Mary’s Yes
Fr. Donald Macdonald, SMM
MARY’S . . .
F riends content to be together, wife and husband at home in each other’s company, a child asleep, a dog at ease at his owner’s feet . . . signs of trust are evident and attractive. Trust should be the cement holding people together. Life without trust is difficult, especially if we hope to build something.
St. Paul, understandably, was hurt when he was accused of being unreliable. It cut him to hear it said that he might say “Yes” when he meant “No”. To be seen as untrustworthy despite his best efforts, would obviously drain him and leave him little chance of revealing Christ.
. . . YES
To defend himself, Paul, as always, first looked at the situation in terms of what he knew of Christ; “as surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been Yes or No. For the Son of Cod, Jesus Christ . . . was not Yes and No: but in him it is always Yes. For all the promises of God find their Yes in him”. (2 Cor. 1:18-20). This is a superbly positive presentation of his Lord. The immense, reassuring Presence who is God, shows real fidelity in the gift of Christ. Paul, conscious of his baptism into Christ, from whom therefore he takes his identity, is swept up into this perspective. In Christ, he breathes exhilarating and challenging air, taking him out of himself.
How could he represent such a Lord if he himself was not to be trusted? He uses a phrase, of which he is especially fond, to make the point. “As surely as God is faithful . . .”. It is almost impossible to translate it into English, and yet convey the weight Paul places on God’s “faithfulness”. He is emphatic. It is all so wholesome and expansive, reflecting the giving of God in Christ. He makes no mistake giving himself and inviting trust. He knows his Lord Jesus as Yes to the promises of God. There is no hidden agenda nor any risk of his being led, or indeed leading others who trust him, into a dead-end.
NEW CREATION
Much of Our Lady’s attraction in the Catholic tradition, sees her swept up into the center of this superbly positive pattern, of God giving himself in Christ. People are instinctively drawn to her, blessed among women, as they come to see who she is in Christ.
Following her “Yes” to God’s invitation, the Spirit overshadowed her. This creative Presence enabled God to give himself in Christ through her, as she was able to receive and respond in faith. In time, and in baptism, we too come to share this same pattern. This means that Mary is no peripheral figure, since she is chosen to usher in this new, radical explosion of God’s love; “.. . if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation . . . see, everything has become new”! (2 Cor. 5:17).
The Annunciation: Flemish Painter: Robert Campin: 1425
Whoever is open to Our Lady’s influence, sharing her wonder in the new creation in Christ, will, without fail, be introduced to the wide, expansive, overarching sweep of her son’s “Yes” to the will of God. Clearly, this invites our trust, particularly as we now know Jesus, crucified in his mother’s company, to have risen from a grave to be with us. Despite all that life can throw at us, in Christ, trust is possible and really the core of life. We then become a new creation, if we come to live no longer for ourselves, but for our risen Lord.
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She is particularly a “new creation,” not in name but in fact, since a new creation comes into being in her Son through her. Her “Yes” is at one with her sons’, since she was chosen to prepare the way for the ‘Yes” of Christ. Through her trust the promises of God would be fulfilled.
Our Lady’s center of gravity was and is found in God in Christ through the Spirit, however life treated her. The underlying dynamic from which this new creation was launched and sustained, is rooted in her trust – “as surely as God is faithful. . . ”. Her wholehearted acceptance of God’s Will as, “the Lord’s servant”, (Lk. 1:38), implies no less.
NEW . . .
Whoever is open to Our Lady’s influence, sharing her wonder in the new creation in Christ, will, without fail, be introduced to the wide, expansive, overarching sweep of her son’s “Yes” to the will of God. Clearly, this invites our trust, particularly as we now know Jesus, crucified in his mother’s company, to have risen from a grave to be with us. Despite all that life can throw at us, in Christ, trust is possible and really the core of life. We then become a new creation, if we come to live no longer for ourselves, but for our risen Lord.
If we cannot trust the messenger, it is unlikely that we shall have faith in the message. Life teaches some of us that “you are always let down”. It is risky speaking in confidence, and even our most open words are liable to misinterpretation. Paul used the deeply wounding accusation of unreliability, to take him and his people into the positive sweep of God in Christ. He knew that not even death itself, the ultimate in separation, could come between us and our risen Lord.
. . . LIFE
Many, regrettably, need no crucifix around their necks or on a wall to know its meaning. Life crucifies them. Mary, too, knows from experience what this means. Yet she knows also that in her son is the “Yes” to the promises of God. Time in her company, open to her influence, can only strengthen our faith. As “blessed is she who believed . . . ,” we too, living as we do in faith, are blessed with the insight of faith to know her son.
In so far as we are taken up into Jesus, open to the wonder of possible transfiguration, we can expect to enjoy the realization of God’s promises. More particularly, like Our Lady, can we expect to reflect what we see in our risen Lord Jesus. If then we are seen as trustworthy, we become a credible witness to the Lord in whom we invite trust.
Vol. ### Month 2022
