Today, as we celebrate the Immaculate Conception I’m reflecting on Luke’s beautiful depiction of Mary’s encounter with the angel Gabriel. God reaches out not to offer consolation and healing or judgement and condemnation, but with an invitation to take an active part in the work of salvation.
The angel doesn’t come to command Mary’s obedience, but to ask for her wholehearted cooperation in bringing salvation to a broken world the world. Having laid out God’s plan for the angel waits for her response. This is summed up in a sermon by St Bernard of Clairvaux:
“The angel is waiting for your answer, it is time for him to return to the God who sent him. We too are waiting, O Lady…If you consent straightaway shall we be saved…by one little word of yours in answer shall we all be made alive.”
His words make the sense of creation waiting with anticipation and hope almost tangible.
This can make it easy to forget that Mary was an ordinary woman. She lived with the same mix of challenges, hopes and expectations that we all face. Yet, she also belonged to people who had waited in hope for generations for the coming of the Messiah.
Living under an occupying army she had learned to keep hope alive when it seemed to be pointless. She had learned to trust when it seemed that every promise had been broken. All this enabled her response, filling us all with anticipation and hope:
‘I am the handmaid of the Lord,’ said Mary ‘let what you have said be done to me.’
We come to Advent facing our own mix of hopelessness and broken promises. Like Mary we are called to keep trusting in the Lord promises for our times, however hard that might seem.
Where is Christ calling you to trust the promise of his coming this Advent?