For some years now, I have been back in our central house in Rome to fill the role of the General Treasurer. This means that I have had the occasion to spend time before the mosaic in our chapel, which represents different episodes of the history of salvation. ALl of the characters walk on an earth made of clay, which contrasts with the golden luminosity of the background. In the center of the mosaic is depicted Our Lady while she is welcoming the announcement of the angel. Like all the other characters, the feet of the Virgin are on the red ground, but the arid clay under her feet is tinged with a florid green. What the Madonna touches even under one foot, blossoms. The power of the fruit that is born in her womb unlocks life and brings with itself everything that is around her into a new springtime. The world that sin had made into a desert returns to being a healthy garden. Can we imagine a human life more great, more fertile, more fulfilled than that of Mary? What is the secret of her fecundity?
Fecundity is a word inscribed in the profundity of man. I desire to be fecund, I want my life, my person, my action to generate something beautiful and to contribute to something great. Every life is called to bear fruit. Romance versions of the word for “happiness”, derived from felicitas in Latin, have in themselves the root of the word fertility, of generativity, bringing something to light. This is true also at the level of nature and we realize it in a dramatic way when this experience runs into obstacles: how much suffering have I encountered in couples who are not able to have children! How then can my life be fecund, happy, fulfilled?
Mary’s greatness is encapsulated here: she nevertheless consented with her whole being to a word that announced a profound and unpredictable change in her entire existence.
Sometimes I try to imagine the mystery of the moment when the angel appeared before the Virgin Mary. That announcement certainly fulfilled a desire of her devout heart, but it also upset her plans as a betrothed woman, a woman of her time, her images of motherhood. The evangelist himself speaks of the Virgin’s confusion. She found herself on the threshold of a future whose boundaries she could neither foresee nor define. Mary’s greatness is encapsulated here: she nevertheless consented with her whole being – let it be done to me (Lk 1:38) – to a word that announced a profound and unpredictable change in her entire existence. And so the flesh of God blossomed in her womb. In this she found exultation, fruitfulness, and peace: all generations will call me blessed (Lk 1:48).
I recently read this sentence in a book by Father Mauro Lepori: “There is nothing ontologically more powerful than the silence that allows the will of the Father. The Mother’s yes made the whole event of Christ possible.” So what makes my life fruitful? Looking at Mary, I understand that the answer does not lie in my plans, my abilities, my efforts, or even the gifts I have received, but in my pure willingness to do what God asks of me now. An unreserved willingness, capable of consenting before calculating what He is asking me to give up, so that I may welcome the coming of Christ who wants to become flesh in my story. After all, what makes my life beautiful today simply happened to me; I did not achieve it myself. God gave me the grace to open myself to the newness He desired for my life, and so I was able to experience a peace that does not come from the fact that everything adds up, but from trusting in Another who knows how to bring about my true self.
Advent, the liturgical season of waiting, has already begun. Mary’s willingness was already eagerly awaiting to receive a Word. Advent is the time when we renew our expectation that the coming of Christ will become flesh in our lives, that it will tear them from their dryness and make them fruitful beyond all expectation. Waiting for that God made man to whom we can once again say our yes, thus allowing Him to make our lives flourish again: Behold, I am doing a new thing; it is about to bloom; will you not recognize it? (Is 43:19). In this privileged time, let us take up in a personal way the short prayer that Fr. Giussani taught us: Veni Sancte Spiritus, veni per Mariam. Where the Spirit and Our Lady are invoked, Christ is reborn, happens again, triumphs, in our lives and in the life of the world, as in Nazareth in the womb of his Mother.
