May 12 Tue
3. Was Mary free in responding to God’s plans for her?
Mary was invited to conceive the One in whom the fullness of divinity will dwell bodily, and she asked about what she did not understand: “How can this be, since I have no husband?”
The divine answer to her question was: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you.” And she uttered her “fiat,” Let it be done to me according to your word in the place of all human nature.
Through her faith and her free response, the Virgin Mary embraced God’s plan for the salvation of humanity. By her obedience, she became the new Eve, mother of the living.
St. Josemaría:
“Don't forget, my friend, that we are children. The Lady of the sweet name, Mary, is withdrawn in prayer.
You, in that house, are whatever you want to be: a friend, a servant, an onlooker, a neighbor… - I, at this moment, don't dare to be anything. I hide behind you; full of awe, I contemplate the scene:
The Archangel delivers his message… How shall this be done since I know not man?
Our Mother's voice brings to my memory - by contrast - all the impurities of men… mine too.
And then how I hate the low, mean things of the earth…What resolutions!
Be it done unto me according to Thy word. By the enchantment of this virginal phrase, the Word was made flesh.
The first decade is about to end… I still have time to tell my God, before anyone else does: Jesus, I love You."
“Mother, Oh Mother! With that word of yours - ' be it done' - you have made us brothers of God and heirs to his Glory. Blessed art thou!"
“The Virgin did not merely pronounce her fiat; in every moment she fulfilled that firm and irrevocable decision. So should we. When God's love gets through to us, and we come to know what he desires, we ought to commit ourselves to be faithful, loyal - and then be so in fact. Because "not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven.""
4. What does it mean that Jesus was conceived by the power and grace of the Holy Spirit?
It means that God became Man without the intervention of a man. Jesus has no other Father than God. It means that Mary was a virgin. Mary’s virginity reveals God’s absolute initiative in the Incarnation.
"The human nature He assumed has never separated him from his Father. The Son of God and of man is the same: by nature, the Son of the Father in his divinity; by nature, the Son of the Mother in his humanity; yet truly the Son of the Father in both his natures."
St. Josemaría:
“Purification! You and I surely do need purification! - Atonement, and more than atonement, Love. - Love as a searing iron to cauterize our souls' uncleanness, and as a fire to kindle with divine flames the wretched tinder of our hearts."