What made Mary able to say “Yes!” to the angel’s request? What seems to have set Mary’s soul on fire that day was surely her own personal, direct experience of the presence of God, granted to her through the vision of the angel. This was so overwhelming, so joy-filled, such an eternal moment, that she would never again doubt the power and ever-presence of the God from whom it came. “Yes!” was the only possible response to such an experience.
I find it strangely consoling, too, to learn that Mary immediately questioned her own experience. Most of us can identify with her questioning. One moment we can feel God’s touch upon our life, the next moment we find ourselves saying, “This can’t be true, because it doesn’t fit within my familiar parameters!” The angel counters this questioning not with black-and-white answers, but with an assurance that God’s ways are infinitely larger than our minds and hearts can ever encompass. Our own rules and patterns can never contain God’s transforming power. All we can do – all we are asked to do – is to allow that transforming power to be “earthed” in our own living. “Nothing is impossible to God!” All our mindsets are just matchbox-size when it comes to holding the immensity and the potential of God.
Yet this power is not threatening. The angel’s first word to Mary is “Rejoice!” rapidly followed by the assurance that there is nothing to fear.
Source: Lighted Windows: An Advent Calendar for a World in Waiting, pp. 48-49, slightly adapted.
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