Consecrate Baby to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in the Womb?
Consecration to the Immaculate Middle of Mary
Dear Friends in Christ, From the tree of the cross, our Lord Jesus Christ bestowed upon us his greatest gifts. He won our redemption through his sacrificial expiry. From his pierced side, the Church was built-in. From the cantankerous our Lord addressed these words to St. John: "Behold your female parent," (Jn. 19:27), thereby making Mary "our mother in the order of grace" ("Lumen Gentium" ["Low-cal of Nations"], 61)
On this day on which we commemorate the Immaculate Conception of the Blest Virgin Mary, I wish to inform you that I volition consecrate our diocese to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on March 25, 2010, the Solemnity of the Annunciation.
The deed of consecration will occur following Mass in the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Announcement in Cape Girardeau. Along with the diocesan consecration, I am also asking all of our priests to consecrate their parishes to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and I encourage each of you to consecrate yourselves individually.
With this pastoral letter, I wish to explain the pregnant of consecration and the purposes for which information technology is to be carried out.
The meaning of consecration
In anticipation, it is important to understand what is meant by consecration and why consecration to Mary is significant. In the primary sense, induction means to make sacred, and it is something only God tin can exercise. God shares his holiness with us and allows the states to participate in his holiness through the gift of grace. For each Christian, this begins with baptism. 1's Christian life is the ongoing transformation into God'south likeness with the help of grace which is communicated to us through the sacraments.
While consecration is showtime and foremost an act of God, we can also speak of consecration as our response to God. When nosotros give up to God'south volition to transform us into his likeness and brand us holy, we consecrate ourselves to him. We answer by setting ourselves apart to belonging to the Lord in a new way. Jesus is the all-time example of this consecratory response to the Father: "I consecrate myself for their sakes now, that they may be consecrated in truth" (John 17:nineteen).
Jesus is "the Christ," that is, the "Anointed," which means that he is, as God's Servant, totally at the service of God, that is, consecrated to God. Again, this special belonging to God is shared with us through baptism, and it is sealed and strengthened through confirmation.
We tin can also speak of other consecrations such as that received by deacons, priests, and bishops, who through the reception of the sacrament of holy orders, are especially consecrated for service through a sharing in the priesthood of Jesus Christ. Men and women consecrate themselves to God through vows and promises. Similarly, nosotros tin can speak of married couples as being consecrated. We each consecrate ourselves anew to God each Easter when we renew our baptismal promises. Nosotros can even say that our response of defended living of the Christian life is a consecratory response to God. Then, in these senses, we see that consecration secondarily refers to our subjective response to God's master act to consecrate the states.
It is in this latter sense (that of trying to fully respond to God'south will to make us holy) that nosotros empathize consecration to Mary. Mary is non God. But, it was God's will that Mary play a significant part in our Christian lives and, in particular, with our sanctification. Mary is the paradigm of a consecratory response to God'southward volition. At the joyful mystery of the Annunciation, she responds to God's will for her past a total acceptance and religion-filled surrender: "I am the handmaid of the Lord; May it be done to me according to your word" (Luke 1:38). Through the archangel, God confirms that in her person and in her response, Mary is truly "total of grace" (Lk 1:28). As the Father entrusted his divine Son to Mary, so are we entrusted to her every bit His members. She is the perfect example of the model disciple as well as the unabridged Church. She is the girl of the Father, the spouse of the Holy Spirit, and the mother of the Son. Her will was and forever remains perfectly united to the Holy Trinity.
The consecration I announce today will be to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. That heart was so attuned to the Heart of Jesus that, even though at Cana He seemed to reject her request considering His 60 minutes had non even so come up (cf. John 2:one-v), she knew what was in His center and she recognized His hour. "Full of grace," she was filled with God's love. In her heart, at that place was no room for self; she was wholly the handmaid of the Lord. At her Son'due south Passion and death, her Heart was pierced by a sword of sorrow every bit Simeon had foretold (Luke 2:34-35), indicating her profound union with His Heart at His hour. Past consecrating the diocese and ourselves to this Centre of Mary, we are drawn into matrimony with His Heart in a singular and certain style.
All consecrations to Mary therefore have a Trinitarian as well as a Christ-centered orientation. Mary is a sure and certain path toward spousal relationship with the will of God and union with her Son. Consecration to Mary deepens and strengthens our commitment to Christ. For this reason, consecration to Mary must explicitly state that our ultimate end and goal is God and His will. We entrust and commend ourselves to her Immaculate Heart, for she leads u.s.a. to the Sacred Centre of Jesus without neglect.
The purposes of induction
Holiness
I have chosen to consecrate the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau at this time for several important reasons, the offset being holiness of life. Each of us who belong to Christ is called to holiness of life. This is something we must never tire of seeking. This is something that we must never be discouraged in pursuing. We humbly realize that holiness and growing in God's likeness are due to God'southward grace and our faithful and persistent cooperation with it. Nosotros are aided by the grace of the sacraments, the light of God'southward Word and the authentic Teaching of the Church; Too by prayer, by the case of the saints, and with the encouragement and strength of the family of God, the Church.
In this holy communion of the mystical Body of Christ, the Church building has always recognized Mary as a mother, a guide, an intercessor, and a friend. Mary loves u.s. and desires to help us follow her Son more fully. The Cosmic faithful have always implored this maternal assistance of Our Lady as beautifully expressed in the prayer based on the words of Sacred Scripture and concluding with the affirming and petitioning words of the Church—the Hail Mary. Many of her traditional titles invoke her special role in the divine plan every bit our special helper on the narrow mode of holiness and heaven: Gate of Heaven, Refuge of Sinners, Assistance of Christians. Scripture and Tradition call up her role in aiding the faithful in the struggle against the devil and overcoming sin. Many of us may recall from childhood depictions of Mary crushing the head of the ancient serpent.
Mary has likewise been called the Ark of the New Covenant. It is interesting that the three greatest gifts that God gave to the Israelites— the 10 Commandments, the Manna, and the Priesthood— were all represented within the Ark of the Covenant. St. Paul in his Alphabetic character to the Hebrews (Heb nine:iv) states that the Ark contained the tablets of the Police, a jar of Manna, and the rod of Aaron—prefiguring the Word of God, the Bread of Life, and both priest and sacrifice who is Christ. When nosotros consecrate ourselves to Mary, nosotros in essence offer our intention to exist placed within the womb of the Ark—to share in that threefold gift of Christ—priest (rod of Aaron), prophet (Give-and-take of God), and king (communion of life and reigning).
In addition to all the true-blue who make upwards our diocese, I am especially aware of our priests during this special Jubilee Yr for Priests. It must be recalled that the primary purpose for which Pope Benedict
XVI dedicated this the Year for Priests, was "to encourage priests in this striving for spiritual perfection on which, in a higher place all, the effectiveness of their ministry depends." The Holy Male parent added that the lay faithful should also embark on the quest for spiritual perfection. Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is ordered toward ourcommon vocation to holiness; to fulfilling the purpose of our original induction at baptism, deepened and strengthened at confirmation;
and, for our priests, supplemented by a special consecration in holy orders. Entrusted to Mary and consecrated to her Immaculate Heart, the goal is made closer for each of us.
Fruitfulness
Closely related to holiness, is fruitfulness. Each of united states of america is chosen to behave "fruit that will last" (John xv:16). This fruitfulness is manifested in a preeminent mode through the "fruit of the Spirit … dearest, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, selfcontrol,"and is contrasted with the "works of the flesh" (Galatians 5:19-23).
Here information technology would be good to recall the harsh words of God to fallen homo—"You are dust (of the globe) and to dust (the earth) you shall return" (Genesis 3:19); words which in fact communicate man'south new reality because of sin. Due to his disobedience, human being must now cultivate and tend not only the earth beneath his anxiety, but the very world of his being in guild to bring forth fruits of holiness. Adam and Eve's sin was that they partook of a fruit that was outside of their communion with God. Our labor then, both corporal and spiritual, must ever seek that communion with God without which we ultimately labor in vain for things that are simply perishable instead of everlasting, those things that are of lilliputian profit to our soul. Without this induction of our lives, our family, our work, our very beingness, nosotros seek God to partake of God's generosity without first receiving His approval; it is akin to opening a Christmas present before Christmas day.
We are each called to bear fruit in our corresponding Christian vocations: wedlock, priesthood, consecrated religious life, and the Christian single state. Married couples are privileged to cooperate with God in bringing forth children, the "fruit" of their covenant of love. Countless couples who have had difficulty in conceiving children 10 Pastoral Letter on the Consecration to the Immaculate Middle of Mary accept found both refuge and assistance from Mary. While Mary is the Mother of the only begotten Son of the Father, she models that openness and respect for life that Christian marriage exemplifies.
Priests are called in a special way to bring forth spiritual children for the kingdom of God. Given that their ministry is and then important for the salvation of so many souls, Mary is a special female parent to all priests. She is a powerful assistance for priests to maintain their allegiance and their purity. She is a comfort and a source of strength for priests in their day-to-day service of the Body of Christ. As she was present at the cross, she is present at every Mass.
Consecrated religious find in Mary a model of total self-giving
which is a special gift to the Church building. In fact, information technology can exist said that the consecrated life of men and women religious is specially fruitful in that it is an incomparable sign of God'south kingdom for the unabridged Church. It serves to inspire and invigorate all the members of the Church by the radical manifestation of the evangelical counsels (poverty, chastity,
and obedience) and the promise of the kingdom. Mary is the embodiment and the perfection of this consecrated life.
Finally, those who are living a dedicated life in the Christian single state find a special condolement and force in Mary. She serves to model a off-white and pure honey for Christ that must exist at the center of those who live every bit single people today. In a globe that ofttimes glorifies self-indulgence and self-centeredness, Mary models for the single person generous self-giving, sacrificial love, and single-heartedness all of which class the basis for pureand wholesome friendships that comport fruit.
Along with our private vocations, every bit a diocesan Church we are engaged in many pastoral initiatives that nosotros must entrust to Mary so that they might bear fruit. I think first of the of import piece of work of fostering vocations. While we must help all of our immature people notice the Lord's plan for them, I place a very high priority on fostering priestly vocations. We each must "beg the harvest master to send forth laborers to gather his harvest" (Matthew 9:37-38). Afterwards all, Pope Benedict has pointed out, without the ministerial priesthood, "in that location would be neither the Eucharist, nor fifty-fifty the mission nor the Church herself."
On November. 6, 2009, our diocese launched Catholic Charities of Southern Missouri. At this crucial time of its infancy, I commend the hereafter of this bureau to Mary, that it might bear spiritual fruit in non but the lives of the poor and their families, only for the wider customs of our diocese.
Our diocese, including each of our parishes and schools, has a special mission to serve and strengthen the family, the "domestic church." As we seek through various pastoral, spiritual, and catechetical initiatives to build upwards every family, including those that are broken or in crisis, we commend our families to Mary. In her place in the Holy Family, she carried out a singular vocation which extends beyond Nazareth. She embodies and models fruitful and sacrificial love so essential for wholesome family life. She too manifests a love and solidarity for every family and all of our children.
For this reason, I also have this occasion to strongly encourage each of us individually, and our families together, to accept up the holy prayer of the Rosary. With this ancient practice, we solidify our consecration to Our Lady. This "simple prayer of the Rosary," Pope John Paul Two once wrote, "marks the rhythm of human being life" and brings it "into harmony with the rhythm of God's ain life, in the blithesome communion of the Holy Trinity, our life's destiny and deepest longing. … Anyone who contemplates Christ through the various stages of his life cannot fail to receive in him the truth about human." Each mystery so, sheds calorie-free on the mystery of who nosotros are and helps united states each day to live our vocation in fruitfulness. The practice of praying the Rosary equally a family unit is peculiarly to be recommended. If this is non possible, so offer your Rosary for the intention of binding your spouse or family unit members to the intendance of the Immaculate Middle of Mary.
As an outward sign of our induction, I would as well like to recommend the wearing of the Dark-brown Scapular which is a reminder to its wearers of the saving grace of Christ—"All you who have been baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves in him" (Galatians 3:27). The Brown Scapular is a particular sign of parental love, the dearest of Our Mother in Heaven who desires to clothe usa in the holiness of Christ. In the coming years we volition embark on a renewed dear of the Sacred Liturgy. This opportunity is occasioned by the imminent arrival of the new English language translation of the Roman Missal. It will provide all of our Cosmic faithful with a time for deepening our agreement and love for the "source and summit" of the Christian life: the commemoration of the Eucharist at the offer of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. May our induction to Our Lady specially bring u.s.a. to a deeper love of the Mass and increase in us a holy desire to unite ourselves to Christ in His sacrificial offering. In doing so, may we learn to make of our daily life a series of offertories,
as gifts of oneself to both God and to neighbor. In the words of St. Gregory the Smashing, "The Mass volition be a cede for us to God when nosotros accept made an offering of ourselves."
Lastly, I mention the priority of what Pope John Paul 2 and now Pope Benedict 16 accept referred to as the new evangelization. This is the phone call for the Church building to rededicate itself to its mission—the mission which Christ gave to the
apostles to get "and brand disciples" (Matthew 28:19). In the US, and in southern Missouri, this often ways
re-evangelizing those who are Catholic in name but, or who take fallen away from the organized religion. Pope John Paul Ii declared that Mary, under her championship of Our Lady of Guadalupe, is the "star of the new evangelization." In recalling her role, the Holy Father noted: "Information technology is my heartfelt hope that she, whose intercession was responsible for strengthening the faith of the get-go disciples (cf. John ii:eleven), volition by her maternal intercession guide the Church in America, obtaining the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, every bit she once did for the early Church (cf. Acts 1:14), then that the new evangelization may yield a splendid flowering of Christian life." ("Ecclesia in America" ["The Church in America"], xi)
Forth with these priorities, there are many other aspects of the Church building'southward life and mission that I entrust to Mary through this special induction. It is my confident hope that in conveying out each of these initiatives, "through Mary, in Mary, and for Mary," we will in fact be more perfectly carrying them out "through Jesus Christ, with Him, in Him, and for Him." Through our consecration may we respond each day in ever-greater fashion to the words of Our Lady at the hymeneals feast of Cana, "Do whatever he tells you" (John 2:5).
Protection
Lastly, I accept called to consecrate our diocese to the Immaculate Heart of Mary then that our diocese may be protected from evil. We alive in tumultuous times, only we should non fright if nosotros hope in the Lord, who has won the victory that we share in already. Once once more, I think the marvelous mystery of Divine Providence that God the Father chose to
entrust his only begotten Son, the Word made Flesh, as an infant, to Mary. In ane of the nearly known and loved images
of Marian piety, I think specially of the icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, the original existence displayed in
the Church of St. Alphonsus Ligouri in Rome.
In the prototype, the Christ child clings to Mary, his mother, looking with trepidation at the instruments of crucifixion that ii angels concur out to him equally a foreshadowing of his passion. His tiny sandal, which has slipped off of one of his feet, is a sign of haste with which nosotros should all turn to run to Our Mother's refuge and care. It is an image that every Christian tin can chronicle to as nosotros each face up the struggles and trials that come to usa as we take up our crosses each twenty-four hour period and follow in the footsteps of our Savior. In like way, Christ bids us to turn to his Mother, entrusting ourselves, our families, our Church, to her loving and Immaculate Centre, that we might be consoled, strengthened, and filled with peace to respond in faith to God'south will. May nosotros always persevere in remaining true-blue to the end of our lives. We petition Our Lady to intercede for this special grace in the conclusion to the Hail Mary, as we implore her intercession for a happy death, in a land of grace, in our final hour. As the Ark of the Covenant stood on dry out ground betwixt the Jordan River's divided waters (Joshua 3:14-17) while the Israelites fabricated their crossing into the Promised Land, so Mary every bit the Ark of
the New Covenant stands at the divide betwixt this life and eternity, beckoning us and guiding u.s.a..
Conclusion
In light of what we take reflected upon, the mystery of the finding of the child Jesus in the Temple, as recounted in Luke's Gospel (2:41-52), takes on deeper meaning. We hear the reply of Jesus to the impassioned question of his mother who, with St. Joseph, had searched for him for three days: "Why did you search for me? Did you non know I had to be in my Father'due south house?" Jesus was where he was supposed to be—in his Father's house. But in accepting her maternal role as Female parent of the Church at the foot of the Cross (John xix:26-27), Mary must now search for all her children who because of
sin are not where they are supposed to be, in their Father'southward house. In consecrating ourselves, with greater resolve each 24-hour interval, we accept Mary's paw and allow her to lead usa ever closer to Our Father's house. We as well assist her in seeking out the many around us who are lost and disoriented and know not their way to true peace. The words of hope that conclude Pope Pius Ix's Apostolic Constitution, "Ineffabilis Deus" ["Ineffable God"], on Dec. 8, 1854, defining the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, are fitting for u.s. to recall today: "We have, therefore, a very sure hope and
complete confidence that the about Blessed Virgin will ensure by her well-nigh powerful patronage that all difficulties be removed and all errors prodigal, so that our Holy Mother the Catholic Church may flourish daily more and more throughout all the nations and countries … and may bask 18-carat peace, tranquility, and liberty. We are firm in
our confidence that she will obtain pardon for the sinner, health for the ill, strength of center for the weak, consolation for the affected, assist for those in danger; that she will remove spiritual blindness from all who are in error, so that they may return to the path of truth and justice, and that there may be one flock and one shepherd." For all of these reasons I volition perform this special consecration of our diocese to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on March 25, 2010. I
share this with y'all on this day, December 8, 2009, the day on which nosotros celebrate Mary's Immaculate Conception as the masterpiece of God's creation, that she might fulfill her atypical vocation as the Mother of God; in this season of promise in which we expect forward to the coming of Christ at Christmas and at the end of time. With the assurance of my prayers, and invoking the intercession of Our Lady, I am,Devotedly yours in Christ,
Most Reverend James V. Johnston, Jr.
Bishop of Springfield-Cape Girardeau
Source: https://dioscg.org/consecration-to-the-immaculate-heart-of-mary/
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