Article I — What the Perfect Consecration to Jesus Christ Consists Of

All our perfection consisting in being conformed, united, and consecrated to Jesus Christ, the most perfect of all devotions is, without question, that which most perfectly conforms, unites, and consecrates us to Jesus Christ. Now, Mary being of all creatures the most conformed to Jesus Christ, it follows that, of all devotions, the one that most consecrates and conforms a soul to Our Lord is devotion to the Blessed Virgin, his holy Mother; and that the more a soul is consecrated to Mary, the more it will be consecrated to Jesus Christ. This is why the perfect consecration to Jesus Christ is nothing other than a perfect and entire consecration of oneself to the Blessed Virgin, which is the devotion I teach — or, in other words, a perfect renewal of the vows and promises of holy Baptism.

This devotion, therefore, consists in giving oneself entirely to the Blessed Virgin, in order to belong entirely to Jesus Christ through her. We must give her: first, our body with all its senses and its members; second, our soul with all its powers; third, our exterior goods, which are called goods of fortune, present and to come; fourth, our interior and spiritual goods, which are our merits, our virtues, and our good works, past, present, and future. In two words: all that we have in the order of nature and in the order of grace, and all that we may have in the future in the order of nature, grace, or glory — and this without any reserve, not even a penny, a hair, or the least good action; and this for all eternity; and this without claiming or hoping for any other recompense for our offering and our service than the honor of belonging to Jesus Christ through her and in her, even though this lovable Mistress were not — as she always is — the most generous and the most grateful of creatures.

Here we must note that there are two things in the good works we perform: namely, the satisfaction and the merit — that is, the satisfactory or impetratory value and the meritorious value. The satisfactory or impetratory value of a good work is that good action insofar as it satisfies the penalty due to sin, or insofar as it obtains some new grace. The meritorious value, or the merit, is a good action insofar as it merits grace and eternal glory. Now, in this consecration of ourselves to the Blessed Virgin, we give her the whole satisfactory, impetratory, and meritorious value — in other words, the satisfactions and the merits — of all our good works. We give her our merits, our graces, and our virtues, not to communicate them to others (for our merits, graces, and virtues are, properly speaking, incommunicable, and only Jesus Christ, by making himself our surety before his Father, was able to communicate his merits to us), but to preserve, increase, and embellish them for us. As we shall see, we give her our satisfactions to communicate them to whomever she thinks fit, and for the greater glory of God.

It follows from this that: first, by this devotion, we give to Jesus Christ, in the most perfect manner — since it is through the hands of Mary — all that we can give him, and much more than by the other devotions, in which we give him either a part of our time, a part of our good works, a part of our satisfactions and mortifications. Here all is given and consecrated, even the right to dispose of our interior goods and the satisfactions we gain by our good works from day to day — something that is not done even in any religious order. In religious life, one gives God the goods of fortune by the vow of poverty, the goods of the body by the vow of chastity, one's own will by the vow of obedience, and sometimes bodily freedom by the vow of enclosure; but one does not give him the freedom or the right to dispose of the value of one's good works, and one does not strip oneself, as completely as one can, of what is most precious and most dear to a Christian — namely, his merits and satisfactions.

Second, a person who has thus voluntarily consecrated and sacrificed himself to Jesus Christ through Mary can no longer dispose of the value of any of his good actions. All that he suffers, all that he thinks, says, and does that is good, belongs to Mary, so that she may dispose of it according to the will of her Son and for his greater glory — without, however, this dependence prejudicing in any way the obligations of one's present or future state of life. For example, the obligations of a priest who, by office or otherwise, must apply the satisfactory and impetratory value of the Holy Mass to a particular person; for this offering is made only according to the order of God and the duties of one's state.

Third, we consecrate ourselves at the same time to the Blessed Virgin and to Jesus Christ: to the Blessed Virgin as the perfect means that Jesus Christ has chosen to unite himself to us and us to him; and to Our Lord as our last end, to whom we owe all that we are, as our Redeemer and our God.

I have said that this devotion may very well be called a perfect renewal of the vows or promises of holy Baptism. For every Christian, before his baptism, was a slave of the devil because he belonged to him. In his baptism, by his own mouth or by that of his godfather and godmother, he solemnly renounced Satan, his pomps, and his works, and took Jesus Christ as his Master and sovereign Lord, to depend upon him in the quality of a slave of love. This is what is done through the present devotion: we renounce — as the formula of consecration indicates — the devil, the world, sin, and self; and we give ourselves entirely to Jesus Christ through the hands of Mary. And we even do something more; for in baptism, one ordinarily speaks through the mouth of another — namely, the godfather or godmother — and one gives oneself to Jesus Christ only by proxy; but in this devotion, it is by oneself, voluntarily, and with full knowledge. In holy Baptism, one does not give oneself to Jesus Christ through the hands of Mary, at least not in an express manner, and one does not give Jesus Christ the value of one's good actions. After baptism, one remains entirely free to apply them to whomever one wishes or to keep them for oneself. But by this devotion, one gives oneself expressly to Our Lord through the hands of Mary and consecrates to him the value of all one's actions.

"Men vow in holy Baptism," says St. Thomas, "to renounce the devil and his pomps": In baptismo vovent homines abrenuntiare diabolo et pompis ejus. And this vow, says St. Augustine, is the greatest and the most indispensable: Votum maximum nostrum, quo vovimus nos in Christo esse mansuros — "Our greatest vow, by which we have vowed to remain in Christ." The canonists say the same: Praecipuum votum est quod in baptismate facimus — "The chief vow is the one we make at baptism." Yet who keeps this great vow? Who faithfully fulfills the promises of holy Baptism? Do not nearly all Christians break the fidelity they promised to Jesus Christ in their baptism? Whence can this universal disorder come, if not from the forgetfulness in which people live regarding the promises and commitments of holy Baptism, and from the fact that scarcely anyone personally ratifies the covenant he made with God through his godparents? This is so true that the Council of Sens, convened by order of Louis the Pious to remedy the great disorders of Christians, judged that the principal cause of this corruption of morals lay in the forgetfulness and ignorance in which people lived regarding the commitments of holy Baptism; and it found no better means of remedying so great an evil than to lead Christians to renew the vows and promises of holy Baptism. The Catechism of the Council of Trent, faithful interpreter of that holy Council, exhorts parish priests to do the same, and "to lead their people to remember and believe that they are bound and consecrated to Our Lord Jesus Christ, as slaves to their Redeemer and Lord." Here are its words: Parochus fidelem populum ad eam rationem cohortabitur ut sciat aequissimum esse... nos ipsos non secus ac mancipia Redemptori nostro et Domino in perpetuum addicere et consecrare. (Cat. Conc. Trid., Part I, Art. 2, § 18.)

Now, if the councils, the Fathers, and experience itself show us that the best means of remedying the disorders of Christians is to remind them of the obligations of their baptism and to have them renew the vows they made there, is it not reasonable that we should do so now in a perfect manner, by this devotion and consecration to Our Lord through his holy Mother? I say in a perfect manner, because we use, to consecrate ourselves to Jesus Christ, the most perfect of all means, which is the Blessed Virgin.

No one can object that this devotion is either new or unimportant. It is not new, because the councils, the Fathers, and many authors, both ancient and modern, speak of this consecration to Our Lord through the renewal of the vows and promises of holy Baptism as something practiced from early times and recommended to all Christians. Nor is it unimportant, since the principal source of all the disorders, and consequently of the damnation, of Christians comes from forgetfulness of and indifference to this practice.

Someone may say that this devotion, making us give to Our Lord, through the hands of the Blessed Virgin, the value of all our good works, prayers, mortifications, and alms, puts us in a position where we can no longer help the souls of our parents, friends, and benefactors. I reply: first, it is not believable that our parents, friends, and benefactors should suffer any loss from our being devoted and consecrated without reserve to the service of Our Lord and his holy Mother. To think so would be to wrong the goodness and power of Jesus and Mary, who will know well how to assist our parents, friends, and benefactors, either from our small spiritual income or by other means. Second, this practice does not prevent us from praying for others, whether living or dead, even though the application of our good works depends on the will of the Blessed Virgin. On the contrary, it leads us to pray with greater confidence, just as a rich person who had given all his goods to a great prince in order to honor him more would pray that prince with greater confidence to give alms to one of his friends who asked for it. It would even give pleasure to the prince to be given the occasion of showing his gratitude toward a person who had stripped himself to clothe him, who had impoverished himself to honor him. We must say the same of Our Lord and the Blessed Virgin: they will never let themselves be outdone in gratitude.

Someone may perhaps say: If I give the Blessed Virgin the whole value of my actions for her to apply it to whomever she wishes, I may have to suffer a long time in Purgatory. This objection, which springs from self-love and from ignorance of the generosity of God and of his holy Mother, destroys itself. A fervent and generous soul, who values the interests of God more than his own; who gives God all he has without reserve, so that he can do no more; who breathes only for the glory and the reign of Jesus Christ through his holy Mother, and who sacrifices himself entirely to obtain it — shall this generous and liberal soul be more severely punished in the next world for having been more generous and disinterested than others? Far from it! It is toward such a soul, as we shall see further on, that Our Lord and his holy Mother are most generous in this world and in the next, in the order of nature, of grace, and of glory.

We must now consider, as briefly as possible, the motives that should make this devotion commendable to us, the marvelous effects it produces in faithful souls, and the practices of this devotion.