Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

To: Salvation
Vultus Christi

Immaculata: Hope of Thy Children Scarred by Sin

 on December 8, 2011 11:26 AM |
1208expsicion-inmac-dogm-2004-RAFAES-98145614818.jpg

I wrote this prayer of consecration in 2007 while supplying for a fortnight as chaplain to the Benedictines of the Perpetual Adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament at the Monastery of Notre-Dame d'Orient in the Avéyron in France.

One may find this prayer of consecration when one needs to entrust particular souls in difficulty to the Immaculate Conception. When a priest prays it, he may want to don the stole and pray it before a blessed image of the Most Holy Virgin. This consecration is appropriate for the unbinding and healing of situations marked by sin and moral suffering. The Immaculate Virgin Mary is ever-ready to intervene in the lives of her children. She is the Mother of Mercy and the Mediatrix of All Graces. I keep a record of the persons for whom I have prayed in this way in order to thank the Mother of God for her interventions and magnify with her the Most Holy Trinity. Here is the prayer, first in my English translation,and then in the original French text.

Efficacious Consecration of Persons
to the Pierced and Immaculate Heart of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary

In the name of the Father, + and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Most holy Virgin Mary.
-- thou whom the FATHER didst preserve from the first instant of thy conception
from all evil and from the least shadow of sin,
-- thou whom the Precious Blood of JESUS didst render immaculate and all-beautiful, even before that same Blood was formed in thy virginal womb and poured out upon the altar of the Cross,
-- thou whom the HOLY GHOST didst fill full with every grace in view of the glorious motherhood of the Son of God for which thou wast created,
-- thou art she who crusheth the head of the ancient serpent,
thou art she who alone overcometh the evil that is in us and around us.

To thee, O Mary,
thy Son hast entrusted the liberation of souls enchained by sin,
the healing of wounded souls,
and the sanctification of souls who have suffered evil's worst ravages.

Thou hast only to open thy immaculate hands over them,
and they are shot through with the rays of thy purity.
Through thee, entereth the light to shine in the darkest places.
Through thee, souls are washed in a downpour of graces.
Through thee, the Holy Ghost giveth succour to the weakest souls
and to the sterile a wonderful fecundity.

Thou, O Mary, art the only hope of thy children scarred by sin
and poisoned by its venom.
To those whom the enemy hath made to go astray in bitterness and in fear,
thou openest the path of life and of beatitude.

This is why, impelled today by the boldness that cometh of the Holy Spirit,
and by a confidence that is altogether that of a son,
[and when the consecration is made by a priest:
and in virtue of my priesthood,]
I entrust to thee N. and N.,
in consecrating them to thy pierced and immaculate Heart.

Show thyself the Mother of mercy.
Show thyself our all-powerful Queen,
for there is nothing that resisteth thy supplication
in the presence of Jesus, the King of Love.

Mediatrix of all graces,
save these souls from the tentacles of evil.
Heal them, even in those secret and painful wounds,
that only thy most gentle motherly hand can touch
without adding to their pain.

From this moment on,
these souls are consecrated entirely to thee.
Do thou for them whatsoever thy maternal Heart will suggest to thee.
Purify them in the Precious Blood of thy Jesus the Lamb without stain,
so that now, and even unto the ages of ages,
they may live for the praise of the glory
of the Father + and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.


Consécration efficace des personnes
au Coeur transpercé et immaculé
de la Très Sainte Vierge Marie, Mère de Dieu

Au nom du Père, + et du Fils, et du Saint Esprit. Amen.

Très sainte Vierge Marie,
-- toi que le PÈRE a préservée dès le premier instant de ta conception
de tout mal et de la moindre ombre du péché,
-- toi que le Précieux Sang de JÉSUS a rendu immaculée et toute belle,
avant même d'avoir été formé dans ton sein virginal
et répandu sur l'autel de la Croix,
-- toi que l'ESPRIT SAINT a comblée de toute grâce
en vue de la glorieuse maternité du Fils de Dieu
pour laquelle tu as été créée,
tu es celle qui écrase la tête de l'antique serpent,
tu es celle qui seule parvient à vaincre le mal qui est en nous
et autour de nous.

À toi, ô Marie,
ton Fils a confié la libération des âmes enchaînées par le péché,
la guérison des âmes blessées,
et la sanctification des âmes qui ont souffert les pires ravages du mal.

Tu n'as qu'à ouvrir tes mains immaculées au-dessus d'elles,
et elles sont pénétrées par les dards de ta pureté.
Par toi, entre la lumière pour briller dans les lieux les plus obscurs.
Par toi, les âmes sont lavées dans une pluie de grâces.
Par toi, l'Esprit Saint vient au secours des plus faibles,
et donne aux stériles une merveilleuse fécondité.

Toi, ô Marie,
tu es l'unique espérance de tes enfants meurtris par le péché
et empoisonnés par son venin.
À ceux que l'ennemi a fait errer dans l'amertume et la crainte,
tu ouvres le chemin de la vie et de la béatitude.

Voilà pourquoi, aujourd'hui,
animé de l'audace qui me vient de l'Esprit Saint,
et d'une confiance toute filiale,
[quand la consécration est faite par un prêtre :
et fort de la vertu de mon sacerdoce,]
je te confie N. et N.,
en les consacrant à ton Cœur transpercé et immaculé.

Agis maintenant en Mère de miséricorde.
Agis en Reine toute-puissante,
car rien ne peut résister à ta supplication auprès de Jésus, le Roi d'Amour.

Médiatrice de toutes grâces,
sauve ces âmes de l'emprise du mal.
Guéris-les jusque dans ces blessures secrètes et douloureuses
que seule ta main très douce de Mère peut toucher
sans augmenter la souffrance.

À partir de ce moment,
ces âmes te sont entièrement consacrées.
Fais pour elles tout ce que ton Cœur maternel te dira.
Purifie-les dans le Précieux Sang de ton Jésus, l'Agneau sans tache,
pour que, de nouveau, et jusque dans l'éternité,
elles vivent à la louange de la gloire
du Père, + et du Fils, et du Saint Esprit. Amen.


46 posted on 12/08/2011 8:29:09 PM PST by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies ]


To: All
Vultus Christi

To the Spiritual Mothers of Priests

 on December 8, 2011 11:45 AM |
1208expsicion-inmac-dogm-2004-RAFAES-98145614871.jpg

7 December 2011
Cathedral of the Holy Family
Tulsa, Oklahoma

Last evening, I was privileged to offer Holy Mass in the presence of the Spiritual Mothers of Priests of the Diocese of Tulsa. The Mass--of the Immaculate Conception--was offered in humble thanksgiving for my twenty-five years of priesthood. It marked, at the same time, the third anniversary of the beginning of the Spiritual Mothers of Priests in our diocese. A lovely reception followed. I am immensely grateful to the Spiritual Mothers of Priests of the Diocese of Tulsa for saying "Yes" with magnanimity to a special vocation that, while hidden, is bearing fruit in the lives and in the hearts of priests the world over.

A Song From the Womb

"Rejoicing, I will rejoice in the Lord, and my soul shall be joyful in my God. He has clothed me with the garment of salvation, and with the robe of justice He has wrapped me about, as a bride adorned with her jewels" (Is 61:10). A song intoned from the womb! The Church takes the jubilant words of the prophet Isaiah and places them in the mouth of the tiniest and most vulnerable of human creatures, an embryo implanted in the mothers womb, a human person, already full of grace: this is the Immaculate Conception. The mother is Saint Anne. The child full of grace will be named Mary.

Oh, the audacity of the sacred liturgy! The Immaculate Conception begins to sing in the cloister of the womb. If you would delight the heart of God, says little Mary, learn my song and sing with me. Nothing so ravishes the heart of God as the song of one very little, very vulnerable, very poor, and, at the same time, immensely great in the mind of God. Here is the immaculate child destined to crush the head of the ancient serpent. Here is the immaculate child lowly, poor, and inexpressibly rich in the mercy that clothes her like a garment and in a holiness that shines more brightly than a million galaxies in the firmament's darkest night.

Prelude to the Magnificat

"Gaudens, gaudebo in Domino." "Rejoicing, I will rejoice in the Lord." The melody of this evening's Introit soared pure as crystal in a kind of ecstatic cry of undiluted joy in God. Mary herself intoned the first chant of the Mass today: a kind of prelude to her Magnificat. Already -- just conceived -- the child Mary begins to sing, and the whole Church takes up her song. On no other feast of the year does the Virgin Mary open the Mass by singing in the first person singular. "Rejoicing, I will rejoice" (Is 61:10). Mary's message, from the first instant of her Immaculate Conception, is one of joy in God.

The Tree of the Cross

The joy of the Immaculate Conception springs from the mystery of the Cross. The Collect says that Mary was "preserved from all stain" in foresight of the death of Christ on the tree of the Cross. Yes, in foresight, for there was never a moment when Mary was not present in the mind of God: present to God in all her loveliness, in the immaculate splendor that would be hers because, from all eternity she was destined to be the all-holy Mother of God.

Conceived in the Mind of God

Given that Mary was conceived into a race rebellious and hostile to God, she too had to be redeemed, bought back from the bondage of Adam's progeny in this valley of tears. God, conceiving her in His mind, before she was conceived in the womb of Saint Anne, willed her, and saw her immaculate.

The Precious Blood of the Son

The Father, from all eternity, willed an Immaculate Mother for His Only-Begotten Son. Thus did the Father accept, in advance, the Precious Blood of the Son shed in His most bitter Passion, not in atonement for any sin of Mary's, but in order that by the power of that Blood, the very Blood formed for the Word by the power of the Holy Ghost in her virginal womb, Mary might enter the world pure and free, with a purity and freedom unknown in the world since the creation of Eve
Holy and Immaculate Before the Father

In the Collect we asked that, by Mary's intercession, we might come into the presence of God "with pure hearts." Saint Paul says that "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Eph 1:3) chose us in Christ "that we should be holy and immaculate before Him" (Eph 1:4). This standing before God in holiness contrasts with the fear of Adam and Eve who, upon hearing the sound of God in the garden, "hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden" (Gen 3:8). The naked Christ, exposed to the gaze of the Father on the tree of the Cross, casts out the fear that caused our first parents to make of the trees of the garden a screen between themselves and the Face of God. The first effect of the grace of Christ is that it makes us come into the presence of the Father, "free from fear" (Lk 1:73). "For you have not received the spirit of bondage in fear; but you have received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry: 'Abba, Father'" (Rom 8:15).

Blessed the Clean of Heart

In the Collect, we further asked that we might come unto God with clean hearts. "Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God" (Mt 5:8). Mary, the Immaculate Conception, is the Mother of the clean of heart. By her intercession, she obtains from Christ, again and again, the application of "the blood of his Cross" (Col 1:20) to every heart darkened and defiled by sin. The Collect inspires us to pray, specifically through the intercession of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, the poignant petition of King David: "A pure heart create for me, O God" (Ps 50:12). And you, dear spiritual mothers of priests, will you not make this same prayer for every priest as he ascends the altar to offer the Holy Sacrifice? "A pure heart create for him, Thy priest, O God."

The Secret of the Mass returns to the same petition, asking that "we may be delivered from all our faults" by Mary's intercession. A culpis omnibus liberemur! What a stupendous petition! And it is a petition that the Father grants freely and graciously, for all that is sought through the Immaculate Heart of Mary is, by that very fact, asked through the Heart of Jesus, and nothing of what is asked through the Hearts of Jesus and Mary will the Father deny. "If you ask the Father any thing in my name, He will give it to you" (Jn 16:23).

Glorious Things

The Communion Antiphon will deploy a phrase from Psalm 86, a song in praise of Zion, the city cherished by the Lord "Glorious things are said of thee, O city of God" (Ps 86:3), but in place of "city of God" will say "Mary." "Glorious things are spoken of thee, O Mary." Yes, glorious things, because from Mary "has arisen the Sun of Justice, Christ our God" (cf. Mal 4:2).

In the Radiance of Christ

In fulfillment of Malachi's prophecy, the "sun of justice" rises from the womb of the Virgin "with healing in His wings" (Mal 4:2), that is to say with wholeness for those fractured and fragmented by sin; with purity for those fallen into the filth of every manner of vice; with beauty for those distorted by the attempts of the Evil One to twist and disfigure men and women created in God's image and likeness. Mary, the Immaculate Mother of the clean of heart, is also the Mother of all those whom she brings to be healed in the radiance of Christ, the Sun of Justice.

Spiritual Mothers Collaborate With Our Blessed Lady

Spiritual Mothers, if you would continue faithful and fearless in your mission: entrust your priests--all priests--to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Weaknesses do not shock Our Blessed Lady. The sight of sin does not repulse her. Even betrayals do not make her bitter. She was, I think, even more of a mother to Peter after his shameful denial of Jesus than before. Speak to the Immaculate Virgin confidently, as mothers to a Mother. In the priests entrusted to your own maternal care, collaborate with Mary; unite your hearts to her Immaculate Heart. There are no sins so dark, no vices so entrenched in a soul, no trials so harsh, no work so burdensome that Mary cannot enter in, ministering mercy, delivering from enslavement, infusing hope, and making light the burden.

The First and Last Word Given to Joy

Return, for a moment, to the Introit. "Rejoicing, I will rejoice in the Lord, and my soul shall be joyful in my God. He has clothed me with the garment of salvation, and with the robe of justice he has wrapped me about, as a bride adorned with her jewels" (Is 61:10). This is the song of every new beginning in grace. For me, for us, this New Year of Grace will be marked by a new beginning, or rather, by continuity in the newness that characterizes every thing wrought by Him who says, "Behold, I make all things new."

The New Song

Sing then the new song of every man and woman once paralyzed by fear, but now set free to stand unafraid with the Son of the Virgin in the sight of the Father. Sing the new song of every heart darkened and stained by sin, but now made bright and clean by grace. Sing the new song of every life wounded by sin, but healed by the Sun of Justice who, in a few moments, will be lifted above the altar "with healing in his wings" (Mal 4:2). The last word and the first belong to joy. This joy is Mary's. And she wants you to have it, this evening, and for ever.


47 posted on 12/08/2011 8:31:11 PM PST by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 46 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson