April 27, 2025
My dear Kirkland Catholics,
As you will hear at Mass this weekend during the homily, the next initiative that we are taking and encouraging parishioners at both campuses to consider doing is a Consecration to Jesus through Mary; sometimes called a “Marian Consecration.” This devotion in the Catholic church became more formalized in the 17th Century especially through Saint Louis de Montfort.
Since the Virgin Mary is the principal Patron Saint of Holy Family, and a prominent patron on Saint John Mary Vianney at least given St. John Vianney’s own devotion to Mary; this seemed like a great thing for our parish family to focus on this Easter Season. Traditionally a consecration is done over a period of 33 days in preparation for the prayer of consecration. We will be encouraging parishioners to all begin and end on the same day. That is beginning May 26th and ending on June 28th which is the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary this year. I will consecrate the parishes in a special way to Mary on that same day that many of our parishioners will make personal consecrations to Jesus through Mary.
Even if you have done a Marian Consecration before, you can totally do it again, and I believe there will be fruit in many of us doing this together. I can speak for myself, that when I made a consecration to Mary on December 8, 2006 there were a lot of graces in the proceeding years that I credit back to that act of Faith. We will be using Fr. Michael Gaitley’s 33 Days to Morning Glory as the principle text, and you may have a copy on your shelf as HFK gave this out as the Advent Book some years ago; but you can also register and we will get you your text by the weekend before Memorial Day (keep an eye out for materials). This format asks for less than 10 minutes of reading and prayer per day (covered in that book each day) over those 33 days of preparation. I hope you will consider doing this with us!
With love in Christ,
Fr. Brad