Mary gave her fiat to God's sublime plan for the Redemption of the human race. Until we reflect upon it, we might be inclined to lose sight of the courage this act of consent called for. We might remember merely the privilege and forget the obligation. For God's way is to ask in the proportion He gives. Why do so many of us shrink from sanctity except because we are afraid of the sacrifices it entails? If Mary is to become God's Mother, acceptance of His plan will demand from her a most faithful and unremitting correspondence with grace, far more exacting than ever demanded from the greatest and most austere of His saintsmore than was ever asked for from all of them combined.
Mary was a mere creature and, while vividly conscious of the dignity proposed and full of trust in God to give her all the graces needed, she realized too that acceptance would mean a total and irrevocable abandonment of herself into His hands.
Her fiat shows her courage also because Mary knew, from her study of the Old Testament, that the future Messias was to be "a Man of Sorrows," that "from the crown of His head to the sole of His feet there would be no soundness in Him ... wounds, and bruises, and swelling sores." Simeon's ominous prophecy was only to confirm her knowledge. Knowing that the Christ would be a suffering Redeemer, she cannot but have known that His Mother would have to be a Woman of Sorrows. Hence Mary, in saying her fiat, virtually exposes her immaculate soul and willingly allows the sword to pass through.
Mary is the valiant woman foreshadowed in the Book of Proverbs. "Who shall find a valiant woman? Far and from the uttermost coasts is the price of her." Her valor is tested and proved in the place proposed for her to occupy in the work of the Incarnation. No question about the stupendous honor, but the honor may be purchased only at the price of suffering. Holy Church puts on Mary's lips the plaintive invitation of Jeremias: "O all ye who pass by the wayside, attend and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow."
Mary accepted, and every day and every moment that followed was an amen to her fiat. This attitude of soul never altered till her perfect abandonment to the divine Will reached its climax. That was the day when "there stood by the Cross of Jesus, His Mother," meriting to become, as Blessed Pius X declared, the Dispenser to the world of all the gifts purchased for us by the death of her Son.
The doctrine of the Mystical Body is that Christ and the baptized are united together in a bond so close as to form what St. Augustine calls "the whole Christ." The Man Jesus Christ is, in some sort, incomplete, needing us for His "complement," as the head of a human organism needs its members. The union between Him and us resembles, but excels, that between our head and the members of our body. All the infinite satisfactions of His Passion belong to us, as if we had actually purchased them ourselves. And our many sins are a burden which He voluntarily takes upon Him in order to expiate them.
Hence, when Mary gave her fiat, she became Mother not only of the GodMan but of all those who are "oned" with Him as members of His Mystical Body. All the divine preparations of Mary lead up here to their glorious climax. For Jesus and Mary Calvary was the beginning, not the end. Calvary is the great storehouse of the infinite merits of Christ, and into the hand of Mary has been placed the key to unlock the doors.
Thus does her divine Son unfold to me here in my prayer the solid arguments for acknowledging and loving Mary as my Mother. Thus does He show me that she, with much deeper truth than St. Paul, can say to each of us: "My little children, for whom I am in labor again till Christ be fashioned in you." Through grace we are molded and fashioned thus, and all grace comes to us through Mary. Through Mary, as we say in the prayer of the Church, we have merited to receive Him Who is the Author of life.
On our side it follows that Mary rightly expects us to be her consecrated children. Sixteen hundred years ago St. Augustine declared that if we are to be made like Christ we must be hidden in the womb of this most holy Virgin. He would have us understand that it is not enough to be as babes in her arms, because as such we could conceivably live and gain in strength without our Mother. The note of dependence is not sufficiently shown by this figure. He would have us abandon ourselves even more completely and trust her more absolutely, even as the babe not yet born.
Mary, my Mother because Mother of "the whole Christ" of Whom I am happily a member, teach me to recognize your immense power over the treasurehouse of grace bequeathed by Christ to His Church. Give me boundless confidence in your intercession. I abandon myself to you that you may mold me and save me and sanctify me, till not I live but Christ live in me, and His divine life increase and expand in me according to the measure of grace He wills for me.