‘In Mary, the Holy Spirit fulfils the Father’s Loving Plan’
CCC #723
Does your prayer seek and pursue God’s will above your own?
When prayer is at its purest, it has one goal: to deepen one’s relationship with God. So, even when prayer appears entirely fruitless or ineffective, if we never seem to get what we ask for, we ought not be deterred. Why? Because pure prayer pursues God alone – and even if you have to traverse the driest of deserts spiritually, or enter into the darkest valleys, your prayer perseveres, because you are pursuing the ‘pearl of great price’ (Mt 13:45). It might take a lifetime to achieve this purity of prayer, but ultimately, it occurs through the power and grace of the Holy Spirit.
Mary was the perfect embodiment of purity of prayer, intention and purpose. Long before the Son of God became incarnate in her womb through the power of the Holy Spirit, her prayer demonstrated a unique cooperation with God’s loving plan (CCC #2617). Every moment of every day, her soul must have rang out ‘Your will alone, Lord!’ So, when the angel Gabriel appeared to her and revealed her role in God’s plan, she readily assents – not as an automaton without any free will of her own, but totally and freely. In fact, through the Holy Spirit, she ‘responds by offering her whole being’ (CCC #2617). She holds nothing back. She wants what God wants: no more, no less. No matter what darkness it may lead to, no matter how deep her future waters, no matter the cost. Her ‘yes’ doesn’t amount to a mere word – it’s an incredibly beautiful gift of self to God.
In fact, this is how the Catechism describes Christian prayer: ‘to be wholly God’s because he is wholly ours’ (CCC #2617). This bears great resemblance to a line from one of my favourite praise and worship songs, ‘Oceans’ by Hillsong United – ‘for I am yours and you are mine.’ Truth is, God never ceases to make a perfect gift of Himself to us (the Eucharist is the prime example of this!) and He delights in even our tiniest efforts to make a gift of ourselves to Him. Mary exemplified this gift of self perfectly. So, in her – through the power of the Holy Spirit – the Father’s loving plan can be fulfilled (CCC #723).
As our Mother, Mary also desires that God’s loving plan for our lives will be fulfilled. As the apostles awaited the outpouring of the Holy Spirit promised to them by Jesus, she was right there in her midst. Even then, her prayer uniquely cooperated with God’s will – wanting only what He wanted, doing all she possibly could to bring it about. Even now, her prayer does likewise: she prays that we will be entirely receptive – as she was – to the action of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.
The question is: are you ready, with Mary, to make a total and undivided gift of yourself to God, to say with deep conviction, ‘Lord, I am Yours, and You are mine’?
Prayer
Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful
and kindle in them the fire of your love.
Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created.
And You shall renew the face of the earth.
Mary, mother of unending grace, unfailing faith,
and never-ending devotion, pray for us!