Posted by The WORD in other words (2018) by Fr Narciso Cellan SVD – Nairobi, Kenya
December 20 – Advent
The new weather service radar on an island began to pick up a mysterious 20-mile per hour wind out of the south each night for several weeks. Forecasters later realized that the new instrument was almost too accurate for its own good. It was not detecting wind but the annual night time migration of thousands of birds towards the north.
As human beings, we have built-in mechanisms to detect something – gut feeling or hunch or intuition. Depending on whether it’s natural, supernatural, normal or paranormal experience or encounter, we derive our ‘sense’ of things after having rationalized, internalized, or processed them.
Similarly, depending on our spiritual, emotional, and intellectual inclinations, we determine our response and understanding on what to do with an event. We take as example Mary’s encounter with an other-worldly being, the angel Gabriel. Mary could have taken flight and screamed scared. But she didn’t.
The encounter was not, however, the central piece in Luke’s narrative of the Annunciation. It was, instead, the message of the angel to Mary. How on earth did Mary remain so collected and composed upon seeing an angel? Her seemingly casual and spontaneous reply—“Let it be done to me according to your word”— sealed her fate, as well that of the Messiah and ours, too.
Mary’s intuition was no intuition, but a mature and trusting faith that guided her affirmative response and allowed her to welcome the Lord generously into her womb, into her whole being. She was full of grace because she welcomed God’s grace with fullness of heart. With Mary we are taught that the efficacy of God’s presence in us requires our trust and willingness to be showered with and molded by the abundance of His grace.
