​“And I show unto you yet a more excellent way.  If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.  And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.  And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profits me nothing.

Charity is patient, is kind: charity envies not, deals not perversely; is not puffed up; is not ambitious, seeks not her own, is not provoked to anger, thinks no evil;  Rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices with the truth;  Bears all things, believeth all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
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Charity never falls away: whether prophecies shall be made void, or tongues shall cease, or knowledge shall be destroyed.  For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. But, when I became a man, I put away the things of a child.  We see now through a glass in a dark manner; but then face to face. Now I know I part; but then I shall know even as I am known.  And now there remain faith, hope, and charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity.”  (St. Paul- Epistle to the Corinthians 1:12:31-13:1-13)

I took this from the Douay Rheims translation because it is a more literal one.  It differentiates between charity and love because it is specific in meaning.  Charity means the virtue and love can mean the virtue or the natural affection for some perceived good.  Therefore, charity will always mean love of God or neighbor while love could mean love for a person, dog or pizza.  As I speak here of love I will always be referring to charity. 
I want to speak of our love for God.  But first I want to ask why do we worship God, why do we give ourselves to Him, why do we give so much effort to doing what He asks of us, why do we obey the laws He gave us and why do we pledge fidelity to the Church He founded? 
Well, there many disordered motives people have and they are too numerous to enumerate and most have to do with deep and profound wounds from parents who are our first God figures, and these create obstacles to the natural and truly good motive of love.  But when love is our motive, it opposes disorder and orders all things to the good.  Jesus says that perfect love casts out all fear and that love is not yet perfect in one who is afraid.  Love gives us confidence in God, love trusts in God, love purifies intentions and motives and bad tendencies and if we persevere in love our love will become perfect, not on our own merit but God gives all help to those with a good will, as the angel told the shepherds, “peace on earth to men of good will.”  Therefore, I do not need to fear all the possible imperfections or even bad tendencies that could be or could become part of my motives for doing God’s will or obeying Him or fidelity to a creed or religion, if I but persevere in love as my motive. 
If I obey for love of Him, if I give my all to Him for love of Him, if I give up my will for love and trust of Him, if I suffer for love of Him, if I live a life of suffering, death and resurrection for love of Him, if I allow myself to suffer injustice, persecution, calumny, loss of reputation, loss of friends and material wealth, loss of health; if I choose with my free will to love my enemies, to pray for those who hate me and curse me, if I do all these things out of love for Him and not out of a passivity like a false victim, but with a fully aware conscious decision to sacrifice out of love for Him and not guilt or fear or self hatred, then my will, will not become disordered and only good fruit can come of it. 
I know there are many reasons for people to distrust a give your all attitude for anything that is not purely spiritual, as men tend to corrupt things with their sins or at least obstruct the Holy Spirit with constricting strictures, allowing policy and bureaucracy to rule and govern instead of union with God, charity, and discernment based on the gospels.  Without love fidelity becomes perfectionism, justice becomes severity, righteousness becomes self-righteousness, mercy gives way to being judgmental, a good and sensitive conscience turns self-condemnatory.  In short one becomes a Pharisee, a person who’s goal is to keep the letter of the law with utter rigidity and who, without a personal and intimate relationship with God, ends up violating the heart of the law, which as Jesus says, is love and mercy.  And when taken to the extreme, as in the case of the Pharisees of Jesus’ time, become envious persecutors of God Himself by persecuting those who are closest to Him, who have the intimate relationship that they do not have and who’s life itself is a constant reminder of what they do not have, and it becomes a sort of self-judgment projected onto the person they persecute.  The result is a great dissatisfaction in the spiritual life.  Because nothing can satisfy the human heart but love.  An empty legalistic following of rules for the sake of following rules can only leave one with a bitter taste in the soul and a real sense that there is no salvation found this way.  But when done out of love with one’s whole heart, and eventually and consequently one’s whole soul, mind and strength, it gives the person great satisfaction and peace of mind and heart. 
Man was made for the total self gift which, as a creature, only he possesses the ability. And when he does this for the sake of love it is fulfilling, when he does it for any other reason it is not only not fulfilling but arid, empty and bitter.  Not immediately, but over time this grows into a giant gaping hole in one’s heart and soul and leaves the soul feeling like there must be something more, something else that can lead me to happiness, to a sense of fulfillment, to a satisfying life of freedom of spirit and that feels life-giving instead of life-draining.   Only since man was made by God for a life of union with God, in this life and the next, there is nothing else that can achieve this.  Nothing else will give what this union with God can give.  Other things can give us a feeling that satisfies us temporarily, but does not give lasting peace or freedom of spirit.  Peace is a state of being, not a moment of non-conflict, and the good feeling that other things give us begin to fade away as soon as we stop doing them and they create a need to do something else that will give us that again.  This happens when we try to replace a relationship with God with something or someone else.  It becomes a cycle that is similar to adrenaline junkies who constantly have to find that next rush. 
The answer then is to love and to seek to love, to ask God to increase His love in us.  The more we experience His love, the more we will love.  And it doesn’t matter if we are not very good at it right away, we will get better at it if we persevere in seeking a loving union with Him.  We can not measure growth over short periods of time, but we can tell if we are more virtuous over a year or two’s time.  Are we more patient, merciful, generous, selfless, willing to do good?  Is our will less bent toward things that are harmful to us?  Then we are progressing.  Our good and gracious Father always gives help when we have a good will; our weaknesses do not repel Him or disgust Him.  He even told St. Faustina that weakness attracts Him and that the greatest sinner has the most rights to His mercy.  Then we have nothing to fear from Him who loves us infinitely for He truly loves us in the fashion mentioned by St. Paul. 
Let us allow Him to love us fully, let us allow ourselves to love Him fully.  And let us take this path of love unreservedly, for it can only bring good to us, good for us, and good through us.  It brings peace to ourselves and the world around us.  It allows the Kingdom of God to dwell in us, and through us to spread around us.  Whose spirit doesn’t exalt with a man of peace near us and in whom God dwells.  Who is not attracted to the light emanating from a soul who has an intimate union with God. 
I love you Father and I give myself to you.  Oh good Father, come to us and instill your Kingdom in us.  Oh Father of all Mankind, Thy Kingdom come.  Amen.
Br. Mariamartin de la Cruz   SDBV ​

Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary is more than a devotion, it is as St. Louis De Montfort says, True Devotion to Mary.  True devotion to Mary is to have the devotion for Mary that God Our Father intended us to have when He created Her.  Our Father gave Her to us for His own purpose in the Divine plan for our salvation and sanctification and it therefore makes sense that we would use Her to the full extent as the means that He gave us to make our return home to Him who made us and wants us to live in Him on earth and for all eternity in heaven. 

Total Consecration is simply to give one’s all to Her, everything, our goods, both interior and exterior and even the merits of our actions past, present, and future. This means we depend on Her for everything in our physical and spiritual life.  It means we now work for Her and for whatever Her intentions are for us in our lives; we are at Her full disposal that She may do with us what She wills.  This is an act of complete abandonment to Her and trust in Her.  When we say, “I am all thine and all I have is thine”, She says in return,  “and all I have is thine.”


Many people might then ask, “if I give Her everything am I not giving up who I am, my individuality and independence?”  Jesus said, “those who try to save themselves will lose themselves, and those who lose themselves for my sake find out who they really are.”  This means that those who give themselves completely to God are made into the image of God that He created them to be in the first place, no matter what events have transpired in their lives that have malformed that image, even if it is not recognizable anymore as the image He made.  And those who try to preserve their own idea of who they are will eventually lose who they truly are.  Therefore, the only way to be that unique creation and retain a true and authentic individuality and be independent of the pressures of culture and media and relationships is to give oneself entirely to God without reserve.  This way we allow Him to form us into the image that He made us to be.


Others may ask, “if I give away all my merits will I have a lesser place in heaven?”  In giving to Her the value of all our merits, we place them in Her hands, and since She magnifies them by making them Her own and gives them to Her Son as if they were Her own, they come to Him with all the power of Her intercession.  Therefore, they have infinite value and She does an immense amount of good with our little offerings.  And Jesus, who is just, counts as our merit what She gave Him not what we gave Her.  Therefore, we will have a greater place in heaven by our Consecration. 

Still others may object, “if we work for Her only, will we neglect our own needs and our own good?”  By making Her desires our desires and being concerned with Her interests alone, She will concern Herself with our interests and work on our behalf constantly and with great attentiveness.  Therefore, by doing Her bidding we ensure that our needs and obligations are taken care of.  

The fruitfulness of any apostolate comes from the interior life.  Therefore, the primary concern is necessarily the living out of Total Consecration to the Blessed Virgin in the daily, moment to moment struggle to offer oneself as a total self gift to the heart of Jesus, by giving all that one is and has, to She who is the co-redemptrix, mediatrix and advocate, and who can do nothing but offer us to Her Son.   

It is by consecration to Our Lady that She means to fulfill the prophecy of Genesis and crush the head of the serpent and bring us into the era of peace that She foretold at Fatima, and is stated in the book of Revelation and explained in the Catechism.  The goal is a simple one; if each and every person gives themselves in total abandonment to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and perseveres in it, She will conform them most perfectly to Her Son and they will become most perfectly united to the most Sacred Heart of Jesus.  They will then indeed be true sons and daughters of the Father.  If all souls are perfectly united to Jesus, then they have all become saints, and there is no more sin in the world and we have an era of peace the world has never known before. 

Uniqueness of Total Consecration to the Blessed Virgin

Living our consecration is the principle way of spreading it.  Our total self-gift enables Our Lady to obtain the grace of others offering themselves totally.  It is a spiritual work of mercy.  Teaching others the way of Total Consecration is a corporal work of mercy. Religious institutes have been founded on either spiritual or corporal works of mercy since the beginning of the Church, filling the needs of the Church.  As the mystical body of Christ, the state of grace of one member effects the state of the Church as a whole.  By seeking personal sanctification by means of Total Consecration, so to speak, we seek to lift up the whole body of Christ and immerse it in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, by offering it to the Immaculata, knowing that She can only make of her (the Church) an offering united to Her own Immaculate Heart, that same offering She made at Calvary.  Total Consecration for the whole Church prepares the bride of Christ to welcome her Bridegroom for the great wedding feast of the Lamb.

Fills a Need in the Church

The Church needs more authentic evangelization, by means of the pure contemplative life and the contemplative/active life.  She needs more religious communities that embrace the charism of Total Consecration.  She needs more instruction on true devotion to Mary.   She needs her people to properly understand Total Consecration.  She needs the faithful to give themselves generously as a total self-gift to the One who created them for Himself.
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As a Spirituality for the Laity

"Sacrifices and oblations and holocausts for sins you want not,  neither are they pleasing to you.  ...but a body you have prepared for me, ...behold I come to do your will, o God."  Suffering and obedience go together.  In having our will opposed we suffer, and that is normal.  Our Lord's and Our Lady's obedience led to extreme suffering, but that suffering gained salvation and redemption for us.  Our obedience brings us to the Cross as well, and our cross unites with The Cross, and the fruitfulness of the Cross is always new life, as it is forever patterned after His own.  Consequently, our perpetual embrace of the cross of obedience constantly renews our souls, by experiencing the death of our selfish self-will and any disordered self-love, which is not true love of self, and in turn receive new life of greater union of our souls with God.
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In Imitation of Mary, Perfect Disciple

Total Consecration means Total Consecration to Jesus Thorough Mary, as is understood by St. Louis De Montfort and St. Maximillian Kolbe.  This entails total self-gift and entrusting of oneself to Mary.  This means everything now belongs to Her and She has the full right to do with me as She wills.  All that I am and all that I have is now at Her full disposal; I freely and willingly choose out of love for God and for Mary to be Her slave.  But as St. Louis says "a slave of love."  Which is not slavery at all as we think of it, but a conscious choice to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, to trust in His love for us so explicitly that we give over our will to Her, that we can best use the means that He gave us to be united to Him. Through my consecration to Her, everything is offered to Her, even the merits of all my prayers and actions, and the fruits thereof as well, and even the natural effect of seeing the fruits of my labors in my spiritual life and my apostolate.  I do this out of gratitude for who She is to me and what She has done for me.  But even more than that I do this out of the love for souls that She has put in my soul and heart.  Since Her mission is to bring as many souls to Her Son as possible, it becomes the mission of Her children, as She imbues Her children with all Her virtues, principally being: Her profound humility, lively faith, blind obedience, continual mental prayer, mortification in all things, ardent charity, heroic patience, angelic sweetness, divine wisdom, divine purity.  This should be the attitude of those who give themselves entirely to Her, and if not, at least it should be what they want to be like, and She will bring them there.  She can not fail in Her mission, for it is God Himself who makes use of Her.  Those who give themselves generously will accept a share of the Cross.  She will take them through their own purification to true holiness and union with Christ, and at the same time make use of their offering to obtain more souls for Her Son.