There are many ways of showing devotion to Our Lady. We say the Rosary. We prayer at Her altar or statue or shrine. We say the Angelus or Regina Coeli. We say the Hail Mary more than any other prayer except the Our Father. We go on pilgrimages to Marian shrines, perhaps, and so on. All these external expressions of devotion to Our Lady surely come from the heart and indicate that we have a certain closeness to Mary. No Catholic who is really prayerful and devout should be without devotion to Mary, and this has always been true from the days of St. John the beloved disciple onwards. . .
A true, complete devotion to Our Lady calls for consecration to Her, which is as all inclusive as a consecration to the Religious life or to other forms of dedicated life in the Church. This complete consecration to Mary does not demand that we live under the vows of Religion or that we adopt a monastic way of life or anything like that, unless it is our special vocation, but it does call for a seriousness of life and of application and of resolution that is as real and as effective as that involved in any other form of consecration. It is not a light matter to consecrate oneself to Our Lady with a formula such as “Totus Tuus” (the motto of Pope John Paul II, meaning “All for you”). . .
It is not a good thing to force oneself to adopt an outlook and a way of life that feels artificial and forced, and it is not a good thing for us to consecrate ourselves to Our Lady in the full way Pope John Paul II has, and which several times he has urged on priests, unless we are ready for it. As with all advances in the spiritual life, we need the grace to do anything good, and the grace to belong to Our Lady consciously and deliberately and with delight is not given to everyone automatically. We have to pray for it and prepare for it, and when it comes, we have to correspond with it with all the generosity we can and to value it greatly. . .
A 17th century Flemish mystic (Venerable Mary Petyt of St. Teresa) who experienced a mystical union with Mary and Jesus wrote the following to her spiritual director: “I am always conscious of the action of Mary’s spirit, inciting me, commanding me, directing me, in almost everything I do or omit. Towards Her I turn the respectful and innocent gaze of the child, wishing to please Her in everything no matter how slight. And hence I can say that this dear Mother is mine and that I am Hers. She is entirely for me, and I am entirely for Her, because I belong to Her and no longer to myself. . . In perfect peace, simplicity, and intimate tenderness, my faculties of memory, understanding, and will concern themselves with Mary and with God at one and the same time, so that my soul can scarcely realize the nature of the thoughts that fill it. Yet in a confused manner the soul does realize that its memory is concerned with a simple recollection of God and of Mary; its understanding with a fundamental pure and simple knowledge or contemplation of the presence of God and of Mary in God; its will with a tender and spiritual adherence to God and Mary through love.”
Of course we are not mystics and do not pray with the intuitive experience of mystics, but what mystics see clearly does take place within us in a hidden way if we are faithful to God and to our consecration to Our Lady. So although we do not see quite how to be united with God and with Mary in God in one simple intuition, nevertheless if we try to unite ourselves with Mary by our consecration and by living up to it, the union with God, which is our goal, is brought nearer for us. . .
If we try to live united in spirit with Our Lady, we need to cultivate Her outlook and Her virtues. To those who love Her, God has given Mary the power to communicate Her virtues . . . Of course there was a great similarity between the human virtues of Jesus and those of His Mother, and so the more we become like Mary the more we become like Jesus, and the more we become like Him the more we become sons or daughters of Mary. . . .
How did Our Lord and His Mother see themselves in relation to other people? There was a great similarity between Them. Both of them, despite their inconceivable dignity and holiness and importance saw Themselves as servants. They saw Themselves as servants of God, first of all. “Behold the handmaid of the Lord,” Mary said to the archangel Gabriel. Her Son, who was God, not only fulfilled the beautiful prophecy of Himself as the Servant of God described by Isaiah but actually said, “The Son a Man has come not to be served but to serve.” . . .
If we could only see ourselves as servants of everyone we meet, so that our spontaneous reaction to everyone was “What can I do to help him,” we should be very humble and very happy, even if we were ruling over people as a service to them or being judges in a court of law or if we really were servants in the ordinary sense of the word. Jesus and Mary living in you and me want to serve other people, everyone we meet or can help. Union with Christ, or with His Mother, which is the same thing really, would make us have this outlook of wanting always to do things for people, to serve them, and to do it with no idea of getting gratitude or recognition. It really is more blessed, and gives more happiness, to give than to receive, and if you serve everyone, whether you like them or not, you will be very happy and humble and close to God and to Our Lady.
