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Marybeth
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| Posted: Jan 26 2007 at 1:49pm | IP Logged
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I have read how many saints were consecrated as children to Our Lady. I love Fulton Sheen and know he was consecrated to Our Lady at baptism at a church a few hours from our home.
How does a mother do this for her children?
Curious regarding this after reading how Helen did this for each of her children.
God bless,
Marybeth
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Helen
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Hi Marybeth,
I'll try to speak to the priest who baptized our children. I'll get back to you.
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Ave Maria!
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Erin
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After my siblings baptisms and my own dc my mother has always taken my dc over to Our Lady's statue and consecrated them to our Lady. You know I'll have to go and ask her what prayer she uses  In fact she may have missed some of my dc I'm off to ask her that to.
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Becky Parker
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I'm wondering about this as well. I meet with some of the other homeschool moms on Saturday mornings for coffee. One of them is struggling with her child and it was suggested that we all concecrate our dc to Mary. Trouble is, no one knew exactly how to do it. Is it a special prayer or just something a parent does informally? Can a God Parent concescrate her God Children?
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RenB
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My husband and I only found out about consecrating our children to Mary after their baptisms for our last two babies after their baptisms. We sure wish we'd known about it long ago for all the others.
This is what we did;
Together my husband and I knelt at the side altar at the statue of our lady, offered flowers first, and holding the freshly baptized infant in my arms, we recited aloud this prayer below...with others attending kneeling in the front pews observing our petitions.
An Act of Consecration to the Blessed Virgin
(for infants at time of Baptism)
O blessed Virgin Mary our Mother, when the Son of God decided to take upon Himself our human life in order that we might share in His Divine Life, He did not wish to come to us without your free cooperation. He deliberately willed to have need of you.
Look down today from heaven upon little (name of infant). He (or she) has received from his parents the life of man, and now by the Holy Sacrament of Baptism, he has been given a life which is infinitely superior, the very life of God. We know that just as God is his Father and our Father, you are, in regard to his spiritual life, his Mother and our Mother.
We confide this child to you. Show yourself his (or her) Mother. Watch over his (or her) education; nourish him with the life of grace; make him progress in his Christian life just as his human parents aid him to progress in physical as well as spiritual life.
Protect the precious life which has just been received. Be for him a real Mother to guard him in your arms when the devil seeks to destroy his spiritual life in your son Jesus Christ. May he love you as Jesus Christ loved you, for our love for you is nothing else but a participation in the love of your Son for you.
In the name of this child (name of infant), we wish to make today his (or her) first prayer to his heavenly Mother.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee,
blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.
One of our older sons bought himself St. Louis de Montfort's book and prepared himself for a total consecration to Mary along with his fiancee, and it too was something so beautiful we wish we'd come to know earlier on. Graces recieved must be countless.
Hope this helps;
Renee
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aussieannie
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We have consecrated our children to Our Lady in the same way you have Renee.
Then in my night prayers over them as I go to each child's bed - a little prayer with a sign of the cross of their forhead, a simple consecration to Mary over them, sometimes with holy water or blessed oil or sometimes not.
I have a friend who is a homeschooling father - he and his 3 siblings were rasied by a devoted, Catholic mother and father. He tells me they were all consecrated to Mary. Then as they entered adulthood, every child went off the rails, but one by one they have their own special story of coming back and passionately too.
His sister is now Missionary of Charity sister, another sister with 7 children - all active in the diocese in some way for great good. This man stands outside abortion clinics praying for the babies, I often see him at our daily Masses we go to. I am always comforted by this story, and I have heard other similar stories - even if the children travel far away, I believe Mary brings her specially consecrated ones home again.
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chicken lady
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Our deacon presented our dc to Our Lady and lead the consecration prayer.
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Cay Gibson
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My experience left me thinking "Is it as simple as this?".
My girls and I have been going through Leading the Little Ones to Mary and we're only on the second week. I thought they'd be consecrated much later on so we proceeded without question.
In Ch. 1 on the second talk you ask the children "How many want to be little Marys (Marios)?"
Then on the third talk you have them say this prayer (and I quote):
"Consecration---Holy Mary I want to belong to you. I give you my whole self and all the good things I do, at home, at school, in church, on the playground. My Mother, I am all yours, and all I do belongs to you."
My girls were thrilled. I was left thinking "Is that it?"
Is consecration to Mary as simple as just saying this little prayer? I want to set up an altar to Mary and have flowers and all the pomp and pageantry.
The month of May would be such a perfect time for the consecration. So I think we'll continue the discussions through the book and plan to complete it with a ceremony of consecration in May.
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Helen
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Cay Gibson wrote:
"Consecration---Holy Mary I want to belong to you. I give you my whole self and all the good things I do, at home, at school, in church, on the playground. My Mother, I am all yours, and all I do belongs to you."
My girls were thrilled. I was left thinking "Is that it?"
Is consecration to Mary as simple as just saying this little prayer? I want to set up an altar to Mary and have flowers and all the pomp and pageantry.
The month of May would be such a perfect time for the consecration. So I think we'll continue the discussions through the book and plan to complete it with a ceremony of consecration in May. |
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Yes, consecration can be as simple as that. The difficulty comes in making a consecration to Our Lady and having it "stick." Consecration should become more than just a prayer said once. It becomes a way of life. A way of daily imitating and handing yourself over to Our Lady so that you may become Jesus for her.
If you don't mind my quoting again from Fr. Manelli's book on Devotion to Our Lady he gives a very clear explanation of consecration
Fr. Manelli, FI wrote:
There are two kinds of consecration to Our Lady:
1) Simple consecration. This is one that is made privately, or in some pious Marian associations (as the Daughters fo Mary, the Legion of Mary, the Militia of the Immaculate), and it entails a generious and fervent individual apostolate
The consecration of families (strongly recommended by St. Gregory), of children (even before birth), of a school, a town, of a nation, etc., belong also to this kind of consecration.
2) Consecration of ourselves as "slaves" of Mary, or as her "property" or as a "victim in a total sacrifice of love for her."
The consecration of oneself as her property was taught by St. Maximilian M. Kolbe, and this principally expresses an unconditional surrender of oneself into Mary's immaculate hands as her "instrument or property."
The other form of consecration is inspired by the Little Flower's offering of herself as a victim of Jesus' merciful love, and it expresses principally the total immolation, the complete scrifice, of onself to God, to become like Mary when she totally sacrificed herself in the exercise of generous, merciful love.
Identical in substance, each of these forms of consecration is intended to make us carry out a filial devotion yo Our Lady in the most deep-rooted, radical way. They mean to make us sink our roots in Mary's Heart with the happy certainty that "he who plants his roots in Mary becomes holy" (St. Bonaventure). The experience of the Saints have had assures us that this is quite true. |
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Ave Maria!
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Helen
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Here is a copy of the prayer sent to me from the Friars. Is this the same one posted above?
Prayer of Consecration to the Immaculata
for Babies on the Day of their Baptism
(to be said by parents)
We greet you, O Immaculata, our life, our sweetness, and our hope.
On this day of our son’s/daughter’s Baptism, we come to You as a family, to enlist Your maternal love and protection.
We are especially concerned for ___________’s formation as a child of God, a responsibility which lies heavily upon our shoulders.
Aware of our weaknesses and inabilities, we consecrate our child ___________ to You, entrusting him/her to Your Immaculate Heart and to Your maternal and powerful protection.
You who are the most tender and loving Mother, the teacher of truth, the model of Christians, the unifying force of families, protect our child, whom God in His goodness has given us.
Defend ___________ from evil. Make up for the defects in his/her formation. Grant us the grace to be faithful witnesses to our Faith.
Only in this way can we be at peace, knowing that You have placed ___________ under Your mantle until Our Lord calls him/her home. Amen.
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mariB
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When I was praying the Rosary the other day, it was laid on my heart to consecrate our children to Mary. We have never done this...
I found this thread and decided to resurrect it so to speak.
The information here is just wonderful. I am going back to read these posts with a fine tooth comb. 
Thank you!
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helene
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A good priest we know consecrated our oldest child when she was just a few weeks old. He said a private Mass for us alone and even put her on the Altar during her consecration. I will never forget her wiggling up there and looking radiant in a baby pink sleeper suit. She is 14 now, a special young lady, and I love her very much.
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Topic: Consecration of children to Our Lady
