Friday Reflections on the 1st Week of Advent: The offer

It’s a day before the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and as our preparation for tomorrow’s great Feast, let us reflect on some thoughts about Mary.
Let us mull over the fact that if Mary had not said yes, then the taking on of human form of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity would not be fulfilled.

Now, that does mean that because Mary said yes, we are already saved? Does that mean that it is Mary who saves us?

No!

Then what does it mean?

It simply means that salvation is not only God’s gift to us, it is also our response to God’s invitation.
In the same sense that even if Mary dreamed, in all her sleeping and walking hours to be the mother of God, but if God had not willed it, she would not be the mother of God.

In the same way, if God wanted to take human form, and then the human form refused to cooperate, then God cannot take human form.

So, salvation is actually God’s initiative, God’s gift to us, and then our response to God’s initiative.

If God does not offer, there will be no salvation. If human does not accept, there will be no salvation.

That’s why in Theology we say, God’s gift to us is also our task. When God gives us something, He also challenges us to maximize that blessing.

The plan to make the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, a person, a human being like all of us, was offered to us.

Mary was free to say no or to say yes. Because she said yes, salvation became possible for us.

Continually we are being offered to become mother of Jesus. Continually we are being offered the opportunity to give birth to Jesus. Each time we talk, each time we plan, each time we act. Continually we are being offered to become instruments of the Lord being born into the world. But that offer has to be accepted.

We have to cooperate with the offer being given to us. Then the beautiful story of salvation begins.

Let us thank God today for His offer of salvation.

At the same time, we will acknowledge our failure, our fear, our shame to accept that offer. Some of us are afraid, some of us are lazy, some of us are scared about making a leap into the dark. We will ask Mary today to ask the Father to bless us with the same generosity that She showed to God so that the salvation that happened when the angel Gabriel announced to Her that She would be the mother of God, the same salvation can happen to us.