Denver, Colo., Jun 13, 2017 / 11:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On June 13, the Fellowship of Catholic University Students will consecrate its mission to the Virgin Mary in perpetuity.
The perpetual consecration will be live-streamed on the organization’s Facebook page.
It will take place during Mass at the Oratory of Ave Maria University in Florida, where FOCUS will be holding its new staff training.
June 13 marks the centenary of the second Marian apparition at Fatima. In that vision, Fatima seer Sister Lucia said, the Virgin Mary told her, “Jesus wishes to make use of you to make me known and loved. He wants to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart.”
“It was the natural thing to do,” Curtis Martin, the organization’s founder and chief executive officer, told CNA. “We at FOCUS have always had a deep devotion to Our Lady.”
“Since its founding, FOCUS has attracted staff, missionaries and students who have a devotion to the Blessed Mother, which has been cultivated during their time with FOCUS. Marian devotion is simply part-and-parcel of being Catholic, so it is part-and-parcel of FOCUS.”
FOCUS, headquartered in Colorado, has grown to nearly 600 missionaries on 125 campuses since 1998.
“God has allowed our efforts to be fruitful, and we are seeking the grace for deeper sanctification of the individual missionary or staff member and the special blessing of their missionary work by petitioning Our Lady for assistance,” Martin said.
FOCUS plans to renew the consecration each year on June 13 and on December 12, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Martin said he wanted to make sure the organization does not see the consecration as a once-a-year event. Rather, FOCUS is encouraging its staff and missionaries to live the consecration throughout the year.
In 2016 the organization consecrated its efforts to Our Lady of Guadalupe for a year while discerning more deeply what the Virgin Mary and Christ desired.
“Ultimately, we discerned that Our Lady’s call at Fatima was still for our time and for us,” Martin said.
The prayers will consecrate FOCUS “to Jesus through Mary, petitioning especially the graces offered at Fatima and Guadalupe.”
Martin said the wording recognizes that the consecration ultimately is to Christ though his Mother.
“It also emphasizes our need for the totality of her help, while recognizing that FOCUS as an apostolate is especially in need of particular graces,” he added.
Martin sees Our Lady of Fatima as representing a focus on a missionary’s interior life, while Our Lady of Guadalupe represents a focus on the exterior life.
“Both are directed toward the same end: the salvation of souls through the fulfillment of the Great Commission to know Jesus Christ and make disciples of all nations,” he said.
He cited Our Lady of Fatima’s request to pray, especially the rosary and devotions to the Sacred Heart, as well as her encouragement to make sacrifices for souls. He said devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe is an opportunity to pray for spiritual fruitfulness, given her precedent of inspiring the conversion of 10 million people.
Martin said he has a particular devotion to Our Lady of Fatima, saying she “played an instrumental role in breathing new life into my dead faith.”
He said FOCUS reaches out to students “at a pivotal time in their lives” when they face the pressures of contemporary campus life.
“We share the gospel of Christ’s love, the truth of the Catholic faith and our very selves to help reach the world for Christ through our families, vocations and parishes,” he said.
An earlier version of this article was originally published May 9, 2017.
Article Archive
Watch as FOCUS consecrates its ministry to Jesus through Mary
Related Articles • More Articles
Outer details of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Chicago. / Credit: Eric Allix RogersCNA Staff, May 15, 2024 / 12:12 pm (CNA).Catholics and city preservationists in Chicago are scrambling to try to preserve a historic parish on the city's North Side, one that has survived a century of the city's development including being fully moved to a new location after it was first built. Our Lady of Lourdes Parish will hold its final Mass on Sunday, May 19, before the parish merges with nearby St. Mary of the Lake. The consolidation is part of the Archdiocese of Chicago's ongoing "Renew My Church" initiative that has closed and merged dozens of parishes in order to address shrinking budgets and priest shortages. The archdiocese announced the Lourdes parish merger in 2021. Katerina Garcia, the president of the Our Lady of Lourdes Church Preservation Society, told "EWTN News Nightly" anchor Tracy Sabol this week that parishioners at the parish dispute ...
Cardinal Stephen Chow Sau-yan, SJ, archbishop of Hong Kong, China. / Credit: Daniel IbáñezRome Newsroom, May 15, 2024 / 14:17 pm (CNA).Cardinal Stephen Chow recently visited three Catholic dioceses in mainland China, one year after the bishop of Hong Kong's first historic trip to Beijing.Chow led a 10-person delegation of Catholics from Hong Kong to the southern Chinese cities of Guangzhou, Shantou, and Shenzhen in April in his second official visit to China since becoming bishop of Hong Kong."We brought our people to have an encounter … where we share common concerns, for example, youth ministry, catechism, marriage and family," Chow said in a video interview published May 5.Here is a look at some of the Catholic communities Chow visited:St. Joseph's Cathedral in ShantouSt. Joseph's Cathedral in Shantou, China. Credit: Kc1446 at Chinese Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia CommonsHundreds of Chinese Catholics attended a Mass in St. Joseph's Cathedral in Shantou concelebrated...
Stained-glass window at the Cathedral Basilica in St. Louis. / Credit: Ella Manthey/ShutterstockSt. Louis, Mo., May 15, 2024 / 14:47 pm (CNA).Two St. Louis parishes that appealed to the Vatican after Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski ordered them to merge last year have had their appeals upheld by the Holy See, reversing the archbishop's prior decision.As part of the archdiocese's major pastoral planning initiative dubbed "All Things New," Rozanski announced a year ago that the number of parishes would be reduced by nearly 50 by way of parish mergers and closures.Under canon law, a diocesan bishop has the authority to alter parishes, but only for a just reason specific to each parish. Concern for souls must be the principal motivation for modifying a parish.Amid the All Things New process, a number of parishes announced their intention to send appeals to the Vatican, putting aspects of the mergers planned for the parishes on hold until the Dicastery for the Clergy's rulings. Af...