Let It Be Done To Me!

Scripture Reflection for the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord (March 26, 2012)

Scripture Readings:
Isaiah 7:10-14; 8:10
Psalm 40
Hebrews 10:4-10
Luke 1:26-38

Incredibly, God enters time and space as one of us. Just as incredibly, it’s through a teenage peasant child who most would probably judge not “mature enough” to be able to handle the pure Mystery of her calling to Mother God into human flesh. In the eyes of the learned folk who’d studied Messianic Prophecies, Mary would never have made the top ten guesses as God’s choice for a point of entry into our race. To the world at large, she was an insignificant nobody from nowheresville. Gabriel’s visit wasn’t part of the strategic direction of any kingly governance plan; the political time wasn’t ripe; Nazareth a joke of a town too removed from the “action.” Onlookers might have said to the angel, I’m afraid you have the wrong address.

To understand even a little what’s happening in this encounter, it’s important to really get that Mary is as human as you and me. She’s a person whose created being depends at every moment of her existence on the gratuitous life and love of God. From the dawn of her conception, God freely prepared Mary to be Jesus’ Mother-- and ours. Yet her invitation to bear the Son of God came not because she was “worthy,” but because, in Mary’s words, she was deluged with God’s gift of Mercy. Mary was created wholly free of our inherited human “default” to compete with God; to fall for the ancient Lie that God is out to restrict our freedom. Still she was, at the same time, as free as our first parents were to reject God’s invitation to share Divine Life. In this sense Mary was special: Not focused on her rights; her credit; not placing her value on hanging with the right people or wearing brand clothing; not defending or comparing herself, not judging her worth by standards of success or public recognition. Mary understood Whose she was and responded simply and wholeheartedly to the infinite Love grounding her in creaturehood.

But here’s the paradox: in every way that matters, Mary is truly one of us; just like you and me. Mary must have hung on to the Angel’s words all her life long: “The Lord is with you…don’t be afraid… you have found favor with God.” Still, the last line of today’s Gospel makes her situation clear: “And then the Angel left her.” Angels didn’t hang around to do her family laundry or meals. Like ours, her totally human life continues, infused with its full and unique dose of human suffering. Her “Annunciation” conception causes questioning and pain to those she most loves. Her virgin motherhood leaves her the butt of town gossip. After giving birth in a barn among strangers and animals, then forced by fear for her child to migrate with Joseph to a land where language and customs were as foreign to them as the currency, she returns to the narrow-minded town of her birth. There she settles into 3 decades of what could realistically be described as unrecorded ordinariness. Her daily life is devoid of fanfare or recognition. Widowed, she centers her heart on a Son whose public ministry seems to leave her in the dust. Still, when he was condemned and tortured by the jealousy and fear of her own religious leaders, Mary shows up, standing under the cross of his execution, sharing his agony and ridicule to the end. Even in the triumph of Jesus’ Resurrection, Mary remains simply one of the gathered disciples, receiving the Holy Spirit just like everyone else.

The depth of Mary’s paradox can take a lifetime to absorb. Mary show us what it means to be human; how not only to accept, but to dive deeply, unreservedly, into the essential messiness of our humanity with all its quirks and vulnerabilities. Mary essentially said, “Let it be done to me….” not just on the day of the Angel’s visit, but every day for the rest of her life, in countless situations. That’s her greatness! She daily offered a moment-by moment yes to her given life experience the best she could--in trust and hope and unswerving dependence on the Infinite Love that is our core meaning.

In a word, all that Mary is, we are called to be! The same Spirit unites us within the life of the Blessed Trinity in Baptism. The same Spirit continually comes, helping us to say our “yes” to a unique, personal purpose that no one else but “me” can fulfill. Mary is the completed Original of what each of us is uniquely becoming: a one-of-a-kind graced human being; a child of the Light; a disciple welcoming God into all the messiness of our lives. Now with her, we bear the Son of God into our infinitely loved world; into each infinitely loved and predictably human heart.

March 25 is the yearly feast of the Annunciation of Mary. It celebrates her yes to God’s invitation to become the Mother of God. The reading from Luke’s Gospel details the well-known conversation between Gabriel and Mary. Their visit ends with Mary’s unreserved, uncharted openness to whatever God will ask of her. It’s a foundational feast for all Christians as we labor to birth Christ in our here and now. The feast is special for Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. Belonging to a Society of Apostolic Life, the Sisters (canonically Sisters, not nuns) consecrate their lives to the service of persons living in poverty for one year at a time. Following a deliberate discernment each year, each one may choose to renew her four vows for the coming year on this feast of the Annunciation. This year, because the feast falls on a Sunday in Lent, the Annunciation is celebrated on Monday, March 26.

Image: The Annunciation - by Tanner © 2010 Free Christ Images