Today is the feast day of the Nativity of the Immaculate Virgin Mary. Happy Birthday, Mary. Mary is so loved because she said "yes" to God when she was asked to bear our Savior at great cost to her personally on so many levels. What a task for a young girl to take on, even one born without sin!!! I have to wonder, watching what her baby endured during the final days of His ministry on earth, if she was sorry for saying "yes"...
The reading that we are looking at today is not the one from today's Mass, but for Sunday's. It is very appropriate. It speaks of how we are to live of the Lord. Mary did just that.
Romans 14: 7 - 9
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7 None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself.
8 If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.
9 For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
Looking back at my 16 years old self, I cannot imagine agreeing to what Mary did. Though I lived in much more liberal time, I would not have been willing to face the censure that Mary had to face. I was not a very obedient child. In fact, obedience is still something I struggle with :o( Even many of the "right" things that I did in my younger years were more about rebellion than doing what is right, like homeschooling my children. Little wonder I was never really successful at it though I believed it was the right and good thing to do. I did not discipline myself so my children were rebellious as well...Surprise Surprise!!
I do not like the parts of the Bible that allude to "the sins of the father being visited on the children"...seems unfair to blame a child for something the parent has done. However, I can see through my own children how they suffer for my disobedience. While the children have the luxury of choosing for themselves to be defiant or to follow the Father, it is much easier if they have been raised with firm loving discipline and seen it modeled...In my latter years, I believe I still struggle with being subservient to my husband and gracefully conceding to his wishes, but I think I have been getting better as I learn to try and hear my Heavenly Father's wishes and fall in line with them....That is how we ended up with 11 children! In order to help these children to learn to obey Him, I am trying, desperately to become more subservient to my husband. No one ever said saying "Yes" was easy...
Lord, As I go to Mass each morning and pray for you to order my day, please impress upon me Your will so I spend most of my energy there. And please give me the grace to accept my husbands will and make it in line with your own. Mary, please help me to be like you...a wonderful example to my children and a woman who wants only what the Father wants...amen.
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