Learning to do God's Will *

Learning to do God’s Will*
In pursuit of the truth – www.cinopsbegone.com – Saturday, April 3, 2010

Elizabeth greets Mary with the words: “Blessed are you who have believed.” The act of faith by which Mary became God’s doorway into the world and offered herself as the dwelling place of that hope that made her blessed, is, by its very nature, an act of obedience: let it be with me according to your word – with my whole being I am the servant of the Lord.

For Mary, faith meant being at God’s service, saying Yes. In her act of faith, she puts at God’s disposal here whole being for the work he wants to accomplish in her. Faith is not one attitude among many, but a frame of mind with regard to oneself – placing it at God’s disposal and so at the disposal of truth and love.

In his encyclical on Mary, Pope John Paul II has expounded this faith with great profundity. I propose to choose from this encyclical two points that can lead us to a deeper understanding of Mary’s faith and thus faith as obedience. The first of these is the reference to Psalm 40:6-8, from which the Letter to Hebrews (10:5-7) quotes Jesus’ act of obedience to the Father that found its fulfillment in His Incarnation and crucifixion: “Sacrifice and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me ….Then I said, ‘See God I have come to do you will.’ …”

In her Yes to the birth of God’s Son from her womb by the power of the Holy Spirit, Mary placed her body, her whole self, at God’s disposal to do what he pleases. Her Yes put her will in perfect conformity with the will of the Son. Because her Yes echoes the Yes of Jesus’ words: a body you have prepared for me, it makes possible the Incarnation of Jesus and his human birth.

If God is to have entry into our world and to be born there, Mary’s Yes, this conformity of our will with God’s will, must be repeated again and again. On the Cross this conformity of wills finds its definitive expression. There is no evidence there, as there is in the Psalms, of the glory that is David’s. As in the case of Abraham, faith has been cast into utter darkness: “A body you have prepared for me…. See, God, I have come to do your will.” On the Cross this readiness is put to the proof, and precisely the darkness in which Mary stands engulfed reflects the fullness of her identity of her will with that of Jesus.

Faith is a community formed by the Cross, and it is only on the Cross that it achieves its full perfection: the place where redemption seemed utterly beyond our reach is actually the place where it is consummated. We must, I think, relearn our devotion to the Cross. It seemed too passive to us, too pessimistic, too sentimental – but if we had been devoted to the Cross of Jesus in our lifetime, how will we endure our own cross when it comes for it to be laid upon us?

A friend of mine, who depended for years on kidney dialysis and who realized and who realized that his life was slipping away from him moment by moment, once told me that as a child, and later as an adult, he had had a special devotion to the Way of the Cross and had often prayed it. When he heard the frightening diagnosis of his illness, he was at first stunned; then suddenly the thought came to him what you have prayed so often has now become a reality in your life; now you can really accompany Jesus; you have joined to him in his Way of the Cross…
Happy Easter,

George H. Kubeck, * Meditation of April 3rd, Cardinal Ratzinger, “Co-Workers of the Truth”, Ignatius Press, 1992.