Have you ever given this feast day much thought? Until I entered Carmel and was a cloistered nun, I certainly had not... and even still, it is easy for me to "miss" this day as anything significant.
What is this feast day about, and what is the significance for us?
The Presentation of Mary is the day that Mary was brought to the temple and consecrated entirely to God while still a little girl. The celebration of this feast goes back to the 6th century of Christianity. This day, this memorial of Mary's consecration to God, points us to the hidden work of the Holy Spirit in this young girl's Immaculate Heart throughout her whole life, and teaches us a lesson that I would argue is intrinsic to holiness.
Have you ever wondered about the life of this young girl, Mary of Nazareth, and all that led her to a point of such openness to God at the moment of the Annunciation? What kind of life was she living, what dispositions did she hold, what did she meditate on, or make decisions about that formed her and prepared her for that singular moment of grace?
Mary spent her entire life, from childhood, giving herself totally God. Her entire life was one act of love, one unending gift of herself, laying herself down first to be loved, then to love. Her entire life was the molding of her Heart for that moment where she could say "fiat" when asked if she would bear and birth the Son of God, and then for the life she would live afterwards.
The lesson here for us is that no saint was made from one moment. As we see with Mary's total dedication to God from childhood, her entire life was a continuous growth in glory and love, even she who was born without sin. It was a constant commitment to virtue and "nearness" to God, from the most hidden days of her youth. When life is lived this way, the greater "yeses" the Lord invites us to really become the next small yes, the present act of love we've already been living.
I have always said this about vocation, and still hold it to be true as I am on the brink of giving birth to our own first babe... that our Vocations are really just the next small yes. They don't (usually) come out of nowhere with great fireworks and a blaring horn, but rather they come in the midst of our hidden fidelity to the Lord, and they are simply the next small yes. And every decision, every choice for virtue, every effort to be present or say yes to love within our vocations follows just the same way.
Don't miss those moments, hidden in your every day life, in which the Lord is inviting you to nearness, to live as a continuous act of love, to say yes to ongoing glory. Learn from Mary to be faithful in these little things, when nobody sees, when nobody is there to praise you. Holiness lies in the ordinary things of every day life. Just like Mary, this is how we, too, will bring Christ into this world.
Comentarios