By Mary Powers
On the memorial of the Queenship of Mary, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone, chancellor of St. Patrick’s Seminary & University, consecrated the institution to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The consecration was in response to President and Rector Father Mark Doherty’s request from a group of seminarians who have been praying for the consecration.
This consecration was a renewal of the consecration of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, originally made by the archbishop in 2017 on the 100th anniversary of Our Lady’s apparitions at Fatima. It also served as a personal appropriation in the institutional life of the Seminary and in the life of each individual of the Seminary community.
Echoing his call to the faithful of the Archdiocese, Archbishop Cordileone asked the Seminary community to pray the rosary daily, adding penance to their lives such as fasting on Fridays throughout the year, availing themselves of the Sacrament of Penance, and spending time in Eucharistic Adoration. Living the consecration comes with a promise,” said the archbishop. As Our Lady said at Fatima, “In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph.”
Three years ago, Deacon Scott Vincent Borba (Fresno), Joshua Lesan (Stockton), and Josue Montoya (Stockton) began a rosary walk on the Seminary campus, finishing at the statue of Our Lady of Fatima. Initially, it was the three of them. In time, more seminarians and faculty joined them.
After the seminary’s pilgrimage to the apparition site in Medjugorje in September 2022 and inspired by his own consecration he made in high school, Lesan began to investigate whether the Seminary had been formally consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. He eventually asked Seminary Father Doherty if the Seminary could be consecrated.
In February, Father Doherty approached the archbishop with the request, and he agreed. The date for the consecration was set for the memorial of the Queenship of Mary and the launch of the new academic year.
In addition to the rosary walks organized by the seminarians, they have also organized first Saturday devotions on campus. Earlier this year, many seminarians joined together for a 33-day preparation and spiritual commitment to make St. Louis Marie de Montfort’s Consecration to Jesus through Mary, which ended on March 25, the solemnity of the Annunciation.
This special devotion to Our Lady is not unique to St. Patrick’s. Across the country, data reveals the important role Mary is having on ecclesial vocations.
In July, a national study from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University found that Mary had a deep impact on vocations in the Church. The 1,091 study respondents included diocesan bishops, diocesan priests, religious men and women, permanent deacons, and other vocations in the Church. The study showed that Our Lady had a “meaningful impact” or “great impact” on the respondents’ original sense of vocation (59%), and that more than 70% said that praying the rosary privately was the most popular devotion while discerning.
“Drawing close to Our Lady means drawing close to her Immaculate Heart,” said Father Mark Doherty, president and rector of St. Patrick’s Seminary & University. “As we do so, our hearts become more pure and generous, qualities that are essential not only to making a good discernment but also to making and keeping a commitment to serve the Church.”
As with the archdiocesan consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the next step is to live out the consecration.
“I think this idea of living the consecration is not transactional,” said Archbishop Cordileone. “God will work things out in His plan if we’re open to His graces. We can’t program how God’s going to do it, but if we stay with the plan, it eventually will work out the way God means it to for our own good.”
Father Mark Doherty says that he has seem the correlation between the seminary’s deep devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and the fervor of the seminarians in evangelization and building the kingdom of God.
“Allowing our Lady to shape our hearts means, among other things, allowing her to share her zeal for her Son’s kingdom with us,” said Father Mark Doherty. “There is a direct correlation between the depth and breadth of our seminary community’s devotion to our Lady and the zeal for the kingdom that one can feel reverberating throughout the house.”
Read Archbishop Cordileone’s homily from the consecration Mass: https://sfarch.org/three-requests-and-a-promise/
Learn more about St. Patrick’s Seminary & University at https://stpsu.edu/
Photos: Ramón Camacho
