20180409
STRUGGLING WITH GOD’S WILL
09 APRIL, 2018, Monday, The Annunciation of the Lord
Readings
at Mass
Liturgical
Colour: White.
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First reading
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Isaiah 7:10-14,8:10 ©
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The maiden is with child
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The Lord spoke to Ahaz and said, ‘Ask the Lord your God for a sign
for yourself coming either from the depths of Sheol or from the heights above.’
‘No,’ Ahaz answered ‘I will not put the Lord to the test.’
Then he
said:
Listen now, House of David:
are you not satisfied with trying the patience of men
without trying the patience of my God, too?
The Lord himself, therefore,
will give you a sign.
It is this: the maiden is with child
and will soon give birth to a son
whom she will call Immanuel,
a name which means ‘God is with us.’
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Responsorial Psalm
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Psalm 39(40):7-11 ©
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Here I am, Lord! I come to do your will.
You do not ask for sacrifice and offerings,
but an open ear.
You do not ask for holocaust and victim.
Instead, here am I.
Here I am, Lord! I come to do your will.
In the scroll of the book it stands written
that I should do your will.
My God, I delight in your law
in the depth of my heart.
Here I am, Lord! I come to do your will.
Your justice I have proclaimed
in the great assembly.
My lips I have not sealed;
you know it, O Lord.
Here I am, Lord! I come to do your will.
I have not hidden your justice in my heart
but declared your faithful help.
I have not hidden your love and your truth
from the great assembly.
Here I am, Lord! I come to do your will.
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Second reading
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Hebrews 10:4-10 ©
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God's will was for us to be made holy by the offering of his
body made once and for all by Jesus Christ.
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Bulls’ blood and goats’ blood are useless for taking away sins,
and this is what Christ said, on coming into the world:
You who wanted no sacrifice or oblation,
prepared a body for me.
You took no pleasure in holocausts or sacrifices
for sin;
then I said,
just as I was commanded in the scroll of the
book,
‘God, here I am! I am coming to obey your will.’
Notice that he says first: You did not want what
the Law lays down as the things to be offered, that is: the sacrifices,
the oblations, the holocausts and the sacrifices for sin,and you took no
pleasure in them; and then he says: Here I am! I am coming to obey your
will. He is abolishing the first sort to replace it with the second.
And this will was for us to be made holy by the offering of
his body made once and for all by Jesus Christ.
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Gospel Acclamation
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Jn1:14
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Alleluia, alleluia!
The Word became flesh,
he lived among us,
and we saw his glory.
Alleluia!
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Gospel
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Luke 1:26-38 ©
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'I am the handmaid of the Lord'
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The angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called
Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the House of David;
and the virgin’s name was Mary. He went in and said to her, ‘Rejoice, so highly
favoured! The Lord is with you.’ She was deeply disturbed by these words and
asked herself what this greeting could mean, but the angel said to her, ‘Mary,
do not be afraid; you have won God’s favour. Listen! You are to conceive and
bear a son, and you must name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called
Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor
David; he will rule over the House of Jacob for ever and his reign will have no
end.’ Mary said to the angel, ‘But how can this come about, since I am a
virgin?’ ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you’ the angel answered ‘and the power
of the Most High will cover you with its shadow. And so the child will be holy
and will be called Son of God. Know this too: your kinswoman Elizabeth has, in
her old age, herself conceived a son, and she whom people called barren is now
in her sixth month, for nothing is impossible to God.’ ‘I am the handmaid of
the Lord,’ said Mary ‘let what you have said be done to me.’ And the angel left
her.
STRUGGLING WITH GOD’S WILL
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [IS 7:10-14, 8-10; PS 40:7-11; HEB 10:4-10; LK 1:26-38 ]
“Here I am,
Lord! I come to do your will. You do not ask for sacrifice and offerings, but
an open ear. You do not ask for holocaust and victim. Instead, here am I.
In the scroll of the book it stands written that I should do your will.
My God, I delight in your law in the depth of my heart.” The invitation
to align ourselves with the will of God is greater than any sacrifices we can
give to God. What pleases God most is when we cooperate with His plan for
our own salvation and the salvation of the world!
Doing the
will of God means more than offering something extraneous but our very self,
our entire being, mind, soul and body. This was the way of our Lord. He did not simply come to
heal us of our illnesses or deliver us from the possession of the Evil One or
even to enlighten us in the truth and love. He gave His entire being,
body and soul to us when He gave up His life for us on the cross. The
body that He assumed at the incarnation was the same body that He gave up on
the cross. Hence, the letter to the Hebrews says, “Bulls’ blood and goats’
blood are useless for taking away sins, and that is what Christ said, on coming
into the world: You wanted no sacrifice or obligation, prepared a body for me.
You took no pleasure in holocausts or sacrifices for sin; then you said, just
as I was commanded in the scroll of the book, “God here I am! I am coming to
obey your will.”
Indeed, doing
the will of God is never easy because God’s plan is often incomprehensible to
man. His will is not always logical and so our finite mind, imbued with
reason, wants to understand everything before we are willing to submit, if at
all. We can certainly identify with King Ahaz in today’s first
reading. His state was threatened by a conspiracy between the Kingdom of
Israel and the King of Aram. They were intending to join forces to subdue
the Kingdom of Judah. King Ahaz was of course extremely nervous and
anxious. Based on his military calculation, the best way to withstand
Israel and Aram was to solicit the support of Assyria, a much stronger nation
than Israel and Aram. But Isaiah warned Ahaz that this would have
disastrous consequences for Judah because they would become a vassal state of
Assyria, and they will introduce foreign and pagan customs and religions
into the country.
So, too, Mary
was confused when the angel appeared to her and said, “Mary, do not be
afraid; you have won God’s favour. Listen! You are to conceive and bear a son,
and you must name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the
Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David; he will
rule over the House of Jacob for ever and his reign will have no end.”
Mary said to the angel, “But how can this come about, since I am a
virgin?” She too needed assurance because humanly speaking, she
could not conceive a child since she was a virgin. Would she need to get
married to Joseph first? If not, how could she explain to her loved ones
how the baby came to be conceived? So she too needed to find clarity and
understanding of how God’s will could be realized.
This is true
of us as well. Although we might desire to do the will of God, we are not
too sure exactly what His will is for us. We too need clarification and
understanding of His will for us at every stage in our life. What is
mystifying is that often we do not have clear answers in our discernment.
We have no angel to tell us explicitly that this is the will of God. Most
likely, even if an angel were to appear, we would doubt the angel’s appearance
even before we could hear what he has to say. We will find all sorts of
excuses to deny that such is the will of God, especially when it goes against
our logical reasoning. We prefer to rely on our intelligence, ingenuity
and the advice of the world. Many of us would act as King Ahaz did,
using human calculation to decide what would be the right thing to do.
Asking for
clarification as part of the discernment of God’s will is not only permissible
but also necessary because God gives us an intellect to discern. What the
Lord forbids is when we are stubborn and obstinate in having things our way
when we know what His will is for us. This is particularly so when the signs are
given by the Lord. This was the attitude of King Ahaz. He had
already made up his mind to form an alliance with Assyria and had no intention
of changing it even after listening to the prophet Isaiah’s advice.
God even
offered him a sign to confirm the prophecy of Isaiah. Instead of
accepting the sign, he pretended that he did not want to test the Lord. However, the Lord saw
his heart through and through. He said, “Listen now, House of David: are
you not satisfied with trying the patience with men without trying the patience
of my God, too? The Lord himself, therefore, will give you a sign. It is this:
the maiden is with child and will soon give birth to a son whom she will call
Immanuel, a name which means ‘God-is-with-us’.” Ahaz knew the will of
God, but was simply bent on doing his own will and not what God willed for
Israel.
Mary
responded differently. She too sought clarification from the Lord. She was docile and
receptive to God’s will. Her disposition was sincere and correct.
She accepted the angel’s explanation of how her conception could be
possible. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power
of the Most High will cover you with its shadow. And so the child will be holy
and will be called Son of God.” Furthermore, to underscore the
impossibility, the angel revealed to her the miraculous intervention of her
cousin, Elizabeth. She “has, in her old age, herself conceived a
son, and she whom people call barren is now in her sixth month, for nothing is
impossible to God.” With that, Mary asked no more questions.
She said, “I am the handmaid of the Lord, let what you have said be done to
me.”
What does it
take to respond to God’s will? Firstly, we need the humility of Mary. We must realize that
we are mere mortal beings, not God! We are finite in our understanding
and in what we can do as human beings. But with God, “nothing is
impossible.” Moreover, as the prophet Isaiah says, “For my thoughts are not
your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the
heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my
thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isa 55:8f)
So long as we remain in our pride and think that God must fit our minds, we are
wrong. There are many things beyond the understanding of man. “For
what person knows a man’s thoughts except the spirit of the man which is in
him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of
God.” (1 Cor 2:11)
Secondly, it
requires faith in God. Mary could not understand how it would be
possible.
We can be sure that she also thought of the consequences in allowing the Holy
Spirit to conceive in her the Son of God. She would be misunderstood,
ridiculed, slandered, rejected and even stoned to death by her loved ones,
especially Joseph. It was certainly a courageous decision for her to say “yes”
to the angel, knowing the possible outcomes of her decision, and not knowing
the greater trials ahead of her. But she entrusted her entire life to the
Lord. She believed that somehow God would see her through. Mary
united her will with the will of God.
Faith
requires that we not only surrender our future to God but to put into action what
the Lord wills of us. Mary carried out what the Lord asked of her,
not just bearing the Son of God in her womb, but for the rest of her life, she
carried the pain and suffering with her Son when He set out for His ministry,
was rejected and then crucified. Her “yes” to God was not just a
temporary or one time “yes” to being the mother of Jesus. Her “yes” was
seen in every moment of her life after that fundamental decision of accepting
to be Jesus’ mother. She united her will to the will of her Son as
well.
Hence, today
when we celebrate the Solemnity of the Annunciation of our Lord, we rejoice not
only in that Mary did the will of God in offering her entire self for the
salvation of humanity by giving birth to our Lord, we also rejoice in Christ
who made it possible for Mary to share in His desire to save humanity. Like Mary, Christ
too, in union with the Father’s will, offered Himself entirely for the
redemption of humanity. Two hearts joined in one. This is the union
of Jesus and Mary in the work of redemption. This is why today’s feast is
celebrated not just in honour of Mary, the mother of God, but also in honour of
Christ, the Incarnate Word of God. One feast cannot be celebrated without
the other. That is why the Church calls Mary, the co-redemptrix. Of
course, this is not to be understood on the same level as Christ, but to
underscore Mary’s necessary role in our redemption. She gave us the body
of Jesus who gave up His body to save us.
With Mary and
Jesus, let us offer our “yes” to God as we cooperate with God’s plan for the
salvation of the world. Like the “yes” of Mary that we take in matrimony or in our
priestly promises and religious vows, the first “yes” requires us to make good
all the other “yes-es” that are to follow. With Jesus and Mary, we
too would have to go through crisis after crisis, trial after trial, sometimes
undergoing the dark nights of our vocation. But let us never forget that
God will give us the grace as He gave Jesus and Mary, so long as we are docile
to His will and humble to receive His grace and depend on Him alone to do all
things. We must therefore hear the Lord daily by praying the Word of God
and receiving Him in the Eucharist so that we have the strength to offer our
entire life to Him in doing His holy will on earth as in heaven.
Written by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of
Singapore © All Rights Reserved
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