In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among 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.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen  Let your yes mean yes, and your no mean no, Our Lord tells us in the gospel today. And yet from our experience, we know that we make resolutions to do certain things, to not do other things, and we don't keep them. We say yes, but we're unfaithful. We say no, and we're unfaithful.
This is one of the reasons why our Lord has given us consecration to Our Lady as a remedy for our weakness. How is this a remedy? Because consecration to Our Lady is not a one-way relationship. We do emphasize giving to Her everything, and that is true. But it is not just giving; it is also receiving from our Blessed Mother. We give to Our Lady all that is ours, and She gives us all that is Hers. Her power to say yes and to be faithful becomes our power. Her power to say no and be faithful becomes our power.
But let me just emphasize this a little bit more from St. Louis de Montfort, this two-directional relationship. St. Louis de Montfort says the Blessed Virgin never allows Herself to be surpassed in love and generosity. When She sees someone giving Himself entirely to Her, depriving Himself of what He prizes most in order to adorn Her, She gives Herself completely in a wondrous manner to Him. She engulfs Him in the ocean of Her graces, adorns Him with Her merits, supports Him with Her power, enlightens Him with Her light, and fills Him with Her love. She shares Her virtues with Him, Her humility, faith, purity. And She makes up for His failings and becomes His representative with Jesus. Just as one who is consecrated belongs entirely to Mary, so Mary belongs entirely to Him.
So again, when we consecrate ourselves to Our Lady, She gives us Her power to say yes to God's will and to be faithful, and to say no to sin and to be faithful. And this is, in fact, the whole of the Christian life, just from this point of view. It's a yes to grace and no to sin.   And it is a power. Because when we become Christians, we experience a true newness of life. There's a freedom from and a freedom to. A freedom from what? A freedom from the nothingness, the misery of sin. We're freed from it, truly freed. And a freedom to, freedom to do what? To be called children of God? To live as children of God. To do the things that come with sharing in God's own nature. We have a freedom to actually do that. Not just freedom from sin, but freedom to live in grace and in the fullness of grace. Our yes can mean yes. The commandments are not impossible for God's children.
The first reading tells us, if you trust in God, keep the commandments. You too shall live. And just emphasizing this yes to grace, without deemphasizing the no to sin, that is an important dimension of the Christian life.
Just as when we learn to drive, one of the first lessons for any student who wants to get his license is the don'ts of driving. Don't run red lights. Don't run stop signs. Don't drink and drive. Don't do any of these things, or you will probably kill yourself and somebody else. So we do have a whole list of don'ts. But why do we get a license? In order to drive. In order to get to places. In order to, again, to take advantage of a driver's license and all that a car can do.
Similarly, by analogy with grace, there's a whole bunch of don'ts, but then there's a whole bunch of do's and powers that God gives us. In fact, God wants to give us grace to go beyond the law given to Moses, because our Lord gives us more than Moses, far more than Moses. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or prophets. I have come not to abolish, but to fulfill, to bring it to fulfillment, to give us the fullness.” What Moses couldn't give us, our Lord does. And He gives us examples. We'll take examples from the gospel.
As Christians, we can keep the commandment, thou shalt not kill. It is possible for us to observe this commandment. And not just exteriorly, but even interiorly, in our minds and in our hearts. We can be freed from the dominion of sin, even in our desires. We can be free from the desire to kill.
But there's still more. There's a lot more. God gives us the grace to go beyond the law of Moses, beyond the Pharisees and their external observance. We are capable of even forgiving those who have harmed us. We are capable of forgiveness. And there's still more, and there's a lot more. We are capable of loving our enemies and actually doing good to those who hate us and harm us.
Sure, there's a no to sin, thou shalt not kill. But there's a yes to grace, forgive, love your enemies, do good to them. We are capable of doing all that through the grace that we have received. And that is what Our Lady wants for us. Say yes to that fullness. Yes, say no to the sin, but yes to that fullness.
Another example: we can keep the commandment, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." It is not impossible for Christians to keep this commandment, not just externally, but even internally. Our Lord brings it to fulfillness. Whoever even looks at a woman with lust already commits adultery. We can be free from that interior lust. There's a no to sin. But there's more. We can be free from lust altogether and live the chastity, the self-mastery of the children of God. It's an amazing thing.
Neither objectifying others through pornography, fornication, ourselves, self-abuse, masturbation has that name, self-abuse, because that's what it exactly is. It's an abuse of one's self, and we can be free from that. We can be free from gender confusion and the like. We can be free to live our real God-given identity with self-mastery and the virtue of chastity, nor, again, not objectifying or being objectified. Here modesty and dress comes to mind. We can be free from that dominion of lust.
But there's even more. Christians can have holy, loving marriages. Not just faithful marriages, but holy, loving marriages. They can love one another with Christ's own love. In fact, marriage elevated to the dignity of a sacrament gives spouses the power to love one another as Christ loves. That's what Our Lady wants for all of you married people. No to sin, but yes to the fullness of grace that has been given to us by Christ.
And there is still even more. Christians can even take the next step if they're called to live in continence, if they are not married, or in celibacy, if they are called to anticipate already on earth the life of the world to come, where people neither marry nor are given in marriage. Marriage, again, is indeed holy, and it's possible to live it in a holy way, but there is that vocation to anticipate in chastity, in celibacy, in the religious life, in priesthood, the life of heaven already.
We can do all these things. We should want to go out and be holy. In fact, that's what the Christian life is really about, about holiness. And that's what the MIM, the third order, is really about, pursuing holiness. That's what Our Lady wants to give to us. By making Her yes become our yes, Her no become our no.
Today, thanks be to God, we have the special grace of some people joining the MIM for the first time, making their first consecration at the end of Mass. One member, ending his novitiate, will make his first profession after this homily. We thank God for that calling, that special calling to live consecrated to Jesus through Mary.
It's a calling also, in the MIM or not, for everybody to be consecrated to Our Lady, to belong to Her, and to receive from Her. Receive from Her that power so that our yes means yes and our no means no, truly and faithfully. We thank God for this grace and respond to it.
How do we respond to it? Hopefully, by following that inspiration, to give everything to Him through Our Blessed Lady, the surest, safest, most beautiful way to Him, and the surest, safest, most beautiful way to receive from Him as well. That fullness of the Christian life, which we heard of in the Gospel, and which Christ wants to make us experience in our whole life, whatever state of life we belong to.
So at this point, we will transition into, again, the profession of one of our tertiaries in the third order, and we will do that right now.