What God has Done for mary

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What God has done for Mary; and what God wants to do for us!

The goal of life is union with God in Christ Jesus.

At the Last Supper Jesus prayed for this: “Father, may they be one in us, as you are in me and I am in you.” (John 17:21)

We have a hard time accepting God’s plan for us. This is one reason Mary is so important. Because we see in her what God wants to do in us.

God has raised Mary to such a staggering height, but many cannot accept what God has done for her because they blur the distinction between God and what He has done for Mary.

So let’s begin by setting boundaries that we may preserve the infinite difference between God and Mary and the rest of humanity.

God is the Father Almighty, the source of all that is, the maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. He is eternal, infinite, unchangeable, all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-Good.

Neither Mary nor we possess these divine attributes on our own.

All that being true, God raised Mary’s being and activity to participate in a created way in what belongs to God, enabling her to be the Mother of God and the human manifestation of the Spirit, associated with both the Son and the Spirit in the salvation of the world.

That is why Mary rejoices in the Magnificat proclaiming: “The Almighty has done great things for me. Holy is his name.”

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The great things God has done for Mary began with her Immaculate Conception.

When God created the world, he gave his Holy Spirit to Adam and Eve. They rejected that gift. And the first creation fell into sin.

God begins to heal the broken world by giving the Holy Spirit to Mary at the first moment of her conception. That is the Immaculate Conception. The Angel Gabriel announces this when he came to her saying: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you.”

This phrase “Full of grace” is the English translation of the Greek word Kecharitomene which literally means that from the first moment of her existence, God filled Mary with the Holy Spirit and His grace. She was perfectly filled by the Holy Spirit who is nothing other than the life of God so She could live by His life.

Mary does not become God, she does not become the fourth person in God. However, by perfectly filling Mary with the Holy Spirit at her Immaculate Conception, God raised Mary to participate in the divine life, or as St. Peter writes, “a partaker of the divine nature.” But in a way like no other, for God makes Mary the perfect human expression of the Holy Spirit.

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Once Mary shares in the life of God, then she can take part in the activity of God. To cooperate presupposes to co-exist, that is, to exist on the same level to work together.

To cooperate with the three divine Persons of God, Mary must share in their mode of existence, she must share in their divine life.

This gift was given to her at her Immaculate Conception. It is then that her co-existence with God began, raising her up to cooperate with God at the Annunciation.

At her Immaculate Conception, Mary is brought to the divine level so that she can cooperate with God the Father to generate the Son; cooperate with the Son in redeeming the world; and cooperate with the Holy Spirit to give birth to Jesus, to the Church and to Christians.

Her co-existence with God begins at her Immaculate Conception.

Her co-operation with God begins at the Annunciation.

God the Father generates the Son on the divine level.

Mary generates the Son on the human level.

Mary humanly cooperates in the divine activity.

By her “Yes” she allows God to become man and begins the redemption of the world. 

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What does Mary tell us about ourselves?

God’s plan is so much greater than we could ever imagine.

God is not like a king who gives a beggar a morsel from his table. In that case the beggar is never raised beyond his limitations.

God is the kind of King who raises us up to his level, to be His children, taken into his household, into the Trinitarian life.

His plan is that we become partakers of His divine nature (as St Peter tells us in 2 Peter1:4) and his co-workers (as Paul tells us in 1 Cor. 3:9).

When we were baptized, God placed His Spirit in our soul so that we could share in His being and his activity.

Our being like Mary’s has been elevated to a supernatural level.

We are sons and daughters of God.

With God’s grace, with His life dwelling in our soul we co-exist with God which means we get to do what God does and become his co-workers in the salvation of the world.

We get to do what God does.

In Christ we can now know the truth at the heart of God; we can hope to enter fully the Trinitarian Life; and we can love like God loves.

We get to live like God does yet remain fully human. We get to help save the world through prayer, sacrifice and love.

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All this happened in Mary because she said Yes to God.

All this happened in Mary, and it may happen in us if we let God be the main actor and initiator in our life.

So how are we to be divinely active in the world? Our job is to do three things:

    I.        Say Yes to God unconditionally.

  II.        With a heart of Gratitude, do what God wants you to do – do His will.

III.        Accept and offer up to Him all he allows to enter your life knowing this is the way the world is saved and recreated.

It begins with an unconditional “Yes” which is very hard to do. See God wants to give himself to us but we, because of our vice and fear of suffering have a hard time receiving God.

This is why Jesus offers his Mother to us.

The mission of Jesus is to give his life to us.

The mission of Mary is to help us receive Jesus.

By consecration to Mary we invite Mary into our lives to help us receive Jesus.

Pope Francis encourages us to renew our consecration to Mary every year on the Feast of the Annunciation.

So, let’s do that now with the simple act of renewal by St. Bonaventure and St. Louis De Montfort. It is very simple and can actually be done every day and many times a day.

“I am all yours and all I have is yours, O dear Jesus, through Mary, your holy Mother. Amen!”