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Zechariah 2:14-27 or Revelation 11:19A; 12:1-6A, 10AB
Judith 13:18BCDE, 19
Luke 1:26-38 or 1:39-47
Summary
All of the readings today remind us of the courage and faith of Mary, the Mother
of God. She is our model for discipleship.
Reflection
Growing up as an Anglican, I didn’t have the appreciation of Mary that Catholics
have. Deepening my love and understanding of Mary has been one of the great
blessings for me of becoming a Catholic.
One of the misapprehensions I labored under for a long time was that Mary was a
somewhat passive actor in the great drama of the Incarnation, an impression that
was reinforced by the countless medieval paintings of her as a pretty young girl,
very holy but without any real character! But this is not the Mary of the Gospel, or
the Mary who has appeared in many places around the world to intervene when
her spiritual children have cried out in need. Holy she most certainly is, but she
is also a woman of undoubted strength and force—a model of discipleship.
What extraordinary courage and faith it took for Mary to fully trust in God’s will,
even though God was asking her to do the unimaginable and bear his child. After
quizzing Gabriel in Luke’s Gospel, she makes the decision to accept God’s will:
“May it be done to me according to your word.” The “yes” of this young girl liv-
ing in humble circumstances in a nondescript town in the backwoods of the Ro-
man Empire changed the course of human history!
Not only does Mary have courage and faith, but
she has another characteristic inextricably linked
with both these virtues: persistence. It is Mary
who insists that Jesus change the water into
wine at the Cana wedding, and who is the im-
petus for his first miracle. It is Mary, the Mother