Consecration: The Greatest Love of All, January/February 2000
by Elizabeth Lyulkin
The strangest, most miraculous thing about my relationship with
Our Lady is that she appeared in my life in 1980-eighteen years
before I joined the church. My family came to the States from
what was then Communist Ukraine in 1979 (I was sixteen), so I
was brought up with no faith at all. During my last year of high
school I overheard one of my American classmates making fun of
Mary, and suddenly I felt as if that person were attacking a
close friend. The next day I bought a plastic statue of Mary
and we have been inseparable ever since.
This is not to say that my behavior
did not cause Our Lady plenty of grief. What do they say about
ego-"Easing God Out"? A year before graduation I dropped
out of college in order to take a job with a professional theater
company. The theater world became my god, my family and my drinking
buddy. In a purely commercial sense, those years were very successful.
I got a chance to work with many famous people, including my
very own "aunt figure," Ms. Uta Hagen. I can still
stage manage a show with my eyes closed. And yet, looking back,
they seem like years wasted.
Nonetheless, throughout that "god-less" period I was
going to Mass and carrying my rosary everywhere I went. It took
a personal tragedy to make me see that going to church was not
enough. So, I enrolled in the RCIA program, and in April of 1999,
I became a Catholic. Two months later I consecrated myself to
the Blessed Virgin.
The things I got in return are
truly beyond belief. During the last six months, ever since I
have decided to become Mary's "totus tuus," my life
has improved dramatically. I have been gradually losing sight
since I was ten, first in my left eye, then in my right one as
well. But in this short time I have gone from being diagnosed
as almost legally blind to where I try to watch TV and move around
my house without my glasses. My doctor and I are even discussing
laser surgery!
I have also gone from being totally terrified of public speaking
to saying "yes" to volunteering as a lector and one
of the Holy Hour readers at our parish. It is still hard sometimes,
but I am actually beginning to enjoy it. Another miracle happened
at this year's Tony Awards. My Aunt Uta won her third Tony-quite
a comeback for someone who was largely ignored by the theater
community when I was growing up.
Gifts and awards are nice, of course,
but they are not what the consecration is all about. It is about
learning to trust that God has a purpose for each and every one
of us, that all things in life will eventually work out for the
best. It is about learning to love as purely and deeply as Jesus
loves us. It is about embracing God's will with a child-like
faith, just as Mary and St. Max have, and so many others after
them.
These days my life reminds me of that Bell Atlantic commercial-"Wild
things are happening!" I have come back to the theater,
as a playwright.
My next project, dedicated to St. Maximilian, is about a Polish
priest trying to rescue Jewish children from the Nazi death camps.
I am also working on a piece in which Mary appears to three different
people and completely transforms their lives. But the most important
thing in my life is my service to God and to his Church. I feel
blessed because Mary keeps on sending people into my life who
love all of me-not just the parts that the theater world finds
acceptable. It is that kind of love that is Our Lady's greatest
miracle.
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