What is Total Consecration to Mary?
Consecration means setting yourself aside for service to God. The Church has always advocated consecrating yourself to Jesus Christ through the Blessed Virgin Mary, the perfect model of discipleship.
From the earliest known prayer to Mary, the Sub Tuum Praesidium (c. 200) to St. John Damascene (d. 750) to St. Louis de Montfort (d. 1716), devotion to Mary and total consecration to her have ancient roots. In our times Pope John Paul II recommended an "act of entrustment" to Mary (his papal motto was an enthusiastic Totus Tuus-"Totally Yours"). St. Maximilian Kolbe adds a strong missionary dimension to Marian consecration.
Marian consecration, therefore, is no archaic spirituality but is a living and active means of advancing the Faith as a People of God. It is not just another "devotion," but is a complete spirituality, one not lightly undertaken.
In 1992 the Holy Father developed our understanding of this consecration even further. By dying for another and "consecrating his life to the lmmaculate Virgin," St. Maximilian has become, suggested the Holy Father, a "prophet and a sign of the new era, the civilization of love." St. John Paul endorsed the Kolbean example of Marian Consecration as a critical element of the "new Evangelization" for the third Christian millennium, and St. Maximilian as a primary intercessor.