Praise be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.
In the readings for today's Solemnity of the Annunciation, we hear a very important refrain three times, Lord, I come to do your will.
It's the refrain of the Responsorial Psalm, Psalm 40, and in that psalm, King David adds, To do your will, O God, is my delight, and your law is within my heart, Psalm 40, verse 8.
A second reading from the letter to the Hebrews echoes the words of Psalm 40 and puts the words on the lips of our Savior, Jesus Christ, as it is written of me in the scroll, Behold, I come to do your will, O God, Hebrews 10, verse 7.
This is as Jesus, as our Lord Himself says, for example, in the Gospel of John, John 6:38, He says, I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me.
And even earlier in the same Gospel, He says, I can do nothing of my own authority.
I seek not my own will, but the will of Him who sent me, John 5, verse 30.
We can tie that in with our Lord's words in Matthew 12:50, when He says, Whoever does the will, the Thelema in Greek, the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.
So as a side note, what does the name Thelma mean?
If anyone's named Thelma here, it's a Greek word, it means will or volition.
Blessed John Duns Scotus teaches that one of the characteristics of the divine will is that it acts in a way which is supremely orderly and reasonable.
There's an intrinsic rationality to God's infinite will.
The will of the Heavenly Father in creation is first, that God be glorified in what He created.
Secondly, He wills that all of creation be centered on Jesus, on the incarnate Word, and secondarily, on Mary, the Immaculate Conception.
And three, He wills that we be redeemed through the passion and death of His only begotten Son.
With that in mind, we can see the two priorities of life itself are, one, the glory of God, and two, the will of God.
Those are two inseparable realities which Jesus came to complete and to fulfill.
I'm not sure what your priorities in life are, but those are the priorities of life, the glory of God and the will of God.
In light of that, sometimes we might want to reconsider our own priorities.
So why does God, why does Jesus descend from heaven to earth into the womb of the Blessed Virgin today on the Solemnity of the Annunciation?
In order to carry out the will of the Heavenly Father for the glory of the same Heavenly Father.
That brings us to the third place where we hear the refrain today of doing the will of God.
In today's readings, we find it specifically in the Gospel, in the words of Our Lady, when She responds to the proposal and the promise delivered to Her by the angel Gabriel.
She says, Behold, I am the handmaid, I'm literally the slave of the Lord.
Let it be done to me according to Your Word, Luke 1:38.
In other words, I'm here to do Your will, O Lord, not mine.
We can tie all of this more broadly just into the spiritual life in general.
In life and in the spiritual life, with my mind, I work to find, I work to discover what's true.
With the other faculty of my soul, with my will, I choose to love what I perceive as good.
And if I'm a person of goodwill, that means that my will is open to doing God's will.
Also, St. Bonaventure commenting on our memory, so if you think of the soul with three faculties, memory, intellect, will, St. Bonaventure says the object of our memory is eternity, if I'm not mistaken.
So truth is for my mind, goodness and love, for the will, the memory is for eternity.
So doing God's will for us in the end means embracing the truths of natural reason and divine revelation, and then with that truth, saying yes to loving others, to doing good to them in the truest way possible.
The intellect always precedes the will, so first I know something, then I choose to do something with that knowledge.
First the intelligence, then the will, but according to Franciscan thought, the will is paramount, it has preeminence, why?
Because it's with my will, to borrow from Deuteronomy 30 verse 19, it's with my will that I choose life or death, it's with my will that I choose good or evil, it's with my will that I choose God's will and His glory, or my own will, and what I think will be my own glory.
So the question of the day today is, am I willing to do God's will or not?
And regarding truth and love or charity as an apologetic side note, just remember that more winsome than our words, no matter how true they are, more winsome than our words is the heart that we have for others.
The heart that you have or don't have, the good that you do or leave undone, that's your greatest witness, that's your greatest testimony in life.
That's what we'll live on in eternity, we could say.
And even with that in mind, we can say that even more winsome than our Lord's words is the sacrifice of His life that He makes for us.
And more winsome than Our Lady's words, which are few, in the Gospels, is the faithful and motherly love that She gave to Him and that She extends to all of us as well.
So a great gift that Jesus and Mary give or announce to us on the solemnity of the Annunciation is their great love for us, and by extension, the Heavenly Father's love for us as well.
Their love for us is seen not only in what they said, but even more so in what they chose to do with their lives, with their brief time on earth, which is now bearing fruit in eternity as well.
And believe it or not, we are each chosen by God to give birth to Jesus in our lives.
So what happens to Our Lady on today's feast is what's meant to happen to us in miniature in our own lives as well.
So when people see me or think of me or interact with me, do they think of Jesus?
Do they see Him?
Do they think of Our Lady?
Do they see Her?
Or do they think, if that's what it means to be a Catholic or a priest or a follower of Christ, if that's what they look like, no thank you.
When non-Catholics and non-Christians are outwardly more virtuous and kinder or more generous than we are, that's quite a scandal when you think about it.
So it's good for all of us to keep in mind that Christianity is not a comfortable religion.
Catholicism is not a comfortable faith.
It's a challenging one.
If you aren't being challenged to grow spiritually in some area of your life, then you are not living your Catholic faith.
Lastly, with that in mind, saying yes to being the Mother of God was actually the hardest choice that Our Lady had to make because it's a choice that caused Her the greatest suffering and sacrifice too.
But it's the choice that made Her our Mother as well as the Mother of the Messiah.
So it was the most rewarding choice that anyone has or could ever make because in the end, the benefits of being totally dedicated to the will of God far outweigh the costs.
Everyone in heaven and even a number of people on earth will testify to that.
So let's ask Our Lady today then for the grace to be honest about whose will we're really trying to accomplish in our life, for one.
But then let's ask Her for the grace to be open to God's will so that the words of the King can be our own words as well when He says, To do your will, O God, is my delight, and your law is within my heart.
Psalm 40, verse 8.
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.