The handmaid’s faith: Weekly Message for 09-05-2023

Dear Friends in Christ,

The Church this week celebrates the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

She who was conceived without original sin was born into a nation that anxiously awaited a Messiah. Through her the Second Person of the Trinity would take on flesh and come among us as true God and true man.

This was well beyond what Mary was humanly capable of. But then, everything great that happens to, through and in us is a gift of God—from our very birth, to our rebirth at baptism, to the absolving of our sins in confession.

This upcoming Marian feast, then, is a reminder of how reliant we are on God to do good things — a notion that is a far cry from what the elites tell us! They promise a perfect world (someday) through technology and the right ideologies.

Yet, instead of a new Garden of Eden we see a world awash in drugs, despair, pornography, human trafficking, wokeness and the absurdity of transgenderism. This is progress?

If we need reasons for hope, we might recall the words of praise Our Lady lifted to the Lord at the Visitation: “He has shown might with his arm, dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart. He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones but lifted up the lowly” (Luke 1:51-52).

The faith of the lowly handmaid of Nazareth nourished her hope and courage even in the face of the cross on Calvary. That same kind of faith can sustain us in the face of the dystopia unfolding before our eyes.

With an eye toward imitating Our Lady’s sense of hope, you might find it useful to pray along with our Retreat Guide “Troubled Hearts: A Retreat Guide on Peace of Soul.”

And take courage: Her Son is with us till the end of the age.

In Christ,

Father Edward McIlmail, LC
Ask a Priest contributor