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THE VOCATION OF OUR LADY THE VOCATION OF OUR LADY I. Our Lady’s example. When Christ came into the world, He said, ‘Lo, I have come to do thy Will, O God’. The Annunciation and the Incarnation of the of God is the most wonderful and extraordinary event. It is the mystery of the enormous love God has for mankind; it is, too, the mystery which has had the greatest bearing on the whole of mankind’s history. God becomes man once and for all! Even so, this event took place in Nazareth, a tiny village in a country that was scarcely known to the outside world of its day. There, God was born in the perfect and entire nature of man. He was whole in what related to human nature. At one and the same time. He preserved the totality of the essence that is proper to him, and He assumed the totality of our human essence…in order to restore that totality. Saint Luke tells us very simply about this tremendously important event: In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God in a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. All down the ages popular piety has represented Mary as being recollected in prayer when she receives the angel salutation: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you! Our Mother is disturbed at these words, but her being disturbed does not render her inactive. She knows the Scriptures well; she has been instructed in them, as were all good Jews from their earliest years, but above all she has the clarity of mind and the perceptiveness given her by her matchless faith, her deep love and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. This is why she understand the message of God’s angel. Her soil is fully open to what God is about to ask of her. The angel hastens to reassure her and reveals to her God’s plan to her ‒ her vocation: You have found favour with God, he says, you will conceive in your womb and bear a , and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be called great, and will be called the of the Most High; and the Lord of God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and for his kingdom there will be no end. The messenger greets Mary as “full of grace’; he call her this as if it were her real name. He does not call her by her proper earthly name ‘Myriam’ (Mary), but by this new name: “Full of grace’. What does this name means? Why does the archangel address the Virgin of Nazareth in this way? In the language of the Bible ‘grace’ means a special gift, which according to the New Testament has its source precisely in the Trinitarian life of God himself. Of God who is love (cf 1 John 4: 8 ). Mary is called full of ’grace’ because this name express her true being. Whenever God changes a person’s name or gives him or her an extra one, He destines him or her to something new, or reveals to that person his or her true mission in the history of salvation. Mary is called ‘full of grace’, most highly favoured, because of her divine Motherhood. The angel’s announcements revealed to Mary her task in the world, the key to her whole existence. The annunciation was for her a most perfect light that filled the whole of her life and mage her fully aware of her exceptional role in the history of mankind. Mary is definitively introduces into the mystery of Christ through this event. When they say the Angelus each day, many Christians throughout the world remind our Mother of this moment, the important of which, for her and for the whole of mankind, no words can describe. We remind her of it too, when we consider the first joyful mystery of the Rosary. We should try to enter into the scene and to contemplate Our Lady as with loving piety she embraces God’s holy Will. The scene of the Annunciation is a very lovely one. How often have we meditated on this! Mary is recollected in prayer. She is using all her senses and her faculties to speak to God. It is in prayer she makes it the life of her life. Do not forget the example of the Virgin Mary. in CONVERSATION with God vol. 6 
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