Dear Parish Family,
Growing up and being educated in a Catholic School I have many
fond memories during the month of May when we honor the Blessed
Virgin Mary the Mother of God. I remember the many May Crown-
ing’s, the praying of numerous decades of Rosaries, and the presenta-
tions to Mary, especially roses, among other devotions. This month in
our sanctuary we place our statue of Mary in a prominent place so we
can honor and pray to her during this month of May. I have found an
article about Mary’s “Fiat”, her response of Yes to God to be the
Mother of God. This month and every day we need to say Yes to God
as Mary the Mother of God says Yes. My love and prayers, always,
~~Fr. Steve

Fulfilling the Fiat: Responding with Mary to God’s Call
Our mother is a model of correspondence to grace. The Virgin did
not merely pronounce her fiat; in every moment she fulfilled that firm
and irrevocable decision. So should we.
St. Josemaria Escriva
Christ is Passing By, no. 173

Is it an impossible ideal to imitate the Immaculate Virgin as St..
Josemaria would have us do? In a season when Mary’s responsive-
ness to God’s will is continually before us, the Church invites us not
only to reflect on her perfect obedience but also to imitate it. The
Gospel of the Annunciation, appointed for the Solemnity of the Im-
maculate Conception, opens a window into our Lady’s soul, revealing
what sort of imitation God asks of us—and it is within the reach of
each one of us.
The Annunciation is all about call and response—and not just any
call and any response, but God’s call and the perfect response in one
most perfect soul. It is the vocation. To follow Christ after Mary’s
pattern is to consent to being called at each moment—to be called
away from something, to something, or into something. It is to re-
spond generously at each moment with our heart’s full consent.
We need a M other who has both obeyed and suffer ed in her obe-
dience. We might imagine that Mary’s Immaculate Conception re-
moved all difficulties in carrying out the Lord’s designs for her life.
But in truth, God “did not spare her pain, exhaustion in her work or
trials of her faith” (Christ is Passing By, no. 172). She could accept
both sorrow and difficulty with a true supernatural joy—never with
the doubts and resentments that oftentimes plague us. Her sorrows
and difficulties were very real, yet she could fully obey God because
her soul was free from the unholy fears and distrust that the devil
sowed in our first parents.
Our Lady’s response at the Annunciation is so refreshingly oppo-
site to our complicated and ambiguous replies to the Lord. She is
simple, thoughtful, and yet decisive in her answer. “Let it be unto me
according to thy word,” is the sober declaration of one who sees that
the Divine will is everything. She has no intention of walking away
because she has no illusion about the false freedom of self-will. She
doesn’t ponder long; she doesn’t ask for time to think about it. As
soon as God’s will becomes clear, she embraces it, not knowing ex-
actly what lies ahead. She has no plans to give birth in a stable, nor to
flee murderous soldiers and go into Egypt for an unspecified length of
time.
She lauds the maternal privileges of our Lady, whereas the Lor d
redirects her attention and ours to Mary’s heart and mind—to the
inner con-expressed by motherhood. Here, on the inside, is where
serving the Lord begins, for our Lady as for us. It is also where self-
surrender faces its most demanding trial: A “yes” said to God by a
confused or sent of her whose obedience and fidelity was only sec-
ondarily troubled heart shows a Marian spirit of confidence and trust.
For she too was “greatly troubled” and “wondered” over what the
Lord’s messenger said to her (see Lk 1:29).