Monday, December 8, 2014

Mary’s ‘Fiat’ and our will

“FIAT mihi secundum verbum tuum” (Be it done to me according to your
word). These are the famous words of Our Lady that radically changed
the course of the history of mankind.

    With them, God’s work of human redemption started to take place in
its final form. Our time recovered its fullness when it is reunited
with the divine eternity. Our state of being a fugitive from God due
to our sin is given a reprieve and a way to reconcile with God.

    And that’s because, with these words, the Son of God became man. “Et
verbum caro factum est” (And the Word was made flesh). In the very
womb of Mary, the reconnection between God and man, sundered by sin,
was established.

    In a very mysterious way, a woman, a creature became the mother of
her creator and savior, and thus enjoyed a number of divine favors and
privileges, among them, those of her immaculate conception, perpetual
virginity and assumption into heaven, without compromising her
humanity and her freedom.

    Mary becomes the icon of the most ideal state of man as he is meant
to be, in the mind of God, at the beginning of creation, before sin
came, as well as at the end of time, when everything would be
reconciled with God our Father through the cross of his Son and her
Son.

    She is the most perfect among all the creatures. Greater than her, no
one else except God, as one saint would put it. She is the perfect
personification of what is meant to be “the image and likeness of God”
in which man was designed and created.

    She is also the perfect personification of man redeemed by Christ
after we have all fallen into sin. Being the perfect co-redeemer in
Christ, she embodies the best results of the redemptive work of her
Son, thus she deserved the assumption into heaven body and soul
without waiting for the end of time.

    All these mainly because of that word, “Fiat” (Be it done). Her
openness to God’s will, her obedience to the divine designs for man
somehow started the healing of the disobedience of our first parents
that plunged all of us into a life and a world of sin.

    That “Fiat” is the best example of obedience that man as a creature
can have in relation to the will of God, our Creator and Father. It
perfectly echoes in a mysteriously anticipative way also Christ’s
obedience to the will of his Father—“If it is your will, let this cup
pass by me, but not my will but yours be done.”

    Mary’s “Fiat” is the perfect model of how our will ought to be
conformed to God’s will. We have to be reminded that by the very
nature of our will, the very seat of our freedom, our will is supposed
to be in synch with the will of its Creator. It just cannot be by
itself, turning and moving purely by its own.

    It is meant to be engaged with the will of God, its creator and
lawgiver. It is the very power we have been given by God that enables
us to unite ourselves with God in the most intimate way. All the other
aspects of our life—physical, biological, chemical, etc.—are also
governed by God-given laws but, by themselves, they cannot bring us
into intimate union with God.

    We cannot expropriate our will to be simply our own. We are meant
only to be stewards of it, not its owner nor its designer, creator and
lawgiver. It has to submit itself to the will of God, otherwise it
would be working without proper foundation and purpose.

    Mary’s “Fiat” should be an all-time motto for us, a guiding principle
in our whole life. The submission of our will to God’s will is never a
diminution of our freedom. On the contrary, it is the enhancement of
our freedom. It is where we can have our true freedom and true joy.

    We need to be more aware of this fundamental need of ours to conform
our will to the will of God. Very often, we behave like spoiled brats
who do not yet realize the importance of this need. We have to correct
this tendency.

    We have to train ourselves in the art of deepening our sense of
obedience to God’s will, basing it on our faith, hope and love of God
and others, and making it intelligent, truly voluntary, prompt and
cheerful.

    That’s when we can be truly children of God, his image and likeness.

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