This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.
The choice of the first reading for a day like today is something of a snub to evil: The entire first reading describes that which Mary completely avoided at the Immaculate Conception, like a halfback who makes a run free and clear around a defensive end entirely faked out by a reverse play.
Free and clear. By the retroactive action of the redemptive act of her Son, Mary never tasted the downward pull of the sinful inclinations the rest of us experience due to the taint of original sin.
There is something awesome that flows directly from the Immaculate Conception, and likewise flows from her constant (albeit simple) “yes” as described in today’s gospel.
That thing is her power. The thoroughness of the gift of her freedom to God throughout her life is a gift that makes up for a great deal of bad choices and weak freedom in many others. The gift of her freedom, the unmitigated “yes” of a free creature, stands in and gives God “permission” to invade humanity with His grace–first, literally embodied in the Son she bore, but then also in the form of invasions of grace throughout history, some of which we glimpse through her own appearances at various moments. Christ did not come to overturn our free will, which Adam and Eve used definitively to reject God on behalf of all humanity. Rather, He came to open the door to allow each of us to choose for ourselves. He allows for us to choose salvation.
Typically, however, He refrains from nudging or pushing us through that door. But it is the free gift of self of creatures like Our Lady, and those who seek to emulate her in this, her “team” as it were, together with intercessory prayer, that permits Him within His own scheme of justice to give those nudges, to give those pushes.
Thus, Mary is not merely the model for Christians of virtue. She is the Christian hero par excellence, who very literally and concretely furthers Jesus’ work of salvation.
And there is absolutely no reason why, today, we cannot attain a full sharing of her power in amplifying the effect of Jesus’ infinite saving grace, by giving ourselves to God in absolute trust, as she did.
Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Recall how in the Old Testament, Elisha was bold enough to ask for a double portion of the spirit of Elijah–the greatest prophet who had ever lived. Be bold. Ask Christ to shape you to be like His mother. Ask Him to bring you to wield the very same power for good, through gift of self, that she wields.
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