"This is thy dowry, sweet Virgin; do thou rule over it, O Mary!" (pg. 14)

The Book of life explains the traditional understanding of a dowry and how England was 'set aside' by King Richard ii as such a gift to Our Lady, making us all heirs to this legacy of being dedicated to her in a special way.  He claimed our Lady as heavenly queen in the hearts of the people too in exchange, giving us the opportunity to claim in our turn, a special place in her heart.  Only in very few places on earth is the Hail Mary included in the Prayer of the Faithful at every Mass, as a sign of our place in her heart as her dowry.

This exchange is translated beautifully in terms of the Divine Will.  We can explore the deeper ideas around the Divine will of God later in the book but here there's a gentle introduction to what God means to give us, through looking at Our Lady and seeing what she can help us to understand in that important line of the Our Father, 'Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven'.

While claiming Our Lady as heavenly queen and protector of our land, we can ask her to do the same in our lives too, as the Book of Life says, we can: "ask Our Lady to rule over our minds, hearts, wills and bodies so that we offer ourselves in union with her to God... through Mary, we offer our human will (our dowry) as a gift to the Lord God, in exchange for his Divine Will." (pg. 14)  His Divine Will is His kingdom He wishes to share with us, so it becomes such a natural part of our life as it is to God Himself.

If we live with that attitude of mind and heart as being someone 'set aside' as a gift to Our Lady (as St. John Paul ii considered himself entirely consecrated to her - 'Totus Tuus' all yours), as actually forming part of her physical dowry, we will be embarking more fully on the journey to living in the Divine Will and offering our own will to the Father.  

By saying our 'fiat' in the little things of every day, with an attitude of not belonging just to ourselves but set aside for Our Lady to offer to God's Holy Will, we are firmly on the royal road first trodden to Walsingham a six hundred years ago.