From the bulletin for the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Feb 09, 2025)
5th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Ah, frigid February: another month of Mary. In my book, a month qualifies as belonging especially to the Blessed Mother if it contains at least two notable feasts of the Virgin. September therefore counts because of her Nativity on the 8th and Our Lady of Sorrows on the Ides. December is definitely a M.o.M. due to Our Lady of Guadalupe and the whole Christmas thing. And May is the month of Mary, in view of the Visitation on the 31st and, well, all the flowers.
February is front-loaded from a Marian point of view. The Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord is Marian despite the name. And Our Lady of Lourdes has her commemoration on the 11th of the month, a day with special significance for members of PES. (As a bonus, Valentine’s Day gives us Catholics a fine opportunity for distributing images of the Immaculate Heart, despite the risk of a misunderstanding.)
The Marian notes of February are of special personal significance for your pastor. Fifteen years ago, while in my first year of law school and, to my dismay, still in the throes of a relentless vocational wrestling bout with the Almighty, I happened upon the Total Consecration booklet of St. Louis de Montfort in the adoration chapel down Prior Avenue. Not finding in myself the strength to apply to the seminary (as I suspected the Lord was expecting me to do), this seemed like something I could, at least, commit to. Scanning the liturgical calendar for the next possible appropriate liturgical feast, I settled on making my consecration on February 2 (2011)... noting that it was also World Day of “Consecrated” Life for the Church.
I prepared myself by means of the Saint’s meditations and daily prayers over the intervening thirty-three days. When the date finally arrived, I went, as was my custom, to 5 pm Mass at Nativity of Our Lord. Afterwards I stayed for the Rosary in the side chapel. After that, if memory serves, with no witnesses but my angel, I knelt and prayed the formula of consecration, signing my name in the space provided. Hearing no angelic hymns and not detecting any miraculous gestures from the statue of the Virgin, I went home and went on with my life. My vocational perturbation? More or less unabated.
But that year the following things happened: I started going (every now and then) to Mass and later (with increasing frequency) confession at the Catholic church closer to home, St. Mark’s; I started spiritual direction with Fr. Humberto; and on the feast of the Holy Family 2011, had a fateful conversation with him, to which I came prepared to share the very solid reasons I thought I had for cutting short any conversation about the priesthood, but which ended with me accepting an invitation to come live with the community to discern the religious life.
On February 11, 2012, feast of Our Lady of Lourdes and one year and a novena after I made my quiet Marian consecration, I drove down Dayton avenue to the St. Mark rectory in time for morning prayer. My religious life had begun, and Mary had brought it all about.
I share this by way of encouraging the practice of Marian consecration. I realize that for those of the parish who are presently experiencing vocational angst, it might have the opposite effect, at least to the extent that they, like me once upon a time, consider a celibate vocation something to be avoided. But our thoughts are not God’s thoughts, nor do we often know what makes for our peace of heart. Yet Mary does. And better than any other creature! Marian consecration is simply to give what we have or are over to Mary’s control. Though as easy as an act of the will, it is something she takes very seriously. Whatever we cede to her, she begins to care for in a special motherly way. And Mary never fails to use the least thing in her keeping in the best possible way for God’s glory and the good of souls. Be it a heap of dead flowers, trust her to transform it into a beautiful bouquet to present to her Son! As one of those “least things” whose consecration continues to sprout un-hoped-for flowers under her quiet motherly care, I invite you to experience the power of Marian consecration yourself.
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