By the message of an angel, the world was changed, never to be the same again. From an encounter between two—one from heaven and the other from earth—came the transformation of the soul of humanity, from death to life: the new thing foretold by the prophet Isaiah that brought salvation and redemption through the Christ, the anointed one of God.

A virgin, whose womb became for us like the sacred tent of meeting, the place where heaven and earth met together, where God and man became one—a unity of the two natures of Christ, fully God, fully man.

The Incarnation is possibly the greatest of all miracles, and through this mystery we are led by Christ to the promised land, our heavenly home, like a city in the clouds—the highest dwelling place. We walk with our feet touching the ground yet with our hearts in the sky—walking in humility, with minds and hearts raised to God, who is Jesus Christ.

The greatest miracle because the infinite was, for a little while, finite. That God became man will forever be a radical act of humility, a radical acceptance of unknowing so that He who became small experienced our humanity in every way, growing from a little baby to a man—a little lower than the angels—so that we may accept one another as brothers and sisters, by His undoing of original sin, and be reunited as one family under God.

The Incarnation, the knitting together of the divine with the body and soul of humanity—like a bride and bridegroom, a wedding or matrimony which literally means the state or condition of motherhood, “putting on the flesh,” as in the womb the mother eats not for herself, but consumes in order to grow or put the flesh on her baby.

Matrimony and Incarnation, the Word made flesh, are intimately connected; marriage is a sacred vocation that makes the love of God and humanity visible and incarnate, not simply by our feelings, but through the sacramental nature of our being human in the world: bringing new life, nurturing all of humanity in a Trinitarian relationship—of God, self, and the other. Therefore, in our everyday activities, God is not just present everywhere in the world, but right in the middle, between us.

Love is the bridge of light between every relationship that works with and for the other.

To care for those who depend on us, with great joy, kindness and gentleness, is very holy—the works of parents and carers as a sacrifice of the self, perhaps the holiest of all.

Yes, we may revere the holiness of those who can live simply, pray often and serve in communities. But our God who created the smallest to the largest, from single-celled bacteria to the complexity of the multicellular, sees the gentlest and smallest touches of the heart that parents and carers make when they are tired, feeling empty having given and continuing to give their all to children, the disabled, the sick and suffering. God sees them, and that is very holy, for God is love, and the greatest love is that which is done for others, not for ourselves.

In this way, I see St Maximilian Kolbe as a father, a light who saw a light in another, and with steadfast faith and the greatest of all love gave his life for the other.

Children are literally the future we hold in our hearts. By shaping the hearts and minds of children we are creating and shaping the future—for them, for our communities, for the world. And Mary, like all mothers, experienced the same trials.

In a devotional tradition attributed to St Anselm, through a vision he is said to have spoken with Mary about her experience of her son’s Passion. In it, Our Lady describes: “As I stood at the foot of the cross, this pure white garment became saturated with the streams of crimson blood which gushed from His precious body!” [a]

There is no human who loved Christ more than Mary. And no greater act of love than Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. The unbreakable bond between a mother and her son is not just about time spent together after birth, but a foetus starts being able to hear their mother’s heartbeat as early as around 16–18 weeks, and more clearly by 20–22 weeks gestation. And it is well documented, an undisputed fact, that foetal cells cross the placenta and enter the mother’s bloodstream. Jesus’ body was literally in her blood.

God is God of the living, not the dead, so by faith we hope in the certain expectation of life beyond the grave, to be alive in heaven with the angels and the saints. If heaven is one, if heaven is united in love, it is already like two who become one; therefore, no longer will there be marriage in heaven as it is on earth, for marriage is an outward and visible sign of that unity, of God’s Kingdom come.

God is love and life! So why would we not ask for heaven to amplify our prayers in the ears of Jesus? This is a beautiful meditation. A woman is the outward and visible sign of the inward and invisible soul of humanity—let us remember that the name Adam in Hebrew means human being or humanity.

As we are made from the dust of the earth, from atoms made in the stars and once carried by the wind, do we praise it? Do we praise this dust? Or do we wonder at the complexity of even the relative simplicity of a cell? A single cell is a marvel that even science cannot fathom with any certainty its beginning, and here we stand at the pinnacle of billions of years of evolution—able to wonder at the stars, to observe this beautiful and precious life—given to us through a female.

Another beautiful reflection by St Anselm, devoted to Mary, states: “God, then, is the Father of the created world and Mary the mother of the re-created world. God is the Father by whom all things were given life, and Mary the mother through whom all things were given new life.” [b]

In the creed we say “begotten, not made,” which is to say, God is the cause and meaning of Himself, the “I AM who I AM.” Uncreated first mover. Mary, a creation like us, chose God; this was not a passive acceptance—she could have run away—but she was prepared from the beginning, for even the prophet Jeremiah was known before he was born.

If God can do all things, would a new ark of the covenant, a covenant of flesh and blood, be too hard for Him? If power came from touching just the hem of His garment, does it not stand to reason that when we participate with the incarnation of Christ on earth now, we must be prepared, our hearts readied like the peoples of old? That this preparation through repentance would outwardly show and demonstrate our love for Him. For if we do not love Him, can He say at the end that He knows us?

Let it be so. Mary’s fiat is her Amen. Do we really mean Amen when we speak it? Do we mean that Amen as our readiness to the transformation of our whole lives?

Motherhood has a long labour, but in a moment when a child is born her world is changed forever. Her life becomes holy and sacred, in all its messiness, in all its aches and with every tear. For God says He is closest to those who love and suffer for it.

And the angel said, “Do not be afraid,” echoing the message of God through the ages of humankind. Trusting God in the wilderness of the world, in all our poverty of spirit, for love’s sake, being human is important; we are important in our littleness standing here on this tiny planet hanging in the vast darkness and mystery of space and time.

Life is a privilege that no one has the right to take away; therefore, to keep that privilege, there is an individual duty to order our conduct accordingly towards life. For Christ came to give us life, and to live that life to the full. (John 10:10)

In the quiet stillness of a town in Galilee, not to a celebrity or to the daughter of a king, but to a young woman, poor in status, hidden from the eyes of leaders—to this ordinary moment was revealed the extraordinary. To Mary, set apart and holy to the Lord.

Mary is the outward and visible sign of the faithful soul of Israel—“woman” is “the bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23), the embodied soul of the chosen people. Not adorned outwardly with fine linens, but clothed inwardly with Christ, the beautiful and shining light of all mankind.

Whether we are mothers or not, we are all asked as Christians to do now what Mary did then: in our littleness we are asked to give birth to Christ in the world, to make Him incarnate through our thoughts, words, and deeds. All generations will call her blessed, a Holy Mother, a unique vocation given by God. But we too, whether male or female, can try to imitate this apostleship of making Christ known, His love for us through our own.

So now, let us rest with the words of St Anselm: “Come now, insignificant man, fly for a moment from your affairs, escape for a little while from the tumult of your thoughts. Put aside now your weighty cares and leave your wearisome toils. Abandon yourself for a little to God and rest for a little in him.” [c]

And meditate on this prayer:

Hail, Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death. 
Amen.

References:

[a] From The Passion of Christ Through the Eyes of Mary (attributed to St Anselm in devotional tradition), TAN Books.

[b] From a sermon by Saint Anselm (Oratio 52: PL 158, 955–956), excerpt from the English translation of The Liturgy of the Hours (Four Volumes) © 1974, International Commission on English in the Liturgy Corporation.

[c] Proslogion, Chapter 1.