Thy will be done. How many times have we uttered that line of the Our Father in prayer?
Thy will be done. This is Jesus’ prayer during his agony in the garden in Luke’s Gospel. Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done. Jesus has known from the beginning of time that God would send him to save humanity. And yet at his hour of agony, Jesus must choose to fulfill his Father’s will, to offer his own body for our salvation. Or, as Fr. Patrick Michaels once said, Jesus took on our humanity so that, through humanity, he could save humanity.
In the Letter to the Hebrews, Jesus is quoted as having said, Behold, I come to do your will, O God. I come to do your will. The passage describes the Incarnation, Jesus’ yes to the Father’s invitation to death: When Christ came into the world, he said, Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me. I come to do your will. Jesus empties himself of his own will, that he might do the will of his Father.
Today is the Feast of the Annunciation; it might also be called the Feast of the Conception & Incarnation of Jesus. As the angel departs, the Holy Spirit comes upon Mary, and Jesus is conceived – wow! Bishop Barron says that, recognizing the divine in her midst, at that crucial moment, Mary allows herself to fall in love with God, and in that moment of ecstasy, the Son of God enters the world for its salvation. What makes this possible?
Dr. Wendy Wright has written that, on the one hand, Jesus’ Incarnation was divinity’s ecstatic, kenotic gesture of love, a wooing of mankind. But Mary’s yes was also ecstatic. It was both a passionate response and a self-emptying. It took her out of herself; she gave herself to and became inhabited by the one she loved. Mary’s own receptivity to grace allows her to accept the Father’s will, no matter the cost. In spite of what must have been tremendous uncertainty, even bafflement, Mary says, Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your will.
May it be done to me according to your will… or, Thy will be done. Because of her self-emptying selflessness, Mary’s tiny womb was filled with infinite divinity; her humanity was the portal through which divinity could take on human flesh.
This story resonates with me in so many ways, and prompts so many hard questions. For starters, Mary trusted her experience of the divine. Do I? How am I remaining open to the movement of the Spirit in my life? And, maybe most importantly: Am I aware of God’s desire to be born in me, daily?
Because if I am, then, boy, do I have work to do! Look at King Ahaz. God invites Ahaz to ask for a sign; God wants Ahaz to allow God to work in his midst. But Ahaz does not say yes to God: I will not ask! Unlike Ahaz, Mary allows nothing to get in the way of the divine taking root in her. Unlike Ahaz, Mary surrenders any control she might have to God’s will for her.
Am I ready to do that? Am I ready to surrender all that stuff I’m holding onto, all the negativity and brokenness and sin, so that my body might have room for the Lord to grow in me?
Am I ready to let go of my deep-held resentments and open my heart to God?
Am I ready to give up my obsessive-compulsive need for control and allow God to work in me?
Am I ready to shut down the clock of my impatience, and be attentive to those I love?
Am I ready to close my judgmental eyes and see others with the eyes of my heart?
Am I ready to sacrifice, if not myself, then my self-focus, for the sake of others?
Am I ready to choose to empty myself and serve in the way God wants me to serve?
St. Ambrose once wrote, If there is only one Mother of Christ according to the flesh, all are begetting Christ according to the faith. Eight hundred years later, Meister Eckhart added, What good is it to me if Mary is full of grace if I am not also full of grace?
Mary’s own humanity afforded the Son of God the human component of his identity; through her womb, Christ took on flesh, became incarnate, to save all of humanity. The Feast of the Annunciation, Conception & Incarnation invites us to do the same: to allow the Lord to take on flesh through us, his Body on earth, to be his love and mercy and justice and compassion in ways that are tangible, real.
Here I am, Lord. I come to do your will. Thy will be done.
This Lent, I pray, O Lord, help us learn to surrender all, to empty ourselves completely, as both Jesus and Mary did, that we might choose freely and openly to do your will, that your divinity might be born in us, and through us, heal your world!
--Suzanne,
OLMC Communion Service Reflection,
March 25, 2025
Happy Solemnity of the Annunciation!
Image source 1: Róisín Dowd Murphy of Murphy-Devitt Studios, The Annunciation, Corpus Christi Church, Drumcondra, Dublin., c.1978–85, https://corpuschristidrumcondra.ie/
Image source 2: John Collier, Annunciation, Church of Saint Gabriel, McKinney, Texas, https://cultivatingoakspress.com/to-make-visible/
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