your praises we sing

When I was a young boy – long, long ago – competition broke about between my brothers and me about this time of year.  Who did mom and dad love the most?  The answer would come under the tree on Christmas morning.  Of course, our parents would tell us they loved each of us exactly the same and that you couldn’t equate that love with the size, quantity, or desirability of the presents we each received, but we knew better.

It was only when I grew up, got married, and had my own small children – still a long, long time ago – that I found out my parents were right.  For I saw the same competition break out between Mary Kate and Joey, and while I faithfully repeated my parents’ reasoning, I’m sure they thought that I was just as dense as I thought my parents were.  Come to think of it, they probably still think I’m just that dense.

Our faith teaches us that we cannot equate gifts with love.  We also know that some people seem to be greatly talented, gifted far beyond normal folks like you and I.  Some people are gifted with plentiful wealth, countless friends, and perfect health – and others not so much.  Yet, God loves each of exactly the same, with infinite, unconditional, everlasting love. 

One person in history actually received a gift from God that had never been given before.  It was a most amazing gift, a gift which led to the salvation of everyone in this church, everyone in this country, everyone in the world.  That person, of course, was Mary.   What was her amazing gift?   Listening to today’s Gospel passage, we may think that her gift was getting to be the mother of Jesus, the mother of God.  But that wasn’t it at all.  That was her vocation, what God called her to be and to do.  It was the most important vocation – God never had called anyone to do this before and He will never call anyone to this vocation again.  It was such an important vocation, that God needed to give Mary an equally significant gift to help her accept His call.

The angel Gabriel gives us a clue when he says, “Hail Mary, full of grace.”  Our church understands this salutation to mean that Mary, at the time of the angel’s visit and for all her life, from her very conception in the womb of St. Anne, was filled with God’s grace, unstained by sin, even unstained by original sin, that predilection to turn away from God that bedevils each of us.

God’s great gift to Mary was given not because he loved her more than any of us; it came precisely because he loved each of us so much he would send His son to become one of us, to accept death for each one of us, to save each one of us.  Filled with God’s graces from the moment she was conceived, Mary had the strength to say yes to God, to accept a vocation which seemed to make no sense at all – a powerless peasant girl in a dusty backwater of the world who God had chosen to bear His son – how silly was that.  She accepted a vocation which exposed her to great danger, for an unmarried, pregnant girl in Mary’s world would be stoned to death as soon as her pregnancy became known.  She accepted a vocation which would cause her great pain, to see her only son arrested, tortured, and brutally killed, while the crowds mercilessly jeered and mocked his suffering and death.  What more pain could any parent endure?

This was a big request for God to make of her.  Could she have said no?  Certainly she had the free will to do so, but by eliminating the weakness caused by original sin, God empowered Mary to say yes and she answered His call.  The rest, as they say, is history.

But this theology doesn’t just end in history.  Just as Mary was called to a vocation particular to her, God has called every single person in this church to a particular vocation.  And just as God gave Mary the gift necessary to fulfill her vocation, he has given each and every one of us the gifts necessary to fulfill our own particular vocation. 

Figure out what gifts God has given to you, and you may gain some insights into what God has called you to do.  Figure out what God has called you to do, and you discover the gifts that he has given you to live your vocation.  But how do any of us figure out God’s call for us or the gifts we have to live out that call?

The short answer: prayer.  How can we possibly know what God has in store for us if we don’t listen to him?  But sometimes God speaks to us through his messengers.  Mary heard from the angel Gabriel.  We often are surprised when others see talents in us we never realized we had.

Listen to people who know God, listen to people who live close to God.  Most especially, listen to the one who lived closer to God than anyone else in history.  Listen to Mary, full of grace.  For Mary’s vocation continues today.  As she cooperated with God to bring Jesus into our world two thousand years ago, she continues connecting us to Jesus today.  She can help you discover what will make you truly happy, being the person that God has called you to be, the person that Jesus has saved you to be, the person that the Spirit has gifted you to be.

And the rest, as they say, is joy and peace.