OUR LADY’S FIAT
(A biblical refection on today’s Gospel Reading – Thursday, 20 December 2012)
Gospel Reading: Lk 1:26-38
First Reading: Is 7:10-14; Psalms: Ps 24:1-6
The Scripture Text
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of His kingdom there will be no end.” And Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no husband?” 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 child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, your kinswoman Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible.” And Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her. (Lk 1:26-38 RSV)
The mouth speaks from the abundance of the heart, above all, when this heart is pure and spotless. The words of Christ are truly “words of eternal life,” filled with inexhaustible light and fruitfulness. Those of the Blessed Virgin reflect something of this fullness. There is no doubt that her response to the message of the Angel Gabriel is her greatest word. It is the sublime revelation of the Immaculate Heart.
The Archangel Gabriel greets the chosen one of God. Mary is both troubled and astonished, but the heavenly messenger reassures her and reveals the purpose of his message. She has been chosen by God to be the Mother of His only Son, of the long-awaited Messiah whose reign is without end. But the daughter of Zion is not overwhelmed by it all. Her response is human: “How can this be, since I have no husband” (Lk 1:34). The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God” (Lk 1:35). Thus her Son will have no other Father but the Most High. The messenger concludes with the assurance that to the Lord all things are possible (Lk 1:37).
Mary has heard. She believes. She is aware of the mystery which has been revealed to her. All eyes in heaven and on earth are turned in her direction. The Trinity awaits her consent in the accomplishment of this greatest work of His glory. At this moment, the salvation of the human race which has been lost rests in her hands. Mary senses the expectation of the Archangel or rather of the God Who sent him. She hears the groanings of humanity resounding in her heart, that humanity which is enslaved by sin and burdened with sorrow. Her soul expands with this breath of hope which, for centuries, has given life to her people. She is, as it were, buoyed up by the desires and hopes of all the patriarchs and prophets, but at the same time, astonished at the prospect of such a destiny and filled with anguish at its fearsome responsibility.
What will be Mary do? Where will she find words capable of satisfying both heaven and earth? There must be acceptance, but is there not also need for reserve? She must have faith, confidence, the fullness of joy and desire, but would it not be more fitting to humble herself, to adore and to tremble at the coming to the Lord of all majesty? Where can she find the right words and gestures to fit this infinitely unique and solemn occasion?
Love finds it, because it is the nature of love to give itself. And Mary answers: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38). It is as if she said to God: “I am completely yours; use me for whatever Your heart desires.” These are sublime words whose simplicity contains more wisdom than the whole angelic world! It is an act so great and so decisive that its consequences will be endless! “Let it be to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38), the humble Virgin whispers. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us. And this living Word embodies the grace of the Redemption and all the sanctity of the Church. It will mean for all men unending union with Him in His Father.
It is in pondering the role of her consent in the divine plan and her share in the redeeming Incarnation that Christian wisdom explains the universal intercession of our heavenly Mother and her role in our salvation and sanctification. She is the “aqueduct” through which grace flows (provided that we do not take this image too literally), for by her free consent, she was privileged to give her body and blood to the Author of grace Himself. At the same time, her interior dispositions in this mystery teach us a lesson of great importance for our Christian life. It is good example that we find Our Lady giving us in this mystery and it is this practical aspect that we now want to consider.
At first glance, we would perhaps be tempted to overlook it. The Annunciation is something completely unique. The Virgin’s interior sentiments are just as sublime as the dignity which she here receives in unparalleled. We must praise the chosen one of the Most-High, especially out of love for her. We must thank her, for she has had a share in our redemption. But in this mystery may we not also find in her a model for our personal imitation?
The answer is unquestionably yes! We must remember that the elevation of the Queen of Saints to a dignity greater than that of all the saints (who are often more to be admired than imitated) renders her worthy of imitation even at the moment of her greatest exaltation. The way in which Mary accepts this infinitely singular grace of the Divine Maternity will teach us how we ought to accept and receive the same grace which makes us in turn the children of God. Let us return to the contemplation of these words of Our Lady with this in mind. Let us search for the true dispositions of her soul so that our dispositions may conform more perfectly to hers.
We detect, first of all, a sentiment of profound humility in her response. “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord” really means: “I am nothing of myself. The Lord possesses all rights over me. I am completely dependent on Him.” We have only to recall the rights that a master held over his slaves in the ancient world and we will begin to understand something of this humility. But to visualize Mary maintaining this attitude at the moment when the Most High is raising her to the very borders of His glory, defies all our attempts at understanding even as does the divine exaltation itself. When the Archangel in appearing before her called “full of grace, the Lord is with you” (Lk 1:28) the Blessed Virgin was greatly troubled, completely astonished at such a compliment (see Lk 1:29). This greatness that is praised in her is something entirely new to Mary. Such an idea would never have occurred to her. But now she realizes the greatness of God’s love for her. She sees herself raised above all creatures and above the angels themselves, in becoming the Mother of their Lord. At this very pinnacle of greatness, she never loses sight of the reality of her original nothingness. When the God of all majesty deigns to make her His child, Mary does not forget her complete dependence on Him and she acknowledges it: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.” She is His Mother …… and yet she is also His servant!
This vivid awareness of our own nothingness is, thus, the first disposition we need to receive divine grace. How could He Who is Light become one with a creature who is filled with the foolish illusion of being something, when in reality she is nothing? How could the Sovereign Wisdom normally use for His action a tool which is not completely dependent on Him? Of necessity, there is the obligation to humble ourselves, if we want to receive the blessings of Our Father in heaven. Before Him from whom all our blessings flow, we are only weak and ignorant children. We are pure nothingness. Most of all, there is the reality that we are sinners. Our own humility, indeed, if it is sincere, must be surrounded by a halo of contrition, for if we were falsely to believe ourselves without any sin and without need of pardon, we would end by allowing the illusion to cut us off from the rays of divine grace. “I have sinned, Oh Lord, have pity on me!” the humble St. Catherine of Siena often repeated.
Nevertheless, if it ended there, this disposition of the soul would be incomplete, certainly not enough to conform us to what is the will of God for us. The truth is that we are nothing, but even more, that God is all good, that He is that unending Love which is ceaselessly acting and eager to lavish itself on us. To be faithful to that belief, the humbled soul must also rise up again with confidence. In the radiant souls of the saints, humility and confidence are twin sisters, both are daughters of truth. It is this that the Blessed Virgin teaches us here: after the avowal of her nothingness, she surrenders herself to the workings of divine love: “Be it done to me according to Thy word.”
Our indifference easily leads us to see in abandonment an attitude which exempts us from all effort. On the contrary, this means that we want with all our heart what the Lord wants and desire with all our being the action of His love on us. Self-surrender is the opposite of sloth, for one who is lazy looks for exemptions, while one who has surrendered his will spends himself without counting the cost. The distortion of this truth keeps us from understanding the sublime desire which led Mary to surrender, body and soul, to the action of the Holy Spirit. We see her humble acceptance, her unwavering faith. But do we equally admire this burning desire, this burst of confidence and love which inspired her Fiat and put her completely into God’s hands?
The words of the Angel are for Mary the revelation of this infinite love with which God has deigned to love her. The Virgin surrenders herself to it. Her desire is to open her soul to God in proportion to the immensity of this love. “Let it be to me according to Your word!” Yes, let me be His Mother! Let me be loved and formed as it pleases Him, He Who, always infinite, deigns to love me as His child. “Be it done to me!” It is to this act of faith and trust which surrenders to the actions of God’s love that our Mother wishes to lead us.
God loves us with a Father’s love. He wishes to call us His children here on earth through the virtues and holiness expressed in the image of His first born son; afterwards, through the endless happiness that we will share with Him. At each moment, through interior graces and exterior circumstances, His tenderness beats against our tepid and negligent souls like a relentless torrent. However, we do not want it. We do not care about our lofty destiny and, although we are already His children by our baptism, we do not even live as servants. The fact that faith has revealed both God’s love for us and its power to transform us does not change us; we remain indifferent. May a true Fiat at last rise from our souls and open our hearts in continual confidence to the action of His merciful Providence! Fiat is not a word, nor a purely intellectual affirmation, but a surge of the will, a love which surrenders itself in a confidence without reserve. Be it done to me! Yes, let me become truly a child of God!
If our souls are thus deepened by humility and expanded by faith in His love, God will shower His grace upon us. He will realize in us His ambitions as a Father, and in the words of Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity, His Son will find in us “another humanity.” If saints are so rare, it is not because God fails to call all His children to these sublime heights to make of them other Christs, but because our souls are poorly disposed and not docile to His grace. Vanity makes them superficial, suspicion makes them narrow. “My measure will be your measure,” said the Lord to Saint Catherine of Siena. Our measure of humility and confidence is the measure of His grace. Mary will respond to His offer with the measure of a mother. In like manner, can we not offer Him the response of a true child to a father’s love?
We should have these dispositions at all times, but above all, when we seek God’s grace. Let them be the foundations of our prayers. Let us then return to our nothingness and surrender ourselves to “the immense action of eternal love.” Let neither curiosity nor routine lead us to the reality of truth but rather to the realization of our own weakness and our eagerness to hear the Word of God.
In the sacraments above all, grace flows in torrents; it demands only that there be emptiness to fill. The sacrament of Penance which must be the avowal of our misery and the meeting with merciful love; and even more, the sacrament of the Eucharist, for which hunger should torment us, the hunger of weakness which needs support, the hunger of confident desire which longs for the Bread of delight and of life …… Let us place our souls there in union with her spotless soul. Let us reach out humbly to receive our share of that which is divine even as she has received hers.
Charity is, as St. Paul says, “Amen to God” (2Cor 1:20); it is expressed perfectly in this. “Yea, Father, for such was Thy gracious will” (Mt 11:26). Our Lady of true submission, who learns this virtue from her Son, teaches it in turn to us. It is her wish to make each of her children a living “yes to the will of God in their lives.
Short Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank You for Your marvelous plan of salvation. Help me to participate in this plan as I imitate Mary’s humble openness. By Your Holy Spirit, empower me to say, “Let it be to me according to your word.” Amen.
Note: The text was adapted from Joseph-Marie Perrin OP [translated from French to English by Sr. Jean David Finley OP], MARY – MOTHER OF CHRIST AND OF CHRISTIANS, Makati, the Philippines: St. Paul Publications, 1990, pages 55-60.