“Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me
according to your word.” (Luke 1:38) Imagine you are 14 years old. You are doing
the same thing you are doing every day, perhaps you are outside taking a quiet walk. Suddenly,
a huge angel appears to you. He tells you not to be afraid. He tells you that
you are going to become pregnant with the Son of God. You have never been with
a man though. But the angel tells you this is what God wants. You say yes,
simply because it is what God wants. You do not need any other reason. You
accept all that the yes means. This is what Mary, the Mother of God, did 2000
years ago. From that yes the course of history and the course of our lives were
forever changed.
On this feast of the Annunciation, I want to meditate on
Mary’s trust in God and how we can learn from her.
We walk through life with a pile of worries on our hearts. A
range from the smallest to the largest of concerns is what consumes our minds.
We hear “trust God” over and over again in Church, from our friends, and when
we read any Christian literature these days. It has gotten pounded into our
heads since we were little, at least the words have. It just seems so cheesy
when we hear the words coming out of our mouths now. But why does it feel so overused? Why does it
feel so strange to tell our friends to trust? It is because we don’t have that
trust. We’re frustrated when we hear it because we haven’t reached a point of
trust yet. We feel awkward when we tell a friend to trust in God because we
ourselves do not know what it means to trust.
Let today be a renewal of trust though. Let Mary be an
example. She had free will and she chose God’s will. I firmly believe that our
lives will be totally peaceful if we learn to let go of the tight grasp we try
to have on our lives. We do not realize how much more difficult our lives are
when we hold tightly to our own will and worries. Let us again think of the
words “let it be done to me” that are said in the gospel. Mary does not say “I
will do this, this, and this. Then I will know I am doing God’s will because I
am powering through it with all of MY might.” No. She is simply receiving. She
is simply allowing God to work through her, to mold her, and to use her. She has
opened her hands to receive all that God wants to do with her. With her
trusting hands open to receive God’s blessings, there is no room left to cling tightly
to her own will. This is the model for
trusting we should follow. Stand with
your hands open today. Tell God you are letting go. Ask Momma Mary to wrap you
in her arms and push you towards her Son. And watch the peace that will come from
following our beautiful Mother’s example.
“Am
I not here, I, who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection?
Am I not the source of your joy? Are you not in the hollow of my mantle, in the
crossing of my arms? Do you need anything more? Let nothing else worry you,
disturb you.” ~Our Lady of Guadalupe
