by Jayson M. Brunelle

Consecration to Jesus through Mary has become very popular amongst orthodox Catholics attempting to grow spiritually and more perfectly conform their intellect and will to the divine intellect and will of Christ.  As many know, Mary always points to her Son Jesus and repeats to us what she stated at the wedding of Cana: “Do whatever He tells you.”  Moreover, according to  the great Marian saint Louis de Montfort, Marian consecration is the quickest, easiest, perfect and most secure way of giving ourselves over to Jesus, who came to us through Mary.  We most surely return to Christ using the same pathway He used in coming to us – Mary.  Few will dispute the profound efficacy of Marian consecration in making strides in the spiritual life and most perfectly conforming ourselves to Christ through Mary.  There is, however, an essential aspect of this devotion that has been somewhat neglected, and that would be the role of St. Joseph.  St. Joseph is numbered among the greatest of the great saints precisely because of the intimacy of life that he shared with Jesus and Mary.  Moreover, we can set Joseph up as the perfect example of one who is totally consecrated to Jesus through Mary, and this due to his spousal union with the Blessed Mother.  Joseph, in his espousal of Mary, gave his heart to her and took her heart as his own.  There was, then, an exchange or union of hearts.  And is this not precisely what takes place through consecration to Mary?  For when we make a solemn act of consecration to Mary, we are, in imitation of Joseph, taking Mary’s Heart and giving to her our own hearts with the goal of becoming wholly united with her, in order to love the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus with the pure, perfect and immaculate love of Mary’s Immaculate Heart.  Thus, Joseph was the first to consecrate himself to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and through Mary, he was capable of loving Jesus with Mary’s perfect and immaculate love.  It is precisely this, then, that made St. Joseph such a great saint, and led to him becoming the Patron of the universal Church.  Let us, then, follow Joseph’s example by becoming one with the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in order to most perfectly unite ourselves to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Furthermore, let us take Joseph as the patron of our total consecration to Jesus through Mary, and ask him to be the protector of Jesus and Mary in our souls.