# Day 20 – The Covenant of Consecration with Mary
*2018-03-28*

> Bill Young reflects on the seriousness of a Marian consecration, drawing on Mother Teresa’s example and outlining the rights and duties involved in the covenant.

## Personal News and Prayer Requests

I’m excited to share that in November the Archdiocese of Miami, under Archbishop Thomas Wenski, will travel to Rome for a pilgrimage. I hope we’ll get a personal audience with the Pope. I’m also serving as vice‑president of the Ariel Cancer Foundation, which is planning a fundraiser in June in New Jersey. Please pray for my family as I discern whether we should undertake the $8,000 trip.

## Understanding the Covenant

Yesterday we began preparing for our Marian consecration by recalling the many blessings Mary pours on us. Today we shift focus to the seriousness of the covenant itself. Mother Teresa took her own consecration to Mary very seriously, rooted in the Albanian concept of *besa*—a word that means faith, honor, and keeping one’s promise. *Besa* is more than a simple oath; it is a sacred bond that one would keep even under threat of death.

A covenant differs from a contract. As Scott Hahn explains, a contract exchanges property—"this is yours, that is mine." A covenant, however, exchanges persons: "I am yours, you are mine." It creates a relational bond with mutual rights and obligations. In marriage, for example, spouses have the right to love one another and the duty to support each other in good times and in bad.

## Mother Teresa’s 12 Rights and Duties

Inspired by Mother Teresa, Father Joseph Langford, MC, listed twelve corresponding rights and duties that define the Marian covenant:
1. Mary’s duty: give her spirit and heart; our duty: give all that we are.
2. Mary’s duty: possess, protect, and transform us; our duty: total dependence on her.
3. Mary’s duty: inspire, guide, and enlighten us; our duty: respond to her spirit.
4. Mary’s duty: share her experience of prayer and praise; our duty: pray faithfully.
5. Mary’s duty: be responsible for our sanctification; our duty: trust in her direction.
6. Mary’s duty: be responsible for all that befalls us; our duty: accept everything as coming from her.
7. Mary’s duty: share her virtues; our duty: intimate her spirit.
8. Mary’s duty: provide for our spiritual and material needs; our duty: consent our resources to her.
9. Mary’s duty: unite with our hearts; our duty: remember her presence.
10. Mary’s duty: purify us and our actions; our duty: practice purity of attention and self‑denial.
11. Mary’s duty: dispose us to her purpose; our duty: add ourselves to her mission for the Kingdom.
12. Mary’s duty: grant us total freedom according to her will; our duty: enter her heart and share her interior life.

These points remind us that a Marian covenant is a living relationship, not a mere ritual.

## Today's Prayer

Come, Holy Spirit, living in Mary, help me make my covenant with her. Amen.

*A true Marian consecration is a covenant of love, with mutual rights and duties, modeled on Mother Teresa’s deep fidelity to Mary.*