Day 7:
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.
With Our Gaze Fixed on Christ
Mary is especially the Mother of God, and then in this entrustment/consecration to her the relationship with Christ is essential. We already saw it in the previous reflection, but now we come back to it, because it is very important.
The goal of consecration to Mary is growth in faith in Christ the Lord. Mary is entirely relative to Christ. The words that Mary said to the servants at Cana are the words that she repeats to each of us: “Do whatever he tells you” (Jn 2:1-12).
Mary did first what Jesus said. In her life we find the accomplished model of the disciple of the Lord: “My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice” (Lk 8:21). Jesus points to the life of Mary as a life fully conformed to His word. Mary, for this intimate union with the entire life of the Son, in obedience to the will of the Father, invites us to turn our gaze to Him. She reminds us that He is “the Way, the Truth and the Life” (Jn 14:6). “Do whatever he tells you” is her
own sharing of a life experience that takes place in the service of love for Christ; of a life that finds its sense in conformity to Him and that experiences existentially the union of branch to the vine (Jn 15:1 K.).
Mary expresses her motherhood toward us by showing us the Son, wishing our conformity to Him. St. Maximilian reminds us that Mary aims at making us reach the stature of Christ. She wants us to shine with His beauty.
Consecration to Mary therefore is not just a devotion, an idea, but a path of conformity to Christ. It means to walk with Mary toward Christ, centering more and more our life in Him. From that arises a life commitment: the communion with Christ and the conformity to Him up to the total gift of ourselves, as St. Maximilian did. In him the most challenging words of the Gospel became reality: love for enemies and, above all, the greatest love: “to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn 15:13), which is exactly what Jesus did for us on the Cross.
Closing Prayer
Hail Mary…
O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you, and for all those who do not have recourse to you, especially the enemies of Holy Church and all those recommended to you.
