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1765 Regina Begin the Thirty Days

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Marian Consecration

St Louis de Montfort’s thirty-three days, planned backward from a feast of Our Lady: a reading from Scripture each day, the prayers he asks for, and his act of consecration on the feast.

What it is

A consecration to Jesus through Mary is a deliberate renewal of the promises of your baptism. St Louis de Montfort (1673–1716) called this devotion “a perfect renewal of the vows and promises of holy Baptism”: you give yourself, your days and the good you will do, to Jesus Christ, through the hands of His Mother, so that you may belong to Him more completely. Nothing is given to her in place of God. The Church uses the word “consecration” here in a broad sense: you entrust yourself to Mary so as to keep the promises of your baptism (Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy, 204). St John Paul II recalled Montfort among the teachers of this way: he proposes consecration to Christ through the hands of Mary as an effective means of living the promises of baptism faithfully (Redemptoris Mater 48). If you fall afterwards, you go to confession and keep going.

The Church is a bride and a mother, and Mary is her perfect image. A woman who gives herself to Christ through Mary learns, in her own state of life, what it is to keep the lamp burning in her home: wife or widow, mother or single, consecrated or still discerning.

How the thirty-three days work

  1. Choose your feast. Montfort names no day for the act, though he asks for a special devotion to the Incarnation on 25 March. The tool lists the next feasts of Our Lady from the Church’s calendar (the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption, Our Lady of the Rosary and others), with the feasts of the Lord she shares (the Annunciation, the Presentation), and counts thirty-three days back from each. Day one opens on its own date.
  2. The twelve days. Montfort asks for twelve days at least of emptying yourself of the spirit of the world. Each day has a reading from Scripture in the Douay-Rheims, a chapter of The Imitation of Christ, and one small practice.
  3. The three weeks. A week to know yourself, a week to know the Blessed Virgin, a week to know Jesus Christ, with the prayers Montfort names: the Litany of the Holy Ghost and the Ave Maris Stella daily, the Rosary in the second week, the Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus in the third.
  4. Consecration day. Go to confession in the days before, receive Holy Communion at Mass on the feast, and after Mass read Montfort’s act. He asks that it be written out or printed and signed the same day. The tool prints it for you.
  5. Every year. Montfort asks that it be renewed once a year at least, on the same day, after the same three weeks. The tool keeps the date and offers the renewal.

Mark each day when you have prayed it. A day can be marked on the day itself or the next (“Log yesterday”), never later, so the count of days prayed in a row stays honest. A missed day does not undo your preparation. If you have already begun with your parish or a friend, you can join on the day you are on; the days before stay unmarked.

What we never do

We print only St Louis de Montfort’s own act, word for word as his translator, F. W. Faber, gave it in 1863. The same words were printed in 1904 with a Nihil obstat and the Imprimatur of the Archbishop of Westminster; that approval belongs to the 1904 book, and 1765 Regina has no imprimatur of its own. We never write an act of consecration of our own. The short notes for each day are our own words and are labelled as such; they are not prayers.

Sources

For your husband, if you are married: 1765 Sanctum, our sister house for men.

Further reading in the Library: Marian Consecration Explained: The 33 Days · The Queenship of Mary: Why She Is Queen · Spiritual Motherhood: What the Church Teaches