Mary wants us to be her “slave”?

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So I just recently joined a group preparing to do St. Louis de Monfort’s total consecration to Mary. I’m sure there are many here who have made the consecration. Can anyone help me with the concept of being Mary’s “slave”?? I understand it means “slave of love” and that Mary is “incredibly generous to her slaves”… but I can’t help feeling really turned off by the concept. My guide book (“33 days to morning glory”) says that going forward I can suggest who I want to offer up my prayers and suffering for… but that ultimately it’ll be Mary’s choice once I’m her slave. Apparently I’m supposed to realize that “Mama [Mary] knows best.”

Ya’ll. The whole meditation took me straight back to my childhood where “Mama knew best” about everything and I do mean EVERYTHING. This is a very public forum so I won’t give specific examples - but suffice it to say the control-attempts went far, far beyond healthy boundaries & still continue to this day (And we’re not talking big life-choices, remember - little things… like the color of towels I buy. It’s a hill worth dying on apparently, folks! Even though we don’t even live near her so she almost never sees the towels. :woman_shrugging:t2::woman_facepalming:t2:)

And now enter the Virgin Mary who wants final “say” in all my prayer intentions?? Because… Why??? It feels gross to me. I really want to pray for my husband and one of my kids in particular right now. But evidentially I can only “ask” Mary to apply my prayers here once I do this consecration. She may choose otherwise if she so pleases. C’mon. Would it kill ya to leave a little creativity to little ol’ me?? Are we THAT afraid of my personal freedom that we have to micromanage EVERYTHING here?!

My relationship with Mary has felt damaged for decades due to my childhood view of an overbearing, endlessly meddling mother figures who want a toe in everything. Finally now, at almost 40, I am giving Mary a chance. But, man, I’m not finding this easy.

Help?? I want to see Mary differently, but the wording of this books is making it really, really hard. Can anyone help me to see “slavery” to Mary in a way that’s not tainted by the lens of my own mom?! Or should I just give up on this consecration thing and go back to focusing on Jesus?
 
So I think you’re misunderstanding some points of the consecration. First it is a total consecration to Christ through Mary. Surrendering our works and prayers to Mary is surrendering them to Christ because everything Mary does points to her Son and is done in unity with the will of the Trinity.

Slavery to Mary is not about being micromanaged but it is acknowledgement that the Queen of Heaven and Mother of our Lord understands God’s plan, timeline and working of the Spirit far better than we could ever hope to. Those of us who have completed the consecration may ask Mary to offer up our prayers for a certain intention but that does not mean what we ask is for the best or the correct timing. Giving our works and prayers to Mary to do with them as she wills does not mean that our intentions will be ignored but that our prayers will be used in the best way to serve the kingdom. I hope that helps.
 
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Hi. @Jen7. I was taught when preparing to do the St. Louis de Monfort’s total consecration to our lady to change the word. That was his use of the language of his day…slavery is not a word we can relate to positively.
But the idea is to belong to our lady …The priest said to us, "change the word when you prepare, meditate and read Monfort’s book, change it to belong…this helped me very much and has made all the difference in understanding my relationship to Mary. Mary gave her whole life to Jesus. She wants to help us give our entire lives to Jesus…and always in freedom. We belong to the family of God. This might be away for you to go beyond the word slavery and control. 😊
 
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@Jen7
I don’t know if this will be helpful but here goes.

Mary is not the mother you had. She is the mother you should have had.

Mary is the mother who would have been gently loving and nurturing. The mother who would have guided you without controlling you. The mother who would have helped you grow into the freedom of your adult life.

Mary is the mother you can trust.

I hope this helps.
 
Another thought… I too didn’t like the idea of not having my own prayer intentions but that is not the way it is. The Blessed Mother goes before Jesus for us. She is right there when we pray to Jesus…she is helping us in our prayers because she is our mother — given to us — from our beloved Savior at the foot of the cross. Even Jesus had Mary come first when God sent the archangel to her and asked her to be the Mother of God. We ask Mary, in our consecration to her, to always go before Jesus and help us to love him, to know him better and to live for the Triune God.
 
Zaccheus said:
Mary is not the mother you had. She is the mother you should have had .

Mary is the mother who would have been gently loving and nurturing. The mother who would have guided you without controlling you. The mother who would have helped you grow into the freedom of your adult life.

Mary is the mother you can trust.
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That is beautiful. But I guess it’s also sort of outside my experience. I will think about it. I’d like to see Mary that way…
 
Divine3 said:
She is right there when we pray to Jesus…she is helping us in our prayers
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Yeah i guess that’s what bothers me. I don’t want her “right there” all the time. I also don’t think my prayers “need help.” I mean sure - they are not great. But I don’t get the image of God accepting them / liking them better when presented to Him by Mary. I think Jesus loves me & my little prayers just as they are. He knows I’m not some fancy saint. I’m a regular ordinary wife and mom trying her best. Sending everything “through Mary” sounds like sending my kids’ homemade art to a professional so it can be turned into a “real work of art.” Why? If I really love my kids I’ll like their art best just how they made it - no needs for “touch ups” from a “pro.”

I’m sorry. I appreciate your reply very much. I am just really struggling with this & truly wishing it came easier to me. So many of my friends seems to have this amazing relationship with Mary. I want to, too… I’m just not there yet.
 
A thought: maybe this consecration is better for people with “father issues” who grew up afraid of their dad and like the concept of having Mama Mary there when they approach him. My childhood was the exact opposite so perhaps this consecration just isn’t for me.
 
I wonder if there is a way to consecrate oneself to Our Lady without using St. Louis de Monfort.
I have avoided reading him as I have the same problem with his language. Although I assume it’s a translation, so maybe it could be translated differently.
Jesus focuses on trusting and loving God with all our hearts, and does not use words like slavery. That works better for me.
 
My friend, this consecration is for you. As someone who struggled with his own mother issues this will do you plenty good. It’ll help you heal those wounds like it helped me heal the wounds I had from my biological mother.

Being a slave gets a bad rep in today’s society because we have it drilled in our heads that slavery was the worst thing ever. Don’t get me wrong, it is still bad, but slavery in this context is more akin to voluntary servitude. As good Christians we want to do anything and everything we can do to be apart of God’s will and center our lives around God (St. John of the Cross calls this detachment). Once we give ourselves completely to her she will keep us close to her son, King Jesus. When we conform our will to the will of God, we are giving ourselves in voluntary servitude, or slavery, to God.

Think of it like marriage. When a man marries a woman, he belongs completely to her out of love. He is her slave. The same goes for the wife, she is a slave to her husband out of love. The service both gives to each other is out of love not out of fear. So when we as Christians consecrate ourselves to the Immaculate heart of Mary and Jesus, we give 100% of ourselves to them.

And to also answer @Viki63 you both can always don the brown scapular and pray the rosary everyday as a sign of your consecration to our lady. It is still good to do, but not the same experience as reading the book and doing what de Montfort suggests.
 
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CarmeliteKnight said:
Think of it like marriage. When a man marries a woman, he belongs completely to her out of love. He is her slave. The same goes for the wife, she is a slave to her husband out of love. The service both gives to each other is out of love not out of fear. So when we as Christians consecrate ourselves to the Immaculate heart of Mary and Jesus, we give 100% of ourselves to them.

And to also answer @Viki63 you both can always don the brown scapular and pray the rosary everyday as a sign of your consecration to our lady. It is still good to do, but not the same experience as reading the book and doing what de Montfort suggests.
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Thank you so much. The anaology yo marriage makes so much sense. It’s the words “mother” and “slave” together that are hard but your analogy is very nice & gets around those concepts.

And I did just start wearing the scapular & have been saying the rosary most days as you kindly encouraged in another thread. I will proceed with the consecration prep and see if things get easier. I would love for this to be healing as you suggest it can be. I think it will help me to be a better mother to my kids.
 
Viki63 said:
I wonder if there is a way to consecrate oneself to Our Lady without using St. Louis de Monfort.
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Sure there is. You can use 33 days to Morning Glory, and if you don’t like that, you can use the 9-day St. Maximilian Kolbe consecration. I personally used the Kolbe consecration. 9 days seemed more efficient at the time I did it a few years ago, and I’ve always loved St. Maximilian. Louis de Montfort is okay too but I just wasn’t as familiar with him at the time. There is a minor difference between the two consecrations, but I personally think that’s immaterial, and when I renew my consecration annually I feel quite free to use de Montfort for the renewal.

Here’s the 9-day prep I used for my Kolbe consecration a few years ago:


(It gets into some interesting theology about Mary and the Holy Spirit. You have been warned 😆 )

Here’s another set of Kolbe consecration resources that seems perhaps newer and designed to be more user-friendly. I might use this to renew my consecration this year or next.
http://missionimmaculata.com/index....ation/how-to-prepare-for-consecration-to-mary
 
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Regarding the whole “Slave” business, as others pointed out, the word didn’t carry all the negative overtones at the time and in the culture it was being used. Also, people tend to be a slave to something in this world. Matt Talbot was a slave to alcohol; he was an alcoholic who spent literally all his money on drink and then stood around outside bars hoping somebody would treat him to a free drink. He overcame alcohol in the days before AA or rehab, by making himself a slave to Mary instead. Some people are slaves to material culture, some are slaves to sex, some are slaves to their career, etc. As Bob Dylan sang, you’re gonna serve somebody. It might as well be Jesus through Mary as that’s about the best choice you can make.

If the word still bothers you, you can use the Kolbe consecration which is from the 20th century and views Mary perhaps a little more as a companion, as the U Dayton Mariology site points out in the link I made above.

As for trusting Mary to make the right decisions, first of all, Mary’s not a control freak and if you make a request of her as her faithful child, then she’s going to grant it unless it’s something bad for you or God has some really good reason to say no. Let’s say you request that your prayers go to help your relative X. Unbeknownst to you, Relative X is in hell and can’t be helped by prayers. Mary obviously won’t grant that request. Or, let’s say you pray for your relative Y but unbeknownst to you, Y is already in heaven and doesn’t need the prayers. Mary will use the prayers to help someone else, perhaps another one of your relatives who can benefit.

Second, I love Mary but I too struggled with trusting her enough to just give her all my indulgences, prayers and good works every day. It was really hard to get my mind around that because I was afraid the prayers wouldn’t help who I wanted them to. But I finally just bit the bullet and did it. And it was just fine. I have suffered absolutely no ill effects or worries since. Plus Fr. Heilman confirmed that Mary generally honors our requests. One needs to trust Mary in order to do this type of consecration. As someone else said, if your mother on earth was less than perfect, Mary is NOT like that.
 
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It is a private devotion…there is no need for you to do this at all. Why not just get out of the group asap. Peace is the path to live in not turmoil. These answers are not shared with you to convince you to keep going to the Saint Monford devotion.
They are just info. Your sincere concerns and great uncomfortableness with this devotion is reason enough to just move out of this group and move on with your life in peace.
 
There are more contemporary versions of St Louis’s book if it is causing problems, but the original is perfectly fine also.

The book is over 300 years old. The language didn’t carry the negative connotations for the reader that it is does today.
 
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You’re not required to do the consecration if you don’t want, and if you’re having a mental block with it, that’s okay ❤️🙂

This is figurative language to explain a spiritual concept.

Be at peace.

It may also be a cue to work through your mother-wound. I had a problem with Marian devotion when I was working through my own mother-wound.

:pray:t2::pray:t2::pray:t2: For you
 
annad347 said:
What’s wrong with just focusing on Jesus with your prayers?
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Oh, nothing!!! I was just promised by so many friends that it’s very enriching that I wanted to give it a good chance. And Id like a good relationship with my heavenly mother.
 
This was one of the best private devotions I ever made, but I had no mother-wound, only some Protestant hangups about Mary and her role in my spiritual life. It may be healing for you, but on the other hand if it is aggravating then it may not be for you or it may not be the right time yet. Do you have a spiritual director, and have you discussed this with them?
 
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