W hen the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman (Gal 4:4). And this woman, chosen and predestined from all eternity to be the mother of the Savior, had consecrated her virginity to God, renouncing the honor of counting the Messiah among her direct descendants. And she is prefigured in the Book of Proverbs: Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth (Prov 8:23-31).

The Virgin gives her full consent to the divine will: Be it done unto me according to your word (Luke 1:38). From this moment on, she accepts her vocation and begins to put it into practice. Her vocation is to be Mother of God and Mother of men.

Unknown to anyone, the hub of human history and the centre of all mankind is now the little village of Nazareth. Here lives the woman most loved by God, she who is to be the most-loved human being in the whole world, the most-frequently invoked and called upon of all time. And we, in the intimacy of our heartfelt prayer, say: ‘Mother! Blessed art thou among all women.’

In the exercise of her Motherhood she was adorned with all the graces and privileges which made her a worthy abode for the Most High. God chose his Mother and put in her all his love and power. He did not permit there to be in her the least taint of sin, neither original nor personal. She was conceived Immaculate, without any stain at all. And He granted her so much grace that under God, it would be impossible to conceive of anyone greater than she: such was to be her state that no one, apart from God, could even begin to comprehend it (Pius IX, Bull, Ineffabilis Deus). Her dignity is almost infinite.

She is our Mother too, a fact which, in this season, we want constantly to keep in mind. In the words of an ancient prayer, which we have made our own, we can say to her: Remember, 0 most holy Virgin Mother of God, ever before the Lord, to say good things of me. # # #

With permission from Scepter UK. Short excerpt from IN CONVERSATION WITH GOD by Francis Fernandez. Available at SinagTala or Totus Bookstore 723-4326 or at www.totusbookstore.com (info@totusbookstore.com)

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