33 days to Morning Glory

One of the greatest gifts in my ministry is being surrounded by people who are truly seeking to do God’s will.  That is where I found myself for the past few weeks as we joined together to do the ‘mini-retreat’ designed by Father Michal Gaitely, 33 days to Morning Glory.   Together we began to examine what it means to do as Mary does and to say Yes to God’s will in our life.  Giving up all the graces that are coming our way, even any perceived control we think we have over our prayer life and saying God use me as a tool, let the Holy Spirit, living in Mary, work through us.  Draw us closer to Jesus that we too might be vessels, arks that the savior is born into the world through on a daily basis.

How apropos it was that we finished our retreat today on the feast of the Annunciation.   Today the Church celebrates the moment when the Angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would give birth to the savior.  Exactly 9 months before Christmas, we find ourselves examining the conception of Jesus Himself.  The moment when God took on human flesh, becoming man inside the womb of Mary, who gave her fiat to a plan she surely couldn’t have understood fully.   How confusing and difficult it must have been for her, to go through the stigma of being pregnant before a bride.   Yet, she simply said let it be done unto me according to your word.

That’s exactly what we say when we consecrate ourselves to Jesus through Mary.   God’s promises to each and every one of us are far beyond what we can imagine.  Ahaz simply refused to ask, even with God saying ask for anything and it’s yours.  I giggle a little every time I think of Isaiah saying something to the effect of ‘Man, you are annoying. You annoy me, do you also have to annoy God?”  Yet, then God spoke through Isaiah of a plan so astonishing that our minds can’t wrap around it.  A virgin giving birth, giving birth to God himself!  So today those of us who consecrated ourselves are saying “Mary, you who still do the will of God perfectly, lead us to Jesus” and to God we say “Here I am Lord, I come to do your will.”

The following is the prayer of consecration we said, meditate on these words:
I, __________________________________, a repentant sinner, renew and ratify today in yourhands, O Immaculate Mother, the vows of my Baptism. I renounce Satan and resolve to follow Jesus Christ even more closely than before.

Mary, I give you my heart. Please set it on fire with love for Jesus. Make it always attentive to his burning thirst for love and for souls. Keep my heart in your most pure Heart that I may love Jesus and the members of his Body with your own perfect love.
Mary, I entrust myself totally to you: my body and soul, my goods, both interior and exterior, and even the value of all my good actions. Please make of me, of all that I am and have, whatever most pleases you. Let me be a fit instrument in your immaculate
and merciful hands for bringing the greatest possible glory to God. If I fall, please lead me back to Jesus. Wash me in the blood and water that flow from his pierced side, and help me never to lose my trust in this fountain of love and mercy.

With you, O Immaculate Mother — you who always do the will of God — I unite myself to the perfect consecration of Jesus as he offers himself in the Spirit to the Father for the life of the world. Amen.