One Simple Yes: Homily for Monday, January 1, 2024

One simple yes. One simple yes, and everything that God had intended from the beginning of time, was made manifest. The great fiat of Mary. But this was not a yes that didn't come without lots of preparation.

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This Christmas, we celebrate the mystery of the Incarnation.

One Simple Yes

One simple yes. One simple yes, and everything that God had intended from the beginning of time, was made manifest. The great fiat of Mary. But this was not a yes that didn’t come without lots of preparation.

God, from the beginning of time, knew that this was to be the plan of salvation. And throughout the course of history, God helps us to understand a little more fully and a little more completely His revelation, His plan, namely Himself.

Now of course we can never exhaust the knowledge of God. He’s infinite, far beyond our ability to understand. Even St. Thomas Aquinas, when he had that great experience, mystical experience of God at the end of his life, recognized that his attempts at trying to explain this were not very sufficient at all. Mere straw. Which was used by many who studied St. Thomas Aquinas to try to dismiss what he had said, saying he didn’t think he was very good either.

But it really was more about just how magnificent and tremendous is our God. When Mary said yes, she set in motion, with the grace of God, and really in cooperation with God, the great plan of our salvation. But the purpose of this yes really is about our own ability to say yes to God.

The motherhood of Mary is a way to help us to see how it is that we’re called to be nurturing. How it is that we’re called to give birth to Jesus by the way we live our lives. I don’t know what God will ask you today or throughout this next year. I don’t know what God will ask me throughout this next year.

But the bottom line is that if we are to imitate the Blessed Mother in her faith, then we, like her, are called to recognize the will of God and to live it in our lives. To be sure, we can say no. We have that freedom. God gave it to us. The ultimate sign of His love, that giving us freedom gave us the ability even to reject Him if we chose to.

How is it that God will speak to us over the course of this year? Such, it seems to me, is the goal of our faith, to be people of discernment, to always be asking ourselves, where did I see God today? Where will I see God tomorrow? What is it that God is trying to get me to see and to understand and to hope for? What is it that I’m called to do to share this great gift of my faith with others?

Such is the Blessed Virgin Mary. The even better news than all of this, though, is that God never leaves us alone. We have, of course, most powerfully His grace, His help that helps us to live the way of life that He has set before us. But we have, too, the prayers of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Mary wants nothing more than to lead us to her Son, Jesus. It’s in fact where I think some of the Protestant churches really don’t understand the role of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

But the early church did. The early church really understood that Mary had this special and powerful and tremendous role in salvation history. And no one knows a child better than its mother. Let us ask the Lord Jesus today to help us to recognize His presence and let us ask and seek the prayers of the Blessed Virgin Mary that, like her, we may say yes to all that God asks of us.

one simple yes — Photo by Kelly on Pexels.com

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