on love, he sets his sights on power, with which he desires to take his own life autonomously in hand. And in doing so, he trusts in deceit rather than in truth and thereby sinks with his life into emptiness, into death.

Love is not dependence but a gift that makes us live. The freedom of a human being is the freedom of a limited being, and therefore is itself limited. We can possess it only as a shared freedom, in the communion of freedom:  only if we live in the right way, with one another and for one another, can freedom develop.

We live in the right way if we live in accordance with the truth of our being, and that is, in accordance with God’s will. For God’s will is not a law for the human being imposed from the outside and that constrains him, but the intrinsic measure of his nature, a measure that is engraved within him and makes him the image of God, hence, a free creature.

If we live in opposition to love and against the truth – in opposition to God – then we destroy one another and destroy the world. Then we do not find life but act in the interests of death. All this is recounted with immortal images in the history of the original fall of man and the expulsion of man from the earthly Paradise.

Reflection:
Where can you see this thinking in your own life? In what ways are you suspicious of love? Unwilling to ask for help? Rebellious against God’s law? Do you fear that God wants to take something away from you? Are you willing to rely on Him for everything? In what ways do you seek a security in your own control?

A baby in the womb is so radically dependent on the mother, but also so perfectly provided for. God has given us in Mary and in the Church a Mother who wants to provide for everything as she forms us in her womb into another Christ.

Prayers:

Veni Sancte Spiritus

Ave Maris Stella or Sub Tuum Praesidium

Litany of Penance or Radiating Christ

Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary

Prayers – Emptying ourselves of the spirit of the world

Veni Sancte Spiritus
(Roman Missal translation)

Holy Spirit, Lord of light,
from the clear celestial height
thy pure beaming radiance give.

Come, thou Father of the poor,
come with treasures which endure;
come, thou light of all that live!

Thou, of all consolers best, thou,
the soul’s delighted guest,
dost refreshing peace bestow;

Thou in toil art comfort sweet;
pleasant coolness in the heat;
solace in the midst of woe.

Light immortal, light divine,
visit thou these hearts of thine,
and our inmost being fill:

If thou take thy grace away,
nothing pure in man will stay;
all his good is turned to ill.

Heal our wounds, our strength renew;
on our dryness pour thy dew;
wash the stains of guilt away:

Bend the stubborn heart and will;
melt the frozen, warm the chill;
guide the steps that go astray.

Thou, on us who evermore
thee confess and thee adore,
with thy sevenfold gifts descend:

Give us comfort when we die;
give us life with thee on high;
give us joys that never end. Amen.

Ave Maris Stella
Hail, bright star of ocean,
God’s own Mother blest,
Ever sinless Virgin,
Gate of heavenly rest.

Taking that sweet Ave
Which from Gabriel came,
Peace confirm within us,
Changing Eva’s name.

Break the captives’ fetters,
Light on blindness pour,
All our ills expelling,
Every bliss implore.

Show thyself a Mother;
May the Word Divine,
Born for us thy Infant,
Hear our prayers through thine.

Virgin all excelling,
Mildest of the mild,
Freed from guilt, preserve us,
Pure and undefiled.

Keep our life all spotless,
Make our way secure,
Till we find in Jesus,
Joy forevermore.

Through the highest heaven
To the Almighty Three,
Father, Son and Spirit,
One same glory be. Amen.

Sub Tuum Praesidium
We fly to thy protection, O holy Mother of God, despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O glorious and blessed Virgin.

Radiating Christ
(By Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman)

Dear Jesus, help me to spread Your fragrance wherever I go.
Flood my soul with Your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly, that my life may only be a radiance of Yours.
Shine through me, and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Your presence in my soul.
Let them look up and see no longer me, but only Jesus!
Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as You shine, so to shine as to be a light to others.
The light, O Jesus, will be all from You; none of it will be mine.
It will be you, shining on others through me.
Let me thus praise You the way You love best, by shining on those around me.
Let me preach You without preaching, not by words but by my example, by the catching force of the sympathetic influence of what I do, the evident fullness of the love my heart bears to You.
Amen.

Litany of Penance
(By Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman)

Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, hear us. Christ, graciously hear us.
God the Father of Heaven, have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.
God the Holy Ghost, have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us.
Incarnate Lord, have mercy on us.
Lover of souls, have mercy on us.
Saviour of sinners, have mercy on us.
Who didst come to seek those that were lost, have mercy on us.
Who didst fast for them forty days and nights, have mercy on us.
By Thy tenderness towards Adam when he fell, have mercy on us.
By Thy faithfulness to Noe in the ark, have mercy on us.
By Thy remembrance of Lot in the midst of sinners, have mercy on us.
By Thy mercy on the Israelites in the desert, have mercy on us.
By Thy forgiveness of David after his confession, have mercy on us.
By Thy patience with wicked Achab on his humiliation, have mercy on us.
By Thy restoration of the penitent Manasses, have mercy on us.
By Thy long suffering towards the Ninevites, when they went in sackcloth and ashes. Have mercy on us.
By Thy blessing on the Maccabees, who fasted before the battle, have mercy on us.
By Thy choice of John to go before Thee as the preacher of penance, have mercy on us.
By Thy testimony to the Publican, who hung his head and smote his breast, have mercy on us.
By Thy welcome given to the returning Prodigal, have mercy on us.
By Thy gentleness with the woman of Samaria, have mercy on us.
By Thy condescension towards Zacchaeus, persuading him to restitution, have mercy on us.
By Thy pity upon the woman taken in adultery, have mercy on us.
By Thy love of Magdalen, who loved much, have mercy on us.
By Thy converting look, at which Peter wept, have mercy on us.
By Thy gracious words to the thief upon the cross, have mercy on us.
We sinners, Beseech Thee, hear us.
That we may judge ourselves, and so escape Thy judgment, We beseech Thee, hear us.
That we may bring forth worthy fruits of penance, We beseech Thee, hear us.
That sin may not reign in our mortal bodies, We beseech Thee, hear us.
That we may work out our salvation with fear and trembling, We beseech Thee, hear us.
Son of God, We beseech Thee, hear us.
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, Spare us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, Graciously hear us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Christ, hear us. Christ, graciously hear us.
O Lord, hear our prayer. And let our cry come unto Thee.

Let us pray:

Grant, we beseech Thee, O Lord, to Thy faithful, pardon and peace, that they may be cleansed from all their offenses, and also serve Thee with a quiet mind, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary
Almighty God, Heavenly Father,
who have placed me, by Baptism, in the womb of the Virgin Mary
beneath her Immaculate Heart
to be together with your Son
and ever more conformed to Him by the power of the Holy Spirit,
grant that I may whole-heartedly embrace my dependence on you
as I place all my trust in my Mother Mary.
May I never scorn my weakness which your Son chose to share with me,
but may I always be grateful to be little and helpless,
knowing that without you I can do nothing.
Veiled with her beneath the protective care of Saint Joseph her spouse,
may I find in her a refuge against every danger
and in her womb a hiding place invisible to the ancient foe.
May I know that I am loved perfectly like Jesus by Joseph and Mary,
those parents, who, receiving everything from You,
will always provide for all of my needs.
Through the same Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Marian Consecration Introduction

Saint Louis de Montfort set forth a revolution of spirituality in teaching us about Marian consecration and giving us a 33-day plan to prepare our souls for that big step.

What is this consecration? He described this consecration as being a form of “slavery” to Mary. Slavery means that we do nothing without her. We choose not to have a will apart from hers. He even invites us to wear a chain to signify that close bond with her. He elaborated the various consequences of that bond, saying that we share everything with her including our prayers, our intentions, our actions, and our merits. Fundamentally he is saying that we choose to become totally dependent on her: we receive everything through her and share everything with her.

At first this sounds radical and may even sound a little scary or seem like a lot of work. As we come to understand the way the spirit of the world has infected our thinking, however, and as we get in touch with our own woundedness, we come to discover that this is a merciful gift from heaven. It is a sweet path of salvation. In fact, it is better than we could have ever hoped for! What it means is that there is a sweet, loving, perfect mother who actually wants to live in this kind of close relationship with us. It is really what we always wanted. If we accept her invitation, we will find all the healing and happiness we always longed for. To understand this, we have to take a step back and reflect on how we got where we are.

The principal consequence of original sin is a fearful grasping after independence and repeatedly seeking a security that is in our own control. In the beginning it was not so. God made us for relationship—first of all with Himself (“then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” —Gen 2:7) and then also with each other (“It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” —Gen 2:18). These relationships were deeply ruptured by the fall, when man and woman sought to become gods without God (Gen 3:1-7). All efforts to achieve immortality through medicine, science or magic are a consequence of this. The original sin is behind all our efforts to earn love through our accomplishments or to control our lives through our own power. It is the source of all our unhappiness, emptiness, and fear. It is fundamentally a denial of our being—we did not create ourselves and we do not have sole power over our destiny. We simply cannot exist without God and trying to do so is a contradiction that splits us in two.

The problem is that living in relationship requires trust and our trust has been broken over and over, starting from our first infant cry that went unanswered. Our psyches are blistered with broken trust. To whom can we turn for healing?

Fortunately God does not leave us in the wilderness of isolation nor does He merely ask us to try harder or get over it. Further, He does not expect us to find our way home on our own, which would only exacerbate the problem. Rather He reveals Himself as a Father who is trustworthy and He sends us His Son to adopt us into His family and bring us home. This is the adventure of salvation.

Jesus adopts us into His Divine Family so that, in Him, we have God as our Father. But because it is not good for the man to be alone (i.e. without human relationships), Jesus also adopts us into His human family, which means that we have a human father and mother as well. In fact, we have two sets of human fathers and mothers. Rather, we have at least two sets of parents, because God also entrusts to numerous men and women the gift of reflecting fatherhood and motherhood for us.

In this adventure, we must relearn trust and dependence. It is always a risk—we have the scars to prove it. To help us with this, in addition to the imperfect human mother who gave us birth, God also sends us the Blessed Virgin Mary, a perfect human mother, to fill out any gaps left in us by our birth-mother’s limitations. Mary is the first redeemed—from the moment of her conception. She is without sin. That means that she will never fail us nor forget us nor abandon us nor forsake us. She will never break our trust. In this way, she teaches us to trust again and helps to heal our wounds of broken trust.

We also receive a human father in Saint Joseph, Mary’s most chaste spouse. He is the human father God made for Jesus. He is the human father who perfectly formed the humanity of Jesus, as He matured, i.e. as He “increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man.” (Luke 2:52) For that reason Saint Joseph is also the best human father for us. He builds on all the good things our dads did and he fills out all the holes they left when their limitations prevented them from being the father we needed them to be.

Now we are in a better position to understand Marian consecration. Most fundamentally it is a choice to be a child like Jesus. In other words we are choosing to be a child of Mary and Joseph. This is not a perfect description yet though, because a child can still be willful and wander away. The dependence that we are invited to is more radical: we are invited to be the infant of Mary and Joseph. We can think of His birth in Bethlehem. Jesus did not provide for Himself, but rather He let them feed Him and hold Him and even change His diapers. We can think of the Flight into Egypt and how helpless Jesus was. He did not protect Himself, but rather let Himself be carried to safety by Mary and Joseph who saved Him from Herod’s wrath.

Saint Louis de Montfort invited us to go even one step further. He wrote, “Mary has received from God a special dominion over souls, in order to nourish them and to make them grow up in God. Saint Augustine even says, that all the predestinate are in the womb of Mary, and that they are not born, until the good Mother brings them forth into life eternal. Consequently, as the child draws all its nourishment from its mother, who gives it to it in proportion to its weakness, so in like manner do the predestinate draw all their spiritual nourishment and all their strength from Mary.” (Secret of Mary #8)

Even more helpless than an infant, we are invited to be held in the most perfect embrace of the most loving mother as a child in the womb. This is the radical quality of our trust, our abandonment to the one who always perfectly lives in accord with the will of God. She is the perfect mother who will only nourish the child in her womb with the best of foods and who turns every squirming movement of that tiny child into a beautiful expression of love for God.

In this way we have reframed Total Consecration to Mary, without losing anything, no longer as a scary slavery, but now as the perfect embrace and safe protection provided by a mother for an infant in her womb.

In the following pages we embark on a 33-day preparation for Marian consecration after the model given to us by Saint Louis de Montfort. We spend the first twelve days emptying ourselves of the spirit of the world. We follow that with a week focused on self-knowledge then a week focused on knowledge of Mary and finally a week focused on knowledge of Jesus. After 33 days of preparation we are ready to make a consecration on the 34th day. We recommend spending at least 10 minutes every day on this preparation for Consecration. That will include time to read the teaching provided and to reflect on it as well as reciting some prayers to ask God’s grace for this process. Whether you are making this journey for the first time or renewing your consecration, it can be a process of profound conversion if you open your heart to that.

We conclude with an encouraging word from Saint Louis de Montfort, reminding us that the paradise of Mary’s womb is a place of wonders and especially fashioned according to each one’s weakness where we are only expected to be a little child. This preparation opens up to us the Secret of Mary, in whom we draw closest to our loving God. There is a place for everyone there in the bosom of our loving mother:

Happy, and a thousand times happy, is the soul here below to which the Holy Ghost reveals, and makes known, the Secret of Mary; to which He opens this «garden enclosed,» by permitting it to enter it; to which He gives access to this «fountain sealed up,» by suffering it to draw from it, and to drink deep draughts of the living waters of grace! Such a soul will find God Alone without any creature, in this most sweet creature; but God at the same time infinitely holy and exalted, infinitely condescending and proportioned to its weakness. Since God is everywhere, He may be found everywhere, even in hell; but there is no place in which the creature can find Him nearer to itself, and more proportioned to its weakness, than in Mary, for it was for this end that He came down into her bosom. Everywhere else He is the Bread of the Strong, the Bread of Angels, but in Mary He is the Bread of children.

“Blessed Be Saint Joseph, Her Most Chaste Spouse”

Jesus, Mary and Joseph

As the Divine Praises remind us, St. Joseph is Mary’s most chaste spouse. He is a master of purity and a master of modesty, even if he needs a little convincing on this point. A master of purity is able to see, to read, in the language of the body, the mystery of God’s presence hidden in the intimate center of another. A master of modesty does not exploit this mystery, nor expose this mystery, nor run away from this mystery, but rather veils the mystery with his love. In the end, St. Joseph both sees and veils the mystery of God’s spousal love for mankind expressed in the body of the Blessed Virgin Mary. But it took an angel to help him understand this and have the courage to accept the task.

Purity and modesty

We turn to the Catechism to understand more clearly the two virtues of purity of heart and modesty. The Catechism teaches us: “[purity of heart] enables us to see according to God…; it lets us perceive the human body–ours and our neighbor’s–as a temple of the Holy Spirit, a manifestation of divine beauty” (CCC, 2519). Purity of heart allows us to behold the mystery, the beauty hidden in the heart of another, but seen through the body. In regard to modesty, the Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 2521 reads, “Modesty protects the intimate center of the person. It means refusing to unveil what should remain hidden…”and in paragraph 2522 we read, “Modesty protects the mystery of persons and their love… it keeps silence or reserve where there is evident risk of unhealthy curiosity. It is discreet.”

St Joseph’s drama – purity sees the mystery, humility backs away

Let us turn now to the Scriptures to see how the drama of St. Joseph’s life unfolds. Throughout the ages, the “Masters of Suspicion,” as St. John Paul II names them, read the Annunciation to St. Joseph with the suspicion that no one, even St. Joseph, could have sufficient purity of heart to see the mystery of God’s love in the unexpected pregnancy of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This presumption colors the interpretations of key biblical passages, supposing that St. Joseph saw Mary as an adulteress. Modern Scripture scholarship and the Doctors of the Church help us to reread these passages in the light of truth. The passage in question comes from St. Matthew’s Gospel and we hear it each year in the Mass on Christmas Eve and on the Solemnity of St. Joseph: “Joseph, her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly.” (Mt 1:19)

First, we need help with two Greek words–the verb deigmatizo, translated here as “expose to shame” and apoluo translated here as “divorce.” While we cannot go into all the details, a valid re-translation of this passage is proposed by the Jesuit scripture scholar Fr. Ignace de la Potterie, “But Joseph, her spouse, who was a just man, and who did not wish to unveil (her mystery), resolved to secretly separate (himself) from her.” (Mary in the Mystery of the Covenant, p. 39)

From this we get a better understanding of the insight of St. Bernard of Clairvaux who wrote, “Why did he wish to leave her?… He saw, with sacred astonishment, that she bore a special quality of the divine presence, and while not being able to understand this mystery, he wished to leave her.” (Hom. “Super Missus Est”) St. Thomas Aquinas reiterates this insight in his Summa Theologica, “Joseph wanted to give the Virgin her liberty, not because he suspected her of adultery, but out of respect for her sanctity he feared to live together with her.” (Supplementum III, q. 62, art. 3)

Then the angel appears to St. Joseph in a dream and helps him (and us) to understand the following truth expressed by St. John Paul II in his reflections on the Sermon on the Mount in the Theology of the Body, “[Christ] assigns the dignity of every woman as a task to every man.” And “he assigns also the dignity of every man to every woman” (TOB 100:6). Upholding this dignity “is assigned as ethos to every man, male and female: it is assigned to his ‘heart,’ to his conscience, to his looks, and to his behavior” (TOB 100:7). St. Joseph is assigned the “task” of Mary’s dignity. This task requires two virtues: purity, to see, and modesty, to protect.

Scripture scholarship and the Doctors of the Church reinforce our faith that St. Joseph’s purity of heart allowed him to behold a great mystery in the body of Mary. In the purity of his heart, St. Joseph beheld in his virginal bride not the sin of an adulteress but the awesome mystery of God’s presence. The body of Mary caused the sacred astonishment of St. Joseph as he beheld the great mystery of divine, spousal love in the language of Mary’s virginal pregnancy.

At the same time, St. Joseph recognized the virtue necessary to protect such a profound mystery. He feared that in his human weakness, he might defile the mystery by remaining close. Like St. Peter and the centurion who both said, “I am not worthy,” St. Joseph did not consider himself virtuous enough to veil this mystery by his presence; rather he thought he could do so better by his absence. Because of this, reasoned St Bernard, St Joseph decided to separate himself (apoluo) from Mary.

Obedience veils the mystery

Fortunately, in God’s gentle Providence, He sent an angel to St. Joseph to reassure him that he should protect her mystery by remaining her husband, by taking her mystery with him under his roof. Scripture affirms that St Joseph obeyed the angel. We can even read the exactitude of his obedience by the exact correspondence in scripture. The angel said, “Take Mary your wife into your home” (Mt 1:20) and Scripture affirms, “When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home.” (Mt 1:24)

One of the Church Fathers claimed the success of Joseph’s obedience in indicating that it is precisely the marriage that he maintained with Mary that protected her from the devil. Referring to something written by St Ignatius of Antioch, Origen asserted that the devil did not find Mary because he was looking for a Virgin rather than a married woman.

I found an elegant statement in the writing of a martyr–I mean Ignatius, the second bishop of Antioch after Peter. During a persecution, he fought against wild animals at Rome. He stated: “Mary’s virginity escaped notice of the ruler of this age.” It escaped his notice because of Joseph, and because of their wedding, and because Mary was thought to have a husband. If she had not been betrothed or had (as people thought) a husband, her virginity could never have been concealed from the “ruler of this age”. (Trans. By Joseph Lienhard, Origen: Homilies on Luke, Fragments on Luke, FC 94 [Washington, 1996, 24-25], quoted in St. Joseph in Early Christianity, pp. 36-37)

St Joseph’s obedience to the angel’s command served as a veil to protect Mary and her Child from the ruler of this age. This pattern was repeated twice more as St Joseph protected the Child and His Mother from Herod’s wrath (Mt 2:13) and the menace of Archelaus (Mt. 2:22) through his humble obedience to the angel’s command (Mt 2:14,22).

Let us ask St. Joseph to teach us true chastity in purity of heart, in modesty and in obedience. We ask him first to teach us to have sensitive hearts that can recognize the beauty of the mystery of God’s presence in us and in others. Then may he teach to protect that mystery through the obedience of faith. In this way, like St Joseph we will enter into deeper communion with Mary and the Mystery of God’s love revealed in the Word made flesh in her womb.

Originally written for the Theology of the Body Institute e-newsletter and expanded March 19, 2016