What “You Have Found Favor With God” Could Mean For You

If an angel of the Lord appears to you in your residence and greets you as follows, “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you,” your initial reaction would most certainly be that of fear and tremble, shock and awe. Why? Because a reality from another dimension has invaded your space. You will be shaken because an agent from a realm beyond what can be seen and known has crashed into your familiar and safe environment. When the Blessed Virgin Mary was visited by angel Gabriel, she too was “greatly troubled.” And if the visitor angel, after a brief conversation, now says to you “Do not be afraid, for you have found favor with God,” I bet, your reaction would most likely be, “Okay, which of my many prayer points and petitions is God about to answer?” “Has God finally decided to heal me of my diseases?” “Am I about to get my dream job?” “Am I about to get out of my financial mess?” “For long, I have prayed to be powerful, to be loved and honored, to hit a jackpot and win millions of dollars. I have long prayed to enjoy life and to enjoy myself. Which of my long list of ‘give me’ and ‘do for me’ is God about to answer?” “Is God about to take away all my worries, sorrows, pains, aches, and problems away?” “I have been praying for the return of my children to the faith, is God about to do something about it?”

What do you think came to the mind of the Blessed Mother the moment she heard the angel say, “You have found favor with God?” Did she think in the way many of us would do? The authors of the Gospels did not tell us. But since Mary was fully human— flesh and blood like us, it is possible she did think in those terms. She had recently been betrothed to Joseph. They were possibly planning and preparing for their wedding. And as a little girl with deep religious faith in God, it is possible she prayed like many religious women and girls would do: that Joseph is the right man, that her wedding be a successful event, that she would be happy in the marriage, and that the marriage will not derail her from loving and serving God. She may have prayed in those terms. But sometimes, due to our great love and affection for Mary, due to our great appreciation of her fiat, her saying yes to God, we sometimes almost deify her and in the process, we strip her of her humanity. But let’s not forget that Mary was fully a human being with desires, wants and aspirations. So, upon hearing the angel say, “You have found favor with God,” she may have thought that God is assuring her that Joseph is the Mr. Right; that the wedding event, which was a big deal in Mary’s cultural setting (remember the wedding in Cana), would be a huge success and that her marriage to Joseph will offer her peace and joy. Remember, none of the Gospel authors gave us the details of what I am highlighting here. The Gospel narratives are synthesis and summaries of Jesus’ public life and ministry. If everything and every detail was written, John says “I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25b). 

In the Annunciation story, we are told that before Mary could figure out which of her intercessory prayers was about to be answered or to ask the angel, “What do you mean?” “How have I found favor with God?” the angel Gabriel dropped a spiritual bomb upon her: “Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David, his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his Kingdom there will be no end.” I tell you, this is an atomic spiritual bomb being dropped on a teenage girl of 14 years. In the face of this overwhelming declaration, Mary is utterly shocked. Mary is confused, nevertheless, she is able to exercise the powers of her mind: “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” she asks. The Blessed Mother is presented in the Gospels as someone who prays. The beautiful prayer generally known as the The Canticle of Mary or The Magnificat could not have been said by a prayerless, casual and unserious person. So, Mary was a prayer warrior on earth and remains so in heaven. This fact leads me to assert that she most likely did pray for some particular things. She must have prayed for Ann and Joachim, her parents. She must have prayed for Joseph, her husband to be. She must have prayed for many other things just as we do today. But when God particularly remembered her, when she found favor with God, what she was given was something she never imagined or dreamed or prayed for. Did Mary ever pray, “Lord God, I want to be the Mother of God? I want to be the Ark of the New Covenant?” I don’t think so. Such a thing is not in the list of things we pray for. We can ask God to make us more like him, but no untested teenage girl or even an adult would ever pray to be the definitive House of God. 

Where am I taking you to with this exegesis and eisegesis? After all is said and done, always remember this very stubborn spiritual fact— your life is not about you. Our faith encourages us to pray without ceasing. Jesus enjoins us to pray without losing heart (Luke 18:1-8). Jesus urges us to ask, seek and knock (Matthew 7:7). The lives of the saints calls us to be people of prayer. St. Alphonsus said that those who pray will be saved and those who do not pray will be lost. Pray for good health. Pray for a long and healthy life. Pray for salvation. Ask God to better your life. Pray to have a good and happy marriage. Pray for financial freedom. Pray for protection and victory over the forces of darkness. Pray for your loved ones. Please, pray all the time as you are able to. Remember that prayer is the sine qua non of Christian living and of being linked to God. However, be open, be ready and be willing to hear what Mary heard, “You have found favor with God.” This God’s favor may not be in the list of the things you have asked in the past, and in the present or would ask in the future. You finding favor with God might drastically change and alter your life in ways you never dreamed or imagined. Like Mary, what God is giving you might “crush” your life. Mary’s life was changed forever. The favor she found with God is not in the list of the things we ask God for and most certainly was not in the list of items that Mary prayed for. 

Check this out! Responding to Mary’s question, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” the angel says to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (Luke 1:35). In other words, someone much more powerful than you will overwhelm your physical, moral, intellectual, and spiritual abilities and capabilities. That person will take you to the place you cannot possibly go on your own. After the initial fear and confusion, after going through some emotional distress and spiritual crisis (What does God want me to do?), Mary completely surrenders, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” Do I think that the Blessed Mother understood in great detail the message of the angel, I don’t think so! At the time of the Annunciation, did the Most Amazing Woman comprehend these words, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you?” I am not sure! She was just 14 years old. What does a 14 year old girl in the first century know about being overshadowed? But what is going well for Mary is her spiritual acuteness. She was spiritually alert and vigilant. She knew that Yahweh, the God of Israel, is the One speaking to her through angel Gabriel. She trusted God and trusted the message of the messenger. By surrendering to God’s will and purposes for her, she exhibits great faith and thereby undoes the refusal of Eve, the first woman. Mary’s fiat to something impossible made possible the Incarnation of God. She allowed God’s love to become enfleshed for the salvation, transfiguration and transformation of the world. God’s favor to you may not be what you bargained for or prayed for or imagined. It might crush your life, change and alter the trajectory of your life. It may not be what you want today, tomorrow or in the future. However, if you, like the Blessed Mother, agrees that “you have found favor with God” and yields to God in toto, God is able to gather your apparently crushed life together and use it to create pequena navidad, little Christmas. The Blessed Mother is often praised as the Mother of the Church, and the matrix of all discipleship. What it means is that her fiat is now the ground and model of every disciple’s response to God’s desire for incarnation. We are all called to be “mothers of Christ,” that is, bearers of the incarnate word, in the measure that we agree and consent to God’s will and purposes. There was a time in my life I thought God crushed my life by calling me to become a priest. But now I believe that God has put my life together and has continued to use the unworthy me, as a conduit, a vehicle of spreading and making his love and mercy real. 

God bless you!

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church in Brooklyn Center, MN

Wednesday, December 20, 2023