Day 20 of 33 Day Consecration: St. Maximilian’s certainty

Day 20:


Opening Prayer


Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth Your Spirit, and they shall be created and You shall renew the face of the earth. O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, Grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations.

Through the same Christ Our Lord. Amen.

 


St. Maximilian’s certainty


Here is the certainty of St. Maximilian: “God is in every place and with great love He thinks about everyone and everything.” Here is the answer to suffering. So it is no longer a stumbling block, because God is there and “comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Cor 1:3-4).


We can live out our mission when we are active and enjoy times of serenity, but also when we are in trouble, if we live in union with Christ the Redeemer through our total offering to the Immaculata. This becomes a way of salvation for us and for everyone.


Human life always involves suffering, which, lived with Mary at the foot of the Cross, may become a “Paschal suffering.”


Faith, as well as consecration to the Immaculata, does not protect us from the dangers of life, but gives us the opportunity to offer everything to God through Mary, truly everything: joy, pain, happy events and moments of suffering, leading us to welcome the consolation of God so as to be in turn comforters for others. How else should we call St. Maximilian’s experience in the starvation bunker but a consolation experience that enabled him to console and lead his companions to God?


Mary’s four fundamental attitudes:


  • The attentive Virgin,
  • The Virgin in prayer,
  • The Virgin Mother, and
  • The Virgin presenting offerings,


show us how to live our consecration to her. Sometimes we ask how to live out our consecration to the Immaculata. Here we have the answer. It consists in re-living within us those same attitudes so that the Gospel message may be reflected in our lives.


Questions for discussion:


  • Has St. Maximilian something to tell you with his ideal: Total consecration to the Immaculata and the passion for the mission “to conquer the world for Christ through the Immaculata”?
  • Would you embrace his ideal in your life?


Commitment in our life:


To be near suffering people, giving them the gift of our presence, love and consolation.