OUR LADY OF DIVINE VOCATIONS

The Devotion to Our Lady of Divine Vocations

The devotion to Our Lady of Divine Vocations has its foundation on the Marian Apparition that St Justin Russolillo had on May 10, 1926. He was praying breviary near a hut made of straws called pagliarella. St. Justin describes it in his diary (Book of the Soul) "May 10, 1926, first day of the Rogations. It was given to me the certainty that the Blessed Trinity has given the Blessed Lady the Office of the Immediate Superior of the Society of Divine Vocations and therefore of all the offices, mansions, studies, works, spheres and everything. She is the authority of the Society. Glory and thanks to God and Mary. Therefore, the established practice of having one person always present and on guard in the room dedicated to Our Lady to honor and venerate her perpetually."

After the Marian Apparition, St Justin rushed to the rectory of St George's parish in Pianura where he used to be the parish priest. He asked Fr Luigi Diodato to prepare a room for the Superior (the Italian word - La Superiora - suggested a lady superior). Fr Luigi and other priests were shocked that they were to prepare a room for a lady who was about to become their superior. Then the saint clarified it saying, "Our Superior is the Blessed Mother." After a few days he wrote, "Our title for the Blessed Mother shall be Our Lady of Divine Vocations."

In the year 1930 the Marrucco sisters, who used to be benefactors of the Vocationary, presented a wooden statue of Our Lady to St Justin. He added a large base to it with two little statues of young seminarians in prayer. Thus the image conveys the message that the divine vocations are being protected under the mantle of Our Lady. The following year Bishop Petrone visited the Vocationary (Vocationist formation houses as well as religious houses are called Vovcationaries) in Pianura. St Justin writes, "His Excellency. the Bishop (Giuseppe Petrone) came to Pianura to visit the Vocationary. When he saw the statue given by the Marrucco sisters he said 'Our Lady of Divine Vocations' and he invoked her loudly saying: 'Our Lady of Divine Vocations, pray for us.' He then attached 50 days of partial indulgence to this invocation with the permission to print it with the date of the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, July 16. Thanks be to God!"

The Meaning of the Image

The image of Our Lady of Divine Vocations has three major parts: first, of course the graceful image of Our Lady holding the Baby Jesus in her right hand. Our Lady has her feet rooted on the globe (second part in the statue), who is the first follower of Christ and model of all those who aspire to follow Christ. Jesus says, "I have overcome the world" (Jn. 16: 33). Following in the footsteps of Jesus, Mary goes around the whole world preparing souls for God. In other words, she takes an active part in the Universal Sanctification. Third part in the image are the images of two young seminarians. They represent young vocations. The word 'young' does not necessarily mean biological age, but the period in life when someone has just received a call from Jesus. St Justin's friend Fr Fausto Mezza OSB writes, "All the graces pass through Mary, and before anything else, the grace of the ecclesiastical vocation: a) for the transcendental singularity of such a grace; b) because in it begins a system of graces that is hidden in the power and call to the priesthood and religious life; c) because if all graces pass through Mary, almost all graces pass though the priest. So Mary has an extraordinary interest in preparing worthy instruments of her generosity."

(Sources: Ludovico Caputo, Vocationist Marian Devotions, Napoli, Edizioni Vocazioniste, 2010, pp. 35 - 44; Louis Caputo, Vocationist Spirit and Life, NJ, Vocationist Editions, 2013, pp.361 - 367)

Consecration to Our Lady of Divine Vocations

Immaculate Heart of the Queen of all Saints and Mediator of all graces! O Heart of the Mother of holy Love, ever virgin and all holy Mother of God, O Immaculate Heart of Mary, Mother and Queen of Divine Vocations, I greet you and offer myself to you and I implore to be united with you.

In you, O ever virgin and all holy, Jesus was formed by the work of the Holy Spirit and yours, and in you, O dwelling and temple O sky and star, O palace and throne of God, I too want to remain forever, so that I may become what the Lord wants me to be and I must be: Lover of the Trinity, missionary of the Ascension and servant of all saints in the Church and servant of all divine vocations to life and faith, to the priesthood and to the religious state together with you, O Mary.

You are the golden house of my religious formation, O all holy and ever virgin Mary! You are my refuge and fortress against every assault of the enemy, O Mary, Davidic ivory tower. You are my school and teacher for my ascetic-mystical religious education. O Mary, seat of wisdom and mother of the incarnate Word!

O mother of divine grace, obtain for me the highest esteem for this treasure and the most diligent use of this talent, so that not only may I keep it without ever losing it, but continually increase this participation of the divine nature, which is grace.

How many graces the Lord has given me up to now, and how many others would he have given me if I had always responded well to them. I expect all of them from you, I entrust all of them to you so that you can obtain them, secure and increase them, and perfect me more and more in their correspondence! Take me. O Mary, to that fullness of grace necessary to be like Jesus and to greatly benefit souls, like you, O Mary, full of grace!

Take me, O Mary, to that fullness of charity constantly cultivated and intensely exercised with the three divine persons in the holy Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, to reach divine union, as the Lord is with you!

You who sanctified John the Baptist, to be the forerunner of Jesus, your divine Son, apply yourself to sanctify my soul, so that I may be a good servant and friend, a good minister and lover of Jesus!

You communicated to St. Joseph from your supernatural fullness so many treasures of holiness and merits, dignity and privileges, so that he might be a worthy head of the Holy Family, and Jesus, your divine Son, might grow up, make me worthy to deal with Jesus and live the life of Jesus and do the work of Jesus.

You, O Mary, form me according to Jesus in the work of the Holy Spirit, so that the Lord may live in me and I may live in the Lord for the glory of the adorable Trinity, and be object of divine preferences and complacence of Jesus, Son of God the Father and yours.

Here I am in your presence as a lost and spoiled child, without any of the kindness and merits of spiritual childhood, but with all the weaknesses and incapacities of a beginner, aggravated by personal guilt and malice. What difference O holy Mother, from your child in Bethlehem, from your child in Egypt, from your adolescent in Nazareth. I could not believe that you could love and take care of me, raise and educate me, if I did not believe in the infinite love of the Blessed Trinity that entrusts me to you and to your ineffable union, very unique with the Blessed Trinity from whom you receive me in your arms, in your maternal heart!

O Mary, O most perfect image of the Lord, O sovereign lover of the Lord, you imitate and reciprocate the Blessed Trinity forming me according to Jesus and placing me in divine hands as a good instrument of divine work, and offering me to the divine heart as a good conquest of his love. I want to be docile to you, I want to be faithful to you, O holy Mother, most worthy of every homage and obedience and veneration! I want to be docile and faithful at your school, in your home, my perennial novitiate and my divine formation.

Make me more and more dear to God, make me more and more propitious God who loves you and exalts you above every creature. Form me a great lover of the Holy Trinity, you privileged daughter of the Father, mother of the Son, spouse of the Holy Spirit!

Form me a great missionary of the Ascension of all souls following Jesus, in the grace of your elevation and assumption.

Form me a great servant of heaven and purgatory, of all bishops and religious, of all clergy and Christian people, O handmaid and mother of God!

Through your intercession I expect, O Mary, that perfect communion with the divine Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, with whom I may attain union with the Blessed Trinity!

From your formation I expect that apostolate of Catholic asceticism and mysticism and that irradiation of the religious state throughout the world, to raise it to the ascension of Jesus and your assumption.

From your imitation I expect to usefully serve all parish, diocesan and pontifical works, for the triumph of the holy Church!

From your union I expect to become an apostle of research, culture and service of all divine vocations and of the elect to the religious, priestly, holy state!

Obtain for me all those inspirations and all sorts of graces with which the divine sanctifying Spirit forms the apostolic and seraphic saints.

But he forms them in you, as he formed Jesus and, therefore, I entrust, offer and abandon myself to you, O Mary. I commit myself, O Mary, to the most faithful and docile and generous obedience of love to divine inspirations. One by one I always entrust them to you, as divine seeds to the only blessed and holy land, because as you have obtained and transmitted them to me, you will also keep them for me, so that no one will be lost, no one remains without my correspondence. Grant that each inspiration may produce its flower and fruit of the Holy Spirit, and my whole life, work and person be like Jesus: Blessed fruit of the Holy Spirit and yours, O Mary, to the glory of love of the Blessed Trinity in the Father. Amen.

Pope Paul VI writes... 

"So, Venerable Brothers, let our prayers ascend to Mary in this month of hers, to implore her graces and favors with increased fervor and confidence. And if the grave faults of men weigh heavy in the scales of God's justice and provoke its just punishments, we also know that the Lord is 'the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort' (2Cor. 1: 3), and that Mary most holy is His appointed steward and the generous bestower of the treasures of His mercy."

(Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Pope Paul VI on The Month of Mary, from 17 Papal Documents on the Rosary, Boston, St Paul Editions, 1980, p. 20)

"The only grace I beg you to obtain for me is that every day and every moment of my life I may say “Amen; so be it”—to all that you did while on earth; “Amen; so be it”—to all that you are now doing in Heaven; “Amen; so be it”—to all that you are doing in my soul, so that you alone may fully glorify Jesus in me for time and eternity. Amen."

(St Louis M. de Montfort)