Behold the Handmaid of the Lord

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding."

I like to imagine it might have been early in the morning and dark when our Lady crept outside, following a silent prompting in her heart to come out and pray as she stared up at the beauty of the stars fading with the first light of dawn.  Then, in that darkness just before the dawn, the light of the angel Gabriel burst upon her like the rising of the sun.

"Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women."

Called by name, she could not doubt that it was to her the angel spoke.  The message was for her and none other.

Who would not tremble at such a grace-filled message?  The words must have spoken to the depths of her heart and to her vocation, touching her soul in a way that only the truth of the Lord spoken to our hearts can do.

"Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God."

First, the injunction not to fear, a call to trust, to commit all doubts and uncertainty into God's providential love.

Then words of such power:

"Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a Son; and thou shalt call His name Jesus.  He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the most High; and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of David His father; and He shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever.  And of His kingdom there shall be no end."

For where God works there is ever clarity and strength, slicing through our own expectations with the sword of truth.  And He ever calls us to transform our perspective.

"How shall this be done, because I know not man?"

Tradition holds that Mary had taken a vow of perpetual virginity and that Joseph had done so as well.  Her question makes most sense in light of this view, which certainly precludes any possibility or expectation for a child in the picture.  I wonder whether she questioned in that moment her certainty regarding her vow of virginity.  Did she ask in her heart if God wished her to tread a different path?

"The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.  And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she also hath conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her that is called barren: Because no word shall be impossible with God."

Although Mary must have known then that God confirmed her in her vow of virginity, nevertheless the message must have transformed how she saw the entire rest of her life.  She could have questioned further, she could have resisted, she could have clung to what she wanted.

Yet she said only: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word." 

She could scarcely have uttered a more beautiful surrender of her expectations for her life.  All that she must have seen as necessary she laid down, accepting instead the power of God at work.

My prayer today is that we will have the courage to do the same, to surrender anything that we think is necessary for ourselves or others, to lay our expectations at the foot of the angel Gabriel, and speak with Mary: Behold the Lord's servant always, ready to fulfill all that He desires.

I wonder too about those moments after Gabriel departed.  Did the world seem dark and dreary?  Did her heart ache within her even with the joy of receiving God's message?  Perhaps the devil too crept in to tempt her not to trust in the Lord's plan and in His messenger, for if he could undermine her trust, he would have a foothold to drag her away from her obedience.

Yet Mary arose with haste, never heeding such tactics, and went to bring Christ to her cousin, to share with her the glory of God's word.

For her it was necessary only to attend to the duty of the moment and not to worry about the future.  She went to be present where she could draw closer in her service to the Lord and did not fret about what must come or what to do about it or how.

Here I am, Lord; I come to do Your will.