by Servant of God, Bishop Giaquinta
Risk is the theme of our second day, and Mary is the model of Trust on whom we will meditate. She is the model of trust because she knew how to risk and risk everything out of love for Jesus. And so we turn to Mary and we ask her to whisper that sacred word in our hearts, trust -- repeat it often Mary until we become saints!
Many of us think that when the Blessed Virgin gave her "Fiat, be it done to me" that she already had the clear vision of what of what her life would become. This is not true. Our Lady lived with a certain amount of understanding of salvation, but she also lived by faith. There were many things she did not know. She did know one thing for sure, how to accept with love the risk of faith.
Risk in faith is a participation in the unconditional love of Jesus for the Father and all persons: this is the real motive for which we accept it, rather, choose and love it. Mary said it and accepted it first: "Behold...be it done to me as you say."
Risk in faith is proof of our love for the Lord. Mary did not know what was going to happen to her but she said yes anyway, this was her act of love for the Lord: for love she faced the greatest of risks, the loss of her integrity before others.
There was no "earthly" security in Mary’s life that would assure her that everything would turn out all right. Mary had to trust and in order to trust she had to draw the strength from deep within her being. She dug deep and responded peacefully and positively to the Lord.
Mary risked everything in order to be obedient to the Lord’s request. She renounced her own will, judgment, vision and experience in order to immerse herself in the reality of faith and the mystery of trust.
1 comment:
What an incredible viewpoint from which to consider Mary and our own lives! I have never really thought about risk in a positive way before. But now that I think about it, I see that I really do experience a lot of my faith life as risk - offering my heart and life to the Lord, with the faith that He will not abandon me. It is a multi-hued risk, because when I look at it from an earthly perspective, it is negative and hopeless, and when I look at it with eyes of faith, there is nothing surer.
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