(PerMariam) — Cardinal Raymond Burke today performed the solemn Act of Consecration to Our Lady of Guadalupe, marking the culmination of the 9-month Novena he began in March.
Cardinal Burke leading the Novena Consecration prayer, Dec 12, 2024. Credit: OLofG Shrine
Offering Mass at his shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, Wisconsin, Cardinal Burke noted in his homily how, through the intercession of the Virgin of Guadalupe, “we have been asking for the grace of the daily conversion of our lives to Him, of the daily giving of our hearts completely into His Most Sacred Heart, and for the conversion of the millions who do not yet know Him and of the many who have known Him and then have abandoned His company.”
“We have been pleading, through Our Lady of Guadalupe, that the victory of Christ over sin and death in our human nature may be realized in each of our lives and in the lives of all our brothers and sisters.”
The Act Consecration which he led {full text below} is one which the cardinal described as “giving our hearts completely, one with her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, into the glorious-pierced Heart of Jesus, Son of God and Son of Mary.”
The Shrine church was filled to capacity, hosting three Masses throughout the feast-day, and having a waiting list for tickets, such was the eager interest to join the cardinal on the momentous day at the end of the great Novena.
Launched back in March of this year, the cardinal’s Novena was in response to the “crises of our age,” highlighting the stark similarities between the ecclesiastical and global upheaval today and that experienced in 1531 – the year of Our Lady’s apparition in Guadalupe to St. Juan Diego. He stated in March:
In a world grappling with great disease, a war rages on in Europe. After years of truce, a new invasion of Palestine threatens to unsettle the Middle East. Theological debates are politicized and lead millions of believers to abandon the faith. A bishop writes: unless the hand of God intervenes directly, all will be lost. The year, is 1531.
Noting an unmatched need to turn to Our Lady for “protection” and seek her “intercession” Cdl. Burke – in March – called on “Catholics all over the world, especially those in the Americas, to join me in returning to the loving embrace of Our Lady.”
Driven by the unfailing maternal love that she has for her children, Our Lady “brought the new world under the protection of her mantle and brought millions of souls to Christ,” he stated at the time of launching the venture. “It is this same maternal love and protection that we seek today, a love and protection that she will grant us should we earnestly ask for it.”
This underlying intention behind the Novena, Cdl. Burke recalled during his homily today:
“Consecrating ourselves to Our Lady of Guadalupe, we also confide to her prayers our families and our nation, asking that Christ the King may rule over all hearts from His Most Sacred Heart.”
Cdl. Burke also highlighted how the special Act of Consecration “is a sacramental of the Church, disposing us to receive and to cooperate with the actual grace to live the Consecration to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary every day until our earthly pilgrimage reaches its destination: eternal life with God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – in the company of Our Lady, the angels and all the saints.”
As noted by Cdl. Burke, 190,000 Catholics and also non-Catholics joined in praying the novena prayer to Our Lady of Guadalupe daily. He also stated that some 800,000 people had visited his Novena website.
Keen also not to let the great spiritual endeavor end after such dedication to the Novena over a lengthy period of nine months, he called on all to continue to be united in prayer – with each other but also with Our Lady of Guadalupe:
Today, you will receive the Daily Prayer of Those Consecrated to Our Lady of Guadalupe. Let us offer each day this prayer so that our consecration remain true, so that we may cooperate with the grace of Christ Who wins in our human nature the victory of life and love in the struggle against Satan and all evil spirits. Praying this prayer daily, let us confide to the Heart of Jesus, through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, our families and our homeland.
Cardinal Burke offering Mass, Dec 12, 2024. Credit: OLofG Shrine.
Full video of Cdl. Burke leading the Novena Consecration prayer from the Shrine —
Cdl. Burke’s Act of Consecration to Our Lady of Guadalupe
O Holy Virgin Mary, Mother of God and my compassionate Mother, I, with Saint Juan Diego, your faithful and courageous messenger, prostrate myself before your Beloved Image. With all my heart, I, too, desire to be your messenger. With Saint Juan Diego, may my heart be totally one with your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, perfectly united to the glorious-pierced Heart of your Divine Son, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Conscious of my sins, of the evils oppressing the world and threatening the Church, and of the unrelenting guile of Satan, “the father of lies,” I come before you, seeking your protection and invoking your intercession, that I may belong totally to your Divine Son, King of the Universe and King of my heart. Incarnate in your womb at Nazareth and born of you at Bethlehem, He came into the world to save me from sin and everlasting death. Obtaining my eternal salvation by His death on the Cross, He gave you to me to be my mother forever.
As His Mother, bring Him to me, and, as my Mother, bring me to Him Who alone is “the way, the truth, and the life,” teaching me, as you taught the wine stewards at the Wedding Feast of Cana: “Do whatever He tells you.”
Before the troubles, the miseries, and the pains which afflict me, the world, and the Church, I am tempted to give way to discouragement and to claim helplessness. In moments of temptation, remind me that you have chosen me to be your messenger and that Our Lord, without measure and without cease, sustains with the sevenfold grace of the Holy Spirit a humble and contrite heart.
Help me to remain, with you, one in heart with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, trusting that God’s promises to me will indeed be fulfilled. Keeping me “in the hollow of your mantle” and “in the crossing of your arms,” let no trouble, no misery, no pain obscure or diminish my service as your faithful messenger.
Rather, with maternal love, encourage and strengthen me to take up steadfastly and joyfully the cross of pure and selfless love, which is indeed my only hope, my only way to joy and peace here and now, and to its fullness in the eternal life of Heaven. Under your protection and through your intercession, may I, every day and at every moment of the day, give myself anew to Jesus, “my Lord and my God,” and may I, with you, draw to Him the many who do not yet know Him and the many who have known Him but are now far away from Him.
Please intercede for me, that, through my conversion of life to Him and through His grace at work in my heart, my every thought, attitude, word, and action may attract others to Him Who alone is their salvation. Please intercede for my family and my homeland, that Christ the King may rule in all hearts from His Most Sacred Heart, pierced by the soldier’s spear as He died on Calvary and now seated in eternal glory at the right hand of the Father, dispelling all darkness, all sin, and all attraction to sin.
O Virgin Mother of God and my compassionate Mother, prostrate before your Beloved Image, I now unite my heart forever to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, finding my true and lasting home in the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. I consecrate myself to you, the Perfect Virgin, Saint Mary of Guadalupe. I promise to be your ever faithful and courageous messenger on earth. Thus, at the end of my earthly pilgrimage, may I be forever in your company, together with the angels and all the saints, praising and glorifying God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Please accept my Act of Consecration and never let me betray the gift of myself to you which, today, I make with all my heart.
Amen.
Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke December 12, 2024
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I think this is such a wonderful endeavour. The prayer seemed ‘long’ each day, yet now the day has come for the final consecration (which was beautiful) I will miss it. Prayers and thanks for Cardinal Burke.
I think this is such a wonderful endeavour. The prayer seemed ‘long’ each day, yet now the day has come for the final consecration (which was beautiful) I will miss it. Prayers and thanks for Cardinal Burke.