Guest column by Joy Martin, Ph.D.
Director of Discipleship
St. Michael Church and School, Lincoln
Everyone is hurting.
No one lives without pain and suffering or escapes the reality of woundedness. Some crosses are more visible and others longer-lasting. But everyone hurts. And every human person desires that someone notice, that someone care.
How beautiful, then, that the Mother of our Lord stood beneath His cross. Her compassionate presence consoled the Son of God. Suffering with Jesus, she yielded to His cross as if it were her own. While enduring her own pain, she entered into His love poured out for each one of us.
I find it fruitful to imagine standing beside the Blessed Mother at the foot of the cross. It’s a privileged position—seeing our Lord’s gaze of love and her receptive strength. She waits and holds His pain, trusting. She hears and accepts His call to love all others as her own. Her mission of merciful compassion begins; she becomes our spiritual mother.
It’s quite revolutionary that our Lord gave us own His Mother. A remarkable gift deserves a fitting response. Like St. John’s. He responded at Jesus’ initiative: entrusting himself to the Blessed Mother, taking her into the home of his heart, as countless saints have done since: St. Louis de Montfort. St. Pope John Paul II. St. Mother Teresa. St. Maximilian Kolbe.
St. Maximilian Kolbe lived his entrustment to the Blessed Mother with particular apostolic fervor.
A magnanimous man on mission, St. Maximilian exercised visionary leadership, heroic courage, unwavering confidence in the Lord, and a zealous love for “Mama Mary,” as he called her. He wanted every person in the world to love her as much. He believed that for souls to be converted to Christ, the compassionate Mother must be involved—that she must prepare the soul for the grace of God to enter.
St. Maximilian’s fruitful mission bears him witness.
In founding the Militia of the Immaculate, he wanted all people to “consecrate themselves to the love of our good Mother.” He led others to Jesus through the way of true and total devotion to Mary. Marian consecration is an intentional, voluntary choice of entrustment after Baptism. An individual gives himself entirely to the Blessed Virgin Mary, entrusting his prayers, works, and entire life to her compassionate, maternal care to be more fully united to Jesus Christ.
I share St. Maximilian’s conviction.
Twenty years ago, the Lord began doing a mighty work in me. A cradle Catholic, I had wandered down the path of self, consumed with my own pursuits. Little by little, through circumstances and suffering and painful consequences, the Lord opened my eyes and prepared my heart to encounter His compassionate Mother and through her, Him.
I didn’t seek out total consecration. I was gifted it. The Father knew I would need her motherly guidance to accompany me back into relationship and back into grace. He led me to a priest who schooled me, a friend who guided me, and saints who modeled lives of true devotion to Mary. I was seen, known, and loved. Within months, my worldview and life purpose radically changed. The Holy Spirit had reignited the fire of love within me, and my relationship with Jesus was born anew.
The Blessed Mother has such a gentle yet powerful way of turning hearts to Jesus. Never forward or assertive, she just makes herself known. Filled with the Holy Spirit, she brings a quiet and peaceful presence wherever she enters. Such a warm and merciful embrace does wonders for a prodigal.
All of this is what our merciful Lord accomplishes in hearts aided by her compassionate intercession. She longs to be in connection with each of her children so they can experience the transforming love of Divine Mercy Himself.
The Blessed Mother received this apostolic mission from the Father—to be an associate of Christ in crushing the head of the serpent. She lives her mission through her ongoing participation in Jesus’ ultimate rescue mission to bring salvation to the world and us back into loving intimacy with the Father.
And she invites us to cooperate with her apostolic work—to live her mission.
The concept of “mission” seems to be everywhere today.
A person on mission is sent forth to accomplish a task or duty. Mission gives purpose and orientation to life. It moves us toward a cause larger than ourselves and brings the joy of belonging. It simplifies our focus and mobilizes our energy. No wonder organizations, military branches, parishes, and even families discern and embrace mission.
But “mission” is God’s word of work.
Jesus orients His entire life to the Father’s mission of salvation: He only does the Father’s will. Disciples who seek to love and please the Father are also called to live and breathe mission, like Jesus, by dedicating themselves to a particular way of life chartered by our Father.
As members of the Body of Christ, we each have a specific, unique part to play. The Lord’s missional ask is not only personal but also integral to our own salvation. It commits us to a life of discerned action and intentionality. He asks for our all yet blesses us with His presence, power, and provision, inviting us to turn to her.
She will guide us, accompany us, and keep us close to Him.
Marian consecration is not an additional mission—it’s a means of sanctifying our own personal calling and glorifying God beyond what we could ever do on our own. To not see the necessity and gift of her aid is to miss the infinite holiness of our Lord’s divinity.
Ten years ago, I discerned a next step in living the mission of Mary. A friend invited me to consider getting involved in the Legion of Mary. For the next year, I prayed, read the “Handbook of the Legion of Mary” by founder Servant of God Frank Duff, and came to see Legion service as a blessed opportunity to love Jesus in each person I encounter through the compassionate hands of the Blessed Mother. I took the Legionary promise to the Holy Spirit to be an instrument of Mary.
Active membership in the Legion of Mary has become a visible, concrete expression of my Marian consecration and a means of investing myself in her apostolate, experiencing her formative care, and growing in her virtues.
The over three million Legion members make up a spiritual army serving in the warfare “perpetually waged by the Church against the world and its evil powers.” “Who is she… terrible as an army set in battle array” (Song of Solomon 6:10), we pray in our daily Tessera.
Frank Duff knew true devotion to the Blessed Mother obliges apostleship—an intentional, genuine interest in the welfare and work of the Church with a missionary spirit: “Without participation in the apostolate there can be no real union with her; true devotion to Mary must comprise the service of souls.”
He, like St. Louis de Montfort and St. Maximilian Kolbe, discovered the radical difference the Blessed Mother makes in the life of faith. We consecrated give everything to her, and she gives everything perfectly to Jesus.
Such a difference Mother Mary has made in my life—then and now.
Joined to the compassionate Mother in an intimate fashion, those consecrated take on her cares, her concerns, her ways to honor His cares and serve His concerns in His way. Father Emil Neubert, the Mariologist who inspired St. Maximilian Kolbe, poignantly stated, “To love Jesus with the purity and ardor of Mary is the great preoccupation of a Marian soul.”
Hers is a mission most worthy to live. Holy Mother of Jesus, how well you love us.
