Re-Consecration

Text of Bishop Vasa's Homily: ‘Our Personal Mother’

Bishop Vasa’s Homily for the Reconsecration of the Diocese and the Country to the Blessed Virgin Mary

Jesus and trusted Mary to the care of his disciple John. But more importantly for us, He entrusted John to the care and patronage of His own mother. And all of us stand in the place of John. Our Lord from the cross gave His mother to us to be our mother. And that is a duty, a responsibility of care, which she takes very seriously.

And so we come to her today with great confidence, pleading to her as our mother to assure us with faith and hope and charity that this pandemic will not overwhelm us. It will not do away with us. It will not defeat us. That we, as people of God, have our Savior Jesus. We have the hope of the resurrection. And we also have as a wonderful benefit a mother who who is in heaven with her son, and who loves us with the mother's tender care. And to whom we come today to pledge and commit ourselves to her anew. We come not only to ask for her favors and her blessings and her prayers for us. We come to commit ourselves, to consecrate ourselves. Our parish or dioceses, our nation, to the patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Now, the challenging part of this is that once we do this. We really entrust into her hands all of the worry and care and anxiety that we might be carrying relative to this present pandemic. We entrust that to her. And we trust with absolute confidence that the more completely we give this over into the hands of Mary, the more fully she can act in interceding with her son on our behalf.

But if we insist on carrying and doing all of the worrying and all of the anxiety and refuse to give any of that to Mary, then she stands helplessly behind and says, “I'm willing to help you, but you must entrust to me your fears, your anxieties and worries.”

Things may or may not work out the way we would like them to work out in our worldly way, but with absolute confidence in Mary we know that no ultimate harm will come to us. That she who is our mother, guards, protects and guides us. Let's deepen our confidence in the loving, tender mercy of our beloved mother, Mary, mother of God, Mother of the Church. But our personal mother as well.
 

Where to watch the whole recording: St. Eugene’s Youtube Channel
 

The worship aid can be found in both English and Spanish here: (English - Spanish)

Archbishop Gomez, Archbishop of Los Angeles and USCCB President, will lead a prayer of re-consecration of our Nation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mary, Mother of the Church at 12 pm PDT.  At the same time Canada will be doing the same.

The Secretariat for Divine Worship at the USCCB will be providing the liturgical direction and resource for this occasion. The Office of Communications of the USCCB will be providing logistical information for virtual connection for the ceremony of re-consecration itself and promoting this event by social media in the coming days, but the Archbishop wished to offer this invitation as soon as possible for planning purposes. As we prepare for this event, please have your communications staff consult and scroll the Conference social media channels (https://twitter.com/USCCB, https://www.facebook.com/usccb/, and https://www.instagram.com/usccb/?hl=en) and Catholic News Service to advance the invitation to the faithful for their participation.

Join Bishop Robert Vasa, Archbishop José H. Gomez, USCCB President, and the faithful of the United States to pray together in renewing our consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary on Friday, May 1st! The livestream will be available here on facebook at 12 PM Pacific.

 Let's pray together for Our Lady's intercession!

USCCB website: http://www.usccb.org/about/communications/consecration.cfm?fbclid=IwAR20l20vzrMKnUywd56VcSzdgUdw75zPrcInWtNUH2Ua2HNRqeO9qITrO9o