Joe Valentic
Co-founder and President

Joe Valentic is the co-founder and acting President of the apostolate.   He co-founded the apostolate with his wife after a series of providential events (see Founding Story) 19 years ago as we small family apostolate.  Joe is a business owner and author.  He has over 30 years of business experience including, financial services, non-profits, and Catholic apostolates.  He has served served in multiple executive and board leadership roles for Catholic and Pro-life organizations.   He currently serves in a voluntary capacity as Chairman of the Board of Alliance Catholic Credit Union.  

In addition to his extensive business and Catholic apostolate experience, Joe has a passion for sharing the faith and helping people to integrate faith into all areas of life.  He is currently working on publishing a book on the integration of the pursuit of sainthood and success in our business vocation.  He has a particular passion for Our Lady and the Holy Eucharist.  He has shared a personal story below about the intersection of these two passions and the connection with this apostolate. 

​

Joe is blessed to be married for 32 years.  He and his wife have 7 children with them and two with the Lord.  They also have 4 grandchildren.  They live in Metro Detroit and have been blessed to participate in multiple parishes in their lives.  

PERSONAL REFLECTION ON OUR LADY, THE EUCHARIST, AND THE APOSTOLATE 

 By Joe Valentic

​

When I completed my consecration to Mary, according to the method of St. Louis De Montfort, I had only recently made the faith my own.  I completed the consecration with two dear friends on the Feast of the Assumption almost 22 years ago.  While reading St. Louis De Montfort's book, True Devotion to Mary, in preparation for the consecration, I was really struck by a particular admonition of St. Louis.  He said that when you embark on the process, you should not be seeking any form of spiritual consolation or emotional experience.  He explained that you should not seek these because that is not the purpose of the consecration.  You are doing this because it is the best way to honor our Lady and our Lord.  So I set my mind like flint not to expect any consolations, and also guarded myself to temptations during the 33 days of preparation. 

 
When the day finally came to complete the consecration I was doing really well with keeping the focus on the Blessed Mother and Jesus.  We went through the required steps to complete the consecration.  While I certainly felt good about doing it and generally at peace, there were no major  spiritual consolations or experiences.  I was pleased with this and myself.

After the consecration, we joined the parish’s festival that was in progress and had a meal.  Following the meal, my friends suggested going to Benediction of the Eucharist being held outdoors at the grotto of Our Lady.  I had never been to Benediction in my life and was very intrigued.

When my friends and I attended the Benediction we chose spots right on the path where the priest would walk so we could be near the Lord as He passed by.  Now remember, at this point, I had fully resolved my self that this was not going to be about how I felt or special consolations.  I approached this as one more step in the process to honor the Lord, simply because it was right.  

As my friends and I got positioned along the path, we ended up together in a little pocket by ourselves, and no one was really close to us.  As the priest brought our Lord toward us in the monstrance, we prostrated ourselves in front of Him.  The priest came to us raised the monstrance and blessed the three of us.  I was in the middle of my friends and he had stopped just to the left of me by only a couple inches.  As he was blessing us, all of a sudden, a phrase popped into my head from the gospels: “Lord, if I could but touch the hem of your garment I know I would be healed”.  Just as the priest blessed us, I said this to myself not knowing why.  

As I was finishing the words, the priest side stepped the couple inches to get right in front of me and began to bless me again.  As he blessed me, the hem of the humeral (vestment) that he was using to hold the monstrance, draped over my head.  As the “hem of the garment touched me”, I felt the presence of God like never before and never since.  It was incredible and indescribable.  

I did not understand why this had happened at the time.  I immediately let my pride convince me that the Blessed Mother was giving me a special favor because I fervently held off on looking for consolations during the process of consecration.  I completely missed what she was really telling me.  It would not be until a couple years later, as we were founding Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament apostolate, that I would be strongly called back to that moment and led to understand its true meaning. 

I was listening to Catholic radio and the woman being interviewed shared that when she receives the Eucharist she likes to pray, "Lord if I could but touch the hem of your garment, I know I would be healed."  The moment I heard this I was immediately brought back to the day of my consecration and my encounter with the Eucharist and the hem of the garment holding it.

Humbled and slightly embarrassed, I realized that experience was not an “atta boy” from Mary.  She was trying to show me where she was going to take me, to her Son in the Holy Eucharist.  Reflecting more on this now, I wonder if she was also showing me the ultimate purpose of Total Consecration - total union with Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament.

Fast forward almost 22 years later, to last year.  I was coming out of mass, contemplating the Eucharist, when a friend texted me a magazine that had this headline: "The Eucharist - The Source and Summit of our Life".  The moment I saw it was viscerally swept back to the day of my consecration, and the hem of the garment touching me, and the strong sense that Mary was reminding me this is where she we was directing me through the consecration.  

In recent months, while reflecting on trying to learn more about how to better live Total Consecration interiorly, I found a wonderful MontFort Fathers priest talking on living True Devotion.  The very first talk I listened to he shared that this reflection on the idea that once consecrated we must do everything through, with, in and for Mary.  "Why is this language so familiar to us?" He answers that it is familiar because it shares comparable form to the Great Doxology in Mass "through Him, with Him, In Him....".  Fr. Hugh then goes on to say that this correlation is no accident.  The real fulfillment of our Total Consecration to Mary is for us to do everything, through, with, in and for Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, for the honor and Glory of God the Father.  Through consecration to Mary, our lives should become a living doxology of the Holy Eucharist.  This makes the title Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament even more poignant and necessary for True Devotion to Mary and  our Lord in the Holy Eucharist.  

I do not share these things to bring attention to myself or claim any special favor.  Having said that, these experiences are as real to me as the words I am writing.  I take no pride in myself, but only confidence that Our Lady was showing me that she is inextricably connected with the Holy Eucharist and her title of Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament is not just a beautiful title, but profoundly important for out time and mission. 

Harkening back to St. John Bosco's vision, it was the combination of the Eucharist and Our Lady, that were the pillars to which the Church lashed herself to survive the attacks from within and without.  We believe that the Church will not be able to restore faith in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, nor help people make it the Source and Summit of their life, without the intercession of Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament. 

For such a time as this, Mary has come to us under this title, to lead us  into the fullness of the mystery of the Holy Eucharist.  She has come to us under this beautiful title to to show us where she is leading us while on this earthly journey.  Only she can help us to come to full understanding of how to know, believe, and love Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament.  Only through her intercession will the Church receive the graces needed to help restore faith in the August Sacrament within the Church.  It is only through her mediation of graces that we will be able to make the Eucharist truly the source, the love and the summit of our lives, and of the Church.   

It is my deep prayer and hope that Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament will intercede in the mission of this apostolate.  May she help us to share the true teachings throughout the world.  May she help to make the Blessed Sacrament Chaplet become a worldwide devotion, to help people focus on making Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament, the source, the love and the summit of their lives, thus bringing about his Eucharistic reign.       

​

​