"Let it be done According to Your Will" - easier said than done.

“Be it done to me according to your will,” is easier said than done. 

This Sunday we hear how Mary, after only one clarifying question agrees to the plan announced by the Angel Gabriel.  Mary is the perfect disciple of her son, and she had some characteristics that enabled her to respond quickly. 

• ·      She has a sense of joy and awe in God’s presence (cf. Luke 1:46).  She knows that God is great and she rejoices in that greatness.  This enables her to accept the plans that God has for her, knowing that it will bring great joy. 
• ·      She is humble.  She is perplexed when the Angel Gabriel calls her “favored one” (Luke 1:29).  She refers to herself as lowly (Luke 1:48).  A humble person knows that her or his support comes from others.    

Sometimes God reveals how we are to participate in God’s will through the people closest to us; often it is family, certainly if a person is married, one’s spouse.  But a supervisor, co-worker, client, student, or salesperson may be someone that God has sent to lead us in a new or different direction.  I sometimes find it difficult to “submit my will” especially when I spend so much time and effort forming the courses of action, solutions, or opinions that I hold.  When we focus on God, like Mary did we will be able to recognize the voice of God, even when it comes through other people. 

Mary was able to accept a perplexing message from God.  That is why Mary is the perfect disciple, and I am still a disciple on the way.