September 15 - Our Lady of Sorrows

The month of September is dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows. 

God's Word cut deeply into Mary's life: it cut away all the ordinary hopes a young woman might have for her future, for her family life, for her child. Yet she accepted with a courageous consent that anticipates and mirrors the obedience of her Son even unto death on a cross. (cf. Phil 2:8) 

Today September 15th, is Our Lady of Sorrow's actual feast day. It is also the day I chose for my consecration. 

 Find hope in “a Love more powerful than evil” which no “sin of the world can ever overcome.” This Love he identifies as “merciful Love.” And what about this merciful Love? What does it have to do with Marian consecration? Everything. It has everything to do with consecration because Mary is the one who brings us to the source of merciful Love. Mary is the one who brings us to the love that is more powerful than evil. Indeed, as John Paul II says in his homily, consecration to the Immaculate Heart means "drawing near, through the Mother's intercession, to the very fountain of Life that sprang from Golgotha. 

What is this fountain of life? The Pope identifies it as "the fountain of Mercy." It's the pierced side of Christ from which blood and water flowed as a source of grace and mercy. And it's through this wound in Christ's Heart that "reparation is made continually for the sins of the world." Moreover, through this Fountain of Mercy, we find "a ceaseless source of new life and holiness." 

The Pope goes on to explain that consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary means "returning to the Cross of the Son." It means bringing the world and all its problems and sufferings to "the pierced Heart of the Savior" and thus "back to the very source of its Redemption." It means bringing the world, through Mary, to Divine Mercy! The power of the Redemption, the power of the merciful Love, "is always greater than man's sin and the "sin of of the world" and is "infinitely superior to the whole range of evil in man and the world." 

Now, Mary knows the power of the Redemption, the power of merciful Love, better than anyone. In fact, John Paul says she knows it "more than any other heart in the whole universe, visible and invisible." Therefore, she calls us not only to conversion but "to accept her motherly help to return to the source of Redemption." 

For again, Mary's task is to bring us to the Fountain of Mercy, to the pierced side of Christ, to his Merciful Heart. Essentially, then, consecrating ourselves to Mary "means accepting her help to offer ourselves and the whole of mankind to the infinitely Holy God.

 It means entrusting ourselves to she who was most united to Christ's own consecration: "Hail to you who are wholly united to the redeeming consecration of your Son!" It means entrusting ourselves to Mary's prayers, that she may "help us to live with the whole truth of the consecration of Christ for the entire human family of the modern world." 

In other words, consecrating ourselves to Mary means relying on her Motherly intercession to help us offer ourselves more fully to Christ in his own consecration for our redemption. 

Come Holy Spirit, living in Mary. Draw me in, with and through Mary to the Fountain of Love and Mercy

33 Days to Morning Glory A-Do-It-Yourself Retreat

Preparation for Marian Consecration by Fr. Michael E. Gaitley 

Please message me if you would like to begin your consecration journey! 

I, Gabrielle Ann Bernadette, a repentant sinner, renew and ratify today in your hands O, Immaculate Mother, the vows of my Baptism. I renounce Satan, and resolve to follow Jesus Christ even more closely than before. Mary, I give you my heart. Please set it on fire with love for Jesus. Make it always attentive to his burning thirst for love and for souls. Keep me in your most pure Heart that I may love Jesus and the members of his Body with your own perfect love. Mary, I entrust myself totally to you: my body and soul, my goods, both interior and exterior, and even the value of all my good actions. Please make of me, of all that I am and have, whatever most pleases you. Let me be a fit instrument in your immaculate and merciful hands for bringing the greatest glory to God. If I fall, please lead me back to Jesus. Wash me in the blood and water that flow from his pierced side, and help me never to lose my trust in this fountain of love and mercy. With you, O Immaculate Mother - you who always do the will of God - I unite myself to the perfect consecration of Jesus as he offers himself in the Spirit to the Father for the life of the world. Amen.  

You need endurance to do the will of God and receive what he has promised. Hebrews 10:36 

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us! 

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pierced for us, pray for us!