“The Word of God became flesh and made his dwelling among us; and we saw His glory.” Jn 1:14

Leave it to the Catholic Church to put a solemnity day in the middle of Lent. In it’s cycle of seasons, the Solemnity of the Announcement of the Lord is put the week before Easter. Kind of fitting really, but there are those out there that have no clue what I am talking about. In simple terms, the Catholic Church designates various days of the year for special occasions. Normally during the week for Mass, there is one reading, a psalm recital, and one Gospel reading. On these days, it is treated like Sunday, where we hear two readings, a psalm recital, and one Gospel reading. It’s a special day for a special purpose. I will not claim to every understand how or why days fall on the days they do, but it is interesting to have this particular day in Lent. We usually associate the Announcement of the Lord, the day that Mary was given the task of being the Mother of Jesus, with great Joy. In Lent, we are reminded that human free will was involved, and our eternal lives could have been changed in this moment.

What if Mary said no? What is she looked the angel Gabriel in the eye, and said, you know what, I am good. I am about to get married, I have all these other things going on, you my friend are just a bad dream, and I will have none of this. That human feature of having free will would have stood in the way of everyone’s salvation. Praise Jesus she did not, but she could have. Isn’t it like this in our own lives sometimes, we put all the worldly items in front of the calling we are being pulled towards. Instead of trusting in God’s plan, we have better things to do with our lives. The temporary pleasures and possible bad outcomes prevent us from seeing the light of the path we are on. Mary could have come up with a thousand reasons to say no, from public opinion, to she could have wrote off the vision as a bad meal. You name the excuse, she could have given it. The same with us, name the excuse, and we give them all the time. Our feeble understandings and unwillingness to let go of control get in the way of our true wholeness with God.

I have been there. This blog is a product of listening to a call. A tug at my heart to put a message out in the hopes that anyone will get something out of it. I have put this off for years. It took me over a year to even write my first post, for the fear of backlash and opinions that potentially could impact my career. The stigma that could have come by putting myself out there as a proud Catholic, and also someone who has been diagnosed with depression, that was a fear I had to get over. I finally got over it, but I think of all the time I could have been doing this, doing something that brings me peace and potential peace to others, all lost because I was not open to listening and letting go. Luckily, God was patient and forgiving.