Gospel
The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary. And coming to her, he said, "Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.” But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. Then the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his Kingdom there will be no end.” But Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” And the angel said to her in reply, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren; for nothing will be impossible for God.” Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.
Reflection:
When I was reading this Scripture passage, and came to the part where it says, “Hail full of grace, the Lord is with you.” I couldn’t help but think, this is what Father Michael was teaching us, the Lord is with each one of us.
“Hail full of grace, the Lord is with you.”
Today is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Happy Feast day!
In today’s reading, Mary says “yes” to following the Will of God.
What is God’s Will? How do we know when we are doing God’s Will? Is there really an answer to these questions?
So, I was watching/listening to one of Father Michael’s OK Technology teachings. The one I was watching was from November 9, 2016. In this teaching, Father Michael says that we are the next most sacred reality, we are the temple of the Holy Spirit.
I decided that I would try to realize through out my day, that the Lord is with me always. As I was driving car pool, I was faced with many choices. As I confronted each decision, feelings would emerge. Some of these feelings were of calm and goodness, and some were not so calm and filled with a sense of justice or righteousness (almost like an anger).
Traffic was really bad, because there is a lot of construction out where the school is, so people become impatient and inventive in ways of trying to get ahead. There was a car that got out of the line that was going straight and drove almost a quarter of a mile down in the left hand turn lane and put his blinker on to get back into the line to go straight. Well, this caused a chain reaction of people wanting to get in on this new trend. Can you imagine the anger and frustration when these cars put their blinker on to try to get back in line in front of me? As I remembered that the Lord is with me and I am a temple of the Holy Spirit, I just asked the Lord to take over and help me to Will goodness and kindness to these people, instead of being mad and cursing them. As I was talking to the Lord about all of this, the thought came to my mind that this is part of trusting that the Lord will work in those peoples lives to help them to make better choices. This is not an easy thing for us to do today, because we want to see justice immediately.
Mary trusted the Lord so much that she was able to tell the Angel, “May it be done to me according to your word.”
I suppose that part of doing God’s Will has something to do with trusting that He is always there to help us to make the right choices.
Praise God for giving us the gift of Mary as our Heavenly Mother.
I pray that the Lord will help each of us to continue to grow in Love of Him through our Blessed Mother’s intercession.
God Bless us all!
