Totus Tuus
Totus tuus ego sum et omnia mea tua sunt. Accipio te in mea omnia.
I am all yours, and everything that I have is yours. I take you for my all.
On what would have been his 102nd birthday, we remember the (now canonized) Pope John Paul II. Many people throughout the world remember this dynamic, charismatic figure in the history of the Church as one who brought the radiant face of Jesus Christ to a growing secular and consumeristic world devoid of any notion of the transcendence of the Father’s love for His children. In a particular way, he brought men and women to a relationship with Jesus, the Son of God, by means of His Mother. This Marian devotion which shaped the saint’s interior life formed his identity as a Christian man, his priestly ministry, and his pontificate. A love for the Mother of God is focused on Christ and ultimately leads the Christian to the heights and depths of the Trinitarian life of God. In his 1987 Encyclical titled the Mother of the Redeemer (Redemptoris Mater), he reminds the world that:
“In the mystery of Christ, [Mary] is already present, even ‘before the creation of the world,’ as the one whom the Father ‘has chosen’ as Mother of his Son in the Incarnation. And, what is more, together with the Father, the Son has chosen her, entrusting her eternally to the Spirit of holiness...” (RM, 8)
From the hellacious effects of the Second World War, the world was left without hope. From the beginning of his life and his priestly ministry, John Paul II had a great devotion to the Blessed Mother under the title of Our Lady of Czestochowa. After taking inspiration from the Maltese secular Carmelite, Fr. George Preca, he brought to light the five Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary as a means to contemplate Christ’s public ministry between his Baptism and His Passion. One year after an attempt on his life, John Paul II took the bullet aimed at his abdomen, traveled to Portugal, and, as a gesture of gratitude to the Mother of God whose hand he believed had moved the bullet inches away from his heart in order to spare his life, placed it in the crown of the statue of Our Lady of Fatima.
Mary has always and will forever stand, not as a hindrance to, but as the exemplar of one enraptured by the indwelling of the Trinity. Since the very moment of the Incarnation, she gave of herself to God with the full submission of intellect and will. She shows us how to dispose ourselves and cooperate with the grace freely given by God in order to conform our own intellect and will to His. In the Temple, at Cana, and at Golgotha, Mary has continually stood as a sign to the world that in the midst of joys, sorrows, and resplendent glory, we are truly seen, known, and loved by a God who desires us to know and love Him in this life and in the life of the Trinity. May we follow John Paul II’s example and pray:
Totus tuus ego sum et omnia mea tua sunt. Accipio te in mea omnia.
I am all yours, and everything that I have is yours. I take you for my all.
Br. Jose Maria Barrero , O.P. | Meet the Brothers in Formation HERE
