The Apostolic Origin of Marian Consecration

When I first heard someone speak of being “consecrated to Mary,” warning bells went off in my head. The Holy Spirit had already moved me, over the course of a year, from a complete rejection of the Church’s Marian teaching to an acceptance of Mary’s connection to me in the communion of saints, her spiritual motherhood, intercession, immaculate conception, and assumption. I came to see how these truths were either taught in Scripture or coalesced with what I found there. The thought of being “consecrated” to Mary, however, seemed completely without basis. Whenever I had heard the term consecration, it was always in reference to something – such as the bread and wine brought forward at the offertory in Mass – being consecrated to God. Wasn’t Catholic belief supposed to be rooted in Scripture and Tradition? I could find no reference to the practice in Scripture or any writings from the first centuries of the Church. It appeared to be a moot point.

That was when the example and teaching of Pope St. John Paul II opened my eyes. The Pope’s pure devotion to Christ was undeniable, as was his love of the Blessed Mother. I knew that he wouldn’t lead me astray, so when I discovered that his papal moto, “Totus Tuus,” was drawn from the words of St. Louis de Montfort’s famous text on Marian Consecration (True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary) I was open to hearing the Pope’s thought. He shared how “This treatise by De Montfort can be a bit disconcerting, given its rather florid and baroque style, but the essential theological truths with it contains are undeniable.”[1] The Pope also used the word “entrustment” as a synonym for “consecration,” connecting the practice of entrusting ourselves to Mary’s motherhood with Christ’s entrustment of the John to Mary at the foot of the Cross.[2]

What I had failed to recognize in my naivete was that when spiritual writers such as De Montfort wrote of being “consecrated” to Mary, they spoke by way of analogy. Theologically–speaking, man can only consecrate himself to God.^[3] When we pray an act of “Marian” consecration, we entrust ourselves to her heart and motherly intercession and, united with her, renew and intentionally deepen our baptismal consecration to Jesus. Jesus, and not Mary, is the goal of our action. The Pope explained how De Montfort’s teaching showed him that “Mary does bring us closer to Christ; she does lead us to him, provided that we live her mystery in Christ.”[4]

This practice of entrusting ourselves to Mary, of entering into her own interior life with Jesus, has its origin at the foot of the Cross. It is there in Scripture and Sacred Tradition – in Jesus’ act of mutually entrusting John to Mary, and Mary to John. The Apostle accepted that entrustment; “from that hour the disciple took her into idia [literally ‘his own’]” (Jn 19:26-27). John took Mary into all that was uniquely his – his home, heart, prayer, life as an apostle, etc. John already had a relationship with Jesus, but his entrustment to Mary brought him to an even deeper understanding of and surrender to the Master. You and I continually reap the fruits of John’s entrustment when we read his Gospel, his penetration into the mystery of Christ’s Person. His deep relationship with Mary did not lead John to make an idol of her; rather, their shared life was a catalyst opening his heart to understand and communicate Christ’s life and teaching in an utterly unique and profound way. This is the apostolic origin of Marian Consecration.

John’s shared life with Mary – an extension of Christ’s shared life with her – is accessible to each of us in the mystical Body of her Son. Mary is a spiritual mother who is very much alive, joined to us in the communion of saints, and acting on our behalf (see Rom 12:4-5; Heb 12:1, 22-24; Rev 5:8). Like John, our goal in entrusting our lives as disciples to Mary’s heart is to come to share her total receptivity to God – to let Christ be formed in the womb of our hearts and be born into the world through our words and actions.

Adapted from The Biblical Roots of Marian Consecration: Devotion to the Immaculate Heart in Light of Scripture (TAN Books, 2022).

 

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[1] Gift and Mystery (New York: Doubleday, 1996), 29.

[2] See Arthur Burton Calkins’ insightful study, Totus Tuus: John Paul II’s Program of Marian Consecration and Entrustment (New Bedford, MA: Academy of the Immaculate, 1992).

[3] John F. Murphy, Mary’s Immaculate Heart: The Meaning of Devotion to the Immaculate Heart (Milwaukee: Bruce Pub. Co., 1951), 100-1.

[4] Gift and Mystery, 29.

Of Swaddling Clothes and Grave Wrappings

Today the Church celebrates the feast of St. John, Apostle and Evangelist, the "disciple whom Jesus loved."  Today's Gospel reading came from the end of John's Gospel, from his Resurrection narrative.  It may seem a strange choice for the Christmas season, but while at Mass I recognized a profound symmetry at work.  Let me share a couple of lines with you:

"They both ran, but the other disciple [John] outran Peter and reached the tomb first; and stooping down to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in.  Then Simon Peter came ... and went into the tomb; he saw the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, which had been on [Jesus'] head, not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself.  Then the other disciple [John], who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed." (John 20:4-8)

For John, seeing Jesus' discarded burial wrappings was a sign; it allowed him to grasp the truth that Jesus had been raised.  This takes us right back to the shepherds at the time of Jesus' birth.  The angel said, "This will be a sign for you; you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger."  For both John and the shepherds the wrappings acted as a sign.  For the shepherds it was Jesus' presence in the bands; but for John, His absence.  And both signs occurred in caves to which the men had been sent - the first was the cave of the Nativity, and the second was the rock-hewn tomb. In the first Jesus had been laid in a manger, most likely also carved from rock; and in the second Jesus' body rose from the rock slab on which it had been lain. I of course am not the first to see this; you can find it woven into the icon of the Nativity at left.  God's sense of symmetry is truly beyond words.

Jesus, the Creator of Mankind

Stworzenie Adama by Tadeusza Kowalskiego

I think that anyone who has attempted to read John's Gospel quickly realizes that he or she is in deep spiritual waters. Granted, it is the Word of God; but John's Gospel reads differently than many other parts of Scripture. We are dealing with an author who uses not only straight forward statements but often play on words and subtle illusion to communicate the truth about Christ.

In his prologue John asserts Jesus's divinity. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God....And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (Jn 1:1,14). But he brings this same truth out in the subtle details he provides in his narrative too, showing Jesus to be the Creator the Jewish people read of in the Book of Genesis.

The first example can be seen in the Gospel for this Fourth Sunday of Lent, when Jesus healed the man born blind.  I'll begin my quotation with Jesus's words to the disciples:

"...While I am in the world, I am the light of the world."
When he had said this, he spat on the ground
and made clay with the saliva,
and smeared the clay on his eyes,
and said to him,
“Go wash in the Pool of Siloam” —which means Sent—.
So he went and washed, and came back able to see. (Jn 9:5-7)

Just as God, in the beginning, had said "Let there be light" (Gen 1:3), so Jesus came to bring light to the world. God formed Man from the dust of the ground (Gen 2:7); and here Jesus shows His divinity in the recreation of Man, making clay from the ground to restore the man's sight. (Washing in the pool is a wonderful image for how Christ recreates us and heals our spiritual blindness  in Baptism).

The second example that jumps to mind is when Jesus appeared to the Apostles on the night of the Resurrection:

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” (Jn 20:21-23)

The same God who made the man he had formed from dust into a "living being" by "breath[ing] into his nostrils the breath of life" (Gen 2:7), was there that night recreating them as sons in the only begotten Son! 

Do you see what I mean about John's Gospel? It's all of these little nuances that make Scripture so incredibly deep, and why it merits a lifetime of study.

The Blessed Mother, Receiving Jesus from John (A brief thought on the Priesthood)

Reading Luke's Gospel and praying the Joyful Mysteries this evening held a couple of surprises.  The first was one of those realizations that happens when you've known a couple of facts, but you've never put them together before.  I was meditating on the time when Jesus (age 12) stayed behind in the Temple after celebrating Passover.  Mary received Jesus back after a three day absence, as she did twenty some years later when He rose on the third day - quite a foreshadowing.  What I had not registered before was how the Finding in the Temple and Jesus' death and Resurrection were connected not just by the three day absence, but the Feast of Passover!

The difference between the two events for the Blessed Mother of course, was that she didn't receive Jesus back in the same way after His three days in the tomb.  He appeared to her, visited her; but he didn't return to Nazareth with her the way He did as a boy.  Resurrected and glorified, His body no longer belonged to this world, still subject to decay.  He belonged beside the Father, ascended.

And yet, Jesus did still come to His Mother, again and again, really and substantially in the Eucharist!  Mary lived with the Apostle John from the time of the Crucifixion.  Imagine what John must have felt - the unworthiness and awe - as he returned Jesus to Mary in Holy Communion!  And imagine Mary's incredible love for John, this man who brought her Son physically, sacramentally, back to her when he prayed the Eucharistic prayer!

I think about my parish priests and how they bring Christ to me in exactly the same way.  I don't love and appreciate them nearly enough.  I remember reading a fantastic line from Matt Swaim a couple of years back, about how we can't look at our priests as "mere sacramental vending machines," and thinking how absolutely right he was; but I look into my heart today and realize that I'm guilty of it!  It wasn't intentional; I live and just begin to take certain things for granted.

Every Mass is the celebration of Jesus' Passover.  And united with Mary in the Communion of Saints, we receive her Jesus again and again.  May the Holy Spirit bring the love that filled her heart to ours ... and may we love and appreciate the priests ordained to bring Jesus to us.