Presence of God

O Mary, you who called yourselfthe handmaid of the Lord, teach me how to consecrate all my strength and life to His service.

Meditation

I. All the splendors—divine filiation, participation in divine life, intimate relations with the Trinity—which grace produces in our souls are realized in Mary with a prominence, a force, a realism, wholly singular. If, for example, every soul in the state of grace is an adopted child of God and a temple of the Holy Spirit, the Blessed Virgin is so par excellence and in the most complete manner, because the Triune God communicated Himself to her in the highest degree possible for a simple creature, to such a degree that Mary’s dignity, according to St. Thomas, touches "the threshold of the infinite" (cf. Ia, q. 25, a. 6, ad 4). This can easily be understood when we think that, from all eternity, Mary was chosen by God to be the Mother of His Son. As the Incarnation of the Word was the first work of the mind of God, in view of which everything was created, so also Mary, who was to have such a great part in this work, was foreseen and chosen by God before all other creatures. It is fitting that the words ofSacred Scripture are applied to her : "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His ways, before He made anything from the beginning" (Pv. 8, 22).

When Adam, deprived of the state of grace, was driven out of Paradise, only one ray of hope illumined the darkness of fallen humanity : "I will put enmities between thee and the woman," God said to the serpent, "and...she shall crush thy head" (Gn. 3, 15). Here Mary appears on the horizon as the beloved Daughter of God, as she who will never be, for a single moment, a slave of the devil; as she who will always be spotless and immaculate, belonging wholly to God : as the Daughter whom the Most High will always look upon with sovereign complacency, and whom He will introduce into the circle of His divine Family by bonds of the closest intimacy with each of the three divine Persons : Daughter of the Father, Mother of the Incarnate Word, and Spouse of the Holy Spirit.

II. Mary lived her divine filiation in a profound sentiment of humble dependence and loving adherence to God’s every will. We have the best example of this in her reply to the Angel’s message : "Behold the handmaid of the Lord" (Lc. 1, 38). Mary was aware of her position as a creature in relation to the Creator, and although she had been raised to such high dignity that, "after God’s, it is the greatest that can be imagined" (Pius XI), she could find no better way to express her relations with God than to declare herself His "handmaid." This word describes the interior attitudeof the Virgin toward God; it was not a passing attitude,but one that was permanent and constant throughout herwhole life. Like Jesus, who, when He came into the world,announced, "I have come to do Thy will" (Hb. 10, 9),so Mary, who was to be the most faithful likeness of Jesus,offered herself to the will of her heavenly Father when shesaid, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to meaccording to Thy word." Faithful to her word, she wouldaccept without reserve not only every manifest will of God,but also every circumstance permitted by Him : the long,inconvenient journey which would bring her far from home,just when she was about to bring into the world the Sonof God; the poor, humble shelter of a stable; the flight intoEgypt by night, the privations and inconveniences of exile,the labor and weariness of a life of poverty, the separationfrom her Son when He would leave her to begin Hisapostolate, the persecutions and insults He would endureand of which her maternal heart would be well aware, andfinally, the disgrace of the Passion and death of her belovedSon on Calvary. We have good reason to believe that ineach of these events, her interior dispositions were the sameas on the day of the Annunciation : "Behold the handmaidof the Lord." What an example for us ofhumble dependenceon God, of absolute fidelity to His will, and of perseverancein our vocation, in spite of the difficulties and sacrifices weshall have to encounter.

Colloquy

O Mary, all pure and all holy, Paradise of God, His beloved Daughter, chosen by Him from all eternity to be the Mother ofHis only Son, preserved by Him from every shadow of sin, enriched by Him with all graces... how great and how beautiful you are, O Mary! "You are all beautiful, O Mary, and there is no stain of sin in you. You are the glory ofJerusalem, the joy of Israel, the honor of our people" (Tota Pulchra).

The Most High has always looked upon you with complacency and He willed to give Himself to you in a unique way. "The Lord is with you, O Mary! God the Father is with you, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, the Triune and One God. God the Father, whose noble Daughter you are; God the Son, whose most worthy Mother you are; God the Holy Spirit, whose gracious Spouse you are. You are truly the Daughter of the sovereign, eternal God, the Mother ofsovereign Truth, the Spouse ofsovereign Goodness, the handmaid of the sovereign Trinity" (cf. Conrad of Saxony). But from all these titles, you choose the last, the humblest, and the lowest, and call yourself the handmaid of the Lord.

" Oh! how sublime is your humility, which never yields to the seductions of glory, and in glory knows no pride. You were chosen to become the Mother of God, and you call yourself servant! O Blessed Lady, how were you able to unite in your heart such a humble idea of yourself, with so much purity and innocence, and especially such plenitude of grace? O Blessed Lady, whence comes such humility? Truly, because of this virtue, you have merited to be looked upon by God with extraordinary love; and you have merited to charm the King with your beauty, and to draw the eternal Son from the bosom of the Father" (cf. St. Bernard).

O Mary, you proclaimed yourself to be the handmaid of the Lord, and you have truly lived as such, always humbly submissive to His will, always ready to respond to His call and invitation. Who more than you could say with Jesus : "My meat is to do the will of My Father" (cf. Jo. 4, 34)? O Mary, sweet Daughter of the heavenly Father, impress upon my heart a little ofyour docility, a little ofyour love for God’s holy will, in order that I may serve Him less unworthily.