Dcn. Jay W. VanHoosier is the Director of Faith Formation for the Diocese of Owensboro. COURTESY OF DCN. JAY W. VANHOOSIER

BY DEACON JAY W. VANHOOSIER, OFFICE OF FAITH FORMATION

The Feast of the Annunciation on March 25 has tremendous significance for Christians. It falls exactly nine months before Christmas. Therefore, it marks the very starting point of the Incarnation. It is when Christ was conceived. Now, in God’s eternal plan, he knew that Mary would say yes to his request to be Mother of his Son. After all, God is beyond time and knows all that was, is, and will be. He also made Mary full of grace from the moment of her own conception. However – and this is a mystery of God – he never took Mary’s free will from her. She always had the choice to respond differently to God’s request. She could have said no. Mary knew at that moment that saying yes would change the plans that she had for her life. But she had the humbleness – the humility – to listen to the message. She had the faith to believe that this message was truly from God and the courage to obey it.

We too are given requests by God on a daily basis. He does this by presenting us with situations that do not always fit into what we might have planned for ourselves – not always what we want to do or say. More importantly, these situations are always opportunities to share Christ to others – in our words and actions. What is our reaction to these situations? Remember, like Mary, we have free will and can always say no. One need only to look at the world around us to realize that no is said far too often. However, also like Mary, we have the freedom to say yes. Like Mary, we need to look deep into our hearts and find the humility to listen, the faith to believe that God truly know what is best, and then the courage to obey. We need to constantly pray for the grace to let the humility, the belief, and the courage to fill our entire being – so we can say yes to God – and become co-operators with Him in his plan for the world – namely, sharing the light of Christ to everyone we meet.

If we do say yes to God’s request in our lives, and try to co-operate in the situations with which he presents us, we have to possibility and privilege to spiritually do what Mary did physically. We have the possibility and privilege to bring Christ into the world for others to see.

Mother Mary, pray for us.

Dcn. Jay W. VanHoosier is the Director of Faith Formation for the Diocese of Owensboro. For more information visit owensborodiocese.org/faith-formation, email [email protected] or call (270) 852-8324.

Originally printed in the March 2022 issue of The Western Kentucky Catholic.