My Journey, September/October 1995
by Br. Camilus Dulude, ofm conv.
It was February 1951. I was invited to Marytown along with three
young men from Notre Dame University by Fr. Dominic Szymanski,
the founder of Marytown. He gave me the book, The Reign of Jesus
through Mary, by St. Louis de Montfort.
Father Dominic invited us to make de Montfort's thirty day preparation for total consecration to Mary. I did this, then made my consecration privately on April 28, 1951, the feast of St. Louis.
I was enamored of the spirituality of Montfort, especially his teaching that we are to give everything to Mary - including our sins. "We are like a worm-pitted apple. Mary cuts away all that is not good. She then presents us like that apple on a golden platter to the Lord," This insight of St. Louis has always stayed with me.
I believe there were immediate benefits to my making the act of consecration. I began to find it joy-filling to live out my consecration through my daily duties. Everything - the small things, the painful things - had meaning for me after this. Everything was an act of love. This was quite a gift, to know this secret.
Also, looking back to the early days of Marytown, I felt a satisfaction in putting excerpts about total consecratioin on the bulletin board for other friars to read, taken from an unpublished manuscript of Maximilian Kolbe. This manuscript would later become the booklet, "Aim Higher!" It was myjob to choose the readings. I delighted in this task.
Another lesson I learned from the act was how to overcome the temptation to sadness, a particular difficulty of mine early on. I learned to do this through obedience, using St. Maximilian's relationship to Mary as a model. Leave the past to God's mercy, live in the present, Max often taught.
Sometimes I am still tempted to sadness when I see how we as a community, and I personally, have not met the model of Kolbe. But I also see how far we have come. It it then that I realize our weaknesses should not bring us sadness, but should help us to rejoice. God can use our weaknesses to do his work. Praise God!
Consecration to Our Lady has helped me cope with my illness, which is ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease. Up until its onset, I'd had a very healthy body and had been able to do a lifetime of work. I now realize that I owe the Lord gratitude for what he had given me in the past. Through sickness one becomes aware of what a gift it all is. I do not thank him enough.
It has crossed my mind lately that my struggles could have a tremendous value' "sacrificial suffering" as the Catholic tradition teaches us. I am just beginning to look at this in my prayer life.
"My surrender must be like the surrender of Jesus." This is something that has come to me in prayer lately. My disease has brought me face-to-face with myself. "Yes, Lord, exactly what are you asking of me?" The answer: "I must be entirely willing to surrender."
In short, consecration has helped me put life in an eternal perspective; it gives my trials meaning. Suffering can even be a joy if accepted properly.
Would I recommend Marian consecration to Immaculata's readers? Absolutely! because the love of Jesus and Mary has to be discovered. "What do you want of me, Immaculata?" asked St. Maximilian. We really cannot understand fully our mission in life until we, too, make an unconditional "return of love" as Jesus has done for us. We do this through total Marian consecration - and through obedience. By getting to know Jesus and Mary, we begin to know who we are.
Finally, we discover the answer to Max's question, "What do you want of me?" through living out our consecration, not just in making it. It takes many experiences, many failures.
We can begin today, to do good today.
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