Consecration to Mary: Just for Super Duper Catholics? (Part 2)

I did a double take when on day 4 of my Marian consecration, Father Gaitley outlined one of the four ways we are to “give ourselves entirely to Our Lady, in order to belong entirely to Jesus through her”. He described that we are to give “our interior and spiritual goods, which are our merits and our virtues, and our good works, past, present, and future”. The idea is that Mary can take all of our sufferings, petitions, and merits, and augment their value exponentially. The seeds of that concept kind of registered upon reading, but didn’t sink in until I was put to my first test.

My husband and I went on a date that Saturday night. As usual when getting ready for bed, I took off my wedding ring and put it in my armoire. We woke up to a hectic morning with my spouse and son packing and getting ready to leave for a week at Boy Scout camp. When they finally left and the dust settled, I showered and got ready to take our two little ones to mass.

My wedding ring has a past. My husband’s grandmother gave all of her grandsons a very nice wedding ring setting. She wanted her grandsons to have a nice ring to give their fiancées at a time in their lives when typically money is on short supply. Prior to marrying me, my husband had been engaged to another woman. His fiancée took the ring and had it reset and redesigned. When they broke off their engagement, his former girlfriend returned the ring. On the night Joe proposed to me he presented the ring and shared the history, offering to have it reset / redesigned if I would like. While it wasn’t the ring I would have chosen, I was happy with it and joyfully accepted it with no changes.

When putting on my jewelry prior to heading out the door, I was shocked to see that the large diamond in the middle of my wedding ring was gone with two of the arms holding it together broken off. Just a few weeks shy of celebrating twenty years of marriage, I was surprised I had not damaged or lost it prior to this, considering how clumsy and spacey I can sometimes be. My natural inclination was to pull out the “A Team” with prayers to St. Jude and St. Anthony, offer masses and rosaries and use the persistent-widow-petitioning-the-judge approach to give Jesus the full court press with the intention of finding my diamond, as prayer had been incredibly effective for me in finding lost goods.

But then I remembered my consecration promise….I give Mary all the merits of every spiritual good. Meaning those things are no longer mine to offer; I have given them to Mary to do with as she sees best.

You mean I can’t even pray that God help me find the diamond of my wedding ring? Yes. But I can give everything to Mary and let her handle it.

Yikes! For a control freak like me, this really made my skin crawl–and it still does. I wanted to take back my promise, but eventually surrendered to the process. My wedding ring is in Mary’s hands. Now I get to trust.

Tune in next time, because as soon as I surrendered this, God gave me another test.

Catholic Women’s Guide to Healthy Relationships Tip: Take a step today out of your spiritual comfort zone.

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Teleseminar topics–your opinion counts!

I am preparing a series of teleseminars and would like to know your opinion on the topics below. Please take time to click on this link and  answer a short survey to rank which among the topics below interest you the most. Looking forward to your participation!

• Ten (10) Steps to Healthy Perfection

• Five (5) Ways to Overcome Obstacles to Love

• How to Love Your Husband More (Regardless Whether He’s a Prince or a Toad!)

• Understanding Relationships Firestorms and Ways to Extinguish Them