The “Yes” of “Yeses”: the Mother’s Heart

Each year on March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation reminds us of that amazing conversation between the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Archangel Gabriel in the house of Nazareth. “Hail, full of grace. The Lord is with you,” Gabriel announces to Our Lady. Those words expressed the truth that the Virgin was immaculately conceived; no taint of sin would ever touch her. She was completely prepared to conceive in her virginal womb the Eternal Word, Jesus Christ by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. The Annunciation is the mother of all announcements to the Mother of all mothers.
           
The moment for the response of the humble Virgin of Nazareth has come. In God’s infinite wisdom, her response cannot be presumed. She possesses free will so that she can offer her response in love. For, love must be given freely. With anticipation and hope, all of creation awaits an answer from her pure lips.
           
St. Bernard of Clairvaux in a homily proclaims,
“The price of our salvation is offered to you. We shall be set free at once if you consent. In the eternal Word of God we all came to be, and behold, we die. In your brief response we are to be remade in order to be recalled to life.

“Tearful Adam with his sorrowing family begs this of you, O loving Virgin, in their exile from Paradise. Abraham begs it, David begs it... This is what the whole earth waits for, prostrate at your feet. It is right in doing so, for on your word depends comfort for the wretched, ransom for the captive, freedom for the condemned, indeed, salvation for all the sons of Adam, the whole of your race.

“Answer quickly, O Virgin. Reply in haste to the angel, or rather through the angel to the Lord. Answer with a word, receive the Word of God. Speak your own word, conceive the divine Word. Breathe a passing word, embrace the eternal Word” (Hom. 4, 8-9).
           
And she does offer her word. “Fiat,” she says, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38). Her “Fiat,” her “Yes,” changes everything. It brings God Himself into the world.

It is no wonder that the Virgin Mother cared for Him in His infancy and childhood. It is no wonder that she was the one who requested the first of His signs at the Wedding Feast of Cana (Jn 2:1-11). It is no wonder that at the Cross Christ gave us to her to be her children and her to us to be our Mother (Jn 19:25-27). It is no wonder that Christians for two thousand years have recognized the humble Virgin to be the Mother of God and the Mother of all people, especially the members of Christ’s Body, the Church.
           
It is no wonder that at this time of such suffering for the people of Ukraine in particular, and the people of the whole world, that Pope Francis would respond to the request of the Church in Ukraine and choose the Solemnity of the Annunciation to consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. It was the “Fiat” of that Mother’s Heart that brought the Savior into the world. We pray that, through the intercession of her Heart, peace, protection, and salvation may be granted to the people of Ukraine by the Prince of Peace.
           
On March 25, let us pray the Rosary and unite ourselves to Pope Francis and all the bishops in their Act of Consecration of Russia and Ukraine to Our Mother’s Immaculate Heart. On July 13, 1917, she said to Lucia dos Santos, the oldest of the three children at Fatima, “My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God.”  Her ‘”Fiat,” her “Yes,” makes her Immaculate Heart the refuge for all those who suffer and know sorrow, for all those who are separated from family and home, for all those who flee in terror and distress.  Her Immaculate Heart is the way that will lead all of us to God.

O Loving Mother, hear our prayer; take into your Immaculate Heart the people of Ukraine and Russia, and bring them peace!

Most Reverend William J. Waltersheid
Auxiliary Bishop of Pittsburgh