Consecration to Mary

Entire consecration to Mary constitutes an essential element of filial and apostolic devotion to Mary considered as a participation in the filial love of Jesus towards His Mother as taught in this book. It is therefore important to make this consecration a memorable event in one’s existence and the starting-point of a new life.

It is good to choose a feast of the Blessed Virgin or of Our Lord for pronouncing this consecration, and to make a month of special preparation for it. Every day of this month it would be well to say the Rosary or at least one decade of the Rosary and to read reflectively a chapter of My Ideal. (This little book comprises thirty-one chapters, but chapters II and III of Part II may be read together as one.)(1)
On the feast chosen for it, either after Holy Communion or at some other more suitable moment of the day, the Act of Consecration given below should be read slowly.

This sort of consecration is supposed to be permanent. To assure this perpetuity not only by a promise made perhaps in a moment of fervor but also by a really irrevocable decision of the will, some servants of Mary oblige themselves to it by vow. Father Chaminade, whose teachings are reproduced in this book, gave his disciples who form the Society of Mary a special vow of stability or of perseverance in the service of Mary which has been recognized by the Holy See as a fourth religious vow. Persons who do not belong to the Society of Mary can follow the example of certain servants of Mary and prohibit themselves by vow from ever retracting their consecration to Mary.

They may even bind themselves under pain of sin to some special obligation and, for example, consecrate their body to Mary by a vow of chastity, or their possessions by renouncing all use of them contrary to what they believe are Mary’s intentions, or their will by binding themselves always to do what they are sure is Mary’s will, which is of course always the same as God’s will.

Some go so far as to bind themselves never to refuse the Blessed Virgin what she clearly desires of them.

Before obliging one’s self to some practice by vow, it is good to bind one’s self for some time by simple promise. It is, moreover, advisable to consult one’s confessor or spiritual director.
For making this consecration, the following formula may be used:

ACT OF CONSECRATION TO MARY

O Mary, Virgin Immaculate, I firmly believe that the Son of God chose you to be His true Mother.
I believe that, being your Son, He loved you and continues to love you more than all other creatures, and that He performed all the duties of a loving Son with infinite perfection.
I believe that He has deigned to associate you in His mission of redemption; that, in accordance with His will, no soul, guilty or innocent, will be sanctified and saved without your mediation; and that no one will come to Him except through you.
I believe that, being His Mother, you are also mine. For, when you conceived Him at Nazareth, you conceived me; when you sacrificed Him on Calvary, you brought me forth to supernatural life; when you co- operate with Him in the distribution of all graces, you continue to nourish me and to educate me as another Jesus.
I believe that He desires me to imitate His example and to strive as much as possible to be to you what He Himself always was and always will be.
Behold, I give and consecrate myself to you as your child, just as Jesus gave Himself to be your Son.
I give you my body and my soul, whatever I have, am, do, and can do. I give myself unreservedly and irrevocably, for time and for eternity.
I give myself so that you may use me as you wish, demand of me any act of devotedness, impose upon me any sacrifice—those that I foresee and those that are hidden from me, those that will be sweet and those at which nature will rebel. I fear nothing, I know to whom I am giving myself.

After the example of Jesus, I wish to love you with all the powers of my soul; I wish to honor, to obey, to imitate you; I wish to have full confidence in you, to be united constantly with you, and in short to reproduce with the utmost perfection all the dispositions of the filial love of your Divine Son, and to become, under your tutelage, another Jesus in your regard.
I particularly wish to assist you in your providential mission. I wish to be your apostle and soldier in the warfare against Satan. I wish to combat in your name and to save your children from his grasp. I wish to fight for the glory of your name, to make you known, loved, and served. I am convinced that revealing you to men is the most effective way of revealing Jesus to them.
I am only a poor sinner—you know it well—full of defects, weaker and more inconstant than I can realize. But I put my confidence in you. I am not working in my own name. I shall be omnipotent because you are omnipotent with the Divine power of your Son, and because my interests are your interests and my cause is your cause. I shall battle under your orders, confident that you will win the victory.
O Mary, Mother of Jesus and my Mother, for the glory of the Most Holy Trinity, for your honor, and for the salvation of my soul and the souls of others, accept the offering I am making of myself to you and obtain for me the grace to be faithful to it to the end of my days. Amen.
(O Jesus, in order to make this complete consecration of myself to Your Mother as sacred and irrevocable as possible, I hereby bind myself by vow never to retract it, and to observe the following particular practice Give me the grace to live up to my consecration all the days
of my life and unto my last breath.)

Short Act of Consecration

O Mary, Mother of Jesus and my Mother, I give myself entirely to you, in order to imitate as perfectly as possible the filial love of Jesus for you and to battle under your orders for the conquest of souls. Amen.

Collective Act of Consecration(2)
Sovereign Mistress of heaven and earth, at the foot of thy throne, where respect and love have enchained our hearts, we offer thee our homage of service and praise, we consecrate ourselves to thy worship, and with transports of joy embrace a state of life where everything is done under thy protection, and everyone pledges himself to praise thee, to serve thee, to proclaim thy greatness, and to defend thy Immaculate Conception. Would that our zeal for the honor of thy worship and the interests of thy glory were able to make amends to thee for all the assaults of heresy, the outrages of unbelief, and the indifference and neglect of the generality of mankind.
O Mother of our Redeemer! Dispenser of all graces! extend the empire of religion in the souls of men, banish error, preserve and increase the Faith in this country, protect innocence and preserve it from the dangers of this world and from the allurements of sin; sensible of our necessities and favorable to our desires, obtain for us the charity which animates the just, the virtues which sanctify them, and the glory which is their crown. Amen.

Three O’Clock Prayer
O Divine Jesus, we transport ourselves in spirit to Mount Calvary to ask pardon for our sins which are the cause of Thy death.
We thank Thee for having thought of us in that solemn moment, and for having made us children of Thy own Mother.
Holy Virgin, show thyself our Mother by taking us under thy special protection.
St. John, be our patron and model, and obtain for us the grace of imitating thy filial piety to Mary, our Mother. Amen.
May the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost be glorified in all places through the Immaculate Virgin Mary!

Prayer Asking of Jesus His Filial Love Toward Mary
O  good Jesus, by the love with which Thou lovest Thy Mother, grant me, I beseech Thee, to love her truly, as Thou truly lovest her and wishest her to be loved.
O bone Jesus, rogo te, per dilectionem qua diligis matrem tuam, ut, sicut eam vere diligis et diligi vis, ita mihi des ut vere eam diligam.
—St. Anselm

1 One may also use this book as part of a 33 day preparation for consecration to Mary as advocated by St. Louis de Montfort. Day 32 would be the meditation entitled “Your Ideal” on page 79, and day 33 would consist in meditating on the particular consecration prayer you will pray on the day of your consecration.
2 This prayer is in the plural because it is recited in union with all those Christians throughout the world who have bound themselves in a special way to the service of our Lady according to the spirit of Father Chaminade; namely, the Marianists,—priests and Brothers of the Society of Mary, and the Daughters of Mary,—their affiliated members, and their sodalists. The Three O’clock Prayer is in the plural for the same reason.