Reflection authored by Fr James Downey, Associate Pastor OLIH and St Luke’s
I have renewed my initial Total Consecration to Christ through Mary every subsequent year since I first did the consecration in 2012. Some years, the renewal was done fully, well, and faithfully, taking time each day to pray and reflect during the thirty-three days leading up to the Immaculate Conception on December 8th. The prayer, reading, and recommitment, the taking stock of my life and seeing what parts of my life and heart could be given and consecrated more fully this year, always resulted in a great renewal in both my interior life and exterior ministry: a life more fully given to God. Some years, it was ugly, rushed, or the preparation time was non-existent in amidst a hundred other things demanding my time. Before I knew it, I’d find myself in the evening or night on the 8th or even December 12th, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, wondering, “Should I even bother with this if I’ve given so little time to it? I’ve been a horrible son, a half-hearted devotee, and a lazy servant; I’m afraid I’d be insulting her by renewing this consecration and asking for her help again.” Yet not sure why, by the grace of God and contrary to the doubts (and lies) pushing me the other way, I would humbly and shame-facedly crack open the book and prayer the Prayer of Consecration again.
Looking back, during my time in seminary and now as a priest, I can see a bit more clearly the importance of that consecration for both the good years and the ugly ones. During the years done well, placing myself into the care of Mary like the newly-wed couple of Cana, I found myself placed more firmly in the presence of her Son and enjoying an over-abundance of grace to aid me in my studies or ministry, to live out my vocation more fully. During the years done poorly, I see now how even that half-cocked re-consecration was sometimes even more important than ones in the good years: Like the rope of a life-preserver tossed to a drowning person overboard in the middle of a storm and like the person still on the ship hauling that rope in, it was during those hard years that the binding chain of my consecration to Mary and her motherly intercession and protection were the only things keeping my head above water and my life connected to her Son. So if you understand Mary to be somewhere between your loving mother (sometimes comforting, sometimes correcting) and a burly sailor dragging your semi-conscious rear-end back onto the ship so that you can reach your destination and safe harbor alive, you’ve got a decent idea of Mary’s role in the life of a Christian. She’s the mother Christ gave to us and she is her Son’s first and most loyal disciple: she’s a good person to get to know and spend some time with. No one can point you and take you quicker to our Savior.
Speaking of Mary, her role in the Christian life, and the sea, here’s a thousand-year-old prayer worth thinking upon and a five-hundred-year-old choir arrangement of it worth listening to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsPQFytWWHo
Loving mother of the Redeemer,
gate of heaven, star of the sea,
assist your people who have fallen yet strive to rise again,
To the wonderment of nature you bore your Creator,
yet remained a virgin after as before,
You who received Gabriel's joyful greeting,
have pity on us poor sinners.