My reflection today is from Living Faith:
But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. Luke 1:29
“Mary was ‘greatly troubled.’ Not just ‘concerned’ or ‘worried,’ but deeply disturbed. With Gabriel’s invitation, her interior world experienced an anxious tidal wave of disruption. Did this mean that Mary lacked faith? Not so. She responded mentally and emotionally as any startled and confused human being would do. Mary had to have time to ‘ponder’ as Luke tells us. She undoubtably could not think of anything else, tossing the ‘impossible possible’ around inside of her, even questioning out loud, ‘How can this be?” Mary’s faith was able to stand up stronger than her fear after going through and beyond questions and hesitations. Her generous love and trust in God toppled concerns for how dramatically life would change.
What a gift we have in Mary’s faith filled ‘yes.’ How much we can learn from her when the Spirit stirs asking us to do the ‘impossible possible’ for the good of another.” Sr. Joyce Rupp, O.S.M.
Today is the feast of the Annunciation of the Lord. What if Mary said, ‘No!’ instead of ‘How can this be?’ Mary gave us the perfect example of leaping out in faith. When we are faced with challenges in our lives that we cannot understand or we feel we can’t deal with: let us turn to Mary and ask her to help us through our difficult times.
We have a generous God who is announcing good news to us all the time. If we listen and look around more attentively, then we might receive angels in our midst, in the guise of people God sends our way to encourage, inspire, or challenge us. And if we are just open enough, we too might serve as a messenger of consolation for others.
