Most of us here follow to some degree the spirituality of St. Louis de Montfort’s “true devotion” to Our Lady.* Our community received this impetus from all of our founders: Catherine Doherty, Fr. Eddie Doherty, Fr. John Callahan (who first brought the idea of consecration to Jesus through Mary to MH), Fr. Gene Cullinane, and many others.

We are all consecrated to her, usually making an official act of consecration at some early point in our apostolic journey.

This “consecration to Jesus through Mary” is so much a part of the fabric of our lives that it almost disappears into an identification with everyday life itself. Life, very simply, is about “being a child of Our Lady of Combermere.” It is she—Our Lady of Combermere—who is the focal point for us of the consecration.

When you look into her face, you have a full teaching about MH spirituality, the total consecration, God’s solution to modern problems, and Our Lady’s answer to the cries of her children. It is all contained in a glance.

Madonna House spirituality is something quite a few of our friends are interested in. It is one reason that they read Restoration and buy our books!

Our Lady of Combermere is a perfect resumé of that spirituality: the impetus for her life is entirely from God, moved by the winds of the Spirit. The focus of her gaze is entirely on Christ, who is hidden away in Nazareth and in the suffering of the poor.

A few years ago a group of Inuit young adults visited us from Nunavut in faraway northern Canada. (They were attending a conference in Ottawa, only a 2½ hour drive from here.)

We divided our 60 visitors into three groups of 20 each, and set up three “stations” where designated staff would give a presentation. My station was the statue of Our Lady of Combermere. I told them the story of her coming here and about the blessings she brings to her little ones who seek her in faith.

“Tell her your problems,” I said. “She sees you and will help you.”

The young men and women looked at her face with great intensity. Then began their litany of concerns—sicknesses, family difficulties, cries of pain and longing.

I had only to stand back and let Our Lady minister to her children. The Presence of compassion and peace during that time was like a visitation from heaven itself.

As one young woman commented: “I’ve never experienced anything like that before. The presence of love was overwhelming to me.”

I then blessed each one with oil, and they went on to their next station.

Learning from her, contemplating her, we, too, can be this presence of mercy and healing for others in our daily lives. There are only two conditions necessary for this to happen.

First, we must allow the Spirit of God to free us up from attachment to our own narrow vision of things. What if every aspect of our lives really did flow from the Father’s will?

The only way to enter into this vast vista of God’s work of salvation is to imitate Our Lady’s obedience to the Father. Everything is referred to him. Everything is for the service of the coming of Christ into this world.

There is a stillness underneath all the turmoil and noise and debris of our lives, and this stillness is Our Lady’s listening to the Father in joyous love, trust, and expectation. She teaches us that this is the most effective work we will ever do for God on this earth: to adore the Holy One, to be a child before him who receives everything.

In this stillness a whole world opens up, and this world is the kingdom of heaven and God’s current designs aimed at bringing that kingdom to our earthly land.

In many ways, our land is not receptive to that kingdom any longer. In Canada, our government has trashed the traditional definition of marriage.

God knows where the next attack will strike on his lovingly inscribed order of creation: euthanasia, polygamy, concerted persecution of the Church itself. Given the current spiritual climate, what seemed impossible a few years ago now seems almost inevitable.

At such a time, Our Lady of Combermere shows us how vital it is and will be that we enter the great silence of God. There alone we shall begin to perceive the “long view” and lose our fear of persecution, difficulties, even martyrdom itself.

What joy there is in that place of stillness! What hope! What assurance of final victory!

Mary is our sure guide into that place.

Second, with the help of Our Lady, we must with determination and certitude seek the presence of Christ in everyday life and in the suffering poor.

She teaches us to see the beauty of her Son buried in the tomb of her children’s hearts. Buried under a heap of material concerns, passions run amok, lives filled with noise, endless boring problems of ordinary living, human faults magnified to the unbearable level by endless repetition, devouring plague of cancer or AIDS, agony of abuse and its effects. And on and on.

“Do not fear!” she tells us. “Run with me to embrace my Son who lives in each one that he might rise in each one. I will show you how. I will renew you when you are exhausted and overwhelmed with it all. But go now! Do not delay! The time is short!”

It is this paradoxical combination of complete stillness before God and a running to meet Christ in the suffering that is at the heart of MH spirituality and at the heart of the consecration.

This is the only path of life for us here and for those called to share in our spirituality.

As Psalm 16 says: The path marked out for me is my delight, welcome indeed the heritage that falls to me.

Which brings me back to October and rosary. Why pray it? Why dedicate a month to it?

Very simply: the rosary is a way of entering Mary’s heart and abiding there. In her heart is the solution from God for all the disorder and nihilism of our times. In a word: Jesus awaits us in her heart—he who is way to the Father and giver of the Paraclete.

* For more information about St. Louis de Montfort’s "true devotion" and the act of consecration to Jesus through Mary, we recommend his book True Devotion to Mary and/or the audiobook The Secret of Mary—both adapted by Eddie Doherty and both available from MH Publications.

"Mary is the gate of life, the door of salvation, the way of reconciliation. Her power extends to hades as well as to heaven. She is the admirable woman through whom the elements are renewed, the nether world is healed, the demons are trodden underfoot, men are saved, and angels are restored." — St. Anselm