By Fr Soroj Mullick SDB –
“Consecrating” a province, confreres, community or individual member to Mary under her various titles, seeking her protection of the vulnerable, healing of the unwell, and for those who work to cure people from the present pandemic virus, is theologically problematic and controversial.
Louis Grignon the Montfort is one of the great masters of the spirituality underlying the act of “consecration to Mary”. He “proposed to the faithful consecration to Jesus through Mary, as an effective way of living out their baptismal commitment” (Redemptoris Mater 48).
Many Popes favoured the pious practice of “consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary” and the formulas publicly used by them are well known. The term “consecration” is used here in a broad and non-technical sense.
Pope John Paul II increasingly replaced the term ‘consecration’ with ‘entrustment’, which he did, for example, after the attempt on his life on May 13, 1981 – Feast of Our Lady of Fatima. And the Pontifical International Marian Academy pointed out this important shift in 2005. During his visit to Fatima in 2017, Pope Francis confirmed this shift during his prayer before the statue of the Virgin Mary when he said: “I entrust myself to you. In union with my brothers and sisters, through you, I consecrate myself to God.”
The Latin term ‘consecratio’ is reserved “for those self-offerings which have God as their object, and which are characterized by totality and perpetuity, which are guaranteed by the Church’s intervention and have as their basis the sacraments of baptism and confirmation”. We cannot consecrate ourselves to Mary. Post Second Vatican Council change in vision, based on “liturgical theology and the consequent rigorous use of terminology” the Church has made an explicit distinction between “worship”, the object of which is God alone, and “veneration”, which can be shown to Mary and other recognized saints.
The Council said veneration of Mary “differs essentially from the cult of adoration which is offered equally” to the three Persons of the Trinity “and is most favourable to this adoration” (Lumen gentium, 66). Within Catholic theology and devotional practices a consecration to Jesus through Mary is only a “praise” to the mother of Christ “for the great things” God has done to her (Lk 1: 46-55). Therefore, we need to make distinction between Mary as a creature and God as Creator. Such ‘entrustment’ must be expressed in a correct liturgical manner: to the Father, through Christ in the Holy Spirit, imploring the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to whom we entrust ourselves.