When a Father Leads 12,000: Marian

Consecration & Evangelization

DAVE MCCLOW

Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades leads at least 12,000 Catholics in the diocese
of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, in the Marian consecration as part of
the New Evangelization effort. In Part 1 I will primarily lay out the what of the
consecration, and in Part 2 I will focus on the how of this very significant event.
The New Evangelization only changes the whothe baptized who have left the
Church or who dont know their faithand the howthe methods used to get
out the old message of the Gospel of Gods mercy. The New Evangelization seeks
to deepen the faith of the baptized, to cultivate a personal encounter with
Christ. A particularly well-known archbishop from Krakow, Poland, would call
it the enrichment of faith and claimed that it was the purpose of the Vatican II
and is the basis of any realization of the Council and any renewal of the Church
(Sources of Renewal, p. 16). In case you missed it, he says even more
emphatically: This is the direction which should be followed by all pastoral
action, the lay apostolate and the whole of the Churchs activity (p.18). Vatican
II was to address the duplicity or hypocrisy of Catholics not living out their faith
well. The enrichment of faith should focus on What does it mean to be a
believing member of the Church? (p. 17) and on forming attitudes springing
from a well-formed conscience (p. 19). If we were to say it in everyday language,
the purpose of Vatican II was to move our faith from our heads to our hearts so
that we can live it out fully. It is a profound conversion and transformation,
making all things new. Somehow I missed the memo on this purpose of
Vatican II until Fr. Michael Gaitley pointed it out at the TOB Congress last
month.
So how does a diocese get 12,000 to consecrate themselves to Mary to deepen
their friendship with Christ? Certainly the answer is through the Holy Spirit! But
he always works through people. It was our spiritual father that led, but in a
theologically appropriate detail, the diocesan-wide consecration was suggested
by a woman! So it all starts with a woman in the diocese named Ida List, a youth
minister who also works for Lighthouse Catholic Media who felt called to ask
Bishop Rhoades about doing the consecration diocese-wide.
What Is Marian Consecration to Jesus?
Ill get back to that story line, but first, what in the world is Marian
consecration? As Father Gaitley says in his book 33 Days to Morning Glory,
Marian consecration basically means giving our full permission [to Mary]to
complete her motherly task in us, which is to form us into other Christs
(p.26). Mary has been given a new spiritual motherhood over all the children
God has created and is in charge of bringing them home to her Father, her
Spouse, and her Son. Bishop Rhoades, at the Mass on the feast of the
Assumption, said the Marian consecration is our saying yes to the beautiful gift
Jesus gave us from the Cross when He said to John: Behold your mother. We are
responding with faith to Our Lords gift of love, the gift of His mother, and to our
Mothers love. St. Louis de Montfort says Marian consecration is the surest,
easiest, shortest and the most perfect means to becoming a saint.
A Problem and Solution
Back to Ida Lists story. Some of you may be familiar with consecration to Jesus
through Maryin Preparation for Total Consecration or in True Devotion to
Mary by St. Louis de Montfort. Ida List made this consecration for the first time
in 2011. (I, too, have made this consecration, and it is difficult to get through,
with English grammar and vocabulary that at times seems 100 years old. There
are many prayers and litanies, but not a lot on what the consecration actually is,
at least from my memory.) The next year she used Fr. Gaitleys book, 33 Days to
Morning Glory, and understood the reason for the consecration so much better
& a fire was lit in me to share the book, which I did with family &
friends. The 33 Days book, written in a conversational tone, is packed with
major insights. Lighthouse Catholic Media has teamed up with Father Gaitley to
teach about the Marian consecration to a wider audience at extreme discounts.
Last year Ida went on the retreat led by Fr. Gaitley, and he challenged them to
spread the word about the consecration. I am sure he did it in the tradition of St.
Maximillian Kolbe, who wanted to win the entire worldin the shortest possible
time. So she started leading or least initiating five different Marian consecration
retreats at her parish in Warsaw, Indiana.
Lets take a brief look at Fr. Gaitleys heavy-hitting quartet of Marian saints to
guide us: St. Louis de Montfort, St. Maximillian Kolbe, Blessed Mother Teresa,
and St. John Paul II. He highlights what each of these Saints has to say and how
each develops the consecration further.
The Marian Saints: Rich Insights
St. Louis de Montfort emphasized that consecration is a renewal of our baptismal
vows and that we give the gift ourselvesall our meritsto Mary to do whatever
she most pleases. We release to Mary our say over how our merits are
applied. De Montforts devotion to Mary is affirmed by no less than six popes
since 1846.
St. Maximillian Kolbe had looked for the one great idea to which to consecrate
his whole life. What he found was the consecration and his Militia Immaculata,
an organization to spread the consecration. His development of the consecration
was seeing the Holy Spirit as the uncreated Immaculate Conception and Mary as
the created Immaculate Conception. [T]he Holy Spirit is a conception in the
sense of being the Life and Love that springs from the love of the Father and the
Son, and it is like the love between husband and wife. Much to ponder here!
Mother Teresas contribution was a kind of exchange of heartswe give Mary our
hearts, and she gives us hers. Mother Teresa had two prayers that illustrate this:
Lend me your Heart and Immaculate Heart of Mary, keep me in your most
pure heart, so that I may please Jesus through you, in you, and with you. Fr.
Gaitley published one of Mother Teresas letters to her charges in which she
wants them to know how much Jesus loves them and longs for them, which is
part of the meaning of I thirst. She shows some deep psychological
insights. The Devil may try to use the hurts of life, and sometimes our own
mistakesto make you feel it is impossible that Jesus really loves you You all
know in your mind that Jesus loves youbut in this letter Mother wants to touch
your heart instead. To me, this not knowing in our hearts that Jesus loves us,
which can become the Devils foothold through our hurts and mistakes, is really
the crux of every problem that shows up in my line of work.
I also found it fascinating that in her third vision of a call within a call, Mother
Teresa saw herself as a little child standing in front of the Cross with Mary
touching her. It was only then that Jesus asked her to fulfill her mission. It
seems that in order to fulfill her mission, her child self needed to learn the love of
Jesus on the Cross through the loving touch and presence of his Mother. I
recently learned that her father died when she was age 8 or 9 and there is some
mystery surrounding his deathsome say he was murdered. I suspect that this
was a part of her hurts of life that needed to be healed or simply affirmed so
that she could accomplish her mission which was all done with a smiletaking
care of the poorest of the poor and staring down death itself in her homes for the
dying. We could adapt the main line of famous fictional bad-boy Catholic,
Elwood Blues (from The Blues Brothers movie), and say, We are all on a mission
from God. We have a mission, but the hurts of life can keep us from
experiencing Our Abbas deep, abiding love and from accomplishing our mission
to become who you are, as St. John Paul II would say.
Speaking of St. John Paul II, he is the last Marian Saint to be discussed in the
book. He reflects on a number of scriptures that he says develop Marys role as
our spiritual mother. An example is in Mark, when Jesus says, Who are my
mother and my brothers? and answers, Whoever does the will of God. Some,
like Von Balthasar, have suggested that these scriptures are humiliations of his
Mother. But JPII would say that although Jesus is putting his mother in her
place, that place is not down but is rather an elevation of her status to spiritual
motherhoodsince who on earth ever followed the will of God more perfectly
than Mary?! The finale is at the foot of the Cross where Mary is to be Johns
mother, or as Bishop Rhoades said, she is to be our mother. If it is possible to top
bringing Jesus into the world, it would be becoming the new Eve, the Mother of
all the living, the Mother of the Church, the Mother of all the gods, i.e., us (CCC
460). Since Marys spiritual motherhood expands and builds on her physical
motherhood, her spiritual motherhood might be called the summit of her life. I
think that it points to the whole purpose and meaning of life: to be spiritual
mothers and fathers. Some of you have physical children, and that is beautiful,
but we all need to have spiritual childrenthose we are helping get to heaven by
helping them to do the will of God!
Two things about entrustment, which is JPIIs word for consecration: 1) He
says, Entrusting is the response to a persons love, and in particular to the love of
a mother; 2) Fr. Gaitley states that you can entrust someone to Mary without
their knowing it. This makes sense because John Paul entrusted the whole world
to Mary in the 1980s. Now I add, I entrust this person to you Mary, my Mother
to my prayers. So do you have spouses, children, parents, or friends that need
Our Ladys assistance? Entrust them to her motherly care!
Hopefully this is just whetting your appetite to read more. It is deep stuff, worthy
of much contemplation! Make the consecration! It is appropriate to consecrate
yourself on a Marian Feast day. The next one is October 7, the feast of Our Lady
of the Rosary. So you would start the 33-day preparation on September 4,
today. In part two, I will explore what was done to help involve 12,000 people
participate in the Marian consecration.