December 20/Fourth Monday of Advent
Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” ~ Luke 1.38
What if she had said no, this unlettered peasant girl from an obscure Galilean village? After all, the message that God’s messenger Gabriel bore, swooping in (we imagine) on his magnificent wings, meant the upending of her own plans: to marry a village carpenter, to bear children, to eke out an existence with the help of her family. An ordinary life, really, suddenly confronted with an extraordinary challenge: to become the mother of God. God was calling to her to leave the comfort of expectation in order to accomplish his will. She could very well have demurred – and God would have found another way to accomplish his plans. But instead, she rose to the challenge. And in that trusting “Yes” – or as Luke puts it, “May it be done to me according to your word” – she attained the complete realization of who she was, fulfilling the purpose God had designed for her. And her ordinary humanity, in the unexceptional plainness of her circumstances, became one with the transcendent glory of the living God. As we make our way to the crib of Christ, we might ask ourselves how we respond to God’s call. Do we demur, citing other obligations, busy schedules, or even personal unworthiness? Or do we, like Mary, rise to the challenge and place ourselves in the hands of God? Blessed Edith Stein, a Jewish convert to Catholicism who became a Carmelite nun and was later killed by the Nazis, observed, “We know not, and we should not ask before the time, where our earthly way will lead us. We know only this, that to those who love the Lord all things will work together to the good, and further, that the ways by which the Savior leads us point beyond this earth.” May it be done to us according to God’s word.
God of all the earth and every living creature, Transform me into a vessel of your love. Amen.
For today’s readings, click here: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122021.cfm
To hear the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, sing “Angelus ad Virginem,” click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrcnLtv_vLI
