(To be recited jointly on 1 June 2019 in all cathedrals,
churches, chapels in the Philippines with as many of the Catholic Faithful
present.
We have recourse to your protection, O holy Mother of God.” As
we recite the words of this antiphon with which the Church of Christ has prayed
for centuries, we find ourselves today before you, our Mother, in this Year of
Faith. We, who make up the “Body of Christ” present in our land, recite the
words of this present Act of Consecration and Entrustment, in which we gather,
first of all, the hopes and anxieties of our Filipino people, at this moment of
our history.
Mother of our people, we who rejoice in the name, “Pueblo
amante de Maria”, bayang sumisinta kay Maria– you know all our sufferings and
our hopes, you who have a mother’s awareness of all the struggles between good
and evil, between light and darkness, which afflict the world today. Mother of
our people, accept the cry which we, deeply moved by the Holy Spirit, address
directly to your heart.
Embrace, with the love of the Mother and Handmaid of the
Lord, our people and our land, which now we entrust and consecrate to you, for
we are truly concerned for the earthly and eternal destiny of every individual
among us and for all our people.
“We have recourse to your protection, o holy Mother of God;
despise not our petitions in our necessities.”
Behold, as we gather before your Immaculate Heart, we
desire, the Church of the Lord in our land, joined in heart and mind with all
our people, isang bayang Filipino, — to unite ourselves with the consecration
which, for love of us, your Son made of himself to the Father: ‘For their
sake,’ he said, ‘I consecrate myself that they also may be consecrated in the
truth’ [John 17: 19]. We wish to unite ourselves with our Redeemer in this
consecration for the world and for the entire human race, which, in his divine
Heart, has the power to obtain pardon and to secure reparation.
The power of this consecration by your Son, Our Lord, lasts
for all time and embraces all individuals, peoples and nations. Thus also it
embraces our people and our land. The power of this consecration overcomes
every evil that the spirit of darkness is able to awaken, and has in fact
awakened in our times, in the hearts of men and women in human history.
How deeply we now feel the need for the consecration of our
people, in union with Christ Jesus himself. For the redeeming work of our
Redeemer must be shared in and by the world, and by our own people, through the
Church.
We turn to you, Mother of our Redeemer and our Mother: above
all creatures may you be blessed, — you, the Handmaid of the Lord, who in the
fullest way obeyed the divine call. Hail to you, who are wholly united to the
redeeming consecration of your Son.
Mother of the Church! Enlighten the People of God along the
paths of faith, hope and love! Help us to live in the truth of the consecration
offered by Jesus your Son for the entire human family, and for us, the Filipino
people and for our beloved land.
In entrusting to you, O Mother, our people, your “Pueblo
amante de Maria,” we entrust to you this very consecration itself, placing it
in your motherly Heart.
Immaculate Heart! Help us to conquer the threat of evil,
which so easily enters and takes root in the hearts of people today, and whose
immeasurable effects already weigh down upon our country, and seem to block the
paths toward the future!
From hatred, violence, conflicts which divide and destroy our people, deliver us.
From sins against human life, from its very beginning, deliver us.
From the demeaning of the dignity of the children of God, deliver us.
From every kind of injustice in the life of society, deliver us.
From readiness to trample on the commandments of God, deliver us.
From the loss of awareness of good and evil, deliver us.
From sins against the Holy Spirit, deliver us.
Accept, O Mother of Christ, this cry, laden with, the hopes
and burdens, the sufferings of each one of us, and of all our people. Help us,
with the power of the Holy Spirit, to overcome and conquer all sin: individual
sins, ‘social sins’ and ‘the sin of the world’, — sin in all its
manifestations.
Let there be revealed once more, in our own history as a
people, the infinite power of the Redemption, the power of God’s merciful Love!
May it destroy the power of sin and evil among us! May it transform
consciences! May it change hearts to the likeness of the Heart of Jesus, and
your own heart! May your Immaculate Heart reveal for all, in our land and through
all the world, the light of hope! O Mary, Mother of Jesus and our Mother, our
life, our sweetness and our hope! Amen.
* (Adapted for our “National/Philippine Act of Consecration/Entrustment to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.” Shortened and directed to our present context, from the “official act of consecration” written by Saint John Paul II himself for 25 March 1985, Feast of the Annunciation. It was meant to be offered by himself and all the bishops of the Catholic Church. Our Philippine hierarchy, led by Cardinals Jaime Sin of Manila and Ricardo Vidal of Cebu, in the name of all of us in the Church in the Philippines, took official part in this solemn act of offering. Fr. C. Arevalo, SJ.).
