Living the consecration and walking with Mary in San Francisco
By Mary Powers
The Archdiocese of San Francisco held its annual Rosary Rally on Saturday, October 7. The day fell on the first Saturday, a special day dedicated to Our Lady each month, and also on the memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary.
“Our annual Rosary Rally which we celebrate on this first Saturday of October happens to fall this year on the actual memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary,” said Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone. “This is a blessing for us, especially when we consider the last time this happened in the year 2017 (six years ago), which was also close to the day of the 100th anniversary of Our Lady’s apparition to the three shepherd children in Fatima. It was also the day that, in response to the request of some of our parishioners in the Archdiocese, I consecrated our Archdiocese to her Immaculate Heart.”
The event included Mass at the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption celebrated by Archbishop Cordileone, followed by a Eucharistic procession down Gough Street and Golden Gate Street to St. Boniface Catholic Church, where the group prayed the Rosary outside the church and then went into St. Boniface for Benediction. This year, St. Anthony Foundation opened their doors for light refreshments following the event.
In his homily, Archbishop reminded the faithful that Mary walks with us, just as she walked with her Son and the apostles in the upper room after the Ascension “to bring her healing to the suffering and reveal herself as the Immaculate Conception.”
“This is our Mother. She walks with us, because she walks with God,” Archbishop Cordileone said, “She walks with God so intimately that she finds favor in His sight. ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God’ – the words with which the Archangel Gabriel greets her when he brings her the news that she is to be the mother of God’s Son….And so she continues to accompany us, her children, today, as she has from the very beginning–to comfort us, protect us, and also to warn us. The message she delivered at Fatima 106 years ago is consistent with what she always asks of her children: to turn to her Son in order to avert calamities, disasters and untold suffering through prayer, fasting, and adoration. He, her Son, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, is the answer.”
Archbishop Cordileone consecrated the Archdiocese to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on October 7, 2017. The purpose of the consecration was to rededicate ourselves to responding to God’s call to holiness in our lives by living our vocations faithfully and well and opening our minds and hearts to God’s grace through the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary, Mother of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
In consecrating the Archdiocese to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Archbishop Cordileone encouraged the faithful in the Archdiocese to regularly observe practices of prayer, penance, and adoration by praying the Rosary every day and at least once a week as a family, receiving the Sacrament of Penance in confession regularly (at least once a month) and observing Fridays, the day of our Lord’s death, as a day of penance by abstaining from meat, by doing some other form of fasting or work of charity, and praying before the Blessed Sacrament for one hour each week.
“At this critical time in the history of the world and our Church,” Archbishop Cordileone wrote in 2017, “we need to avail ourselves of the spiritual resources at our disposition, to plead for God’s mercy upon us, and to ask for the grace of authentic renewal in our lives as His disciples.”
Learn more about the consecration at: www.sfarch.org/consecration
Photos by Dennis Callahan and Francisco Valdez