Take Heart

It was one year before I started noticing how much had changed in my life since making my consecration to Mary. A year after my initial consecration, I did the self-led retreat again and renewed my consecration. (Some people like to do this yearly; some daily. You can renew it as many or as little times as you want.) It’s not required that you renew it, but it’s said to be helpful in reminding you of the great gifts that come along with the consecration, and this is what happened to me. I was staggered to find – while reading through the “Duties of Mary [towards me]” section again – that every single promise Mary had made to me had come true all in the last year. I was different. Scripture came alive to me in a way it hadn’t before. Things I had previously read in Scripture and not understood, I suddenly did. My interior life became more like Mary’s. I knew God better, I was able to trust Him more, I was able to say “yes” to Him with greater and greater courage, and with more confidence. I really felt that I was sharing in Mary’s heart, and I understood more about her than I had before.

In addition to becoming more like Mary, I became more myself. Things I was already good at, I became better at. In understanding Scripture and God’s love/mercy better, I became better able to share the Faith (something I had always had a talent in, whether speaking, writing, or teaching about it.) Areas in my life that I needed to grow in, but were hitting a wall with, started moving forward. I also made progress faster than before. Little by little, I became more and more free of mentalities and habits I needed to leave behind. (Some of which are still a work in progress, but I see Mary working in me.)

Then came some of the weirder things I wasn’t expecting. An older man I used to know (albeit not well) surprised me by looking right into my eyes while we were talking after Mass one day and asking me to please pray for his daughter who had just lost her baby, because, he said, “You are close to Mary.” I was taken aback. I didn’t feel close to Mary at that point, and he didn’t know about the consecration to her that I had made. I told him I would say a prayer for his daughter.

Moreover, I started coming across people who didn’t know Mary well or who had not heard about Marian consecration before. I felt it would help them, and somehow, I always had a copy of 33 Days of Morning Glory to give to them, whether it was gifted to me, or I had been inspired to buy a copy before meeting up with the person. I’ve given away 4 copies so far (3 were given to me and 1 I bought myself.) More than that, however, God had been right – my relationship with my own biological mother had proved very helpful in allowing me to understand Mary more deeply. Friends of mine who had strained relationships with their own mothers started speaking of how elusive Mary seemed to them. They loved her, but they found her hard to find. Sometimes she even seemed sterner to some of them, more like a queen general than a nurturing mother. That wasn’t my experience with Mary at all. I had found her to be amazingly patient, sweet, gentle, and caring (and, yes, tough as all get-out.) I knew Mary to be strong, but it was not a strength she lorded over others. Rather, she approached humbly and met others where they were, using her strength to help raise up the weak. She was Christ-like. Indeed, being His mother, I’m sure it could be said that part of Jesus’ character was that He was Mary-like. He is the Son of God, but He is Mary’s son too – surely, then, there must be a sweetness and kindness about her. I started sharing the Mary I knew with others. Without knowing exactly when it happened, I started to be one of the people in my friend’s group who led others closer to Mary.

One of the greatest gifts Mary gave to me in those years following my Marian consecration was the friendship of two beautiful souls. The discovery of Mary’s guiding hand in our friendship came one day, when, while texting each other, we were all surprised as each sent a picture we had come across of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the same day. This was no easy thing to have occurred as Zach was in NY and visiting a religious house (they had a large picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe there), Jacqueline was somewhere else when she came across a picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe where she was, and I was driving, stuck behind a slow car I couldn’t pass that kept ending up in front me (that car, I finally noticed, had a cartoon image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on a bumper sticker – you wouldn’t have noticed it unless the car was close enough.) After I noticed the bumper sticker, the car eventually moved on. Mary then brought to my mind the history behind all of us moving to the same area. For me, my family had been searching for a house to no avail, so my mother started praying to Our Lady of Guadalupe (inspired by my dad’s Mexican heritage) for help. On the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Dec. 12th, 2000, we got news that our offer on a house had been accepted. Moreover, the address of the house was 1212, and our landline ended in 0112. We were elated, and my family knew that Mary had gotten us the house. For Jacqueline, she moved in with her aunt and uncle right next to the city I lived in. Her aunt and uncle had a big devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe. For Zach, he moved into an apartment community a mile from mine, and he moved into apartment – you got it – #12 (and not on purpose either.) It was as all this information clicked, that Mary said to me, “I brought you together.” I then understood that Mary had designed (years ago) for the three of us to live in the same area. I came from northern Virginia, Jacqueline from Florida, and Zach from New York. Meeting each other changed our lives. It was an important time for all of us. We grew together, supported each other, and became holier because of our solid, genuine friendship, and I’m convinced that Our Lady of Guadalupe brought my friends and I together.

All in all, I was feeling freer than I had in a very long time. I was happier, and I was growing more confident and comfortable with who I was. But, along with good things and growth in this world comes suffering, as well as trials, to test the genuineness of that good and growth. And sometimes to grow it further. The spiritual warfare that followed was most definitely unlike anything I had experienced before. It was time to move to another stage of growth.