Being Like Our Mother
Posted by Arwen Mosher in Faith on Wednesday, December 09, 2009 9:55 PM
Our pastor is an excellent homilist and will often make a point so striking that I wish I had a notebook with me so I could write it down immediately. Then he’ll keep talking and I’ll realize it’s something I’ve known all along, and was simply failing or forgetting to think about in the proper way.
With his homilies he brings the truths of our faith back into focus and helps renew them in our minds and hearts. On the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, he did not disappoint.
Speaking of Our Blessed Mother’s sinless life, he reminded us that we all have the choice to be like her, and we simply choose differently.
I was shocked by this for a moment. Be like Mary? I strive to live in what I consider a faint echo of her perfect faith, but I generally think of her perfection as something unattainable for me.
While it’s true that I’ll never be the Queen of Heaven, the truth is that perfection is the end for which God created me. If I were to submit to his will in every instant instead of sinfully clinging to my own, I would be living a perfect life.
This is what our pastor said in his homily: “Each of us is given enough grace to overcome every temptation we are offered. We simply choose, on many instances, not to accept it.”
Of course this is true, because the logical alternative is that God does *not* give us enough grace to overcome temptation, and that possibility is ludicrous. The reality is that God offers me an abundance of grace, and much of the time I am too weak and sinful to open myself to it.
Our pastor reminded us that “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” really means ALL things. I’m guilty of setting my spiritual standards too low, of assuming that I will sin and there is nothing I can do about it. While God certainly wants me to be merciful toward myself as he is, he also wants me to set my sights for myself where he sets his sights for me: on perfection.
Through Christ, with Mary’s intercession - that’s the way.
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