What is Total Consecration?
Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary is a 33-day course that builds on True Devotion to Mary according to St. Louis Marie de Montfort. It’s an amazing way to grow deeper in your faith and draw closer to Jesus through Mary. Each of the 33 days includes a short video, some written reflections, and prayer time. Join us!
First 12 days: Reflection, Day 2
Its good to be back and we are now on the 2nd day of the First 12 days preparation, I hope and pray as we move on each day Our Lady will grant us new graces from the Sacred Heart of Jesus. My name is Br. Julian Mary from the community Knights of the Holy Eucharist. We are continuing Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount from the gospel of St. Matthew. We are going to focus our attention today on three points:
1.) the commandment of the Lord to be holy
2.) the warning to pagans and hypocrites; and
3.) the importance of prayer.
First is the mandate of Our Lord to become perfect as the heavenly father is perfect. This goes back to what we have said in our introduction, answering the question, why consecration to Our Lady is so important. We established as our first argument that the goal of life, even in this life is to be with God, our sanctification, our holiness. Holiness is what Our Lord means when said, “Be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect”. I would like to remind all of our viewers, followers and those who want to consecrate to Our Lady, that “to be perfect” as Our Lord said, is a mandate not a suggestion nor an option. Holiness is not a one-day process, not even 12 days process of purifying our external and internal senses. Conversion is a lifetime on-going process. It is for all of us and not intended to people who are in jail. Bishop Fulton Sheen once said, “The difference between people in jail and me, is that they got caught, I am not.” In other words, we are all sinners, therefore we all need conversion. Sinners must convert. If we are good, thanks be to God and Our Lady, but still, we need conversion, to strive become better; if we are better we strive to become the best; and if we are the best we must strive even more to become holy. Not to advance holiness is to go backward and that is very dangerous. The distance we moved away from God is called misery and pain, and of course, the end is death, and it’s obvious for we depart from God who is the source of life.
The second point is the warning to pagans and hypocrites. The hypocrites don’t have the truth, they don’t possess unless they convert, and that’s precisely the reason why they are called hypocrites. They don’t possess the Spirit of Christ who said, “I am the Truth, the Way, and the Life”. Their way is according to the spirit of this world. We don’t follow the way of the pagans and hypocrites, that is why we renounce this way of worldly spirit and neo-paganism and those practices apart from the Living God and His Catholic Church. And so, we need the third element and that is prayer. Remember what I have said last time the S.O.P. Spirit of prayer. I repeat the necessity of S.O.P. We are not doing this preparation by ourselves alone without asking the help from God and Our Lady, for that is pride. In prayerful spirit, we do what we can, we pray what we can not, and God will do the rest. The angel at Fatima said, “The Hearts of Jesus and Mary will allow themselves to be a move by the voice of your supplication”. It is therefore through the power of our sincere and humble prayer that will make us capable of renouncing the spirit of the world. We need to pray the Rosary, and the prayer, our Lord taught us. How can God the Father refuse such a beautiful prayer that His Beloved Son taught us? St. John Chrysostom says, “we can not be our Master’s disciples unless we pray as he did in the way that He showed us. Moreover, God, the Father listens more willingly to the prayer that we have learned from His Son rather than those of our making which contains all our human limitations.”If we could fathom the profound mysteries and the fullness of this Heavenly and Divine Prayer we would be floating in ecstasy. In the meantime, we are laying the foundations, the preliminary stages so that we can soar high towards heavenly things, towards union with God.
Readings and Prayers for Day 2 of 33
Spiritual Exercises: Examine your conscience, pray, practice renouncement, mortification, purity of heart; this purity is an indispensable condition for contemplating God in heaven, to see Him on earth and to know Him by the light of faith.
St. Matthew Chapters 5:48, 6:1-15
Love for Enemies.
48 You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Concerning Almsgiving.
1 “Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
2 “Thus, when you give alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
3 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,
4 so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Concerning Prayer.
5 “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
7 “And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words.
8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
The Lord’s Prayer.
9 Pray then like this: Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread;
12 And forgive us our debts, As we also have forgiven our debtors;
13 And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil.
14 For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you;
15 but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Veni, Creator Spiritus (Come Holy Spirit, Creator Blest)
Come, O Creator Spirit blest!
And in our souls take up Thy rest;
Come with Thy grace and heavenly aid,
To fill the hearts which Thou hast made.
Great Paraclete! To Thee we cry,
O highest gift of God most high!
O font of life! O fire of love!
And sweet anointing from above.
Thou in Thy sevenfold gifts art known,
The finger of God’s hand we own;
The promise of the Father, Thou!
Who dost the tongue with power endow.
Kindle our senses from above,
And make our hearts overflow with love;
With patience firm and virtue high
The weakness of our flesh supply.
Far from us drive the foe we dread,
And grant us Thy true peace instead;
So shall we not, with Thee for guide,
Turn from the path of life aside.
Oh, may Thy grace on us bestow
The Father and the Son to know,
And Thee, through endless times confessed,
Of both, the eternal Spirit blest.
All glory while the ages run
Be to the Father and the Son
Who rose from death; the same to Thee,
O Holy Ghost, eternally. Amen.
Ave Maris Stella
Hail, bright star of ocean,
God’s own Mother blest,
Ever sinless Virgin,
Gate of heavenly rest.
Taking that sweet Ave
Which from Gabriel came,
Peace confirm within us,
Changing Eva’s name.
Break the captives’ fetters,
Light on blindness pour,
All our ills expelling,
Every bliss implore.
Show thyself a Mother;
May the Word Divine,
Born for us thy Infant,
Hear our prayers through thine.
Virgin all excelling,
Mildest of the mild,
Freed from guilt, preserve us,
Pure and undefiled.
Keep our life all spotless,
Make our way secure,
Till we find in Jesus,
Joy forevermore.
Through the highest Heaven
To the Almighty Three,
Father, Son and Spirit,
One same glory be. Amen.
Magnificat – English
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel
for he remembered his promise of mercy,
the promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children forever.
Magnificat – Latin
Magnificat anima mea Dominum;
Et exultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari meo,
Quia respexit humilitatem ancillae suae; ecce enim ex hoc beatam me dicent omnes generationes.
Quia fecit mihi magna qui potens est, et sanctum nomen ejus, Et misericordia ejus a progenie in progenies timentibus eum.
Fecit potentiam brachio suo;
Dispersit superbos mente cordis sui.
Deposuit potentes de sede, et exaltavit humiles.
Esurientes implevit bonis, et divites dimisit inanes.
Sucepit Israel, puerum suum, recordatus misericordiae suae, Sicut locutus est ad patres nostros, Abraham et semeni ejus in saecula.
Glory Be – English
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Glory Be – Latin
GLORIA PATRI, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
