In Honor of Our Lady, Queen of the May, we are beginning St. Louis de Monfort’s traditional 33-day Preparation to Total Consecration to Our Lady, and we invite all members of our Catholic Holy Hour initiative to join us in this Consecration. For those who come to this page who are members of the First Thursday Club, who are not familiar with the Gethsemane Institute: we are a non-for-profit organization that helps support Catholic Holy Hour in its spiritual, educational, and charitable initiatives honoring Jesus in Gethsemane.
And so, as a beloved Catholic Holy Hour “First Thursday of the Month Club” member, you are cordially invited to join us on our Consecration Journey! Please know we’ll be praying for you and we ask that you remember the mission of the Gethsemane Institute and Catholic Holy Hour in your prayers.
❤️ This is a greatly beneficial Consecration every Catholic should make at least once in their lives and it’s also very fruitful to repeat the Consecration even if you’ve made it before.
❤️ Don’t worry if you skip or miss a day, just do the best you can – God will cherish all of your prayers.
❤️ Our Consecration journey will include some very important Thursdays (the day of the week which is so special to us as devotees of Gethsemane):
❤️This June marks the one-year anniversary of the founding of the Gethsemane Institute, founded as our response to the call of Our Lord given to St. Margaret Mary, asking for souls to honor the Passion of His Sacred Heart in Gethsemane. As a gift to Our Lord, we want to consecrate the Gethsemane Institute and its apostolate, Catholic Holy Hour, to His Blessed Mother.
❤️Our 33-day Preparation will culminate with a Formal Consecration on the Thursday observance of the Feast of Corpus Christi on June 4, entrusting everything we are beneath Mary’s mantle of protection. And did you know? The traditional Thursday observance of Corpus Christi calls to mind, even mirrors, Holy Thursday, when Jesus instituted the Eucharist. Catholic Holy Hour was founded three years ago, on Holy Thursday, and the entire mission of Catholic Holy Hour and Gethsemane Institute is to adore and console Christ in His Holy Thursday Eucharistic Love and Sacrificial Agony. So this is truly God’s timing!
Important Dates
- May 2nd: Our 33-day Consecration begins
- May 7th: First Thursday of May
- May 14: Ascension Thursday
- May 28: Feast of Christ the Eternal High Priest
- June 4th: First Thursday and traditional Thursday observance of the Feast of Corpus Christi.
For those who are subscribed to the First Thursday Club, we will email you on the day of this formal consecration to remind you to join us in prayer that day. If you are not yet subscribed, you can do that on the Catholic Holy Hour web site!
May God bless you abundantly!
Consecration Resources
Saint Louis-Marie de Montfort: “Total Consecration to Jesus Through Mary”
This is the main resource for this Consecration, which consists of an initial 12-day preparation, followed by a period of three consecutive weeks, each week focusing on a different theme. Thus, the preparation for Consecration takes place over the 33 days.
First comes a 12-day preparation period that consists of emptying oneself of the spirit of the world in penance and mortification. For those 12 days, we pray the Veni Creator, the Ave Maris Stella, the Magnificat, and the Glory Be.
Then follow 3 weeks, each week having a specific focus:
The first week focuses on offering up our prayers and devotions for the purpose of coming to understand ourselves and our sins; humility is the key, and the prayers the Litany of the Holy Ghost, the Litany of Loreto, and the Ave Maris Stella help us.
During the second week, we ask the Holy Ghost to help us better understand the Blessed Virgin; we pray the Litany of the Holy Ghost, the Litany of Loreto, the Ave Maris Stellis, the prayer to Mary by St. Louis-Marie, and 5 decades of the Holy Rosary each day for assistance.
During the third week, we seek to better understand Christ through meditation and the Litany of the Holy Ghost, the Ave Maris Stella, and the Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus, Montfort’s prayer to Jesus, and the prayer O Jesus Living in Mary.
Some of the Days of Prayer include recommendations to read from the Imitation of Christ and True Devotion to Mary, both of which can be found below. You can either view them here, or download to your device to read to it offline.
