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It’s Day 69!!
We just concluded yesterday talking about Christ’s human will
His true body
The heart of the Incarnate word
Which just moves us so much
Paragraph 478 says, “Jesus knew and loved each and all during his life, his agony, and his Passion and gave himself up for each one of us…He has loved us with a human heart.”
So we kind of concluded yesterday with that
Now, we’re going to the next paragraph of this section
And that is
Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary
So this section is going to be a lot about Mary
BUT…
Paragraph 487 says, “What the Catholic Faith believes about Mary is based on what it believes about Christ, and what it teaches about Mary illumines in turn its faith in Christ.”
For the next couple of days, we will be talking about Mary
And how the Holy Spirit came upon her
And FECUNDATED
That’s the fancy word that we’re going to be using in Paragraph 485
The Holy Spirit came upon the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary
And DIVINELY FECUNDATED it
Which is to make FECUND
FRUITFUL
FERTILE
Just a fun word to note
Here we are, going to hear it
We don’t want it to be buried in Paragraph 485
And you’re like,
Wait, and divinely fecundate it?
Yep
To make it fecund, to make it fertile, to make it, yeah, alive
We’re talking about Mary and the Holy Spirit, who makes Christ, the Word of God, INCARNATE in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Because of this, Mary has a role where she’s at the center WITHOUT BEING THE CENTER
She’s part of this MISSION of God’s intention to SAVE THE WORLD
TO REDEEM THE WORLD
And so, here is in Mary’s basically PREDESTINATION
Now, when we hear the word “predestination”, we need to understand that there is such a thing as predestination
Meaning that God has a DESTINY for everyone
That he wants us to say yes to
That he wants us to arrive at
So to have a destiny and basically to have a destination
God creating Mary for a particular mission, for a particular destination, means that she was predestined
BUT…
That doesn’t mean that she was FATED
That doesn’t mean that she HAD TO say yes to the Lord
She had a FREE CHOICE
IN FACT…
IT IS REALLY INCREDIBLE!!
In Paragraph 488, there is a quote from Lumen Gentium that says, “The Father of mercies willed that the Incarnation should be preceded by assent on the part of the predestined Mother.”
That he wouldn’t save the world WITHOUT HER ASSENT
WHICH IS REMARKABLE TO THINK ABOUT!!
We’re also going to look at a little bit today throughout the old covenant
The Mission of many holy women prepared for that of Mary
So we’re going to hear about the women that we know, if we read the Bible
Eve, who even though she sinned, would still receive the promise that her prosperity would be victorious over the evil one
We have Sarah, the wife of Abraham
Remember, the wife of Abraham
You have people like Hannah, mother of Samuel
Deborah
Ruth
Judith
Esther
And many other women
And here is Mary
Who is in that long line of these incredible women who prepared the way essentially for her
And so in many ways, they can be TYPES, right?
They can be PREFIGURES of what ultimately Mary would do in the New Covenant in bringing Jesus into the world
Now, of course, she doesn’t do this on her own
And for the next couple of days we’re going to unpack a lot of how here is what God does through this human being, Mary
And that’s the most incredible thing
Here is what God has done through the human being
We talked about for the last couple of days
Here is Jesus, who is one Divine person with a human and a Divine nature
So he’s FULLY HUMAN
Mary has ONLY a human nature
So she is MERELY, PURELY, COMPLETELY HUMAN
And God reveals through HER
Not only does he work through her to bring the Redeemer of the world into the world
BUT ALSO…
Reveals through her and through her YES what God can do in EACH OF US if we simply give God our YES
We’re going to see
Here’s what God has done with Mary
Here’s what we believe about Jesus in relationship to Mary, it illumines what we believe about Mary
Is based on what it believes about Jesus
What the Church believes about Jesus and what it teaches about Mary illumines in turn, its faith in Christ
We also recognize that every one of us
God wants to work in OUR lives
That every one of us has a DESTINY
Every one of us has a DESTINATION that God has created us for
And that is eternal life with him forever in heaven
BUT ALSO…
To say YES to him here on earth
So, to prepare ourselves for this whole day, Day 69, let’s say a prayer
Let’s turn to our Father and call out to him in the name of the Son!!
Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in heaven, we trust in you. Father in heaven, we call upon your Holy Spirit that came upon the Blessed Virgin Mary and she conceived, your Word made Flesh in her womb. Send that Holy Spirit in the name of your Son Jesus Christ into our lives that we can be fruitful, that we can say yes to your call, that we can, even when we don’t know what it is you’re calling us to, that we can say yes to you, the one who is calling us. Help us to have the courage of Mary, the humility of Mary, and the joy of Mary to say Yes to you, that your will may be done in our lives this day and every day. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen”
WOW!!
They’re just so action packed
One of the things we recognize, of course
Is that when it comes to the mission of the Redeemer
The mission of salvation of the world
IT IS GOD’S INITIATIVE
IT IS GOD’S WORK
BUT…
HERE IS WHAT GOD HAS DONE
Paragraph 488 says, “‘God sent forth his Son,’ but to prepare a body for him, he wanted the free cooperation of a creature.”
THIS IS REMARKABLE!!
How humble is the Lord?
Now think about this
But this is not out of the ordinary
IN FACT…
We even have a reference to Eve
And the reference to Eve and Adam, of course is that here is God who makes this incredibly beautiful good world
And then He, in some ways, places that world in the hands of human beings
Human beings, who, while we can love
While we can choose the good
Can also sin
Can also break things
We can also say NO just as well as we can say YES
And that’s what they did
Here is Eve, and here’s Adam, who become like the Fall Team
As we know, there’s an angel of light
Lucifer, the light bearer
Angel of light who comes to Eve, this woman conceived without sin
And speaks words to her that cause her to DISOBEY IN DISBELIEF
She in turn HANDS THAT DISBELIEF AND DISOBEDIENCE TO HER HUSBAND
WHO HANDS IT ON TO ALL OF HUMANITY!!
Now in Mary here is God who sends an angel of light, Gabriel, to a woman without sin
And he speaks words to her that cause her to BELIEVE AND OBEY
And by her YES, SHE HANDS THAT BELIEF AND OBEDIENCE TO HER INCARNATE SON
WHO HANDS THEM FREEDOM AND REDEMPTION TO THE WHOLE WORLD!!
And this is one of the reasons why we do believe in THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
That from the moment of her conception, Mary was conceived WITHOUT ORIGINAL SIN
Why?
Because she is the New Eve
And just as the old Eve COOPERATED IN OUR FALL
THE NEW EVE COOPERATES IN THE REDEMPTION OF THE ENTIRE WORLD!!
Through in some ways no goodness of her own
BUT…
All the goodness that comes from the Lord God
WHICH IS JUST SO SO REMARKABLE!!
One thing we recognize is the role of the Holy Spirit here in Paragraph 485, “The mission of the Holy Spirit is always conjoined and ordered to that of the Son.”
THAT IS REMARKABLE!!
We can never separate the Incarnation from the work of the Holy Spirit
We never want to
Because we’ve heard it declared many times in the course of this Catechism in a Year
WHERE THE SON IS, THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE FATHER ARE!!
WHERE THE HOLY SPIRIT IS, THE SON AND THE FATHER ARE!!
WHERE THE FATHER IS, THE SON AND THE HOLY SPIRIT ARE!!
THEY ARE SEPARATE!!
THEY ARE DISTINCT!!
BUT…
THEY ARE NOT DIVIDED!!
THEY ARE ALSO NOT MIXED!!
WHERE ONE IS, THEY ALL ARE!!
The mission of the Holy Spirit in Paragraph 485 is always conjoined and ordered to that of the Son
Paragraph 486 says, “The Father’s only Son, conceived as man in the womb of the Virgin Mary, is ‘Christ,’ that is to say, anointed by the Holy Spirit, from the beginning of human existence.”
So he wasn’t anointed just by John the Baptist in the Jordan River
From the very moment of his conception the Holy Spirit came down upon Mary, the womb of Mary
So from the moment of his conception, he was TRULY TRULY the Lord God
And then the manifestation of this Anointed One takes place progressively
It just goes through the shepherds
Remember, the angels singing “Glory to God in the highest!!”
Then to the Magi
Then to John the Baptist
And then to the disciples
Now the whole world
Paragraph 486 continues, “Thus the whole life of Jesus will make manifest how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power.”
One of the things we’re going to talk about for the next few days is what do we believe about Mary?
So we’re going to talk about some of the dogmas that are connected to Mary
Like for example
THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
Or that fact that MARY IS THE MOTHER OF GOD
She’s the THEOTOKOS
BUT…
Whenever we talk about what we believe about Mary, it’s based on what we believe about Jesus
Paragraph 487 says, “What [ The Church] teaches about Mary illumines in turn its faith in Christ.”
When it comes to Mary’s Divine Motherhood, she is the Mother of God
TRULY!!
THEOTOKOS
MOTHER OF GOD
That’s not because we’re trying to EXALT Mary
It’s because we’re trying to make it VERY CLEAR
The Church is making it VERY CLEAR
That from the very moment of his conception
THAT BEING
THAT PERSON IN THE WOMB OF THE VIRGIN MARY WAS FULLY GOD AND FULLY MAN
THEREFORE…
THE CHILD, THE PERSON THAT MARY GAVE BIRTH TO IS THE DIVINE PERSON OF THE SECOND PERSON OF THE TRINITY
So that’s why we can rightly and justly say that MARY IS THE MOTHER OF GOD
Because from the moment of his conception JESUS WAS GOD
So that’s a really important thing just so we know that when we say all these different dogmas about Mary
We recognize that we’re really talking about Jesus
Because really, ultimately
EVERYTHING WE DO POINTS BACK TO THE LORD
Weeks from now we’re going to talk about the Sacraments
They all come from the Lord
They all point back to the Lord
We're going to talk about the role of the Church
Well, it comes from God
He established it
And it leads us back to God
Who was its source and its origin and it’s ultimate summit
When we talk about the moral life and how we follow after Jesus
That’s all meant to LEAD US to Jesus
And when we talk about prayer
What’s that all about?
It always leads us closer and closer to God
THEREFORE…
All of these dogmas or everything we’re going to teach in the next few days
About the role of Mary and the identity of Mary and what she did
ALL OF IT POINTS BACK TO HER SON JESUS, THE SECOND PERSON OF THE TRINITY
IT IS REMARKABLE!!
It’s so funny how people can get divided over the role of Mary
Without Mary’s role, we wouldn’t have the Messiah
Without her YES, we wouldn’t HAVE Christ Incarnate
And here’s something to keep in mind
God was not too proud to allow himself to count on the answer of this young girl in Nazareth of Galilee
He was not too proud to work through her YES
He was not proud to make himself in some ways dependent upon the YES of this simple girl from Nazareth
And so for us, we can’t be too proud to turn to her and learn from her
We can’t be too proud then to say, “OK, what about this girl?”
What about this woman who has become, in some ways, the new Mother of all the LIVING
The Mother of all the REDEEMED
In some ways, we can’t be too proud, too, like John
When from the Cross, Jesus said to John,
“Behold your mother.”
And he said to his mother
“Behold your son.”
And he said
From that moment on
He took her into his home and cared for her
WE CAN’T BE TO PROUD TO TAKE MARY INTO OUR HOME AND CARE FOR HER!!
WHAT A GREAT GIFT!!
Because everything God gives us is for our holiness
It’s for our salvation
It is for our getting close to him
And his Mom is no different
We move forward boldly
We move forward with gratitude
We move forward with joy
As we hear today that Mary was overshadowed by the power of the Holy Spirit and became the Mother of Jesus Christ
Tomorrow we’ll talk more about the IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
From then on we’ll talk more about MARY’S DIVINE MOTHERHOOD
From then on, we'll talk about MARY’S VIRGINITY
And all these other pieces that are so important in our faith
God worked through this woman, Mary
And he also wants to work through you
You will never be asked to do more than Mary was asked to do
And all she was ever asked to do was simply say YES
LET’S SAY YES!!
It’s not as easy as it sounds
So let’s keep praying
Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!
Please pray for Fr. Mike and for each other!!
I cannot WAIT to see you tomorrow!!
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