Mary, Queen of Heaven and Earth

Today, we Catholics celebrate the Feast of Mary, queen of Heaven and Earth.  The Gospel of today's liturgy is from Luke 1: 26-38, which tells the story of the Annunciation.  An angel, a messenger from God, appears to Mary at age 13 or 14 and tells her that she is "highly favored." "The Lord is with you," she is told. The angels' message disturbs Mary.  She asks herself what this message could possibly mean!  Assuredly, the angel tells Mary to not be afraid. She "has won God's favor! Listen," the angel says to her. "You are to bear a son, and you must name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David; he will rule over the the House of Jacob  forever and his reign will have no end."  What? Mary must have said to herself.  "...[H]ow will this come about," Mary asks the angel. "...I am a virgin?"  "The Holy Spirit will come upon you...and the power of the Most High will cover you with its shadow. And so the child will be holy and will be called the Son of God."  The angel then tells her that her elderly cousin Elizabeth has also conceived and is in her sixth month of pregnancy. "For nothing is impossible with God." Mary then says to the angel: "'I am the handmaid of the Lord,...let what you have said be done to me.' And the angel left her."  

Imagine being this teenage Jewish girl!  Imagine "the Holy Spirit [coming] upon" this teenager and "the power of the Most High [covering her] with its shadow." At that moment, while betrothed to Joseph and not yet married,  she conceives the Son of God.  Mary is pregnant not by man but by God's power and will! She has been chosen to be the Mother of God!

What does Mary do?  Learning that her elderly cousin Elizabeth is six month's pregnant, Mary leaves Nazareth to assist her cousin and confide in her!  She stays with Elizabeth until John the Baptist is born and then returns to  Nazareth three month's pregnant!

At some point, Joseph, her husband-to-be, is told by an angel to not be afraid to take Mary into his home as his wife and that the child she is bearing has been conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit  (See Matthew 1:20-22)! With Mary, Joseph learns to trust God deeply and that "nothing is impossible with God!"

How trusting are you and I?  How does the story of the Annunciation touch our hearts?  Do we recognize that Mary is Queen of heaven and earth, Queen of our hearts and minds and wills?  Do we confide in Mary, as Mary confided in her cousin?

The Visitation of Mary: Its Effects

Today we celebrate the Visitation of Mary, who following the Angel’s announcement that she has been chosen to be the Mother of the Savior, leaves, in haste to visit her elderly cousin,  whom she learns from the angel is also pregnant and is in her sixth month.   All is part of God’s plan to bring about the salvation of the world. God is coming to earth, becoming a human being in Mary’s womb, in  order to make holy what was made unholy by our first parents’ disobedience to God original plan for humankind.  His Plan B would not be thwarted by pride and covetousness of divine nature, of humankind wanting to be God!  Reconciliation between humanity and God would be accomplished through the Son of God showing God’s absolute love in the giving His life for our redemption.  The price of our ransom from Satan’s snares, from sin,  would be paid by the unblemished Lamb of God pouring out His blood for us once and for all upon the cross—an accomplishment of purification that no animal sacrifice, as in the Old Testament or any human being  could have accomplished. Only a member of the Trinity could reconcile us to God.

Mary, conceived without sin, carries Jesus, the Son of God, the Creator of the Universe, in her virginal womb to  visit Elizabeth.  John leaps for joy in Elizabeth’s womb when Mary greets her elderly pregnant cousin.  John, in his mother’s womb, is baptized with the Holy Spirit and freed from all sin by  Jesus in His mother’s  womb. What a visit!  What a sacred moment!

You and I also carry God in the core of our bodies. We, too, have the same power of God within us. When you and I visit or encounter others, are we aware of the power God has given us to transform each other, as John and Jesus did, as Mary and Elizabeth did?  Or is our ability to make holy that which is and can be negatively affected by sin paled by our own lack of faith?  Mary believed! What you and I?

The Almighty Is Doing Great Things: Do I Realize It?

Both the first reading of today’s liturgy, 1 Samuel 1: 24-28, and the Gospel, Luke 1: 46-56, hail two great women who give God that which was most precious to them, their only child!  They held nothing back from God. Hannah prayed for a child and God answered her prayer, changing her sterile womb into a fruitful one. She gave Samuel back to God.  Mary was chosen to bear in her womb the Son of God, who took on flesh within her through the power of the Holy Spirit. Mary echoed her son’s “yes” to God’s will for Him in saving humankind from the destruction of sin and eternal damnation by surrendering His life to the Father on the cross and in His resurrection from death. Mary gave her Son back to God.

What am I willing to give back to God for all of His graces God give to me? What is your response to God’s goodness to you and your family?

Mary prays: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior, for he has looked upon his lowly servant.  From this day all generations will call me blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name.

Do I realize the greatness of the Lord at work in my life and in the life of the world? Do I realize that God, my Savior, “had looked upon his lowly servant”, upon each and every person on this earth, and that, given the gift of redemption, each and every one of us “will be called blessed: [yes, ] “the Almighty [is doing] great things for [us] and holy is His name.”

Be It Done unto Me according to Your Will, O God

Today we celebrate the feast of the Annunciation, the angel announces to Mary that she has been chosen by God to be the mother of the Son of God, sent  into the world, not to condemn it but to save it. Her womb will be opened by the Holy Spirit and will receive the Son of God, who will take on our humanity.  Mary, hearing of God’s plan, says:  “Behold the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your  word.”  What do you and I say when “an angel of the Lord” announces God’s plan for us? Are we willing, as Mary was, to have it done to us according to God’s word, or, like Adam and Eve, do we follow our own will and set God’s aside?

Only by God’s intervention would humankind be saved from eternal darkness, from separation from God that was caused by our disobedience. Jesus’  obedience and Mary’s’ would change that for us.  Paul says to us in Hebrews 10: 1-10, the second reading of today’s Mass, “It is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats takes away sins. For this reason, when Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me” in Mary’s womb. “[I]n holocaust and sin offerings you took no delight. Then I said, ‘As is written of me in the scroll, behold, I come to do your will, O God.”  Paul continues:  “By this ‘will,’ we have been consecrated [made holy, made whole, sanctified] through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all.”  Nothing you and I do makes us right with God. Only Jesus can do that and He did by  being obedient to the Father unto death.

How obedient am I to God? Whose will am I following? God’s? or my own?  Do I want to know? If so, I need to sit at the feet of Jesus in solitude and let the Spirit open my mind to the will of God for me.