Introduction

The previous step recalled that Jesus is the consecrated one and that He brings us into His consecration through baptism. This sixth step shows that consecration to the Heart of Jesus is a renewal of this baptismal consecration.

A consecration is the act by which a person or a community gives themselves completely and irrevocably to God. For a baptized person, this corresponds to the solemn and voluntary renewal of their baptismal consecration. To consecrate oneself to the Heart of Jesus means to accept God’s love for us and for our families. It means placing Jesus at the centre of our lives and thus responding to God’s love. It means wanting to learn from His Heart: “Come to me, all you who labour and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matt 11:28-29). Thus, this process is not a trivial or magical act. It is important to prepare for it, to understand what it involves, and to grasp its implications. This is the purpose of this journey.

1.Why Devote Oneself to the Heart of Jesus?

1.Restoring the Purity of Our Baptism

Through baptism, Christians are united and consecrated to Jesus, our Saviour and Lord, for our entire life. The main cause of the corruption of Christian life comes from the forgetfulness and ignorance of these commitments made at baptism. We experience our own weakness and changeability. The purity of this foundational consecration is tarnished by our sins and frailties, like a spring that becomes silted up.

The way to remedy this situation is to remember the obligations assumed at baptism and to renew the promises of holy baptism. We need, at various points in our lives, a “reminder” of these promises. Thus, every year, we renew the promises of our baptism during the Easter Vigil.

Consecration to the Heart of Jesus is an opportunity for us to regain the purity and strength of our baptismal consecration. It is a new step in faithfulness to our baptism. This is what the Church calls a pious exercise, akin to the rosary or the Stations of the Cross, for example.

2. Returning Love for Love

The message of Paray can be summarised as a call to return love for love to the Lord who has loved us so much and who receives only ingratitude and indifference from us. The Lord thirsts for our love, as He says to Saint Margaret Mary: “I thirst, but a thirst so intense, to be loved in the Blessed Sacrament!”

Consecration is an offering of ourselves in response to this love that precedes us, in a more radical gift of ourselves to the Lord and to our brothers and sisters. “God has loved me too much to now spare me with Him,” says Saint Claude La Colombière, perfectly summarising what consecration is.

3.Becoming Apostles of the Heart of Jesus

This act is deeply missionary and aims to make us ardent apostles of the gentleness, humility, and compassion of the Heart of Jesus, to announce to the world how much it is loved. We will have the opportunity to revisit this.

2.The Virgin Mary, Sublime Model of Consecration

Following her Son, Mary is the consecrated one par excellence, through two fundamental stages of her life entirely dedicated to God. First, by the gift of her Immaculate Conception, she is consecrated from the first moment of her existence. Then, in the free act of faith she makes at the Annunciation – her fiat – she confirms this consecration by her response to the Angel’s invitation: “I am the handmaid of the Lord” (Luke 1:38). This assent to God’s call will be completely confirmed at the death of her Son on the Cross, where she reaffirms her fiat in the silence of her heart, invisibly pierced.

That is why we frequently consecrate ourselves to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of His Mother. To consecrate oneself to Mary is the best path to consecrate oneself to Jesus. In order to renew our consecration to Jesus, Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort proposes going through the most perfect of all means, which is the Blessed Virgin, since it is through her that Jesus chose to come to us. He explains that “perfect consecration to Jesus Christ is nothing other than a perfect and complete consecration of oneself to the Blessed Virgin, in other words, a perfect renewal of the vows and promises of holy baptism.” (120)

Thus, to summarise, “one consecrates oneself simultaneously 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 to unite us to Him. And to Our Lord as our ultimate end, to whom we owe all that we are as our Redeemer and our God.” (TVD 125)

In the next step, we will enter the third part of our journey by proposing a simple way to live out the consecration.