Painting by Henry Tanner

It’s the Solemnity of the Annunciation. This is the day the church celebrates the feast of the Annunciation: the Archangel Gabriel coming to Mary and the most important “yes” ever in history. Fiat. “Yes, I will.” Her consent to become the Mother of God. Read more if you like here.

As an adoptive mom, and a mom of biological kids, I trembled (with that adrenaline rush of shocked thrill and joy, but also with the ‘bigness’ of it all) each time we were presented with a child, or even when the child was “announced.” I cannot imagine how she must have trembled. And yet, she said “let it be done.” It is an awesome and fearsome responsibility, to care for a child and give them what they need – this gift from God.

Now you all know that this feast just resonates with me.  For me.
Really, I could and probably should, meditate on this feast, these images for a long time, oh…for the rest of my days.

Because this feast is all about the letting go.  It’s about the letting go, in blind faith…the kind of faith I can only dream of, reach toward, and pray for a glimmer.  It’s about a kind of trust I can only gape at and wonder.

That kind of faith, that kind of willingness to “let go” and accept challenging, don’t know the road ahead but I’ll keep on and do my best without whining endlessly and relentlessly nagging questioning sort of faith just astounds me.  Humbles me.  Blows my mind.  Still.  Ever.

But she did.
Mary was a girl, a mere girl.  Not old, with decades of life to measure the probability of it turning out ok in the end, or to compare to another girl she heard of in the same spot.  She had no measuring stick but faith.  And she was able to hold her breath, think about it for a moment (Because she was not programmed like a robot, she could have said ‘no,’….Indeed, we are taught that all of creation held it’s breath.)…and say, “fiat.”
Fiat.  Yes.  “I say yes.”
Ok.
I’ll do it.  “Thy will be done, not mine.”

On this special day I pray for the willingness and ability to be able to say the same.