Mary’s Yes & Your Invitation

Isaiah 7:10–14; 8:10, Psalm 40:7–8a, 8b–9, 10, 11, Hebrews 10:4–10, Luke 1:26–38

“The Word of God became flesh and made His dwelling among us.”
John 1:14

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Annunciation, the occasion in which our Blessed Mother gave her fiat, her yes, to God and, through the angel Gabriel, Jesus Christ, the second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, God Himself, by the power of the Holy Spirit, took on flesh and came to dwell in her womb.

This is a very appropriate time to celebrate the Annunciation, as we are exactly nine months away from celebrating the birth of Jesus at Christmas.

Mary was just a young teenage girl when God sent the Angel Gabriel to her, but since she was born without the stain of Original Sin, by virtue of the Immaculate Conception, and the fact that she had lived a sinless life, she was the perfect woman to bring the Son of God into the world. She was a pure and holy vessel.

Today, the Blessed Mother is regarded as the new Eve, a woman who completely trusted and was totally obedient to God, as opposed to our first mother, who instead freely chose to defy God and committed sin by doing what He had forbidden. In addition, since Mary was carrying God in her womb when she went to visit her cousin Elizabeth, she became the Ark of the New Covenant, a living tabernacle.

These are things we know about the Blessed Mother today, but when the angel Gabriel came to her as a teenage girl with this message, this announcement from God, it wasn’t something that Mary would have ever expected to happen to her, even in her wildest dreams. Just imagine how she must have felt when this magnificent angel came to her proclaiming, “Hail, full of Grace! The Lord is with you.”

Then he told her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.”

It’s good that Gabriel told her early on not to be afraid, because she had to be shocked and scared to death by this. It’s not like this had ever happened before to anyone.

As a good Jew, she would have known the prophecy of Isaiah, that the Messiah would come into the world by being born of a virgin, but it would have been inconceivable for her to think that she would be the one, the only woman in human history chosen by God to bring His Son into the world.

She also knew that, as a teenage girl in the time she was living in, turning up pregnant wasn’t just frowned upon, it meant death. And while she was betrothed to Joseph, as she said to Gabriel, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?”

Nevertheless, with incredible faith in God, she was able to keep her wits about her, listen to the amazing, almost unbelievable message he had for her, and then have the courage and humility to proclaim, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”

As the first and greatest Christian, the Blessed Mother is the model of perfection to which we are called. Through her fiat, and the life she lived with Jesus and for Jesus, she is the example, the archetype for us of what total submission to the will of God looks like.

She is the image of courage and surrender to God that shows us that in every situation in life, in our joys and our sorrows and our triumphs and our tragedies, God is always calling us to a greater relationship with Him.

The greatest example of this is the sacrifice Jesus made for us on the cross, through which Jesus gave us the total gift of Himself. But a gift must be accepted by the recipient. It can’t be forced on anyone.

This Lenten season of prayer and penance should be a time that draws us closer to God, helping us understand that He is constantly showering down His love, mercy, and grace upon us, and He wants us to embrace these gifts and unite ourselves to Him, moving us to turn away from anything that is opposed to His will and separates us from Him, anything that would lead us to focus our lives on me, myself, and I, instead of God and neighbor.

During this last week of Lent, let us use the time God has given us wisely, reconciling ourselves with Him through the Sacrament of Confession, surrendering ourselves to the Lord, and opening our hearts to live the life of prayer, self-denial, and works of mercy that God calls all people to live, a life in which our old ways pass away and our focus moves from self to Savior, a life of happiness and holiness, not of this world but in the Lord, of which the ultimate destination is eternal life in heaven with God.