"To Do Your Will, O My God, Is My Delight" (Psalm 40)

In today's responsorial psalm, Psalm 40,  we pray: "Here I am, Lord, I come to do your will....To do your will, O my God, is my delight..."  In the second reading, Hebrews 10: 4-10, St. Paul reminds us that Jesus became a human being "to do [God's] will"  because that is what God desired of Him, not ""[s]acrifice and offering" and that God takes "no delight in holocausts and sin offerings."  St. Paul restates Jesus' response, saying:  "Sacrifices and offerings,  holocausts and sin offerings, you neither desired nor delight in. These are offered according to the law....Behold, I come to do you will." In doing do, St. Paul explains, Jesus "takes away the first to establish the second. By this 'will,' we have been consecrated through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all."  In the Gospel, Luke 1: 26-38, Mary responds to the angel announcing the Incarnation, namely, that the Son of God will take on human nature in  her womb, by saying: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to  your will."

Each of those Scriptures state clearly our call to carry out God's will. He desires nothing less of us! How often, however, do I not choose my will above God's will. How often do I not forget that, like Mary, I am God's handmaid and that God does not desire sacrifices or offerings,  holocaust and sin offering from me. He wants me to surrender my will to Him, nothing short of that sacrifice!  And that challenge to surrender my will to His comes in ordinary, mundane ways:  right now, social distancing and limiting going out of my home in an effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus, cooperating with my spouse or with the leadership of my religious community, my government, my employer in responding to this call to do our part in efforts to stop the spread of this disease.  Surrendering to God's will may also  mean sacrificing my convenience to help another person in need, letting go of my way and accepting the way of another person, or changing the time that I do something in order to to assist another person to complete a different chore. 

"To do your will, O Lord, is my  delight" (Psalm 40) or is it really?

Partnering with God, as Mary Did

It is not even a week since Christmas and we are encountering what living the Christian life is all about: surrendering to the realities of life.  In today's Gospel,  Mary and Joseph present Jesus to the Lord and themselves  undergo the purification rites "according to the law of Moses".  They are to "offer the sacrifice of a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons, in accordance with the dictate in the law of the Lord.....[W]hen the parents brought in the child Jesus...[Simeon] took him into his arms and blessed God, saying: 'Lord, now let your servant go in peace; your word has been fulfilled: my own eyes have seen the salvation which you prepared in the sight of every people, a light to reveal you to the nations and the glory of  your people Israel.'"  Simeon then prophesies, saying to Mary:  "Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted (and you yourself a sword will pierce)..."

Imagine a young mother and father being given dire news about their child either at his/her birth or at  his/her baptism and also told that their hearts will be pierced with sorrow because of the destiny of their infant.  Now, Mary knows that Jesus is the Son of God, conceived in her womb by the Holy Spirit, not by an earthly father but a heavenly one.  Shouldn't everything be rosy for Mary? Not so! How did she manage the sorrows of her life? Mary surrendered to God, trusting Him throughout her life: at the Annunciation,  at the birth of Jesus, the Presentation in the Temple, the flight into Egypt, the wedding feast of Cana, his public ministry, Calvary, the Resurrection, the Ascension and Pentecost. She let go and let God be God and she always "the handmaid of the Lord"--God's servant!

Life here on earth, as it was for Mary, is like a rose bush: it's beautiful and brings much joy but it also has thorns!  The thorny side of life is what we sometimes resent!  The thorns in a rose bush, however, I think,  keep hungry creatures from devouring it. So, too, the thorns of life are a protection for us, as it is those very difficult times that have the power to turn us away from evil toward the good, away from relying upon oneself alone to partnering with God.  The sufferings of life, I believe, are filled with graces that empower us to rely upon God, not upon ourselves alone. God is a powerful protector and helper as we deal with life's thorns and climb the mountains we encounter on our way to eternal life as God's servants here on earth!