Surprised and not surprised.
We should not be surprised that God would fulfill His promise of a Messiah.
Time and time again, God has shown that He is one who keeps His promises.
All the ancient prophets foretold the Messiah, therefore, that He did it.
Shouldn't be a surprise.
We should be surprised on the reality of the Messiah being the Son of God.
We grow used to such a topic.
We hopefully hold it in our meditations quite often that it was not expected that the Savior would be God Himself.
It's beyond the expectations even of the Israelites.
So, not surprised, but surprised.
One other element of the project of the incarnation of the Son of God becoming flesh, that the method was not surprising, that He chose a lowly instrument.
This is the perpetual theme.
The Old Testament.
Pick your hero.
It's a flawed hero.
It's a limited hero.
Pick your figure.
Flash forward beyond the time of Christ and the apostles.
Think of all the apparitions of Our Lady, choosing humble, lowly instruments.
I said that in some ways God gathered all of the virtues and graces together and formed Maria, Mary.
In one, we could have a fun argument, maybe we'll do this at lunch, about which was her preeminent virtue.
Faith, hope, charity, purity.
I think a good case could be made for humility.
It was because she knew she wasn't much that God could do something in her.
Because she knew that the Lord was not expecting big things of her on her own, on her own talents, that she would actually give God permission to do something great in her.
I borrow a couple of ideas today from the author Carol Hauslander, that 20th century British author, artist, some could say mystic.
She says, with regards to the Annunciation, It was as if the human race were a little dark house, without light or air, locked and latched.
The wind of the Spirit had beaten on the door, rattled the windows, tapped on the dark glass with the tiny hands of flowers, flung golden seed against it even in the hour of storm, lashed it with the bows of the great tree, the prophecy of the cross.
And yet the Spirit was outside.
But one day, a girl opened the door, and the little house was swept pure and sweet by the wind.
Seas of light swept through it, and the light remained in it, and in that little house a child was born, and the child was God.
What a beautiful image of Our Lady's humility, because all that she had the power to do was to say yes.
Not that Mary did anything on her own, it was that she let something be done in her.
And I guess I'll make two claims today in this homily.
The first is that the more our souls resemble Mary's soul, and her virtues are found in our soul, the more the Holy Spirit will find a home in our souls.
If it's true about the human race and how the Spirit was knocking on the door and rattling on the windows, wanting inside, and Mary opened the door and the Spirit was let in, it's true of each of our souls.
The Holy Spirit wishes to dwell in us, the presence of God in us, and it's the humility to open the door, to give him permission.
What we learn about Mary in this story, the Annunciation, which is the Incarnation, God loves little souls, humble souls.
So that means we must root out any trace of pride, of superiority, of self-sufficiency.
If this is our modus operandi, it must change if we want the Holy Spirit.
I'll go a step further.
If our souls, in the virtue of humility and all the virtues, resemble Mary's soul, God will not be able to help himself.
Like he's drawn like a magnet to that dwelling place fit for him.
If it's prepared for by humility, the Lord did great things in her.
Holy is his name.
My second claim, going beyond the idea that God is drawn to the humble soul, there's so many great saints in the Church's history.
We all have our favorites.
I do too.
But they're not universally relatable in the sense of, even if I love St. Peter and St. Gregory the Great and St. John Paul II, I hate to break it to you, or my mom, I'm not going to become Pope, so I can't relate to them on that role.
So I love St. Dominic and St. Francis, you're welcome, and Ignatius of Loyola.
Odds are I'm not going to be a founder.
Not my vocation.
Diocesan priest.
At least for now.
It's what the Lord asks of me, and I'll be faithful to it.
I love Teresa of Avila and Catherine of Siena and St. Therese.
Aren't you relieved I'm not called to be a nun?
So they're all relatable in their own ways, but they're not completely applicable to me and my circumstances.
Even if you get closer to home with St. John Biani and St. John Bosco, there you have some humble parish priests, but even so, their circumstances are not my circumstances.
The claim is that Mary is one of universal devotion and admiration.
She should be our preeminent saintly friend because her story, hers, is universally applicable.
Because her vocation, at the very fundamental point, is to contribute her flesh, her blood, her heart, her soul contributes all of that to bring Christ into the world.
That's our vocation.
I don't care if you're married or not right now.
You're still discerning.
I don't care if you're young or old.
I don't care if you've taken private vows or public vows.
I don't care if you're a priest or a brother, whatever you are.
Our vocation is that the Lord wants to take our hearts, our souls, our flesh, our blood, and to extend the incarnation.
Christ wants to be present in this world through you.
This is another idea from Carol Hauslander that she articulates better than I ever will be, but she knows that it's not that Christ wants to reincarnate, right?
It's not another substantiation.
It's much like the Eucharist.
It's not a separate sacrifice from that which takes place at Calvary.
It extends it in every time and every place.
It's not that we're transported back in time.
It's that his sacrifice 2,000 years ago becomes present in our midst.
It extends it through time.
And what for?
Of course, our redemption, that we might personally encounter that sacrifice which wipes away sin, but he gives us his flesh and blood so that we might contribute our flesh and blood, that his presence might be extended in every time and every place.
The first reading today from the Acts of the Apostles is a small snapshot of the early church post-ascension, and it's a beautiful image.
It's the apostles and some women and Mary praying together.
But man, is that just a snapshot, because you know what comes next, Pentecost, the rush of the Holy Spirit, and all of a sudden, those men who were conformed to him now continue his saving work, embody him, bring his presence into wherever they go.
And let that be a lesson to us.
Mary teaches us today that her vocation was to bring about Christ's presence into the world, and not just in her womb, but every fiber of her being.
So we cannot confine our experience of God to this chapel, or any chapel, or any devotional place.
He wants your heart and your soul, your flesh and your blood.
That means your daily, ordinary experiences, your interactions with others.
He wants his presence there, and because he dwells in your soul, you're capable of bringing him there.
And if you wish to only encounter him here, you have stunted the continuation of the Incarnation.
One other saint, which has some controversy, I suppose, but many have a devotion to him, St. Christopher, patron saint of travelers, the legend is that he sees this small child trying to cross a dangerous bit of water to continue the theme.
He carries the child across the river, and once he gets to the other side, he realizes it's the Christ child, hence his name, Christbearer.
I suppose that name hopefully could be applied to each one of us, because it's certainly applied to Mary.
She was the Christbearer, and now we know we are too.