Mary was perfectly obedient to God, Mary: Day 077

Mary was perfectly obedient to God

Because of her freedom from original sin, St. Alphonsus explains, Our Lady could be more perfectly obedient to God than all the other saints.

When the angel Gabriel announced to Mary God’s great plans for her, because of her love for obedience she would call herself only a handmaid: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord” (Lk 1:38). “Yes,” says St. Thomas of Villanova, “for this faithful handmaid never, in either thought or word or deed, contradicted the Most High. Instead, having entirely laid aside her own will, she lived always and in all things obedient to that of God.”

Mary herself declared that God was pleased with her obedience when she said, “He has regarded the humility of his handmaiden” (see Lk 1:48). For the humility of a servant, properly speaking, consists in prompt obedience.

St. Irenaeus says that by her obedience, the Mother of God repaired the evil done by Eve’s disobedience: “As Eve, by her disobedience, caused her own death and that of the whole human race, so did the Virgin Mary, by her obedience, become the cause of her own salvation and of that of all mankind.” Mary’s obedience was much more perfect than that of all other saints, since all people, on account of original sin, are prone to evil, and find it difficult to do good. But not so the Blessed Virgin.

St. Bernardine writes: “Because Mary was free from original sin, she found no obstacle in obeying God. She was like a wheel, which was easily turned by every inspiration of the Holy Spirit. . . . Her only goal in this world was to keep her eyes constantly fixed on God, to discover his will and, when she had found out what he required, to perform it.
—St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Glories of Mary

IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .
Is there any area of my life in which am I knowingly disobeying God’s will for me? How might I become obedient with Mary’s help?

CLOSING PRAYER
From a prayer of Venerable Pope Pius XII: Through your powerful intercession, O Mary, may minds and hearts find repose in abandoning themselves to the will of the heavenly Father, in the consciousness of their frailty, with faith in divine promises, in the hope of eternal blessings, and in adhering lovingly to your crucified Jesus who has made our crosses his own.

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