Act of Consecration of the World and the Third Millennium to the Immaculate Heart, by H.H. John Paul II |
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1. "Woman, behold your Son!" (Jn 19:26). As we near the end of this Jubilee Year, when you, O Mother, have offered us Jesus anew, the blessed fruit of your womb most pure, the Word made flesh, the world's Redeemer, we hear more clearly the sweet echo of his words entrusting us to you, making you our Mother: "Woman, behold your Son!" When he entrusted to you the Apostle John, and with him the children of the Church and all people, Christ did not diminish but affirmed anew the role which is his alone as the Saviour of the world. You are the splendor which in no way dims the light of Christ, for you exist in him and through him. Everything in you is fiat: you are the Immaculate One, through you there shines the fullness of grace. Here, then, are your children, gathered before you at the dawn of the new millennium. The Church today, through the voice of the Successor of Peter, in union with so many Pastors assembled here from every corner of the world, seeks refuge in your motherly protection and trustingly begs your intercession as she faces the challenges which lie hidden in the future.
2. In this year of grace, countless people have known
the overflowing joy of the mercy
which the Father has given us in Christ.
In the particular Churches throughout the world,
and still more in this centre of Christianity,
the widest array of people have accepted this gift.
Here the enthusiasm of the young rang out,
here the sick have lifted up their prayer.
Here have gathered priests and religious,
artists and journalists,
workers and people of learning,
children and adults,
and all have acknowledged in your beloved Son
the Word of God made flesh in your womb.
O Mother, intercede for us,
that the fruits of this Year will not be lost
and that the seeds of grace will grow
to the full measure of the holiness
to which we are all called.
3. Today we wish to entrust to you the future that awaits us,
and we ask you to be with us on our way.
We are the men and women of an extraordinary time,
exhilarating yet full of contradictions.
Humanity now has instruments of unprecedented power:
we can turn this world into a garden,
or reduce it to a pile of rubble.
We have devised the astounding capacity
to intervene in the very well-springs of life:
man can use this power for good, within the bounds of the moral law,
or he can succumb to the short-sighted pride
of a science which accepts no limits,
but tramples on the respect due to every human being.
Today as never before in the past,
humanity stands at a crossroads.
And once again, O Virgin Most Holy,
salvation lies fully and uniquely in Jesus, your Son.
4. Therefore, O Mother, like the Apostle John, we wish to take you into our home (cf. Jn 19:27), that we may learn from you to become like your Son. "Woman, behold your son!" Here we stand before you to entrust to your maternal care ourselves, the Church, the entire world. Plead for us with your beloved Son that he may give us in abundance the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth which is the fountain of life. Receive the Spirit for us and with us, as happened in the first community gathered round you in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost (cf. Acts 1:14). May the Spirit open our hearts to justice and love, and guide people and nations to mutual understanding and a firm desire for peace. We entrust to you all people, beginning with the weakest: the babies yet unborn, and those born into poverty and suffering, the young in search of meaning, the unemployed, and those suffering hunger and disease. We entrust to you all troubled families, the elderly with no one to help them, and all who are alone and without hope.
5. O Mother, you know the sufferings
and hopes of the Church and the world:
come to the aid of your children in the daily trials
which life brings to each one,
and grant that, thanks to the efforts of all,
the darkness will not prevail over the light.
To you, Dawn of Salvation, we commit
our journey through the new Millennium,
so that with you as guide
all people may know Christ,
the light of the world and its only Saviour,
who reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit
for ever and ever. Amen.
Text taken from the official page of the Vatican
Editorial of Mother Adela, sctjm, on this Act of Consecration
"Papal Consecration of the World to the Immaculate Heart"
Mother Adela Galindo, Foundress SCTJM
October 8, 2000
Dear brothers and sisters:
The papal consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart has been a very important event and was defined by the Central Committee of the Great Jubilee Year in the Holy See as “a Marian seal for this Holy Year.” They are referring to the pilgrimage of the image of the Virgin of Fatima from Cova de Iria to the Basilica of Saint Peter. This pilgrimage will conclude with an Act of Consecration of the world and the Third Millennium to the Immaculate Heart that will be done by the Holy Father during the Celebration of the Holy Mass at the Jubilee of Bishops.
The beloved image, which reminds us of the apparition of Our Lady to three shepherds in 1917, arrived in Rome on the 6th of October and was transported to the Chapel of the Papal Apartments in the Vatican. What an immense gift of the Blessed Virgin to the Holy Father, the Pope of Mary Most Holy, the Pope of the Third Secret, the Pope of Fatima and of the Immaculate Heart. On Saturday the 7th, the feast day of Our Lady of the Rosary, the image was taken to the Basilica of Saint Peter where it was placed for the public veneration of the faithful. This is most significant because never before has a particular advocation of Mary been placed for exposition in the Basilica, much less an advocation from a Marian apparition.
The Holy Rosary, presided over by the Holy Father, was extended throughout the entire world, and it concluded in the Basilica of Guadalupe here in America. The image was then transported to the Monastery of the cloistered sisters in the Convent “Ecclesiae Mater” (Mother of the Church) in the Vatican. I think it is most significant that on the Vespers of the solemn Act of Consecration the image was kept and accompanied within a convent whose name represents the maternal mission that Mary has over the Mystical Body of Christ. She is the Mother of the Church and whenever the Church is most in need of Her intercession, of Her intervention and of Her maternal mediation, she always entrusts herself to Her. The Church recognizes Her and proclaims Her as Mother!
As a Mother, She never neglects the supplications of Her children. As a Mother, She always receives us when we give ourselves totally to Her Immaculate Heart. She receives us in the same way that She received Saint John at the foot of the Cross.
My brothers and sisters, let us not waste this immense grace that we have received. In Fatima, the Blessed Virgin told Lucia: “My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the sure path that leads you to God.” (June 13, 1917) The Holy Father has desired to present Mary Most Holy to us during the Jubilee Year as the “star which directs our steps towards the Lord.” (TMA, 59) Seen from this angle, we could say that this Act of Consecration brings to completion the merciful designs that the Lord has willed to bring about during the Jubilee Year. Why do I say this? Because on the 24th of September, the Holy Father, at the conclusion of the Marian Congress, expressed to all those congregated in the Saint Peter’s Square for the Angelus: “The Jubilee of the Son is at the same time the Jubilee of the Mother.” It is my estimation that this Jubilee Year, being a year of grace in which the Heart of Jesus has opened itself wide in order to pour forth abundant graces of mercy upon humanity, that also in this Holy Year, the Immaculate Heart has opened itself and will open itself with great strength, on the day of the Consecration, in order to mediate for the world those graces of mercy that Her Son desires to pour upon the Church, the world and in each heart. The Two Hearts are also united in these clear designs of the Jubilee Year. The Jubilee of the Son is also the Jubilee of the Mother! If it is a year of grace of the Lord, it is also a year in which the mediation and maternal intercession of Mary are most evident.
The Holy Father has told us in his general audience on the 29th of April 1999: “It is in the Maternal Heart of Mary where all of the Jubilees are prepared, because it is Her joy that all creatures experience before the announcement of the Savior. Therefore, it is Her joy, Her gratitude, Her receptivity that is at the very root of all Jubilees.” (cf. 1) Her receptivity… is it not the Immaculate Heart of Mary the first Heart that is open to the redemptive grace? Is it not the Immaculate Heart of Mary the one who receives strength from on high and fully embraces the Redeemer? Is not the Immaculate Heart the only one that has opened itself wide to Christ? Therefore, in Her Heart we too will be able to open ourselves to the sanctifying action of the Spirit in this Jubilee Year. In Her Heart we may be able to experience the saving power of Christ and the designs of mercy for this generation. What a gift the Holy Father is giving to us with this solemn Consecration!
The Lord has given great power to the Consecration to the Immaculate Heart. We have already been witnesses to the many personal graces in the Church and in the world which have come about and have been manifested to humanity in virtue of this Consecration. Let us ask the Lord to fulfill, by means of the Consecration of the world and the Third Millennium that the Holy Father will do on the 8th of October in communion with all the bishops, during their jubilee celebration, what he told us in his Letter, Tertio Millenio Adveniente (1994), “It is not difficult to see how the Marian Year closely preceded the happenings of 1989. Events that have surprised the world outreach and especially for its rapid development. The Marian Year was like an anticipation of the Jubilee, including much of what is to be expressed fully in the Year 2000.” (cf. 27)
In the Love of the Pierced Hearts,
Mother Adela Galindo, SCTJM
