#Lent begins tomorrow. Last year, I had a clear objective at Lent to prepare myself for the Sacrament of Confirmation. This year, I was wondering what I should do when I saw an article on the Behold 2020 devotion.
My favourite part of mass is when the priest elevates the Host above his head and says, "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the World!" My heart always jumps into my throat at that point. The realisation that I am in the presence of the Living God never fails to move me, thrill me and amaze me. So when I saw something called "Behold", it got my attention. A couple of weeks before that a friend had suggested, knowing that in the last year I have formed a very special attachment to the Blessed Virgin Mary, that I should undertake the devotional prayers of St Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort that he laid out in his book "True Devotion to Mary". He wrote the book in 1712 when he was forty years old, a few years before his death. It lay largely unread and unregarded until 1843 when it was published and then quickly translated into English by Fr William Faber. St Marie-Louis de Montfort recommends that, in order to consecrate ourselves to Jesus totally, the easiest way is to do so through His Holy Mother Mary. "Total consecration" means to renew our baptismal vows, but doing so perfectly ("totally") in the full knowledge of what they mean and what is entailed in keeping those vows.
Every day, for thirty-three days, the Saint lays out a series of prayers, contemplative questions and readings from Scripture that prepares you for this great commitment. In the busy lives we lead, finding time to pray, think and reflect let alone listen attentively to God for thirty-three days in a row is challenging. It is much easier if you are following the programme of devotion with others at the same time. So having looked at the Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary, and being slightly daunted, I was delighted to find that Behold 2020 is exactly this devotion, being carried out all over England, and that our parish in Salisbury was running a web site and offering support for anyone joining in.
We have a great web site here: https://salisburycatholics.org/behold
So tomorrow is Day 2 of the devotion and Day 1 of Lent. Thirty-two days and lots and lots of prayers to go!
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