Texas To Jesus Through Mary

All around us today, we see great evils of unprecedented scope, about which we feel powerless to do anything. But Heaven tells us there is a way we can personally do something about this, and which is very important. And that way is through the Blessed Virgin Mary.

From the beginning, Almighty God has chosen the Virgin Mary as the Mediatrix of all graces and the channel through which all salvation comes. Just as Jesus is the New Adam, She is the New Eve. Just as the Fall came through a woman listening to the serpent, Redemption comes through another Woman crushing the head of the serpent under Her heel. This theme of a cosmic battle between the Woman and the ancient serpent is found in Scriptures in both Genesis and Revelation. And the Tradition of the Church understands this Woman to be the Blessed Virgin Mary.

In our own times at Fátima and elsewhere, this Woman – the Blessed Virgin Mary - reappears, asking us to join Her spiritual army by consecration to Her Immaculate Heart. It is part of God's original plan to save the world through Her agency from the great evils all around us. It is by consecration that we ourselves become Her humble "heel" by which She crushes the serpent's head.

Consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary has been recommended by all the recent Popes. From his earliest years, our late, great Holy Father – Saint John Paul II – had consecrated himself to the Blessed Virgin Mary (thus his motto, "Totus Tuus").

This consecration is extremely powerful. In 1984, Saint John Paul II (as Pope) consecrated Russia and the world to the Blessed Virgin Mary, in union with many bishops. In 1988, Sister Lúcia in Portugal revealed that this act finally fulfilled the Our Lady’s request at Fátima as the necessary precondition for the conversion of Russia. And promptly, the Soviet Empire began to crumble.

But Saint John Paul II advised us that it is still "necessary for every bishop to consecrate his own diocese; every pastor, his own parish; every father and mother, their own family."

You are invited in these difficult times for our families, our country, and our world to heed these requests, and to join the Blessed Virgin Mary's army to help crush the head of the serpent. You are asked to make the very powerful act of Total Consecration, and to live it out in your daily life. Consecration is simply making a gift of yourself entirely to God (to Jesus through Mary) in which you surrender to Them so that They can work in and through you. They will guide you in your daily life and give you the graces to carry out what They plan for you. Those of us already living the consecration can give witness to Their wonderful Hand in our daily affairs.

The St. Louis de Montfort's form of preparation for consecration is a beautiful way to do this seriously. The preparation is a simple series of spiritual exercises that goes for 33 consecutive days, each day representing one year in the life of Jesus. It can be done any one of six times a year.

One of these preparations ends on the Feast of the Annunciation, normally on March 25th, when Our Lady asks us to make the consecration together in unison across the land, joining our own fiats to Her Fiat. The Total Consecration booklet contains all the prayers and readings for each day, plus a calendar which makes it easy to follow.

Accordingly, in unison with Our Lady’s request, we will start the preparation on February 20th and proceed for 33 days until March 25th, the Feast of the Annunciation, when we do the consecration.

All can be done privately. But on the Feast of the Annunciation, you are encouraged and invited to attend the collective act of consecration (whether for the first time, or your annual renewal) that will take place at a special Holy Mass.

[Many thanks to Pat and John for the information provided on this page.]