Texts chosen from the writings and teachings of the Father Theodossios Maria of the Cross
The Consecration to the Blessed Virgin
The Blessed Virgin leads us to God
The consecration to the Blessed Virgin has a very great importance in the life of human being. It is not a small devotion, it is not only a manifestation of veneration, it is a fundamental act; as the birth af man is a fundamental act, as the Eucharist is a fundamental act. It is a fundamental act to give one's will to the will of the Blessed Virgin so that She who is the Mother of God as a Being, can be the Mother of God in us... It concerns a major act and a very solitary one.
She who permitted God's coming upon the earth ontologically as a Being, is she who will permit our being to be united to the Being of Christ.
Our goal and our mission are to unite ourselves with Christ in an ontological manner; and the first being, the first living reality which surely permits this path towards fundamental union, is She who gave birth to Him as a human being.
The great secret of those who have known Christ a little bit is fidelity, the ability to remain stable, faithful,in the midst of any storm whatsoever.
Now, the Blessed Virgin is the only human refuge, purely human, who permits us to have the path guaranteed and fidelity guaranteed. There is no better protector in the mystery of the world and of the Incarnation, there is no better protector in order that our daily life, regardless of the form.of life we have, be faithful.
What is the meaning of : I CONSECRATE MYSELF?
When we consecrate ourselves to the Blessed Virgin, let us think upon the words of Christ on the Cross: "Woman, behold your son... Behold your Mother." This passage reminds us that Jesus has truly entrusted us to the Blessed Virgin, this was His last wish, His testament.
When the Evangelist quotes these words of Christ, he is not writing literature. Each word written has a very serious meaning.
When Christ says: "Behold your Mother," He says it for eternity, to the whole of humanity. He leaves, not on earth but in eternity, as Mother of the redemption of every man, the One who cooperated in His own Incarnation.
Each person who, in this world full of negations, revolt, pride and egoism and of every other sin, each person who recalls that he must return to God and who wants to accomplish an act in order to find again the path leading to his Origin, turns towards this Woman whom Christ left as Mother of the church, and offers himself, in order to follow Jesus Christ with her, all the way to the foot of the Cross.
To consecrate oneself to the Blessed Virgin Mary does not mean anything else than to ask her to accept us also as sons; we are such even without asking, it is true, but in expressly asking, it means that we want to be her sons by love, and not by force and ignorance. To be her sons and her daughters means that we commit ourselves to her so that she may guide our steps in every event of our life, whatever be the path towards our fulfilment, to the North, to the South, to the right or left.
Illuminated by God, we know that man alone can never do anything perfectly, he cannot be sure that what he will choose by his own powers will be good. So, in order not to trust in our own spirit, our own sensibility which can deceive us, because we all come from the same stock of sin, we turn towards the Mother of Christ and we give ourselves totally.
Thus we are committed to the most intimate Church which is the Heart of Christ and the Heart of the Blessed Virgin.
One who consecrates himself, by the mystery of his word (even without pronouncing it exteriorly), accomplishes a major act of redemption; he returns to man's condition before the Fall.
Through the words, the one who consecrates himself accomplishes a mystery, because man's word, to the degree of his purification, returns to its Origin, the eternal Word. That is why man's word which abandons itself totally to God, within his own intimity, is powerful. And when we carry out any liturgical act or offering of ourselves, to the degree of our sincerity and to the degree of our purification, that act is almost like a material act.
When,for example, I say: "I consecrate myself," to the degree of my interior limpidity, it is as if I take "myself" as an object and I place it in the hands of the Blessed Virgin.
The Blessed Virgin's help
The Blessed Virgin is an immense reality, she is the human being who went beyond death. The Blessed Virgin is not a being who is divine and human, she is absolutely human; but by God's grace and the grace and power of Christ, Man-Cod, she has gone beyond death. That is why, at every moment, throughout the centuries, she is able to help all souls, even those who are against her.
Example: The conversion of Bruno Cornacchiola, at the Three Fountains. The Blessed Virgin appeared to him and converted him on the spot, the day on which he was writing an article against her.
The Blessed Virgin who conquered and went beyond death is the only person who can help us in any moment whatsoever, and make us participate in these vibrations of life, in these eternal beauties which the world cannot perceive.
If the whole world hates us, if all the city hates us, if the whole family hates us, if the whole universe hates us, when the Lord is with us we have grace and eternal joy in our heart. And this the Blessed Virgin guarantees us.
Do not be affected by the fact that there are many priests, baptized persons, religious, very far from the truth. There have always been, close to Christ, that is, close to the Church, traitors, weak people. But the Blessed Virgin does not help us according to the merit of these priests who are far from the truth. She helps us according to the merit of our consecration.
The consecration opens our interior eyes
When a soul consecrates himself totally to the Blessed Virgin, it may be that he will know many trials, hut he will always find with her the help and assistance of Cod.
And when the soul consecrates himself with all his heart, a miracle takes places it is as if in that person's life other eyes were opened, another hearing, another sense of touch; all the words, all the images and all physical sensations (heat, cold),all has another appearance, another influence.
Through the same images, the same faces and the same sounds, man "feels", hears, as it were, another song, another image, another dream, another hope, and a mysterious joy fills his soul. And sometimes when alone, the soul feels the need to kneel and kiss the stones and even the ground, because of gratitude to the Lord.
Do not be afraid - be offered up
In my religious, spiritual and priestly experience, I have known many cases in which souls, despite the fact that they were consecrated (religious, priests or laymen), lived with a continual, vague fear, because they were not truly offered, they had not understood that what they had received stabilized them forever in a reality of union which no longer allowed them to have other cares than that of doing the will of God only.
And only then the heart overflows, dilates, it loves, it blesses, it falls at times and rises again, it becomes impatient, it finds patience anew, but it is ever stable, as the parable of the Psalm says: "Of whom shall I be afraid when the Lord is with me?"
And how can the Lord be with us?
When we want to be with Him. As soon as we want He is with us. There is not a second of delay between the moment in which we want to be with Him and the one in which He is with us, because that is the Majesty of His eternal and perpetual miracle.
He is constantly with us. If we doubt, it is because we are not totally offered up.
... In order to be faithful, we must have totally offered our will.
The call to eternal Love
Here is the meaning of the Consecration: We give to the Blessed Virgin our entire being, and the Blessed Virgin guides us, as "She" knows how, given the fact that she knows what is the Lord's will.
Every man who has made this interior act of donation to the Blessed Virgin can be sure that sooner or later in his life, he will be pacified, consoled and elevated to the ranks of son of the Lord.
Saint Paul said to the Romans that those whom God had predestined, He also called, and those whom He called, He also justified.
In few words, that means that when we feel called to participate in eternal Love on the earth, when we are called to be a part of that army of the Blessed Virgin, we must be sure that in that same instant we are justified.
We must not think: I, I am not worthy because I have done this, and I was like that. All the past undergoes a purification.
We will surely have trials after we have been consecrated; we will have sadnesses, pains, but all of that must be accepted as being part of the mystery of glory.
We must respond: Yes, I come to You, Blessed Virgin, I want to be with Christ, whatever the life be for which you destine me, in the North, or in the South, Pope or garbage collector; that availability is the expression of our love.
The justification is the consequence of the call. When God says: "You go there," and you go there, that is already the justification; we will suffer, but we are already on the road of salvation. Otherwise the call has no value. When I speak of "call", I do not refer to the priestly or religious vocation, I speak of the call in every life. We must respond to the Lord who calls us to belong to and participate with our will in His work of Redemption.
That, my very dear ones, is how we must think this evening, how we must pray, with what limpid and tranquil souls we sinners must present ourselves to the Blessed Virgin, if we want to be with Christ. Amen.
(Excerpts from Father's homilies)
Consecration to Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Wisdom,
through the Blessed Virgin Mary
(St. Louis Marie Grignion De Montfort)
O Eternal and incarnate Wisdom! 0 sweetest and most adorable Jesus! True God and true man, only Son of the Eternal Father, and of Mary, always virgin! I adore Thee profoundly in the bosom and splendors of Thy Father during eternity; and I adore Thee also in the virginal bosom of Mary, Thy most worthy Mother, in the time of Thine incarnation.
I give Thee thanks for that Thou hast annihilated Thyself, taking the form of a slave in order to rescue me from the cruel slavery of the devil. I praise and glorify Thee for that Thou hast been pleased to submit Thyself to Mary, Thy holy Mother, in all things, in order to make me Thy faithful slave through her. But, alas! Ungrateful and faithless as I have been, I have not kept the promises which I made so solemnly to Thee in my Baptism; I have not fulfilled my obligations; I do not deserve to be called Thy child, nor yet Thy slave; and as there is nothing in me which does not merit Thine anger and Thy repulse, I dare not come by myself before Thy most holy and august Majesty. It is on this account that I have recourse to the intercession of Thy most holy Mother, whom Thou hast given me for a mediatrix with Thee. It is through her that I hope to obtain of Thee contrition, the pardon of my sins, and the acquisition and preservation of wisdom.
Hail, then, 0 immaculate Mary, living tabernacle of the Divinity, where the Eternal Wisdom willed to be hidden and to be adored by angels and by men! Hail, 0 Queen of Heaven and earth, to whose empire everything is subject which is under God. Hail, 0 sure refuge of sinners, whose mercy fails no one. Hear the desires which I have of the Divine Wisdom; and for that end receive the vows and offerings which in my lowliness I present to thee.
I; (Name), a faithless sinner, renew and ratify today in thy hands the vows of my Baptism; I renounce forever Satan, his pomps and works; and I give myself entirely to Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Wisdom, to carry my cross after Him all the days of my life, and to be more faithful to Him than I have ever been before. In the presence of all the heavenly court I choose thee this day for my Mother and Mistress. I deliver and consecrate to thee, as thy slave, my body and soul, my goods, both interior and exterior, and even the value of all my good actions, past, present and future; leaving to thee the entire and full right of disposing of me, and all that belongs to me, without exception, according to thy good pleasure, for the greater glory of God in time and in eternity. Amen.
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