Catholic devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary is always a tough topic for Protestants, even for Protestant converts to Catholicism. One particular devotion they object to is the consecration to Mary, championed by St. Louis de Montfort. It’s often thought to smack of Mariolatry, the worship of Mary as a divine being.
Generally, the word consecration is used to express the idea that something (such as a Church or an altar) is given over to God, in the service of God. Accordingly, some think that when Catholics consecrate themselves to Mary, they’re giving their lives over to Mary as if she were God.
But this is not what’s going on.
It’s true that with the Marian consecration we’re giving our lives over to Mary, asking her to take care of us. Pope St. John Paul II expressed this idea with the term “entrustment.” Just as Jesus entrusted John into the care of Mary at the foot of the cross when he said, “Behold your Mother,” (John 19:27), so too we entrust ourselves into Mary’s care and look to her as our Mother.
After all, she is the queen mother of Jesus’ kingdom, which makes her our spiritual mother insofar as we’re citizens of that kingdom. Also, she’s revealed in Revelation 12:17 to be the mother of all “those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus”—that’s to say, Christians.
Now, by entrusting our lives over to Mary’s care, we’re not doing so as if she were our final end or goal, namely, God. We do so to achieve our end or goal, which is union with God. All Marian consecration is ordered to union with Christ, who gives us access to the Father.
It’s similar to how a restaurant owner will invest vast amounts of time and energy—give himself over, consecrate himself—to that work in order to achieve the goal of having the best possible restaurant. We entrust ourselves into Mary’s loving care so that we can achieve the goal of having the best relationship with Christ possible. Again, Mary’s not the end. Devotion to her is the means of getting us to our end, which is Jesus.
So, as Catholics, we don’t need to be worried about engaging in idolatry when we do the Marian Consecration. We can entrust ourselves into Mary’s loving care because she always leads us to Jesus, and commands us, like she did at the Wedding at Cana, “do whatever he tells you.”