1. Prayer
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee;
blessed are thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
3. Song
https://youtu.be/CihO7vA_ps4?si=d3xQEF9hYNchIe-c
4. Narrative
Public theologian Rachel Held Evans (1981–2019) found inspiration in Mary’s courageous “yes” to God:
Perhaps it is because I am neck-deep in a season of motherhood and caretaking that I am more aware than ever of the startling and profound reality that I am a Christian not because of anything I’ve done but because a teenage girl living in occupied Palestine at one of the most dangerous moments in history said yes—yes to God, yes to a wholehearted call she could not possibly understand, yes to vulnerability in the face of societal judgment . . . yes to a vision for herself and her little boy of a mission that would bring down rulers and lift up the humble, that would turn away the rich and fill the hungry with good things, that would scatter the proud and gather the lowly [see Luke 1:51–53], yes to a life that came with no guarantee of her safety or her son’s.
I know that Christians are Easter people. We are supposed to favor the story of the resurrection, which reminds us that death is never the end of God’s story. Yet I have never found that story even half as compelling as the story of the Incarnation.
Evans honors the unique role that Mary, and women everywhere, play in humanity’s physical incarnation:
It is nearly impossible to believe: God shrinking down to the size of a zygote, implanted in the soft lining of a woman’s womb. God growing fingers and toes. God kicking and hiccupping in utero. God inching down the birth canal and entering this world covered in blood, perhaps into the steady, waiting arms of a midwife. God crying out in hunger. God reaching for his mother’s breasts. God totally relaxed, eyes closed, his chubby little arms raised over his head in a posture of complete trust. God resting in his mother’s
lap. . . .
God trusted God’s very self, totally and completely and in full bodily form, to the care of a woman. God needed women for survival. Before Jesus fed us with the bread and the wine, the body and the blood, Jesus himself needed to be fed, by a woman. He needed a woman to say: “This is my body, given for you.”. . .
To understand Mary’s humanity and her central role in Jesus’s story is to remind ourselves of the true miracle of the Incarnation—and that is the core Christian conviction that God is with us, plain old ordinary us. God is with us in our fears and in our pain, in our morning sickness and in our ear infections, in our refugee crises and in our endurance of Empire, in smelly barns and unimpressive backwater towns, in the labor pains of a new mother and in the cries of a tiny infant. In all these things, God is with us—and God is for us.
Reference:
Rachel Held Evans with Jeff Chu, Wholehearted Faith (New York: HarperOne, 2021), 3–5, 6.
Explore Further. . .
- Listen to Richard’s homily on Mary as our “Let it be!”
- Learn more about this year’s theme Nothing Stands Alone.
- Meet the team behind the Daily Meditations.
5. Meditation
https://youtu.be/9LSJ4d5kubI?si=Ms0xcTcwdXXoF8bQ
6. Sharing
7. Prayer and intentions
Blessed, most pure Virgin, you chose to manifest yourself shining with life, sweetness and beauty, in the Grotto of Lourdes.
To the child, St. Bernadette, you revealed yourself, "I am the Immaculate Conception."
And now, Immaculate Virgin, Mother of Mercy, Healer of the Sick, Comforter of the Afflicted, you know my wants, my troubles, my sufferings. Look upon me with mercy.
By your appearance in the Grotto of Lourdes, it became a privileged sanctuary from which you dispense your favors.
Many have obtained the cure of their infirmities, both spiritual and physical. I come, therefore, with confidence in your maternal intercession.
Obtain for me, O loving Mother, this special request. Our Lady of Lourdes, Mother of Christ, pray for me.
Obtain from your Divine Son my special request if it be God's will.
Amen.
8. Song
Let it be
https://youtu.be/DFwBRHm_lNg?si=bM4HGx87W85mTw16
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