Like Mary to the Best of Our Ability

How it is to be consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary?

Ma’am Indai Banquerigo, a pious devotee to the Blessed Mother, says that the consecration to Our Lady is the path which leads to a specific goal – allowing Mary to live and work in us.

When I sat down with other devotees of the Immaculate Heart of Mary as I joined their cenacle, they said that to be consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is to intend to live, with and through Mary, all the obligations assumed by our baptismal consecration.

According to Ma’am Florian “Inday” A. Roldan Sanchez, a devotee, though we are baptized, not all our actions are right and correct. With this reality, we need to further pledge to bring about in ourselves that interior conversion, a conversion that will free us from every attachment. “Kasi minsan yung mga kasalanan di na kasalanan if you are attached to the world,” she added.

“We need to detach ourselves from the worldly things,” this do the chorus of the group of devotees around the table. They make it clear that we need to detach from ourselves and allow Mama Mary to mold us like Jesus.

“Even if you are not taking the consecration seriously, Mama Mary will take it seriously for you,” one of them said which everybody agreed.

Another devotee continued, “Mama Mary will not look at your character, she will look at your heart. Hence, we resolve to Mama Mary our life and vocation as Christians, that she may dispose of it according to her designs of salvation; and pledge to live it according to her desires.”

“It is in accustoming myself in living with Mary every day that I overcome my difficulties and trials in life and victories over sin as I become conscious that I am living my life with her,” said Ma’am Banquerigo. She also said, “Until now, I am still a work in progress, very difficult to say something on myself of what I have become. But with the Blessed Mother, I learned to live out my commitments, be it in my apostolate, my job and being a wife and a mother. Nothing is ever lacking if we learn to trust Her as our Mother, many times in life that she would always intercede in my prayers.”

When asked why she always looks young and is energetic in Church apostolate, Lourdes Mofar, 71-year old from Immaculate Conception Parish, Manolo Fortich, Malaybalay, Bukidnon, and a pious devotee to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, answered, “Because I am deeply in love with Mama Mary.”

“We are living in difficult, insecure, and painful times and Our Lady is inviting us to consecrate to her Immaculate Heart by way of entrusting, the one that we learn by the experience of everyday life,” said Ma’am Banquerigo. She continued that our consecration to Our Lady sets out an itinerary which leads to the perfection of entrustment that of accustoming oneself in living with her, that of allowing oneself to be interiorly transformed by her, of entering with her into a communion of hearts and reliving with her.

Detaching ourselves from worldly things is an experience of brokenness. But it is from this experience that we allow Mama Mary to break us so that she can make us whole again – like her to the best of our ability. The devotees said that if you want to go into heaven you need this lifestyle: COR-CARE (Communion Of Reparation – Confession, Adoration, Rosary, Eucharist). “We need to join our suffering to that of Christ (Victimhood – Most Sacred Heart of Jesus) with Reparation as our Charism (Immaculate Heart of Mary) – make an overnight vigil: nine (9) consecutive first Fridays and five (5) consecutive first Saturdays. But “it does not end there, it is a lifestyle na,” said Ma’am Sanchez. (JEB)