Matthew Williams – Page 31 – Meditation on Daily Mass Readings

August 31, 2020August 14, 2020

Confucius and Jesus

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Some scholars point out the remarkable similarities between the philosophies of Confucius, of Buddha, of the cream of the Greek/Roman philosophers, of Muhammad, of the Hindu religion, and of Christianity.

All of these contradict, in their way, casual worldliness, and urge their followers to a certain life of asceticism and care for other humans. The Golden Rule is one precept that is cited as an example of something that finds its way into many of these philosophies in one form or another.

If we follow these common teachings, it would seem that we can live a life grounded in a certain common wisdom. Perhaps this way, in living a wise, balanced life, we can attain happiness.

But that is the radical, earth-shattering, paradigm-shifting uniqueness of the Gospel: We learn from Christ that Wisdom and balance bring not happiness, but just a more enlightened form of emptiness. We learn that if we want happiness, we cannot seek it in enlightened isolation: We find it only in a person. The Person. In communion with Christ Himself, and with the Blessed Trinity.

Paul tells us in today’s reading, “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you
except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” Sure, the Gospel message comes with some moral teachings, which include care for others and a certain asceticism. But these are not happiness–they are merely the entry ticket into the building. Happiness is Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. It lies in the wondrous gift He brings us through His passion, death, and resurrection: in access to the heart of God Himself.

He announces it Himself in today’s gospel, where He reads a scripture passage about bringing glad tidings to the poor, liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind–in short, the restoration of human happiness–and states that the passage is fulfilled even as He is reading it (after which He simply sits down).

Philosophy, philosophy about life, is interesting and it has value. But in the end, we must not be fooled: In the end, there is no happiness outside of the intimate, life-giving experience of profound union with Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus what is most important in His eyes from the body of His teachings. What did He come to do for us? How does He want us to pursue happiness? Can we attain it by simply following the moral teachings of the Church, like a sort of baking recipe? Or is He inviting us to more? Ask Him for the grace to discover your happiness in Him.

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August 30, 2020August 14, 2020

No Coasting

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

If only there were some middle ground.

Middle ground between the insipid rot of sin, and the insanity of the Cross.

But there is not. Many would like to rail against God for this; but in the end, man’s rebellion against God is the source of this uncomfortable dichotomy–a rebellion which we habitually take so lightly and so casually, that we fall into the absurd temptation of blaming God for its terrible consequences.

It would be so nice if we could just live a comfortable, bourgeois, care-free existence here on earth, paying God routine worship as part of our life of coasting along, and then enjoy the blessings of eternal life upon our deaths.

But this middle ground simply does not exist; it is a phantasm, a mirage. In the second reading, St. Paul tells us to “offer your bodies as a living sacrifice.” For Jeremiah in the first reading, the mission God gives him is “like fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones; I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it.”

But it is in today’s gospel that Jesus gives the definitive answer to Peter, who urges Him to stop talking about the Cross and to adopt a “normal” life: “Get behind me Satan!…Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it.”

It would be wrong to interpret Jesus’ words to mean that every moment of a Christian’s life on earth is pure agony. But Jesus does call us to renounce the “normal,” default path of constant worldly comfort-seeking and glory-seeking, and make of our entire life, moment by moment, a gift for the happiness and welfare of others, both eternal and temporal.

And the conversion of our lives into a constant gift turns our life from something “normal,” from the default human path, into a continuous uphill walk to Calvary; a constant upstream paddle. There is not downhill roll, no downstream coasting, for a Christian. As St. Paul says in the second reading:

“Do not conform yourselves to this age
but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,
that you may discern what is the will of God,
what is good and pleasing and perfect.”

But if indeed that comfortable middle ground of a “good, normal life” does not exist as an option for a Christian, if we are called to renounce coasting now and for all time, the result for our lives is far from a tragedy. “Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” The happiness we find in the all-in choice for Christ and His path brings with it an utterly unexpected happiness and fulfillment, utterly disproportionate to the relatively small sacrifice we make in making a gift of our lives. We are raised far beyond the capacities of our limited nature, to participate in the very nature and overabundant joy of God–even here on earth. And in eternity: “What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him.”

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Examine your life in the light of today’s readings, in the light of Christ’s radical invitation away from coasting and toward a complete gift of self, carrying your cross and following Him. Are you ready to give up the fake “middle road,” which in the end is merely a gentle downward spiral into selfishness and sin? Are you ready to jump radically into His challenge, with reckless trust in Him for your happiness–are you ready to follow Jesus Christ? Tell Him today, once and for all, that you are ready to give Him your whole heart.

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August 29, 2020August 13, 2020

A Life “Wasted”

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

What a tragedy, the final days of St. John the Baptist. The life of the last and, if we are to take Christ’s words literally, the greatest prophet (cf. Mt. 11:11), was tragically and needlessly cut short on the ridiculous whim of a man utterly enslaved to his vacillating and nonsensical passions of lust, fear, and vanity.

How much John could have done to bring the nation of Israel to its true Lord, Savior, Messiah, Jesus Christ, if Herod had been even a slightly less absurd little man, and had pointed with honesty to John’s wisdom as a signpost for his nation.

Or at least, John’s death could have been itself more glorious and significant if Herod had opposed him publicly for his difficult stances, if John had been able to give greater testimony to the truth under persecution from a worthier opponent.

But no, a sniveling king puts him to death secretly in prison to please a dancing girl at one of his parties.

And yet, this is the wisdom of the Gospel, this is glory and power of the chosen of God of whom St. Paul speaks in the first reading, and whom today’s psalm sings as blessed.

It is time for us Christians to stop dreaming of Palm Sunday, and to embrace the glorious ignominy of the cross, where our true power lies. In our comfortable world of today, we must constantly remind ourselves that our joy and happiness do not lie here. Even if we are not imprisoned or suffering agony, we can live this wisdom by sacrificing ourselves for others in the state to which Jesus Christ has called us today, whether it is eminent or mundane, stimulating or tiresome, apparently important or apparently trivial. We can give our life as He did, as John did, today, and it is by this gift of self that we add actual grace, through the power of Christ’s own sacrifice, to the economy of salvation.

It is counter-intuitive. It makes no sense. And yet, it does; it is foolishness to the world, and yet it is the wisdom of God, who has chosen the foolish of the world to shame the wise.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Tell Jesus that you cannot adopt His mindset, His wisdom, on your own. Beg Him for the gift of the Holy Spirit that is the gift of wisdom, His wisdom. Ask Him to see how your life, today, can be glorious and fruitful in the light of that wisdom. And trust Him to make it so, even in the midst of your weakness.

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August 28, 2020August 13, 2020

Wisdom and Folly

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Today’s readings, in a sense, are all about the radical difference between the view of things from the perspective of eternity, vs. the view of them from the perspective of earthly time.

Both the first reading from St. Paul, which is one of those great, moving, passionate Pauline declarations, and the gospel from today juxtapose foolishness and wisdom: The paradoxical foolishness of the earthly and temporal view, and the deep wisdom of the eternal view.

We can share St. Paul’s passion. Consider the time we are living in. The world is obsessed with “clanging cymbals,” “noisy gongs” (cf. 1 Cor. 13). People are running to and fro in fear of this and that, condemning on social media those whose views on rapidly passing realities is not their own, with a bitterness that implies that the definitive welfare of humankind depends on unanimity on these matters.

Noise, clamor, fear, angst, hand-wringing–these are the fruits of the wisdom of the world, which St. Paul describes in the first reading. For it is the wisdom of the world that seeks an earthly utopia, achieved through power and domination. And because earthly utopia, such a tempting objective, is perennially elusive, its advocates remain perennially bitter.

The crucifixion of Christ could not appear more foolish against the backdrop of this earth-centric view. It is the opposite of all that is needed to build the earthly utopia: Weakness, powerlessness, rejection, failure. And how Paul loves it, for all that; how beautifully he identifies its deeper wisdom.

For, if power and domination are the currency of the earthly utopia, love and self-giving are the currency of eternal life and happiness. Countless willing Christian martyrs, joyful and happy to sacrifice their lives for the eternal salvation of others in imitation of their Lord, put an exclamation point on the mute eloquence of a God who takes on flesh only to sacrifice Himself for the prize of eternal happiness for souls. Paul himself was ultimately one of these.

The superficiality of the foolish virgins in the today’s gospel mirrors the flesh-deep, utopian “wisdom” of the world. They brought their lamps, but no oil. Like the seed in the parable of the sower that fell on ground with no depth (cf. Mt. 13), they could not stick with it for the long haul. So it is with superficial Christians, who buy into a feel-good religion aimed only at a happy community of friends who like each other and do nice things, rather than fully and deeply buying into the wisdom of the crucified Christ.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Rather than taking the wisdom of the cross for granted, ask Jesus why–really, why–He opted for this path rather than bringing the earthly domination of God through the most obvious means: earthly power. Then, consider the concrete areas in which you yourself are perturbed by the way the powers of the world lean away from the Gospel. How does the crucified Christ answer these perturbations? Ask Him how you can conform your life more fully to the wisdom of the cross.

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August 27, 2020August 11, 2020

Taskmasters

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

“Blessed is that servant whom his master on his arrival finds doing so.” Doing what? What is it that the master of the house wants to find his steward doing? Mowing the lawn? Fixing the chimney? Sand-blasting the siding? Nope, not in this particular parable. The master of the house wants to find his steward distributing food to his other servants. And conversely, the behavior cited as worthy of punishment is mistreatment of the other servants.

Sometimes we over-index on the tasks in our lives, our to-do list, which our conscience tells us is our non-negotiable responsibility set, and under-index on love. St. John of the Cross, however, tells us in his singular style, “Upon the dusk of our lives, they will examine us on our love.” It is by our love that we will be judged.

Of course, tasks are part of love. But too often, for us they take on some sort of larger-than-life meaning all their own, and our conscience obsesses with their completion rather than the welfare of the persons for whom we are completing them.

What a great pairing of readings today. In the first reading, Paul is in the very act of embodying the good steward. His letter to the Corinthians oozes with his love for the Christians of Corinth, his passion for their welfare in Christ. And He is feeding them with his encouragement and example of trust in God. When the Master of the house returned home for Paul, He found him throwing everything he had into doing that which Jesus had directly asked Simon Peter to do, and in him, all of us: “Feed my sheep.” (cf. Jn. 21:17).

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: St. John of the Cross uses the curious phrase, “they will examine us on our love.” St. Ignatius, for his part, is a big fan of daily self-examination. Thinking of that examination at the end of our lives, examine your day today, your week, your overall attitude, to discover if you are doing tasks anxiously, mindlessly, for their own sake, for a sense of completion. Or if you are actually obsessed with the happiness, first eternal, but also temporal, of those for whom you are doing the tasks. Ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten you. Then, ask Our Lord to fill your heart more with love, until this becomes your obsession, rather than the checklist.

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August 26, 2020August 10, 2020

Dead Inside

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Today’s readings seem to address two completely unrelated topics: Freeloading, and Hypocrisy.

St. Paul warns that people who want to freeload off the Christian community simply aren’t welcome. Sounds harsh–but, whereas giving to the needy is eminently Christian, allowing the lazy to take dishonest advantage of one’s kindness clearly is not, if we are to believe St. Paul.

In the today’s gospel, on the other hand, Jesus Christ upbraids the Pharisees for their hypocrisy, condemning their careful curation of outward appearance, even while they are full of evil, indeed, dead, inside. He prophesies that this evil hypocrisy will ultimately result in his own death, which paradoxically completes the story arc of the murder of the prophets throughout history, the same prophets the Pharisees claim to venerate.

Surely, these readings are unrelated. The Pharisees aren’t exactly lazy, per se; if nothing else, they are diligent about looking after their appearances. Whereas those about whom St. Paul warns the Christian community seem less hypocritical and more lackadaisical.

Upon closer look, however, what is it about saintly persons that causes them to be diligent and hard-working? On the other hand, what is it that causes them to be sincere and consistent between their outward appearance and their inward goodness? Is it their working on honesty/humility on the one hand, and diligence on the other, separately?

On the contrary, when a soul is filled with God, truly alive inside, that soul wants what is within them to shine out and be shared to the exterior; when a soul is filled with God, hard work appears less daunting and more desirable because it is a vehicle by which to share their internal joy with others–and the strain involved seems minor compared to the motivation in their hearts.

Now, it is true that some people have a stronger tendency to laziness, and others to vanity, or pride. The sin in one type of person may manifest more strongly in apathy, and in another, in boastfulness or scorn of neighbor. Since sin keeps us far from God, it makes sense in our spiritual lives to work hardest against the sin that afflicts us most.

But in the end, it is evil that is complex; God is simple. The more we fill ourselves with God and prioritize His friendship and will above other goods, the easier it will become to relativize and avoid sins that at first glance may seem insurmountable. In the end, while He requires effort from us, it is His overwhelmingly powerful grace, accessed through prayer and the sacraments, that will overcome all the complex manifestations of our sins–which so often, more than anything else, are but a manifestation of our emptiness of Him, our need for Him.

Today’s psalm tells us:

“Blessed are you who fear the LORD,
who walk in his ways!
For you shall eat the fruit of your handiwork;
blessed shall you be, and favored.”

It is God’s presence and grace that gives us the hope and motivation in “eating the fruit of our handiwork” that we need to motivate us to work hard; it is hope in His favor that will embolden us to leave aside pretense and show ourselves to the world as we truly are.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Dialogue with Jesus about the sins you find most pronounced, most ugly in yourself. Make a resolution with Him to fight against those sins in particular, without delay. But above all, ask Him to enter with His joy into those areas of your life, so that you no longer feel the desperate need for the fake satisfaction that the sin brings, and have the strength and courage to turn wholeheartedly to Him. Tell Him that you trust that His favor and friendship, as it manifests itself more and more fully, will be more than enough blessing and happiness in your life.

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August 25, 2020August 25, 2020

Skimmer Bugs

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Too often in our spiritual life, we live the life of skimmer bugs, scooting around on the top of the water held together tenuously by molecular cohesion. We find ourselves disturbed by every ripple and wave, and focused only on what can be seen on the surface.

To put a dramatic but accurate point on it, this is the realm of Satan, the “world” dominated by the “prince of this world” of whom Jesus speaks (cf. Jn. 12:31, Jn. 16:11). Satan’s most effective tools dwell here–such as his technique of both dazzling and terrifying through appearances.

Both the first reading and Gospel passage from today caution against different manifestations of an excessively surface-focused, or superficial, attitude. St. Paul warns against the terror that can come from expectation of apocalyptic cataclysm, based on false signs or utterances. And the Gospel warns against efforts to appear good or holy, all the while neglecting the attitudes of the heart.

A different kind of superficiality can afflict us as well: The tendency to focus solely on exterior habits of virtue, while neglecting the deep transformation of our hearts. We think that by practicing this or that aspect of self-discipline or asceticism, the habit itself will work the transformation from the outside in. Then, as we inevitably stumble and fall, or fail to remain consistent in these habits, we become discouraged and consider our spiritual life a lost cause.

This discouragement, which comes from too superficial a notion of holiness, is another arrow in the devil’s quiver that he uses to take advantage of a soul with too much focus on the external surface of things.

Of course, working on our habits of virtue and working against habits of vice is critical for a healthy spiritual life, but this effort should be the flowering of a transformation that works from the inside out. And how does the transformation begin from the inside? Through the formation of the greatest habit of all: Real time dedicated daily to God in prayer, and frequent reception of the sacraments.

False outside-in transformation becomes real inside-out transformation by the very fact that we give God this time, even if our prayer time is filled with involuntary distractions, even if we do not sense any immediate fruit from our prayer. It is not magic. It is something far more powerful, beautiful, and mysterious than magic. Magic is impersonal. What occurs in our hearts, imperceptibly and almost in spite of ourselves, is the action of the protagonist of our spiritual lives, the Person of God Himself, God the Holy Spirit.

When we build our efforts to become better people on this solid bedrock, we little by little defeat superficiality in our lives, with its terrors and bedazzlements; little by little, we plunge deep into the heart of God. Little by little, we are less shaken by the absurd atrocities that occur in the world at the political level, by “wars and rumors of wars” (cf. Mt. 24:6).

And we come to the deep conviction that God, the Lord of our hearts and of all of history, has not only the story arc of the universe, but also that of our own spiritual growth well in hand. And we fall in love with Him.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Talk with Jesus about the things in your own life and in the broader world that frighten and perturb you. Ask Him if, despite surface appearances, He has them well in hand, and to help you to come to trust this, deeply and practically. Ask Him to transform you so that that things that most move His heart become those that move yours, instead of the superficial realities in life that at times seem so potent.

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August 24, 2020August 3, 2020

Pillar of the Church

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

If you want to name a son after today’s saint, one of the original twelve apostles, you can name him Nathaniel…or Bartholomew. Same guy. Hence, on the feast of St. Bartholomew, the Gospel reading is about Nathaniel.

The Gospels never say “Jesus laughed,” but if we listen closely enough, we can hear Him chuckling in today’s Gospel reading. “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree?” Nathaniel lent credence to Jesus as Son of God, and anointed Him King of Israel, evidently just because He said Nathaniel was not two-faced, and that He knew this upon seeing him under the fig tree.

Despite Jesus’ wry question, we can be sure that Nathaniel didn’t jump on Jesus’ bandwagon just because he was spotted under a tree, or because he received a compliment, even one he considered to be precisely on target. As seemed to be the case with the other apostles who jumped up and spontaneously followed Jesus, leaving everything they had behind, Nathaniel had an experience of Christ upon meeting Him. Without being able to put his finger on why, he saw that there was something drastically different with this Teacher.

Our experience of faith is no different. We sometimes conceive of “faith” as some sort of logical assent, a nod of our heads to the existence of God and to Jesus as His Son and the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity because it makes sense. As if we have deduced the existence of God from the order in the universe, analyzed the teachings and life of Christ and confirmed those as being logically consistent with the necessary love of a God who would create such a universe. Then, sitting back, half-closing our eyes, and joining our two hands at the tips of the fingers in a sign of our profound wisdom, we have deigned to nod our head exactly once.

If we are honest, while our faith may not derive from “sight” literally understood as the external sense, it does come from the unmistakable internal experience we have of Jesus Christ, the person, in our hearts and in our souls. We have “met” Him there. And our intuition, that difficult-to-pin-down but oh-so-real-and-necessary component of the faculty of our intelligence–a component which today, some call “emotional intelligence”–has vigorously assented that this Jesus Christ is in fact our Lord and Savior.

It is exciting to think that we have had this very real, unmistakable experience, which sustains us even when, during periods short or extended, God allows for trials in our spiritual lives wherein that experience seems to be lacking.

As we reflect on Nathaniel’s moment of clarity in faith, we detect a sort of delicious irony in today’s readings. Philip describes Jesus as the one about whom the prophets have written. Nathaniel, he who was hanging out under just another fig tree in dusty Galilee, couldn’t have imagined how he himself would be wrapped into this narrative–that, in fact, the Old Testament directly foreshadowed his own life and mission as well. As the first reading shows, the great Twelve Tribes of Israel–of which Nathaniel would be very much aware–were themselves but a foreshadowing of the twelve pillars of the Church, the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ, of which Nathaniel would become one.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Reflect on your most powerful experiences of Jesus Christ, and thank Him that He calls us to faith not through intellectual deduction, but through a direct experience of Himself. Consider that, as with Nathaniel, a relationship with Jesus brings with it a cosmically foreseen and foreshadowed mission of great import. Ask Him to help you fulfill that mission with your ironically small “yes” of every day.

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August 23, 2020August 3, 2020

The Keys of the Kingdom

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways!”

In line with this beginning of today’s second reading, we do well to remember that we don’t have God and His ways all figured out. There is still plenty of mystery for us with God, and in particular with His approach to man, and that mystery is the space in which we trust Him and obey Him.

Perhaps few of God’s choices are more difficult to understand, at least at first consideration, than the choice reflected in today’s first reading and Gospel: Namely, the choice to put His own authority in the hands of a select group of chosen individuals. Perhaps this would make more sense to us if those people were infallibly guaranteed to be holy. But this is not the case.

Starting with St. Peter and the apostles, Jesus has conferred His teaching authority in the hands of the Pope and bishops teaching in communion with him; and yet, we see in the history of the Church worldly popes and bishops, men unworthy of their calling. This can be terribly discouraging, and we may wonder why God would inflict such a burden on His Church.

But if concrete examples of unworthy shepherds may discourage us, we are profoundly encouraged by the miracle that over the course of the millennia, Jesus’ teaching has been preserved faithfully by the Church, even in the presence of unworthy shepherds, and also applied faithfully to the evolving realities of each time period. Sometimes Church governmental decisions have been flawed, as well as informal utterances and teachings, but not the teachings of the Magisterium of the Church in the key areas affecting our eternal welfare: faith and morals.

As we contemplate this mystery, we may consider that God has “stubbornly” insisted on sharing with His followers all the glories of His Son, including kingship and authority, despite the evil that would flow from those who take up this authority unworthily. Also, He has “stubbornly” avoided overruling or suppressing the exalted gift man’s freedom, and thus has not provided any guarantee of the holiness of any shepherd’s choices.

But I think a clearer hint at God’s intent in establishing the authority of the Church is the revelations of Jesus’ heart for His flock that we see in the Gospel. Before feeding the multitude, He looks out over the crowd gathered and takes pity, for they are like “sheep without a shepherd.” (Mt. 9:36) And then we have His promise: “I will not leave you orphans.” (Jn. 14:18) Jesus loves us, His disciples, tenderly, and did not want us to have to navigate the dark path of the world without giving us guides to enlighten the paths of each age with an authentic application of His teachings.

Like Adam and Eve in Eden, there are those today in the Church who would wish to be “like gods,” answering to no one and becoming the sole interpreters of the truth for their worlds. But for those of us who know to appreciate it, the Magisterium of the Church is a great gift Our Lord has given us that we may have peace and certainty as we strive to follow Him in every age.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Consider the unworthiness of many shepherds in the Church, and ask Our Lord to penetrate proud hearts in the clergy and convert them back to His Heart. Then, consider the miracle of the sure path He has given us to follow in the teachings of the Magisterium, even in the midst of varying clerical holiness, and thank Him for the tenderness of His personal love for you as manifested in this gift. Ask Him for the wisdom and humility to follow that Magisterium faithfully without being deceived or discouraged by the less-than-stellar example of some.

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August 22, 2020August 2, 2020

Queenship of Mary

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Today is the memorial of the Queenship of Mary–important enough for 1/15 of the entire cycle of the rosary to be dedicated to it.

Still, the readings of the day default to Saturday of the 20th week in ordinary time, which as such will be the subject of these reflections.

What is striking is how gloriously the ordinary readings of the day, by apparent utter coincidence, reflect the splendor of Mary’s Queenship–and the secret of her regal stature.

The first reading is all about the glory of God entering into the temple. Mary, who carried Jesus in her womb for nine months, is the Temple of God par excellence. Indeed, bringing to fulfillment the role of the Jewish temple described in the first reading, we can hear God the Father speaking to His Son of Mary’s heart: “Son of man, this is where my throne shall be, this is where I will set the soles of my feet; here I will dwell among the children of Israel forever.”

The Gospel seems to have little to do with Our Lady, much less her Queenship, as it starts by pointing out how the Pharisees do everything for show and for superficial honors. But then we hear Christ describe how we must be, in contrast to this attitude: “The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” Mary echoes these sentiments in reference to her own treatment by God, almost verbatim, in the Magnificat: “He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones but lifted up the lowly.” (Lk. 1:52)

Truly, the glory of the Lord entered triumphantly into Mary at the Annunciation, and she was the maiden most highly exalted, most highly lifted up, due to her humility, her lowliness.

Would we like to have a glorious crown in Heaven, like Our Lady? Would we like to have the power that she has in Heaven to intervene for the conversion and the eternal salvation of souls? What is the secret? After all, she didn’t “do much!” What is the difference between Mary and me?

The answer is almost literally painfully simple. That it is hard takes nothing away from its simplicity. The glory of the Lord is pressing to enter and flood your heart, your life, as it did Mary’s. All that is required is your authentic daily “yes,” like Mary’s at the Annunciation; a “yes” articulated clearly and simply to God in your time of prayer, a”yes” given to the Holy Spirit as you seek to heed Him during the day, a “yes” offered in full awareness of the lowliness of your being in His sight. It is this “yes” that brings the glory of the Lord to enter in, and causes God to say, “This is where my throne shall be.”

And ultimately, it is that glory, the glory of the Lord Himself, that constitutes Mary’s heavenly crown.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Consider and examine your “yes” to God. Consider its imperfections. Reassert to Him how deeply and truly you wish to make your “yes” purer, more constant, more consistent, so that He can do for others through you what He did for us through Mary.

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