Mary, the Model of Saying Yes to God
Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR
Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year B
St. Gerard Majella Church, Baton Rouge, LA
December 21, 2014
Our Christian Faith teaches us that only God saves, and only God can save. When it comes to our relationship with God, God always takes the initiative. He always takes the first step, not because God needs us to survive but because we need him to survive. I dare to say that God needs us, but not to survive but to love. His love for us is so profound, so indescribable, so unconditional and boundless that he became one with us. None of us would want to do what God did. No matter how much we love our dogs, our cats and other pets, we may never want to become one of them just to save them and relate with them. But that’s precisely what God did.
In today’s first reading taken from 2 Samuel 7:1-5, David wanted to build God a house. He wanted to do something for the Lord. Like us, he forgot that it is God who always does something for us, not we who do for him. In essence, it is we who are needy. God has no material or spiritual need. God’s only need is us—you and me! We cannot do God any favors. But some of us, in our moments of greater generosity, think that we are doing God a favor. When we give more money to the church, some of us think we are doing God a special favor. We forget that we are only giving to the church from what God had given to us. Our God, through the prophet Nathan, in the first reading, reminds us that our salvation is his initiative. Salvation does not come from the human person but from God. Psalm 127:1 tells us that “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who labor, labor in vain.”
Therefore, for nine months before the first Christmas, God initiated the salvation of the human person when he approached a certain young girl, unknown outside her village, showered her with unmerited favors, proposed a plan as outrageous as the Incarnation to her, and made its realization contingent upon her freely given consent. It was God, who first approached Mary. It was God who first proposed the plan to her. And it was God who saw this plan to its total fruition. The only thing God demanded from Mary was her cooperation. And the only thing God demands from us too is our cooperation, our yes. God has this ‘bad habit’ of respecting the free will he gave us. From the beginning he has invited, not compelled our collaboration. What we need to do then, is to form our own ´habit´ of always saying ‘Yes’. When it comes to forming the habit of saying yes, the Blessed Mother Mary is our super model.
Brothers and sisters, do we know that in the entire history of humanity, no decision, no response, no consent, no surrender can compare both in drama and import with the one that Mary was asked to make? Our salvation, the new order, the new beginning, the new dawn, God’s entrance into humanity, the migration of the creator from heaven to earth, the relocation of God from eternity to time, from heaven to our neighborhood hung upon Mary’s answer and acceptance. And the circumstances were hardly reassuring. She was just a young teenager. She believed God wanted her to remain a virgin, even in marriage. She lived in a cultural backwater, in a hinterland. She probably had a minimal education. Even as a faithful and religious Jew, I don’t think she understood God’s proposal. I don’t think she understood very well what God was asking from her. When the angel Gabriel said, “the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you,” I don’t think she understood what that meant. Yet, in spite of her limited understanding of what was happening, she still yielded: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” The fact that Mary came through in spite of her circumstances and difficulties stem from four basic attitudes: She has unlimited trust in the will of God; she does not first demand understanding, before accepting God´s ways; she has no predetermined personal plans that are non-negotiable and to which God´s plan must be adjusted; and lastly, knowing and doing God’s will is the hinge on which her life turns. As soon as she said yes, the Son of God began to inhabit her womb. God became one of us. With that, our human nature was raised to a new, incomparable dignity. This little Hebrew girl did more for us than all the other great lights of humanity combined.
This Christmas, all we need to do is to recognize that it is God who gives gifts to us, rather than the reverse. We should therefore ask, during this Christmas, the special grace to have the necessary dispositions to become his ‘co-workers’ (1Corinthians 3:9), like Mary. Let’s also ask him for the ability to put-off our own plans, when it’s clear to us that God wants something else. Let’s ask him to help us accept his word preached and taught through the Church – even when we don´t fully understand or it doesn’t make sense to us.
During this Christmas, why not ask God for a Christmas gift that is more spiritual?
