Consecration to the Immaculata - Preparation Day 4
Day Four
Our most loving Mother
The Immaculata is the Mother of all our supernatural
life, for she is the Mediatrix of all graces, indeed the Mother
of divine grace, so she is our Mother in the sphere of grace,
in the supernatural sphere. Also, she is a most loving Mother,
for there is no such loving, such affectionate, such God-filled
Mother as the Immaculata, who is all divine.
Explanation:
“So much” means above all, boundless, not comparable
with any created love however great. This small phrase
“so much” leads us right to the heart of her innermost being.
Mary is the Mother of “beautiful love”, her entire being
is mere devotion and loving mercy, but “so much” that
it infinitely exceeds our understanding.
When we penetrate only slightly deeper into Mary’s
heart, we notice straight away how little we know HER,
how little we appreciate HER love and how weak our faith
in it is. St. Bernard understands this love when he
prays that “never was it known that anyone who fled
to Thy protection was left unaided”. SHE loves us that
much!
31
This title is perhaps the most beautiful and moving to
the heart: “the Mother who loves us so much, so ineffably,
so boundlessly”. Everything about Mary speak of love.
Kneel before her image, her statue and contemplate Her:
her eyes are flames of love; her smiling countenance — an
expression of total devotion of a mother for her child, as
if nothing else existed for Her on earth. She extends her
hands most pure towards our dirty ones so as to draw us
upwards into her light. Her feet never tire of running after
her lost children everywhere so that she may knock on their
doors and implore them to let HER save them.
All this is an expression of her greatest benevolence
towards us. Finally behold her immaculate heart that beats
for each and everyone with ineffable pangs and pains.
She shows compassion for every pain, every suffering soul,
every broken heart! And lastly contemplate HER, complete
and entire, as She appeared in Guadalupe, Rue de Bac,
La Salette, Lourdes, Fatima, etc. Thus contemplate her statue,
her painting on your bedroom wall and repeat: “Love!
Love only! All love! Mother, you love me so much!”
Spiritual reading:
Chapter: Per Mariam ad Jesum: To Jesus through
Mary, p. 99
**********
CHAPTER FOUR
Per Mariam ad Jesum:
To Jesus through Mary
THE SUPERIORITY of the powers of darkness on the one hand, the
weakness and lethargy of Catholics, on the other, and the subsequent
dangers to the continued existence of the Church and the salvation of
souls — this is St. Maximilian’s disturbing analysis of the present state
of affairs in the world. Today the strength of the former has become
a dictatorship ruling over all departments of human life, while the
latter have shrunk to a small number which itself is extremely susceptible
and unreliable in battle. It won’t take much more for “the gates
of hell to prevail against the Church”. To whom, then, should we
turn, in order to prevent the worst possible outcome, so as not to be
completely overrun by the enemy? Words like Knighthood, mission,
battle, conversion, “To renew all things in Christ,” etc., are very
edifying. There are times when all efforts seem to be in vain. Not
only are there no victories to record, but the Knights themselves are
often so weak that they occasionally or even quite frequently find
themselves in the Enemy’s camp and must accuse themselves of being
deserters, because instead of following Christ’s plan, they adopt the
100
Enemy’s tactics and sink down into “the concupiscence of the flesh,
the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 Jn 2:16). Are not
times like these cause for despair?
God promised only one person that she would crush the head of
Satan; to only one woman has been granted the power to vanquish
all heresies throughout the world; only one person leads, accordingly,
to a certain victory: the Blessed Virgin Mary. To appreciate her, to
love her, to belong entirely to her and to do her will exclusively is
the essence of the M.I., the secret of its success and hence also its
outstanding importance in our apocalyptic age. To Jesus through
Mary! This is one of the most important axioms of the Christian life.
It makes us understand how very necessary Mary is for our salvation.
While still just a student in Rome, Maximilian Kolbe was convinced
of her power. In January 1918 he noted in his meditations: “I can do
all things in Him, Who strengthens me — through the hands of the
Immaculata!” He deletes nothing from the great program of St. Pius X;
he only adds the necessary condition which alone is capable of putting
this program into action: “Omnia instaurare in Christo per Immaculatam”
[“To renew all things in Christ, through the Immaculata”].1
In order to save us, God has given us everything: divine Truth,
divine life, His own Son, even unto death on the cross, the Sacraments
that flow from that, as well as countless graces.
What else could you give me, O God, after giving me
Thyself to be my own possession? Thy Heart, burning with
love for me, suggested to Thee another gift: yes, one more!
Now, Thou hast demanded that we become children, if we
1 Notes on a meditation, dated November 17, 1919, BMK, p. 409.
101
wish to enter into the kingdom of heaven. But Thou knowest
that a child needs a mother: Thou Thyself established this law
of love. Thy goodness and mercy have established a mother
for us — the embodiment of Thy goodness and your infinite
mercy: on the cross on Golgotha Thou commended us to
her and her to us… and ordained, O loving God, that she
should be the all-powerful intercessor and Mediatrix of all
Thy graces. Thou refusest her nothing, just as she could never
refuse anyone anything.2
How does it happen, though, that such an important role in our
spiritual life should be assigned to her? Because God did not will it
otherwise for Himself:
When the time was fulfilled for Christ to come, the Triune
God created for Himself alone the Immaculate Virgin, filled
her with grace and dwelt in her (“The Lord is with Thee”).
And this most holy Virgin thrilled His heart so much by her
humility, that God the Father gave her His only-begotten Son
as her son, God the Son came down into her virginal womb,
and God the Holy Ghost formed in her the Most Sacred Body
of the God-man. And the Word was made flesh as the fruit of
God’s love and the love of the Immaculata. So her firstborn
became the God-man, and the only way that souls are reborn
in Christ is through God’s love for the Immaculata and in the
Immaculata. And no word, no perfection or virtue becomes
2 RN 8 (1929), p. 328.
102
flesh, becomes a reality in anyone, except through God’s love
for the Immaculata.3
“I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you do
also.” But what example does the Savior give us?
Then the Redeemer came to earth, the God-man, Jesus,
and began His mission, His teaching about the way to heaven.
And how did he begin? He made Himself dependent upon
the Immaculata as a child is dependent on his mother, and for
thirty years of His life on earth He honored His mother and
served her directly in everything, and thus fulfilled God’s will.
From that moment on, no one who is unwilling to honor the
Immaculata, according to His example, comes to resemble
Jesus.4
Jesus Christ, the God-man, true God, the Second Person
of the Most Blessed Trinity, is her true child. She is His true
mother. He keeps the Fourth Commandment, He honors
His Mother. Just as a son never stops being his mother’s
son, so too Jesus will always be her Son, and she will be His
mother for ever. He will honor her in eternity. And just as
He honored her from all eternity and will honor her for all
eternity, no one can approach Him, become like Him, save
and sanctify his soul, unless he likewise honors her: be it an
angel or a human being.5
3 Fragment of an unfinished book about the Immaculata, January 1940, BMK,
p. 600.
4 “Informator Rycerstwa Niepokalanej” 4 (1938), p. 34.
5 Fragment of an unfinished book…, op. cit., p. 601.
103
The deeper reason for this divine decree lies in the fact that, as
a result of the Fall, the “banished children of Eve” are no longer
capable of responding to God’s love on their own. Only when they
again have a mother who is so pure, powerful and holy to give birth to
divine life in them, is there again any possibility of returning to God:
Nothing finite can satisfy us. Only God can be our goal:
to know, love and possess God, to be united with Him, trans-
-formed into Him, divinized, to become like the God-man.
But since only God is infinite, will the limited creature
therefore ever attain this eternal goal? Consider, too, that
even “the just man sins seven times a day.”
So the Immaculata comes into the world, without the
stain of the slightest sin, the masterpiece of God’s handiwork,
full of grace. The Triune God looks upon the lowliness, the
humility of His handmaiden “and the Almighty does great
things for her.” God the Father gives her His Son to be her
son… the Immaculata becomes the Mother of God. From
now on the children of God are to be formed after the
pattern of the Son of God, the infinite God-man, by duplicating
the traits of the God-man, and souls will strive for
holiness by following Christ. The more exactly someone
reflects in himself the image of Christ, the closer he draws to
the Godhead, the more he is divinized. Someone who does
not want the Immaculate Mother as his mother, however,
will not have Christ as his brother, either, nor will God the
Father send His Son to him, nor will the Son come into his
soul, nor will the Holy Ghost incorporate him by His graces
into the Mystical Body of Christ, for all this happens in Mary
104
Immaculate, in Her who is Full of Grace, and only in her. For
no [other] creature is immaculate, nor full of grace and thus
suited to have “the Lord with him”. And just as the firstborn
God-man was conceived in no other manner but through the
explicit permission of the heavenly Virgin, so too it cannot
be otherwise with other human beings, who must imitate her
fundamental example in everything. In her womb the soul
must be reborn according to the model of Jesus Christ. With
the milk of her grace she must feed souls, embrace and raise
them, just as she fed, caressed and raised Jesus. At her feet
the soul must learn to know Jesus and to love Him. From her
heart the soul must draw love for Him, with her heart the
soul must love Him, and with her love it must be conformed
to Him.6
In Fatima the Mother of God said on June 13, 1917: “My Immaculate
Heart will be your refuge and the way that leads you to God.” She is
the quickest, surest and most exalted way to holiness.
For if only she comes into a soul, no matter how miserable
and soiled with sins and vices it may be, then she does not
permit that soul to be lost, but rather begs for it the grace of
light for the understanding and the grace of strength for the
will, so that the soul might return to its senses and arise from
its sins. Through Mary Immaculate to Jesus — that is our
motto, which Archbishop Sapieha expressed in his blessing
upon the M.I.: “With all our heart we bless the members of
6 Ibid., pp. 613–614.
105
the Militia Immaculat.; fighting under the banner of the
Mother of God, may it help the Church bring the entire world
to the feet of Jesus.7
To come to know her, to devote oneself to her, to live in her, to
work through her: that is the secret of sure victory: “At the end my
Immaculate Heart will triumph!”
7 RN 4 (1925), pp. 130–132.
Our most loving Mother
The Immaculata is the Mother of all our supernatural
life, for she is the Mediatrix of all graces, indeed the Mother
of divine grace, so she is our Mother in the sphere of grace,
in the supernatural sphere. Also, she is a most loving Mother,
for there is no such loving, such affectionate, such God-filled
Mother as the Immaculata, who is all divine.
Explanation:
“So much” means above all, boundless, not comparable
with any created love however great. This small phrase
“so much” leads us right to the heart of her innermost being.
Mary is the Mother of “beautiful love”, her entire being
is mere devotion and loving mercy, but “so much” that
it infinitely exceeds our understanding.
When we penetrate only slightly deeper into Mary’s
heart, we notice straight away how little we know HER,
how little we appreciate HER love and how weak our faith
in it is. St. Bernard understands this love when he
prays that “never was it known that anyone who fled
to Thy protection was left unaided”. SHE loves us that
much!
31
This title is perhaps the most beautiful and moving to
the heart: “the Mother who loves us so much, so ineffably,
so boundlessly”. Everything about Mary speak of love.
Kneel before her image, her statue and contemplate Her:
her eyes are flames of love; her smiling countenance — an
expression of total devotion of a mother for her child, as
if nothing else existed for Her on earth. She extends her
hands most pure towards our dirty ones so as to draw us
upwards into her light. Her feet never tire of running after
her lost children everywhere so that she may knock on their
doors and implore them to let HER save them.
All this is an expression of her greatest benevolence
towards us. Finally behold her immaculate heart that beats
for each and everyone with ineffable pangs and pains.
She shows compassion for every pain, every suffering soul,
every broken heart! And lastly contemplate HER, complete
and entire, as She appeared in Guadalupe, Rue de Bac,
La Salette, Lourdes, Fatima, etc. Thus contemplate her statue,
her painting on your bedroom wall and repeat: “Love!
Love only! All love! Mother, you love me so much!”
Spiritual reading:
Chapter: Per Mariam ad Jesum: To Jesus through
Mary, p. 99
**********
CHAPTER FOUR
Per Mariam ad Jesum:
To Jesus through Mary
THE SUPERIORITY of the powers of darkness on the one hand, the
weakness and lethargy of Catholics, on the other, and the subsequent
dangers to the continued existence of the Church and the salvation of
souls — this is St. Maximilian’s disturbing analysis of the present state
of affairs in the world. Today the strength of the former has become
a dictatorship ruling over all departments of human life, while the
latter have shrunk to a small number which itself is extremely susceptible
and unreliable in battle. It won’t take much more for “the gates
of hell to prevail against the Church”. To whom, then, should we
turn, in order to prevent the worst possible outcome, so as not to be
completely overrun by the enemy? Words like Knighthood, mission,
battle, conversion, “To renew all things in Christ,” etc., are very
edifying. There are times when all efforts seem to be in vain. Not
only are there no victories to record, but the Knights themselves are
often so weak that they occasionally or even quite frequently find
themselves in the Enemy’s camp and must accuse themselves of being
deserters, because instead of following Christ’s plan, they adopt the
100
Enemy’s tactics and sink down into “the concupiscence of the flesh,
the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 Jn 2:16). Are not
times like these cause for despair?
God promised only one person that she would crush the head of
Satan; to only one woman has been granted the power to vanquish
all heresies throughout the world; only one person leads, accordingly,
to a certain victory: the Blessed Virgin Mary. To appreciate her, to
love her, to belong entirely to her and to do her will exclusively is
the essence of the M.I., the secret of its success and hence also its
outstanding importance in our apocalyptic age. To Jesus through
Mary! This is one of the most important axioms of the Christian life.
It makes us understand how very necessary Mary is for our salvation.
While still just a student in Rome, Maximilian Kolbe was convinced
of her power. In January 1918 he noted in his meditations: “I can do
all things in Him, Who strengthens me — through the hands of the
Immaculata!” He deletes nothing from the great program of St. Pius X;
he only adds the necessary condition which alone is capable of putting
this program into action: “Omnia instaurare in Christo per Immaculatam”
[“To renew all things in Christ, through the Immaculata”].1
In order to save us, God has given us everything: divine Truth,
divine life, His own Son, even unto death on the cross, the Sacraments
that flow from that, as well as countless graces.
What else could you give me, O God, after giving me
Thyself to be my own possession? Thy Heart, burning with
love for me, suggested to Thee another gift: yes, one more!
Now, Thou hast demanded that we become children, if we
1 Notes on a meditation, dated November 17, 1919, BMK, p. 409.
101
wish to enter into the kingdom of heaven. But Thou knowest
that a child needs a mother: Thou Thyself established this law
of love. Thy goodness and mercy have established a mother
for us — the embodiment of Thy goodness and your infinite
mercy: on the cross on Golgotha Thou commended us to
her and her to us… and ordained, O loving God, that she
should be the all-powerful intercessor and Mediatrix of all
Thy graces. Thou refusest her nothing, just as she could never
refuse anyone anything.2
How does it happen, though, that such an important role in our
spiritual life should be assigned to her? Because God did not will it
otherwise for Himself:
When the time was fulfilled for Christ to come, the Triune
God created for Himself alone the Immaculate Virgin, filled
her with grace and dwelt in her (“The Lord is with Thee”).
And this most holy Virgin thrilled His heart so much by her
humility, that God the Father gave her His only-begotten Son
as her son, God the Son came down into her virginal womb,
and God the Holy Ghost formed in her the Most Sacred Body
of the God-man. And the Word was made flesh as the fruit of
God’s love and the love of the Immaculata. So her firstborn
became the God-man, and the only way that souls are reborn
in Christ is through God’s love for the Immaculata and in the
Immaculata. And no word, no perfection or virtue becomes
2 RN 8 (1929), p. 328.
102
flesh, becomes a reality in anyone, except through God’s love
for the Immaculata.3
“I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you do
also.” But what example does the Savior give us?
Then the Redeemer came to earth, the God-man, Jesus,
and began His mission, His teaching about the way to heaven.
And how did he begin? He made Himself dependent upon
the Immaculata as a child is dependent on his mother, and for
thirty years of His life on earth He honored His mother and
served her directly in everything, and thus fulfilled God’s will.
From that moment on, no one who is unwilling to honor the
Immaculata, according to His example, comes to resemble
Jesus.4
Jesus Christ, the God-man, true God, the Second Person
of the Most Blessed Trinity, is her true child. She is His true
mother. He keeps the Fourth Commandment, He honors
His Mother. Just as a son never stops being his mother’s
son, so too Jesus will always be her Son, and she will be His
mother for ever. He will honor her in eternity. And just as
He honored her from all eternity and will honor her for all
eternity, no one can approach Him, become like Him, save
and sanctify his soul, unless he likewise honors her: be it an
angel or a human being.5
3 Fragment of an unfinished book about the Immaculata, January 1940, BMK,
p. 600.
4 “Informator Rycerstwa Niepokalanej” 4 (1938), p. 34.
5 Fragment of an unfinished book…, op. cit., p. 601.
103
The deeper reason for this divine decree lies in the fact that, as
a result of the Fall, the “banished children of Eve” are no longer
capable of responding to God’s love on their own. Only when they
again have a mother who is so pure, powerful and holy to give birth to
divine life in them, is there again any possibility of returning to God:
Nothing finite can satisfy us. Only God can be our goal:
to know, love and possess God, to be united with Him, trans-
-formed into Him, divinized, to become like the God-man.
But since only God is infinite, will the limited creature
therefore ever attain this eternal goal? Consider, too, that
even “the just man sins seven times a day.”
So the Immaculata comes into the world, without the
stain of the slightest sin, the masterpiece of God’s handiwork,
full of grace. The Triune God looks upon the lowliness, the
humility of His handmaiden “and the Almighty does great
things for her.” God the Father gives her His Son to be her
son… the Immaculata becomes the Mother of God. From
now on the children of God are to be formed after the
pattern of the Son of God, the infinite God-man, by duplicating
the traits of the God-man, and souls will strive for
holiness by following Christ. The more exactly someone
reflects in himself the image of Christ, the closer he draws to
the Godhead, the more he is divinized. Someone who does
not want the Immaculate Mother as his mother, however,
will not have Christ as his brother, either, nor will God the
Father send His Son to him, nor will the Son come into his
soul, nor will the Holy Ghost incorporate him by His graces
into the Mystical Body of Christ, for all this happens in Mary
104
Immaculate, in Her who is Full of Grace, and only in her. For
no [other] creature is immaculate, nor full of grace and thus
suited to have “the Lord with him”. And just as the firstborn
God-man was conceived in no other manner but through the
explicit permission of the heavenly Virgin, so too it cannot
be otherwise with other human beings, who must imitate her
fundamental example in everything. In her womb the soul
must be reborn according to the model of Jesus Christ. With
the milk of her grace she must feed souls, embrace and raise
them, just as she fed, caressed and raised Jesus. At her feet
the soul must learn to know Jesus and to love Him. From her
heart the soul must draw love for Him, with her heart the
soul must love Him, and with her love it must be conformed
to Him.6
In Fatima the Mother of God said on June 13, 1917: “My Immaculate
Heart will be your refuge and the way that leads you to God.” She is
the quickest, surest and most exalted way to holiness.
For if only she comes into a soul, no matter how miserable
and soiled with sins and vices it may be, then she does not
permit that soul to be lost, but rather begs for it the grace of
light for the understanding and the grace of strength for the
will, so that the soul might return to its senses and arise from
its sins. Through Mary Immaculate to Jesus — that is our
motto, which Archbishop Sapieha expressed in his blessing
upon the M.I.: “With all our heart we bless the members of
6 Ibid., pp. 613–614.
105
the Militia Immaculat.; fighting under the banner of the
Mother of God, may it help the Church bring the entire world
to the feet of Jesus.7
To come to know her, to devote oneself to her, to live in her, to
work through her: that is the secret of sure victory: “At the end my
Immaculate Heart will triumph!”
7 RN 4 (1925), pp. 130–132.