Advent prayer of surrender: A meditation of Mary

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Catholic News Service
      
Dear Jesus,
Help me to be like your mother. Help me to be ready to surrender to your will.
Place me with your mother on the day she discovered that God was asking her to be part of salvation history. Place me with her, a virgin betrothed to an older man, in the backwater village of Nazareth.
Let me imagine myself alone with her in her small home. It’s an ordinary day, a day filled with the usual tasks of a very young woman. Is she sewing, perhaps in anticipation of her impending marriage? Has she been to the village well for water? Is she cooking or baking?
Is she beautiful, dark hair, dark eyes, a lilting and hesitant laugh? She must have been thoughtful, intelligent, a reflective and prayerful girl, this woman who doesn’t yet know in this hour that she will be asked to give birth to and raise the Savior.
A knock punctuates the afternoon’s stillness. As I gaze expectantly at the door that Mary rises to open, neither of us knows that the traveler outside has been sent by God. Gabriel enters. The world shifts, imperceptibly.
I watch Mary as she receives this stranger, already expressing bold words in a soft, reassuring voice. “Do not be afraid,” he tells her, the words angels always use.
I listen with Mary as he asks the seemingly impossible and absurd of her. She is asked to bear a son, Jesus, who will inherit David’s throne: Son of the Most High.
“How can this be?” Mary is young, but strong and unafraid to question. She is incredulous, but listening.
How must it feel, to be told that the “Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you”? I sit with Mary as she absorbs these words.
Mary does not tell Gabriel to leave her; she does not ask for more time. She does not say she will need to find someone to advise her. Be still; imagine how Mary ponders this in her heart as Gabriel waits silently for her answer.
“I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”
When Gabriel leaves, I talk to Mary about her surrender to this request. I ask her to help me to recognize the angels God sends into my life. I ask her to help me to be open, but questioning, thoughtful, strong in examining and determining God’s will in my life.
I listen to Mary explain the power of those words: Do not be afraid — words that are repeated over and over throughout Scripture. Do not be afraid of what God asks. I understand that trials and struggle may be part of my journey of surrender, but God remains with me throughout.
The Holy Spirit who comes upon me will help me and will not leave me alone as I endeavor to find and accomplish the will of God in my life. Guide me, Mary.
(Caldarola is a freelance writer and a columnist for Catholic News Service.)
      
 
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FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Christianity seems to be full of striking juxtapositions:
— Strength and weakness. “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness,” Christ tells St. Paul (2 Cor 12:9).
— Death and new life. “To accomplish your plan, (Christ) gave himself up to death, and, rising from the dead, he destroyed death and restored life,” reads Eucharistic Prayer 4.
— Surrender and fulfillment. “We can only learn to know ourselves and do what we can — namely, surrender our will and fulfill God’s will in us,” St. Teresa of Avila said.
A common thread weaves between these seemingly contradictory themes: acceptance, submission and trust in the Father’s plan for our lives.
The opening lines of the Catechism of the Catholic Church read: “God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life” (No. 1).
God’s plans are good. Surrendering to his will brings fulfillment. Death to ourselves brings new life. And when we are weak, he will make us strong.