You have found favour with God

Is 7,10-14; Ps 23,1-6; Lk 1,26-38

20 DECEMBER

When doe a man find favour with God? When God finds himself, his good, his love, his truth, his justice and his holiness in him. God sees himself in the man and seeing he loves himself, loving the person who reflects him like a mirror. In the Old Testament this expression often recurs. In the New it is said only for the Virgin Mary. Only of her it is said that she has found favour with God.

Sir, if I may ask you this favour, please do not go on past your servant (Gen 18, 3).  When the time approached for Israel to die, he called his son Joseph and said to him: “If you really wish to please me, put your hand under my thigh as a sign of your constant loyalty to me; do not let me be buried in Egypt (Gen 47, 29). Moses said to the Lord, “You, indeed, are telling me to lead this people on; but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘You are my intimate friend,’ and also, ‘You have found favour with me’ (Ex 33, 12). Now, if I have found favour with you, do let me know your ways so that, in knowing you, I may continue to find favour with you. Then, too, this nation is, after all, your own people” (Ex 33, 13). Then he said, “If I find favor with you, O Lord, do come along in our company. This is indeed a stiff-necked people; yet pardon our wickedness and sins, and receive us as your own” (Ex 34, 9). Casting herself prostrate upon the ground, she said to him, “Why should I, a foreigner, be favoured with your notice?” (Rt 2, 10). “If it please the king, and if your servant is deserving of your favour, send me to Judah, to the city of my ancestors’ graves, to rebuild it” (Ne 2, 5). If I have found favour with the king and if it pleases your majesty to grant my petition and honour my request, come with Haman tomorrow to a banquet which I shall prepare for you; and then I will do as you ask” (Esth 5, 8). The people that escaped the sword have found favour in the desert. As Israel comes forward to be given his rest (Ger 31, 2). Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God (Lk 1, 30).

In the Virgin Mary God does not find something of himself, he finds himself entirely in the power of grace, truth, holiness, justice, peace and communion. All of God is totally in her. She is a true temple, she is the living temple of her Lord. The God that lives in Her, that is all in her, now asks for a grace to the One whom he has filled with every grace. He asks her for the grace of being the Mother of his Son, of his eternal Son. Might the Virgin Mary say no to Him of whom she is already the temple. If he wants her body, her body is his. She is only her faithful servant. As God has already occupied all of her soul and her spirit, so now he can occupy all of her body. It is given him thoroughly for eternity.

In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary. And coming to her, he said, “Hail, favoured one! The Lord is with you.” But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” But Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” And the angel said to her in reply, “The holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren; for nothing will be impossible for God.” Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

The Virgin Mary was thought from eternity by God to be wholly and entirely his in soul, in spirit and in body. God took all of her heart and mind, desires and aspirations. Only the will has left all in her hands, so that She were the one to give herself to her God. Mary has found favour with God. But Mary also sees all of herself in God. Even God finds favour in her eyes. It is in this being in each the other and the other in one, in this most pure exchange of life that Mary becomes a gift to God forever. She is from God, She is in God. Now she chooses to be for Him. She is made her servant.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints make us true servants of the Lord.20