Consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary on the Solemnity of the Annunciation of Our Lord (March 25)
Earlier this month, Frank Cardinal Leo, Metropolitan Archbishop of Toronto invited the Catholic community to participate in the Archdiocesan Consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary, taking place on Tuesday, March 25, the Solemnity of the Annunciation of Our Lord.
Below you will find the letter from His Eminence, along with helpful resources that can be used to participate in this communal and ecclesial time of prayer.
5 March 2025
To the Catholic Community across the Archdiocese of Toronto:
Clergy, Consecrated, Laity, Families, School leaders and other Communities of faith,
Dear Brothers and Sisters in the Lord,
May Jesus and Mary be in your soul.
We are in the midst of celebrating a Holy Year which will undoubtedly be a time of spiritual and community renewal. In the great family of God, the Church, Bride of Christ and Mystical Body, we are united by deep and life-giving bonds of faith. Though differing in vocations, charisms and ministries, each member is in profound communion with others and together with the citizens of Heaven under the lordship of Christ, our Eternal High Priest and Sovereign King.
In considering the mystery and sacramentality of the Church, we know very well - as it is taught clearly by the Church’s Magisterium in Vatican II’s Constitution Lumen Gentium (53-54) - the model par excellence of the Church, her pre-eminent and unique member, her most excellent exemplar, her most exalted type and indeed loving mother is the Blessed ever Virgin Mary. This is the faith of the Church and we rejoice in it. As was the wish of the crucified and dying Lord Jesus who entrusted the Beloved Disciple to Our Lady and Our Lady to the Beloved Disciple (John 19: 25-27), so we too are called by Christ to welcome his Mother as our mother and to create space for her in our spiritual home, our faith, our community, our family, our life. Furthermore, back in March 22, 2023, our Holy Father had requested that we make and renew annually our total consecration to Her.
Given that the Consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary is deemed a unique and grace-filled opportunity in which our Catholic archdiocesan family can gather together, in different ways, and in prayer and devotion, to entrust all that we are and all that we have, our joys and our sorrows, our dreams and our plans into her Immaculate Heart and through her, to Jesus – our Lord and Saviour, we shall make this beautiful act of Catholic devotion and spirituality on 25 March 2025, Solemnity of the Annunciation of Our Lord.
In his Bull of Indiction for the Holy Year Jubilee, Spes non Confundit, 24, Pope Francis wrote:
Hope finds its supreme witness in the Mother of God. In the Blessed Virgin, we see that hope is not naive optimism but a gift of grace amid the realities of life. Like every mother, whenever Mary looked at her Son, she thought of his future. Surely, she kept pondering in her heart the words spoken to her in the Temple by the elderly Simeon: “This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed, so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too” (Lk 2:34-35). At the foot of the cross, she witnessed the passion and death of Jesus, her innocent son. Overwhelmed with grief, she nonetheless renewed her “fiat”, never abandoning her hope and trust in God. In this way, Mary cooperated for our sake in the fulfilment of all that her Son had foretold in announcing that he would have to “undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again” (Mk 8:31). In the travail of that sorrow, offered in love, Mary became our Mother, the Mother of Hope. It is not by chance that popular piety continues to invoke the Blessed Virgin as Stella Maris, a title that bespeaks the sure hope that, amid the tempests of this life, the Mother of God comes to our aid, sustains us and encourages us to persevere in hope and trust…I am confident that everyone, especially the suffering and those most in need, will come to know the closeness of Mary, the most affectionate of mothers, who never abandons her children and who, for the holy people of God, is “a sign of certain hope and comfort”.
In addition, the Office of Formation for Discipleship has developed the following resources to assist parishes, schools, institutes of consecrated life, families, ecclesial movements & associations and other communities of faith. The resources consist of three documents:
- A Marian Triduum (three-day preparation before the Consecration);
- The Ritual of Consecration;
- A Resource document with more information, FAQ and links to useful articles and complementary activities.
Please note that you may choose to pick one or other of the prayers and readings found therein; one is not obliged to use all of the materials provided. Please adapt appropriately to your local reality. Feel free to copy and paste parts of the ritual and the Marian triduum for your own family and community’s use and needs. The Consecration may take place in a parish church at the conclusion of Holy Mass, for example, or at another time as a part of some other expression of prayer be it at home, school or any other community gathering.
Accordingly, in profound communion with one another as members of the Body of Christ, I invite you to join me in our archdiocesan Consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary – a beautiful act of ecclesial and personal faith. Guided by the Spirit of unity and accompanied on our journey by Mother Mary’s maternal mediation in Christ, we shall enjoy abundant divine consolations, be empowered with gifts from on High, and we shall truly be, with Our Lady, Pilgrims of Hope to the world.
Sincerely Yours in Jesus with Mary,
Frank Cardinal Leo
Metropolitan Archbishop of Toronto
