Mary: Prepared by the Grace of The Holy Spirit
When the Holy Spirit is mentioned, what comes to mind for you?
Lately – in this special month dedicated to honouring her, as well as in these weeks leading up to Pentecost – it has been His unique presence in Mary that most resonates.
Even though the Holy Spirit is God, and Mary is a creature like us, from the very beginning of her existence a profound intimacy was forged between them. He works to make us holy too, but He did this in a particularly special way with Mary; she became the only creature to be conceived without any trace of original sin – the sin, in other words, committed by Adam and Eve, which we all inherit and are born with. She was born free of it through the power of the Holy Spirit. She was prepared for her incredible mission by His grace.
For us, the reality of sin is something we all grapple with. Disharmony in ourselves, disharmony with others, and disharmony also with creation are all the effects of sin. Our relationship with God, even when we love Him with all our hearts, can literally be a daily battle; we can turn against Him so easily in our thoughts, words, attitudes or actions. It can happen like the flick of a switch- or gradually, in increments over time, as little things grow subtly into bigger, more consequential things. But Mary’s reality was very different: no disharmony whatsoever; Her relationship with God was absolutely perfect.
Imagine if your will and intellect were completely aligned to God, if every decision you ever made, every word you spoke, every attitude formed in your mind, was perfectly aligned to God’s? What if loving others – even your enemies – was like second nature, because after all, God is love, and everything you are and do would reflect that? What if everything you did was solely for the purpose of magnifying the Lord? This was Mary’s existence through the grace and power of the Holy Spirit, right from the moment of her conception. She gives a wholehearted yes to the angel Gabriel’s announcement – and then what does she do? Goes on a dangerous journey to serve her cousin, Elizabeth, who is on the cusp of giving birth to another miraculous child. There, she does not glorify herself – ‘Wow, how amazing I must be that God has chosen me!’; instead, she magnifies God, revealing her humble heart: ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my saviour, for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden” (Lk 1:46).
“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you.”
The angel Gabriel addressed these profoundly rich words to Mary over two thousand years ago. As the Catechism states beautifully: ‘The grace with which she is filed is the presence of Him who is the source of all grace’ (CCC #2676). She becomes the dwelling place of God, ‘ the place where the glory of the Lord dwells’ (CCC #2676). She overflows with the abundant life of the Holy Spirit.
Not that this was all an automatic thing; she ultimately SURRENDERS to this presence in her. Though He intervened directly to preserve her from sin, she is not an automaton because of it; God awaited her free response as He awaits ours as well.
In fact, Fulton Sheen states something extraordinary in relation to this: ‘By grace, Our Lady outranks all created beings, but only because she responded more perfectly.’ If we think of Jesus’ reply when a woman in the crowd declared his mother’s womb blessed for having borne Him, He says “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” (Lk 11:27). As the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible explains, Mary was not only blessed because of her motherhood of Jesus, but ALSO because she heard the Word of the Lord and faithfully kept it. Jesus even seems to rate the latter more highly! This is great news for us too: we do not have biological kinship to Jesus, but in hearing His Word and faithfully keeping it like Mary, we ultimately gain the same blessedness as she does.
In this, Mary stands out in stark contrast to Eve in the Garden of Eden. Drawing upon the writings of St. Justin Martyr from 160AD, Scott Hahn writes, ‘Eve conceived the “word of the serpent”, while Mary conceived the Word of God’ (‘Hail Holy Queen, p.41). Hahn also explains that at the wedding feast of Cana, when Mary says to the servers, “Do whatever he [Jesus] tells you”, she reverses Eve’s decision to turn against God in the garden. Eve chose disobedience and distrust; Mary chose the precise opposite. Eve rejected the divine life in her soul; Mary embraced it totally. So, Mary becomes the ‘New Eve’, the mother to all who are born to new life in Baptism – to us!
Mary is our mother, given to us by Jesus, chosen to be so from the dawn of time. She teaches us to be receptive to God’s life, and to receive it as a gift. She teaches us to magnify the Lord and not ourselves; to tread bravely the path of love. Ultimately, she teaches us to surrender totally to the action of the Holy Spirit in the depths of our being, to the One who sanctifies us and draws us heavenward. The Holy Spirit also prepares us for a life of grace and holiness.
As we approach Pentecost, the great feast celebrating the coming of the Holy Spirit, drawing close to Mary makes tremendous sense. She prays unceasingly – as our Mother – that the fullness of the Holy Spirit will overflow within us. “Do whatever He tells you,” she whispers.
How will you respond?
Prayer
Hail Mary, full of grace,
The Lord is with you
Blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb,
Jesus.
Holy Mary, mother of God,
Pray for us sinners
Now and at the hour of our death,
Amen.