Hard for me to pass up a title like Total Consecration Through the Mysteries of the Rosary. Father Ed Broom, O.M.V. (Oblates of the Virgin Mary), has crafted a series of meditations meant to prepare one to make an act of personal consecration to Jesus, though Mary. This practice, which has grown since the early centuries, was of course given fresh impetus by St. Louis Marie de Montfort and a number of subsequent saints influenced by him (e.g. Maximilian Kolbe, John Paul II). De Montfort recommended thirty-three days of preparation before making such an act. I renew my consecration each November, using a book of meditations assembled by the Montfort Fathers; but this year I thought I would try Fr. Broom's method.
Father Broom's method is an ingenious one - one that I feel sure would meet with St. Louis' approval. Rather than thirty-three days, Fr. Broom suggests thirty-five; each day is given to meditating upon one of the twenty mysteries of the Rosary or one of Mary's seven sorrows. The meditations are very well crafted, seeking to view each event in salvation history through our Mother's eyes and Immaculate Heart. Father has obviously spent a great deal of time in prayer, and he does a wonderful job communicating the fruits he has gathered. I appreciated the inclusion of a gorgeous sketch and the actual scriptural text for each mystery before Father's reflections. I also liked Father's tips at the beginning of the book for practicing Christian meditation.
One thing that I noticed Father occasionally doing, as I have saints, but is different from my own practice, is to ask Mary directly for a certain grace. Sensitive as I am to our Protestant brothers' and sisters' misunderstanding about Mary's role in the Church - a misunderstanding I used to share - I tend to be as theologically precise as possible, even in my devotional language. I ask our Lady to intercede for a particular grace, rather than to grant it. When I read Fr. Broom or, as I said saints, doing otherwise; I realize that they are simply using a devotional shorthand - asking Mary to obtain that grace for them through her infallible intersession. I bring it up here simply to make you aware.
I think that Fr. Broom's Total Consecration Through the Mysteries of the Rosary is a beautiful and effective way for someone to prepare to renew his or her baptismal promises to Jesus, in union with Mary. I must admit that I missed my book from the Montfort Fathers with its readings and daily litanies (which have been such a powerful tool in my own life), but that is simply a matter of personal preference. I am glad that I tried Fr. Broom's method, and I think you will be too.
Oh, and if you would like more information about consecration, here is one of my past posts.
What does it mean to be consecrated to Jesus through Mary? St. Louis De Montfort wrote the book on the subject. It is popularly known as True Devotion to Mary. De
Montfort himself though, spoke of the devotion to Mary he prescribed as
being "a perfect consecration to Jesus Christ." As difficult as this
may be for some Christian brothers and sisters to understand, that is
Marian devotion's raison d'etre. What De Montfort espoused was
entrusting ourselves to Jesus' Mother, our Mother, totally and
completely. We ask the Holy Spirit to join our hearts to Mary's - that the grace that was in her, the complete and total commitment she had to her Son Jesus, will be participated in by us as well.
Sounds heretical? It sounded very foreign to me too, but after years of
looking at it and seeing its fruits in others, such as John Paul II, I
espouse it as well.
The Apostles themselves gave us the doctrinal
foundations! Listen to this beautiful image given us by the Apostle
Peter, "Come to Jesus, to that living stone, rejected by men but in God's sight chosen and precious; and like living stones be yourselves
built into a spiritual house...to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable
to God through Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 2:4-5). The Apostle Paul
developed it further, teaching that "we, though many, are one body in
Christ, and individually members of one another"
(Romans 12:5). In being fused to Jesus, we find ourselves then, at the
level of the soul, mysteriously joined to one another. As a result,
Paul could teach that "If one member of the Body suffers, all suffer
together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together" (1 Cor.12:26);
and could even claim, "in my flesh I complete what is lacking in
Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church"
(Colossians 1:24).
And so, the grace that is in one member of the
Body can be of benefit to all. And who received the grace to love
Jesus with a perfectly pure heart from the moment of conception? Who
was a disciple to Him like no one else in the cosmos? Our Mother Mary!
As the angel Gabriel said, she is the "Kecharitomene," the one who is
"completely filled" with God's grace. She is the Church's ultimate
success story, God's greatest masterpiece of grace! Now that's the
living stone that I want to be fitted to, the cell of the Body that I
want to be functioning alongside. The grace that God gave her disposed
her to overcome every difficulty and give herself to Him without
reserve, so that the Holy Spirit could fashion Jesus within her. I want
that grace that God poured into Mary, to yield to Him as she did! My
soul, of itself, is still so underdeveloped, has so many impediments
that prevent the Holy Spirit from moving it the way He wishes.
Do
you remember your Old Testament? The great prophet Elijah told his
pupil Elisha to ask a favor of him before he (Elijah) was assumed into
heaven. Elisha's request? "I pray you, let me inherit a double share
of your spirit" (2 Kings 2:9). And that was exactly what Elisha got!
Well, there's no way we can receive a "double" portion of the grace Mary
did - since as Mother of the Incarnate Word she received more than all
of the angles and saints put together! - but she and the Holy Spirit
sure want us to participate in it! They want us to tap into it to
accelerate our spiritual growth. Again, as Paul said, "we are members of one another."
To share in the grace given to Mary's soul is to make ourselves ever
more docile instruments of the Holy Spirit, more perfect disciples of
Christ Jesus! And this brings me back to that thought I was struck by
earlier this week:
I was meditating on the third Luminous
Mystery, Jesus' Proclamation of the Kingdom. My mind turned to that
episode when Jesus was preaching, and He was told that His Mother and
family were outside. He looked at those sitting around Him and said,
"Here are my mother and my brethren! Whoever does the will of God is my
brother, and sister, and mother" (Matt.12:49-50). I've always
understood Jesus to be saying that we are to share in the mission of His
Mother, the mission of doing God's will by giving Him our flesh and
allowing Him to "enter the world" through us. And that's true. But for
the first time, I recognized Jesus' words as having a deep fulfillment
in this idea of being consecrated to Him through spiritual union with
Mary. It is "common" to think of ourselves as Jesus' brothers and
sisters, but mother strikes us a bit strange. Not when we conceive of
it as our souls being knit to Mary's by the Holy Spirit though. Not
when we understand it as being allowed to share in that beautiful grace
that was hers - becoming completely fluid in the Hands of the Spirit, so
that He can form Christ Jesus in our souls as He did within the womb of
Mary.
We become completely Mary's (as Jesus did in the Incarnation), so that we may become more perfectly Jesus'. Our Lady 
stands before us today as she did Juan Diego, "Am I not here, who is your Mother?"
