Consecration to Our Lady
By Marian Mellett
As we move from the season of Lent into Eastertide, we celebrate coming out of the darkness into the Light of the Risen Christ. We are an “Easter People”, because the Resurrection gives us the reason for our Hope. We have nothing to fear, because death has been defeated, our King is alive!
With this in mind, I want to share my own very real experience of this move from fear to the peace that only God can give. It all began when I heard an episode of the Daily Rosary Meditation podcast on “Consecration to Our Lady” last summer. Up until then, whenever I heard this term, I immediately associated it with a formal consecration, done over many days (e.g. 33 days following St Louis de Montfort’s “Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary”*). While I have managed to do this once in my life a couple of years ago, and found it very fruitful, I never thought anymore about it as soon as it was done.
Dr Mike Scherschligt (Holy Family School of Faith, USA) explains that “Consecration is the most consistent, most thorough way to obey Christ’s words, ‘Behold Your Mother’ (John 19). Since it is very clear that we’re supposed to relate to Mary as Our Mother; what does that actually mean in practice?
Dr Mike goes on to point out that we know from John’s description of the wedding feast at Cana, that Jesus was obedient to Mary even as a adult.So if this was how Jesus related to Mary, then this is how we should relate to her as well. However, it was his next point which really stuck with me in the weeks that followed: “Consecration is not a one-time act. It is a way of life. It is to live a personal relationship with Mary as Jesus did, growing up in the care of Mary in Nazareth.”
Little did I know just how much need I would have for that simple but powerful act of obedience; of how it would open the floodgates of Heaven’s grace, intervention, care, strength and consolation for me and my family.
It all started as a very pleasant evening in the garden, where I was finally getting to finish planting the roses I had been gifted for my birthday. Suddenly, I heard strange crying, and with my mother’s instinct, I knew somebody was really hurt. We ran up the garden to find my seven-year-old son sitting on the ground, looking dazed. (Note: we later concluded that he had fallen off a wall onto the grass after trying to pick some apples and hit some granite kerbing with his head). I’ll never forget his face in that moment: it looked like his head had been dunked in a bucket of fresh blood! Once we got him inside, I wiped his face very gently, and then I stripped off his clothes and showered him over the bath, to find out where the blood was coming from. I finally found he had a gash in his scalp, so without looking too closely, I grabbed the only bit of gauze and stretchy bandage I could find and started wrapping!
Out of the blue, I felt for a moment a really strong sense of Our Lady when she was tending to the body of her beloved Son taken down off the Cross. This sense of my actions being a prayer helped to keep the panic at bay as we dressed him, drove to the nearest medical clinic, reassured him as he had a brief seizure in the car on the way (very scary for everyone), waited for the ambulance and were transferred to the first Hospital.
We were praying over him and the medical teams the whole time. In particular, I was praying, “Thank You Jesus, the Spirit of the Lord is upon my son, his treatment and his whole medical team, because God Himself has anointed them all”; and, “Thank You Jesus, he has the Mind of Christ and his neurological system is normal and functioning in the perfection that God the Father intended”.
When I eventually got to sit down next to him at the hospital (while he had to lie and let some local anaesthetic get to work), I finally had a chance to catch my breath and send out some prayer requests on Whatsapp. It was a strange situation, because the doctors were not even sure yet what they were dealing with. They believed at that stage that it was just a superficial head wound.
As soon as I sent the requests, I could literally feel a wave of strength and consolation coming over me from everyone’s prayers (not least the wonderful CMIs). This gave me the calm I needed to be reminded by the Holy Spirit of the consecration to Our Lady as a way of life. So I simply said, “Mama Mary, I consecrate my son and all of his treatments and doctors to you. You take care of everything. Thank you, Mother.” Then I handed him completely over to her care. In response, I felt her reminding me of her own words at Cana, “Do whatever He tells you”. From that moment on, I felt the weight of all the decisions and worries just dissipate. It was like nothing else I have ever experienced. I felt total reassurance that whatever was needed would be done and likewise whatever was unnecessary wouldn’t be allowed to happen. Our Lady was literally taking over and making sure he had the best people for every task. I had such a great consolation from the promise in Exodus 14:14, "The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still."
This played out in such an amazing way over the next few days and months that followed, which I can’t cover here in detail. In summary, the doctor at the first hospital went to clean out the wound ready to suture it and then said, “Oh God, I think I can see brain!”, which was a bit of a shock to say the least! Then he was sent for a CT scan and transferred to another hospital, where he ended up needing emergency brain surgery to clean out the wound, check for damage, push out the depressed bone and close the skull.
I was inspired by my dear friend to start journaling all the little and big miracles that were unfolding before our very eyes, while still in the hospital. I came to refer to these as “lights for my path” (from Psalm 119:105) to help me navigate this ordeal in calm and surrender. Just some of these “lights” include:
He could run when asked if he could walk by the triage Doctor…
The surgery list was full but they took him first thing the very next morning: a mere 15 hours after his accident…
He was able to eat straight after his operation, with no vomiting, as the doctors had warned…
The seizure was as a result of some of the skull pressing down on a certain part of the brain which would cause the arm and head to jolt involuntarily…it wasn’t dangerous or lasting…
The skull was a bit depressed as well as fractured, but the meninges were only bruised, not perforated…
He jumped out of bed and got dressed and went to the Hospital School room the day after his surgery…
He only spent 3 nights in hospital in total…
He never touched his stitches for the entire fortnight they took to scab over, even in his sleep (and they were itchy, but he only had to be warned once)…
His development, abilities and academics have come on very steadily since the accident…
I later realised that I had found myself saying things to medical staff which sounded like platitudes, but which were actually blessings and anointing on them and their work, since they were now strictly under Our Mother’s special care. These included “You do whatever you think you need to do”, and “You know best here”. God was using all these things together for his good, as I was speaking them in my God-given authority as his Mother. It may have sounded to them as if I was the most acquiescent parent going, but I was fully confident in Mary’s management of his care and recovery. This brought me great freedom, as it removed my feeling of any need to control or dictate which would have been from a place of anxiety (especially around certain medical interventions) and self-reliance. I got to just be present to my child, care for him, take joy in him and his indomitable spirit and pray for him, knowing all the rest was in the Hands of the Great Physician.
There are so many ways to pray, as many as the stars in Heaven. But this method of consecrating all of our cares, needs, situations and lives to Mary, Mediatrix of All Grace on a daily basis is a sure-fire way of letting God’s grace flow into every area of our lives, so we can trust, surrender, believe and receive. I have been making sure to do this ever since and I haven’t looked back.
Footnotes
For anyone interested in the official 33 Day Consecration to Our Lady Free, there is a free pdf available on https://www.quies.org/True-Consecration-33-Day.pdf
The podcast mentioned with Dr Mike Scherschligt is to be found on https://www.youtube.com/@dailyrosarymeditations. The Daily Rosary Meditation includes five bite-size meditations on the Faith between each decade of the Rosary and are led by Dr Mike and his daughter, Teresa.
Key 33-Day Consecration Start Dates:
Jan 9 (for Our Lady of Lourdes - Feb 11)
Feb 20 (for The Annunciation - Mar 25) Note: Use Feb 19 in leap years
April 10 (for Our Lady of Fatima - May 13)
April 28 (for The Visitation - May 31)
June 13 (for Our Lady of Mt. Carmel - July 16)
July 13 (for The Assumption - Aug 15)
Aug 6 (for Nativity of Our Lady - Sept 8)
Aug 13 (for Our Lady of Sorrows - Sept 15)
Sept 4 (for Our Lady of the Rosary - Oct 7)
Nov 5 (for Immaculate Conception - Dec 8)
Nov 9 (for Our Lady of Guadalupe - Dec 12)
Nov 29 (for Mary, Mother of God - Jan 1)