MARY SAID YES!

Evil thrives, it is said, when good people do nothing. What is not said as often is that goodness flourishes when good people act with purpose, determination, optimism and conviction. You do this on a daily basis as your actions are guided by your integrity, your compassion, kindness, honesty, truthfulness and love. From attending to the simplest household chores as signs of domestic devotion to sitting and sharing wisdom with those you meet on the journey we call living. This is goodness springing up all around us.

We may not see these everyday acts of goodness as world changing but they are more like Mary’s response to the angel than we usually acknowledge. God’s plan to open the eyes of a race gone blind to the goodness and love of God and God’s desire that all people would live in easy comfortable intimacy with the creator needed the cooperation of those afflicted with the blindness. The one chosen was a Palestinian woman called Mary. She was engaged to Joseph, a descendant of King David, but not living in royal style. St Luke portrays Mary as a woman who believed what God promised and agreed to be a key player in the unfolding plan.

Her saying yes had significant consequences. Matthew in his gospel has Joseph contemplating divorce ending the relationship. In all likelihood Joseph proposed this not because he thought she had cheated on him but having talked about what the angel said to her he thought there was no role for him in this plan. However God assured him there was, though the plans they had for their future changed radically.

Through their willingness to play their part in the plan the child Mary gave birth to and whom they together raised to maturity was the one with eyes free of blindness and the one through whom the eyes of the human race were opened.

Fr Adrian Farrelly