After Jesus of Nazareth, Mary of Nazareth played perhaps the most integral role of any human in the redemption, salvation, and sanctification of mankind. She was not God, of course, nor is she to be worshipped as God. But she was the Mother of God, since Jesus was God. She did literally and biologically what we are all called to do in a figurative but no less real way. She allowed Christ to take root in her very being and then she bore Him to the world, letting Him loose on it.
Mary of Nazareth, a teenager, was offered an enormously difficult mission by God, one which carried with it perils and sufferings and did not make a great deal of sense to her at the time. God has a habit of offering his children such missions.
Yet she had the courage to say yes to God, and so provides an enormously important model to a world that more and more needs to be reminded of how simply saying yes to God can change it for the better.
We may be inclined to think that Mary's mission to be the Mother of God was easy compared to being the mother of an imperfect child. I would venture to say it was probably more challenging. Raising up the King of Kings who will go on to save mankin
I will be taking a closer look at Mary, whom Catholics consider the Mother of God and the Mother of all who believe in Christ, in the coming days. For now what we can learn from Mary is that the mission, even when it is extraordinarily difficult, especially when it is extraordinarily difficult, can actually turn out to be a great gift.
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