Last week at daily Mass on Monday, we celebrated the feast of the annunciation. Typically the feast is March 25th, 9 months before Christmas, but in years where it falls during Holy Week or the Octave of Easter, the feast gets moved to the first Monday after the Second Sunday of Easter.
While you probably have seen many artistic depictions of the annunciation, especially on Christmas cards, what can get lost in it is how terrifying it must have been for Mary. Mary has a plan. She is going to marry Joseph and lead a simple life. And then along comes an angel with another plan. And this plan could have very dire consequences for Mary. She is a young woman, probably around the age of 13 or 14, so without Joseph she may have no support and be out on her own, at best. At worst, for being an expectant mother outside of marriage in that culture, she could be killed by religious zealots. And she is a very devout woman, so this plan could also cause problems for her loved ones and Joseph too. How easy it would be for her to say “please find someone else.” But instead there is that “yes,” where she says “behold I am the handmaid of the Lord may it be done according to your word.” And with this, the Divine Plan begins to unfold, a simple, faithful, Jewish peasant woman being instrumental in it.
There is so much Mary has to teach us. Among them is the importance of trust. And that is something that can be harder than ever to have these days. It can be hard to trust others who let us down. It can be hard to trust what is real or fake in the news (especially these days with weather reports in our alleged “spring”!). Sometimes it can be even hard to trust in the Church.
But the thing of it is, when we have a bit of trust, things do work out. It does not mean we cannot question, but we also were not put here in a vacuum. So what does that trust look like?
For one, we trust God. This might be easier said than done, because sometimes God can seem distant, or silent. Other times things might move very slowly. But God ultimately does have a plan, and remember what Jesus said to the apostles before He ascended to the Father: behold I am with you always.
Closely related to that, we remember God can do amazing things. The angel Gabriel says: “nothing will be impossible for God.” This does not mean that God waves a magic wand and makes all our problems go away. But it does mean that God gets involved in ways that we might not always see. I think for instance of the power of grace and how it operates on people. A person may to the eye seem far removed from their faith, but then little by little they come to respond to it over the course of a life. Or out of a seemingly hopeless situation, stories of love and mercy appear. We might read a situation as without hope, but God sees it completely differently. Sometimes we have to remember there is a plan and God will make things happen, it just might not be what we expected or on our timeline.
Third, we also trust in the guidance of others. Mary not only trusted in God, she trusted in Joseph and Joseph trusted in her too. As Catholics growing in faith, we are called to trust in the Church and other people too. The Church will never err in matters of faith and morals. Jesus created one Church upon Peter, not thousands of churches. So this means that while it is fine to struggle and question, we have to remember the Church has a mission – salvation of souls – and She is going to be there to give us the guidance so we can reach our potential. This is why it’s so important to make faith formation life long, to go to Mass, and to celebrate the sacraments. And with that, it’s also important to listen to others too who are there to give us advice and counsel as we discern things in life.
Lastly, let’s not forget while we should not trust only in ourselves, we should also trust that God has given us gifts, has a plan for us, and execute that plan, meaning sometimes we can get down on ourselves and think “I can’t.” God is not going to make all your problems go away. You still have to take that math test, you still have to go to work, you still have to deal with family issues and whatever curve balls life throws at you. That is the reality of life. But Mary could have looked at her situation and said there is no way this will work out – I am a nobody in the world, and I already have so little, if I say yes to this plan I will have nothing. But she trusted that God would guide her, and this woman shows such amazing fortitude and determination. She guides her Son; she visits her cousin Elizabeth; she follows her Son to the Cross. She never gives up. God gives us grace, He helps us through other people who are there to give us guidance, but ultimately He also gives us a virtue called fortitude that we use to act and live out our mission.
Last week we celebrated Divine Mercy Sunday, and as I mentioned at Mass, the image I referred to is of Jesus with beams of red and white coming out from his heart. Often the words “Jesus, I trust in you” are seen in depictions of Sister Faustina Kowalska’s vision. May we have that same trust that she did, and that our Blessed Mother did in God, and realize that no matter what life brings us, He will see us through. We are not alone – He is with us, as is the Church He created, and the people we are blessed to have with us on our journey. Like our Blessed Mother, may we see it through to it’s completion.
Have a great week!
Fr. Paul