Today's Gospel says, (Lk 1:26-38): In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth. He was sent to a young virgin who was betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the family of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. The angel came to her and said, «Rejoice, full of grace, the Lord is with you». Mary was troubled at these words, wondering what this greeting could mean. But the angel said, «Do not fear, Mary, for God has looked kindly on you. You shall conceive and bear a son and you shall call him Jesus. He will be great and shall rightly be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the kingdom of David, his ancestor; he will rule over the people of Jacob forever and his reign shall have no end».
Then Mary said to the angel, «How can this be if I am a virgin?». And the angel said to her, «The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore, the holy child to be born shall be called Son of God. Even your relative Elizabeth is expecting a son in her old age, although she was unable to have a child, and she is now in her sixth month. With God nothing is impossible». Then Mary said, «I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me as you have said». And the angel left her.
Today, we are celebrating the feast of the Annunciation of our Lord. With the angel Gabriel's announcement and Mary's acceptance of the explicit divine will of incarnating in her womb, God assumes the human condition and nature.
—«in everything equal to us, except for sin»— to exalt and elevate us as his sons and have us, thus, as partakers of his divine nature. The mystery of faith is so great that Mary, with this announcement, remains appalled.
Gabriel tells her: «Do not fear, Mary» (Lk 1:30): the Most High has looked kindly upon you and has chosen you to be the Mother of the Savior of the world. The divine initiatives break the weak human reasoning.
«Do not fear, Mary!». Words we shall often read in the Gospels; the same Lord will repeat them to the Apostles when they closely feel the supernatural force and when they show their fear or fright before the extraordinary works of God.
We may ask ourselves for the reasons of this fear. Is it an unreasonable fear, an irrational fright? No! For those who see themselves small and “poor” before God, that clearly feel their weakness, their feebleness before the greatness of the Divine and experiment their nothingness before the magnificence of the Omnipotent, it is a logic fear.
Pope saint Leo wonders: «Who will not see his own feebleness in the same Christ?». Mary, the humble town maid, considers herself such a little thing... but in Christ she feels strong and her fear disappears!
Thus, we can clearly understand that God «chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong» (1Cor 1:27).
The Lord looks at Mary, sees the smallness of His servant and works the history's greatest marvel on her: the Encarnation of the eternal Verb as Head of a renewed Humanity.
Let us meditate and ponder 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, does mean that because Mary said yes we are saved? Does that mean that it is Mary who saves us? No. 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 waking 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 man does not accept, there will be no salvation.
That is 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.
It is the same thing with all of us. Continually, we are being offered to become mothers 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, 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.
We will 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 lazy.
Some of us are afraid.
Some of us are fearful 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, that same salvation can happen to us.
Annunciation happened more than thousands of years ago. But annunciation continues to happen to this very moment.
The Lord continues to offer.
I hope and pray that your answer will be as strong as the yes of Mary.
Bless us all!
No comments:
Post a Comment