Retreat: Consecrating to Mary unites us with God's will

Courtesy photo/Jillian Cooke

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Father Gustavo Vidal prepares for the consecration rite following the Militia Immaculata retreat at Saint Mary Catholic Church on April 6. Courtesy photo/Jillian Cooke

WEST HAVEN — Saint Mary Catholic Church echoed with the sounds of silence during the third annual Militia Immaculata retreat on April 6.

The Militia Immaculata "is a worldwide evangelization movement founded by St. Maximilian Kolbe in 1917 that encourages total consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary as a means of spiritual renewal for individuals and society," according to the website www.consecration.org. "The MI movement is open to all Catholics. It employs prayer as the main weapon in the spiritual battle with evil."

Two Fr. Kolbe Missionaries of the Immaculata and a Diocese of Salt Lake City man who will be certified in August as a lay ecclesial minister spoke during the April 6 retreat. Both missionaries are from Los Angeles; they are secular, although they take the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

"What is the retreat about?" asked Ann O’Donnell, one of the missionaries. "We want to pull away and listen to God. We want him to nurture us, to fill us; we want to hear what he has to say to us."

Those attending the retreat were asked to focus their silent reflections on their relationship with the Blessed Virgin Mary, and how they could follow her example.

"Our relationship with Mary is our relationship with our Lord," O’Donnell said. "Mary protects us from the evil one. She has, from Genesis 3:15, the power to crush his head. … She’s here with us, we’re in her parish, we’re going to be nurtured by her, and she presents her son, who is here in the Eucharist."

Tom Devereux, the LEM candidate, admitted that "Mary was not in my home growing up," and it has been only in the last four years that he began to pray to her. He invited those at the retreat to examine their relationship with the Blessed Mother.

"Are any of us like Mary?" Devereux asked. "We can sure try and grab those qualities that are genuine and live our life like that, can’t we? That’s what we’re trying to do."

Mary is the model of being poor in spirit because she let herself be dependent on God, said Jillian Cooke, another of the missionaries.

"To be poor in spirit is to know where our wealth really lies," Cooke said, adding that poverty of spirit is to become empty of things that don’t matter, and "when we become empty of those things that do not matter, there’s more room for God."

When people unite their wills with the will of God, they can begin to see things the way they really are, Cooke said. "When you look at the crucifix it doesn’t look like a man who is powerful, it does not look like God, it does not look like somebody that we would readily and instantly love. And yet the crucifix is the sign of the most powerful healing, holy, loving moment in history. So holy, so sacred that it breaks the bonds of even time and takes place every time we celebrate the Holy Mass."

From the cross, Christ says, ‘Don’t forget, only the weak can be truly poor in spirit because only the weak can be truly dependent on me and only by being truly dependent on me do you become strong,’ Cooke said, adding that in this way people realize they need each other.

"To reach out and accept the help of another person is not to be weak, it is to be Christ-like, it is to be like Mary, it is to recognize the awesomeness of the community of saints, it is to do our part and let other people do theirs," Cooke said. "When our hands are united and we work together, we’re able to make the Kingdom of Heaven present in the world."