"What is Consecration?"

I am posting this in response to a reader's query about consecration to Jesus through Our Blessed Virgin Mary. "What is consecration? Why would someone want to consecrate themselves to Mary?" How do I go about doing it?"

Consecrate comes from the Latin word consecrare: "to dedicate, to set aside for a holy purpose." Consecration to Jesus through Mary is a formal and total act of self-surrender and self-giving which doesn't stop at Mary, but which is actually directed toward Christ. Consecration to Mary is consecration to the "perfect means" which Jesus chose to unite Himself with us and vice versa. Consecration to Mary heightens the depth and truth of our commitment to Christ. Love for Mary always leads us to a greater love for Jesus, as she points the way to His heart.

When we consecrate ourselves to Jesus through Mary we promise to become dependent on Mary in all things: to offer all our prayers and sacrifices to Jesus through Mary, and to seek every gift from Jesus through Mary. And we do this with the utmost confidence. As our Mother, she knows our every need much better than we do; and since she is Queen of Heaven, she has immediate access to the infinite treasury of graces in the Kingdom of her Divine Son.

Here are some of the reasons for consecration:

1. To emulate the sanctity of our previous Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, who selected the de Montfort Consecration (True Devotion) for his own Marian Spirituality

2. To provide the easiest, safest, fastest, most secure, and surest path to Jesus and to our own salvation

3. To obtain Our Lady's help in bringing us from our own unworthiness to the level of conversion, holiness, and perfection in our lives needed to enable us to become saintly

4. To turn our lives over completely and without reservation in service to Jesus through Mary to reflect our love and our trust in them now and for all eternity

5. To obtain special graces and protection under Our Lady's sheltering mantle

6. To help bring others to Jesus through Mary for their conversion, holiness, and perfection through this total consecration devotion

7. To hasten the day of the Triumph of Our Lady's Immaculate Heart and the day when Mary and Jesus will reign in all hearts

8. To fulfill Our Lady's request for individual consecration of our lives to her Immaculate Heart, as given to us through Sister Lucia during the Fatima apparitions

9. To become an effective counter-force to the legion of evil so prevalent in the world by offering up our prayers, sacrifices, and sufferings to Jesus through Mary

10. To renew our Baptismal promises and to evangelize the world to Jesus through Mary

There are two formal methods of consecration: (1) The first method encouraged by St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe, a Polish priest-martyr who founded the confraternity "Militia Immaculata." (2) The second method is that of St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, a French priest who founded the Missionaries of the Company of Mary and the Daughters of Divine Wisdom. A Catholic may consecrate himself / herself to Jesus through Mary using either method, both methods, or no formal method at all.

My husband and I have had the privillege of making our consecration via both methods and both are beautiful in their own way.

To learn more about these methods and the procedures for making your consecration, go here and here. You can also find out more by going here.

We made ours with the Community of St. John (St. Louis de Montfort method) and also with the Militia Immaculata (St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe method) in Marytown.