Mutual Yes

Greetings on this the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord

Readings: IS 7:10-14; 8:10; PS 40:7-8A, 8B-9, 10, 11; HEB 10:4-10; LK 1:26-38

Now I See!

The 4^th Sunday of Lent we celebrate Jesus as the Light of the World.

I wrote a homily on this gospel reading called Divine Light Beyond Sight of which there were 8 views and 6 likes which means it wasn’t read at all. J On LinkedIn another two Likes but well you get the idea. As the Divine Will would have it this year, the Annunciation (fixed to March 25^th, 9 months before His birth because well pregnant for 9 months ya know 😉 falls within the week. So this week we contemplate that Jesus is the Light of the World and the Annunciation of his coming.

Two Lite Stories

Coloring Lite Story

A recent scientific and medical breakthrough allows people who are color blind to see in color. It is truly an amazing time this Age of Medicine. On several occasions I have seen videos of people who received these special glasses and their first experience seeing color with these glasses. For the moment allow me to suspend doubt and cynicism about these devices as I hear a variety of outcomes and conclude they are effective in about 20% of the patients who try them.

Yet we must marvel at the response of those 20%. How wonderful it must be to be able to see color for the first time. There are several YouTube videos you can be a spectator to the response to such a gift. In this case he could see but not completely and was given the gift of complete natural human sight.

Cataract Lite Story

I have my own version of this type of gift. I had cataracts in both eyes. The milking over the eyes takes many years so it was not noticed by me until my eye glasses were fogged over in only one lens but I was blind! Turns out the left eye was 100% blocked but the right eye and the brain compensated until it couldn’t. So into surgery I went for lens replacement and vacuuming out the cloudy substance.

What a joy and wonder to have such medicine! Not only was my sight restored but the colors, crispness, depth, and so forth… that I tell you I didn’t have to begin with or so long lost forgotten what colored sight should be!

In my case my sight was restored but more than restored, naturally perfected.

These are within the natural created world sight stories.

On the Spirit

Today there is a natural and spiritual story. You know it well. Gabriel comes to Mary and we celebrate Mary’s singular, perfect Yes to the Lord.

We celebrate her Yes in prayer (Hail Mary composed of sacred Scripture) and we celebrate her intercessory heart for Elizabeth and all of us as a integral part of her yes to the Lord:

Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.  May it be done to me according to your word.

Celebrate the Mutual Yes

The Annunciation is also about the Yes of the Lord. Yes to our need. Yes to our predicament and hopeless case without intervention.

The Annunciation is completely about intervention! The Lord was intervening in the life of Mary. She, although without sin, also needed the savior. Mary is alson intervening in our life as well as evidenced in her rushing to Elizabeth’s side.

The Lord’s Yes or, as we say, His initiative is to act and invoke a response with the intention of the salvation of souls.

Ahaz Couldn’t See

Ahaz (735-715 BCE) ruled in uncertain times. He was guilty of child sacrifice to Molech (2 Kgs 16:3), imperfect construction and treatment of the Altar in the Temple and is attested to permitting social injustice by both Isaiah (3:13-15; 5:8-13) and Micah (2:1-10).

He had power but was constantly at the whim and victim to overlords. He had no vision. He had become a hapless victim.

I will not ask! I will not tempt the LORD!

Even still God provides. Even if Ahaz could not say Yes to the Lord, the Lord said Yes to Ahaz! He offered his Son:

Emmanuel, which means “God is with us!”

Mary Couldn’t See Either

Mary couldn’t see either by the way. She wondered aloud ‘How can this be?’

But the difference is Mary wasn’t a hapless victim. She was one who trusted the one who made her.

Can You See it

Can you see the Lord always says Yes?

Can you see the Yes of your own heart like Mary’s as an honest heartfelt surrender to love?

The Annunciation begins the salvific mission of Jesus incarnate (pregnancy by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit). It is our Yes too. It is our becoming sharers in the divine mission. It is most of all the Yes of God.

The Yes he was dying to give us.

Peace be with you,

Deacon Gerry