My mom has been a Marian devotee since she was a little girl. She would stand in front of the Mary statue at Church and mutter made-up prayers because she didn’t know any “official” ones. She was so enamored with Mama Mary’s face and just knew that someone who looks so beautiful must love her so much.
Naming daughters after Mary was common practice when I was born, so I was christened Mary Stephanie. My mother taught me how to pray the Rosary at age 5, and we prayed the Angelus and the Rosary almost every day as I was growing up. I wasn’t very prayerful as a young woman, and I credit my parents’ devotion to her that God blessed me with such a wonderful husband and marriage.
I didn’t know Mary that well, and I’m embarrassed to admit, thought of her with envy. How could I possibly be as obedient as she was, when she was conceived without the stain of Original Sin and I wasn’t? She had an unfair advantage, or so I thought, though I begrudgingly allowed that she must have needed the Grace to get through all that suffering, being the Mother of our Savior. Still, Jesus’ words at the Cross, “Behold thy mother,” didn’t mean much to me. She was His mother, sure, but I found it hard to believe that she was mine.
Mary stayed in the background most of my life, until I became a mother myself and started falling in love with her. Online mom friends started talking about consecration in 2007, and I was intrigued. As one of them said, “All the practices lead to the same end: imitation and full conformity to Christ.” It was an intense 33 days of preparation, many of which were uncomfortable because I was forced to confront personal demons I didn’t even know existed before. I made my consecration on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in 2008, 22 days before our youngest child was born.
If there’s one virtue I’d like to cultivate most in my children, it’s humility, because only by being humble can they be obedient to God’s call. But humility can’t be taught or modeled unless one is humble himself/herself. It’s something I still struggle with daily, though I try to keep it at the forefront of my spiritual life. Fortunately, Mama Mary is the perfect example of humility. Through her we learn to become more and more docile to the workings of the Holy Spirit, to see God’s hand in everything that comes our way, and to see ourselves as God’s instruments.
Humility has nothing to do with timidity, with fickleness or with a mediocre life lacking in ambition. Humility discovers that everything good in us, both in the order of nature and in the order of grace, belongs to God for from his fullness we have all received. And such profusion of gifts moves us to be grateful. – From In Conversation with God
Our two oldest children have consecrated themselves to Jesus through Mary. It was a choice they made for themselves, and clearly signaled to me when they did so, that they truly owned their faith. I see their consecration as a rite of passage, from their childish faith to that of an adult. They have their own stories of why they chose to do so and how their lives have changed as a result, and I wish I could tell you those stories, but they’re theirs to tell. All I know is that my eldest child, at 24, has suffered through a lot. My second child, at 18, is still discerning his vocation. They have crosses to carry, but they take their faith seriously, and my heart is at peace knowing that they are loved by God’s Mother, more than I could ever love them. There’s something bittersweet in that realization, almost like a relinquishing of my role as their mother, but there is also comfort in being able to let go and let God and His Mother take care of them in ways that I can’t.
Many of our saints were consecrated to Our Lady, like St. Maximilian Kolbe, Blessed Mother Teresa and St. Pope John Paul II. Their lives were radically changed by consecration, and I have the same hope for my children. Mary knows our hearts, like she knew her Son’s, and so we look to her as she was at the Wedding at Cana, instructing us, “Do what He tells you.”
Some helpful resources:
True Devotion to Mary: with Preparation for Total Consecration (Tan Classics)
33 Days to Morning Glory: A Do-It-Yourself Retreat In Preparation for Marian Consecration
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