The Vocation of Our Lady

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here. That you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins, and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

When Christ came into the world, he said, “Lo, I have come to do your will, O God” (Heb. 10:7). The Annunciation and the Incarnation of the Son of God are most wonderful and extraordinary events. It is the mystery of the enormous love that God has for mankind. It is true the mystery which has had the greatest bearing on the whole of mankind’s history. God became man once and for all. Even so, this event took place in Nazareth. A tiny village in a country that was scarcely known to the outside world of its day. There God was born in the perfect and entire nature of man. He was whole in what related to human nature. St. Leo the Great says at one and the same time, he preserved the totality of the essence that is proper to him, and he assumed the totality of our human essence in order to restore that totality.

St. Luke tells us very simply about this tremendously important event. “In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary” (Luke 1:26–27). All down the ages, popular piety has represented Our Lady as being recollected in prayer when she receives the angel’s salutation. “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you.” Her mother is disturbed by these words. But her being disturbed does not render her inactive. She knows the scriptures well. She’s been instructed in them as were all good Jews from their earliest years. But above all, she has the clarity of mind and the perceptiveness given her by her matchless faith, her deep love, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

That’s why she understands the message of God’s angel. Her soul is fully open to what God is about to ask of her. The angel hastens to reassure her and reveals to her God’s plan for her vocation. “You have found favour with God,” he says, “You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be called great, and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:30–33).

The messenger greets Our Lady as full of grace. He calls her this as if it were her real name. He doesn’t call her by her proper earthly name, Miriam, but by this new name. John Paul II says, “Full of grace.” What does this name mean? Why does the Archangel address the Virgin of Nazareth in this way? In the language of the Bible, grace means a special gift, which according to the New Testament has its source precisely in the Trinitarian life of God himself, of God who is love. Mary is full of grace, is called full of grace, because this name expresses her true being. When God changes a person’s name or gives him or her an extra one, he destines him or her to something new, or reveals to that person his or her true mission in the history of salvation. Mary is called full of grace, most highly favoured, because of her divine motherhood.

The angel’s announcement revealed to Our Lady her task in the world, the key to her whole existence. The Annunciation was for her a most perfect light that filled the whole of her life and made her fully aware of her exceptional role in the history of mankind. Mary is definitively introduced into the mystery of Christ through this event. When they say the Angelus each day, many Christians throughout the world remind Our Mother of this moment, the importance of which, for her and for the whole of mankind, no words can describe. We remind her of it too when we consider the first joyful mystery of the rosary. We should try to enter into the scene and contemplate Our Lady as, with loving piety, she embraces the holy will.

St. Josemaria says: the scene of the Annunciation is a very lovely one. How often have we meditated on this? Mary is recollected in prayer. She is using all her senses and her faculties to speak to God. It is in prayer that she comes to know the divine will. And with prayer, she makes it the life of her life. Don’t forget the example of the Virgin Mary. The Blessed Trinity had traced out a plan for Our Lady. A destiny that was unique and quite exceptional. She was to be the Mother of God made man. But God asked Mary for her free acceptance.

She doesn’t doubt the angel’s words as Zechariah had done. However, she points out the incompatibility between her decision to live perpetual virginity, which God himself had placed in her heart, and the conceiving of a son. It is then that the angel announces to her, in clear and sublime terms, that she is to become a mother without losing her virginity. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God” (Luke 1:35).

Mary listens to these words and ponders them in her heart. There is no resistance in her intellect or in her heart. Everything in her is open to the divine will, without any restriction or limitation. This abandonment of hers to God is what makes Mary’s soul good soil, capable of receiving the divine seed. “Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). Our Lady joyfully agrees to having no will or desire other than that of her Lord and master, who from that moment on is also her Son, who has been made man in her most pure womb.

She surrenders herself joyfully and freely, without setting any limits or conditions. The Second Vatican Council says: thus the daughter of Adam, Mary, consenting to the word of God, became the Mother of Jesus. Committing herself wholeheartedly and impeded by no sin to God’s saving will, she devoted herself totally as a handmaid of the Lord to the person and work of her Son, under and with him serving the mystery of redemption by the grace of Almighty God. Rightly therefore, the Fathers of the Church see Mary not merely as passively engaged by God, but as freely cooperating in the work of man’s salvation through faith and obedience.

Our Lady’s vocation is a perfect example for any vocation. We understand our own life and the events that encompass it in the light of our own calling. It is in our endeavour to fulfil this divine plan that our way to heaven and our own human and supernatural fulfilment lie. Vocation is not the choice we make for ourselves, so much as that which God makes of us through the thousand and one events in which we are involved. We need to know how to interpret these circumstances with faith. And with a heart that is at once pure and upright. We’re told in St. John, “You did not choose me, but I chose you” (John 15:16).

Every vocation, every existence, is in itself a grace that encloses within it many others. It’s a grace, a gift, that is given to us. That is bestowed on us without our having deserved it, without having evoked it by any merit of ours, and with no right to it on our part. One writer says it’s not necessary that the vocation, the call to fulfil the plan of God, the assigned mission, be great or splendid. It’s enough that God has wanted to employ us in his service, that he wants us to aid him, that he trusts our cooperation. The fact that he wants our cooperation is in itself so extraordinary and magnificent that an entire life spent in thanksgiving is not enough to repay him for such an honour.

It will please God very much if we thank him today for the many times he’s given us light to see the path along which he’s calling us. We should thank him through his most holy Mother, who corresponded so faithfully to what God asked of her. Do not be afraid. This injunction is very much at the root of what constitutes a vocation. Man, in fact, is afraid. He is afraid not only of being called to the priesthood, but also of being called to live his life with all the obligations that this brings with it, whether in work or in marriage. This fear denotes an immature sense of responsibility. We have to overcome this fear and take on our responsibilities in a way that is mature.

We have to accept God’s call. We have to listen to that call. To take it upon ourselves and ponder it according to our lights. We have to reply, yes. Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid, for you have found grace. Do not be afraid of life. Do not be afraid of becoming a mother. Do not be afraid of getting married. Do not be afraid of becoming a priest, for you have found grace. This certainty, says John Paul II, this awareness of our vocation, helps us just as it helped Mary. Indeed heaven and earth await your yes, O most pure Virgin.

He awaits your yes, said John Paul. Mother about to have a child, he awaits your yes. Young man about to assume some personal, social, or family responsibility, he awaits your yes. It is a reply by which we joyfully commit ourselves. Our Lady’s reply, “Let it be done unto me,” is rather more final than a simple yes. It is a complete surrender of her will to what God wanted of her at that moment and for the whole of her life. Her fiat, her “let it be done,” will reach its culmination on Calvary, when, standing beside the cross, she offers herself up with her Son.

The yes that God asks of each one of us, whatever our path in life may be, lasts the whole of our lives. Sometimes it will be a reply to small occurrences, at other times to larger, more important events. It will be our reply to each call that God makes, and which leads successively to the next. Our yes to Jesus leads us not to think too much about ourselves. It should lead us to keep our hearts alert so that we may be attentive to the voice of God who tells us, who belong to him, which is the path he has traced out for us. As we lovingly respond to his call, we shall see how our freedom and God’s will mingle in perfect harmony.

Our Lady, a perfect image of the Church, and also spiritual mother to all believers, has a big role to play in priestly paternity. All the more, since she is the mother of the only true priest, Jesus Christ, from whom the Church derives all priesthood. We cannot fully be priests without welcoming Our Lady, as one might welcome a well-loved disciple. We must receive her fully into the intimacy of our lives, like one of the most precious gifts that God can give us, as much for our Christian perfection as for the fruitfulness of our apostolate.

Throughout her life, Our Lady must have been a source of consolation and support to anyone afflicted by a weight too heavy to bear alone. She must surely have heartened St. Joseph on that night in Bethlehem, when, as he explained their pressing need for lodging at one house after another, he found no door would open to them. One smile from Our Lady would be enough for him to find the strength to get ready and make the most of what he had found — a stable on the outskirts of the little town. She would have been a tower of strength to him on the flight into Egypt, and in helping him set up in that country. Joseph himself was a man of fortitude. But it would have been easier for him to do what he must do to fulfil the will of God, when he was sustained by the encouragement of Our Lady.

Her neighbours in Nazareth would always find uplifting and understanding in the words of Our Lady. The apostles found refuge in her company when all had turned dark and meaningless after the death of Christ on the cross. When they returned from placing the body of Jesus in the sepulchre, at a time when families in Jerusalem were getting ready to celebrate the paschal feast, the apostles, who had fled numb with shock and disoriented, turned almost automatically to Our Lady’s house. From then on she has never ceased to comfort those who were oppressed by sorrow, loneliness, or suffering.

She has sheltered innumerable Christians from persecution, freed many souls possessed by the devil or besieged by temptations, saved countless supplicants from anxiety. She has strengthened and helped many of the dying, by reminding them as they lay on their deathbeds of the infinite merits of her Son. If ever our life has become for us a misery, and we are overwhelmed by apparently insoluble difficulties, crushed by illness, daunted by seeming failure in our dedication to an apostolic task, if we are threatened by discouragement in the effort to bring up our family, and dismayed by the obstacles that just keep on piling up, well then let us turn to Our Lady.

We will always find solace, encouragement, and strength to fulfil the will of her Son. We can repeat slowly: “Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, hail our life, our sweetness, and our hope.” From her we can learn to console and hearten others in their struggle. We learn to be compassionate to those who are in need of help, in disasters or in minor worries. A word of encouragement here, of condolence there. A merciful attitude which is so pleasing to Our Lord.

Our Lady is called the help of Christians, because first of all, we favour those we love. And nobody has had a greater love than Our Lady for those who belong to her Son’s family. In her we shall find every grace that we need to win through in the fight against temptation, in our apostolate, and in our work. In the rosary, said St. Josemaria, we have a powerful weapon with which to overcome all the obstacles that we shall meet along the way.

Following the constant teaching of the Roman Pontiffs, many Christians throughout the world have made the daily rosary a part of their life of piety. They recite it together as a family prayer, or alone in a church, while walking in the street, or travelling in any form of transport. The Book of Ecclesiasticus says, “In me is to be found every grace of doctrine and of truth. Every hope of life and of virtue” (Eccles. 24:25). And St. Josemaria comments: “How wise the Church has been to put these words on Our Mother’s lips so that we Christians do not forget them. She is our safety, the love that never fails, the refuge ever open to us, the hand ever ready to caress and console.”

Our Lady, we’re told, treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. Mary kept in her heart the angel’s announcement about her divine motherhood as a treasure. She kept forever in her heart all the things that happened on that night in Bethlehem. All that the shepherds said in front of the manger. The presence days or months later of the Magi with their gifts. The prophecy of Simeon. And the difficulties of her journey to Egypt. Later a deep impression was made on her heart by the loss of her Son at the age of twelve in Jerusalem. And the words he spoke to her and Joseph, when in a state of great distress, they found him at last. “He went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. And his mother kept all these things in her heart” (Luke 2:51).

During all the years she lived on earth, Mary never forgot the events that surrounded the death of her Son on the cross. And the words she heard Jesus say as he hung there, “Woman, behold your son” (John 19:26). As he pointed to John, she saw each one of us and all mankind. From that moment on, she loved us in her heart with a mother’s love, with the same love as that with which she loved Jesus. In us she recognised her Son, just as he himself had said, “As you did it to one of these the least of my brethren, you did it to me” (Matt. 25:40). But Our Lady had already acted as a mother before the redemption was consummated on Calvary. Because she has been our mother from the moment when in her fiat, her “let it be done,” she gave her cooperation to the salvation of all men.

We can ask Our Lady today for the grace to form a deep and true desire to perceive our own vocation in greater depth, and for light so as to correspond to the successive calls that God may make on us. Mary, may you help us, may you enable us to give a prompt and firm reply on each occasion. The only thing that can fill our lives and give them full meaning is our vocation.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

EW