Rejoice, highly favored ...

Glory be to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, One True God for ever and ever .. AMEN

Today’s Gospel Reading is from Luke 1: 26-38, where we hear the Angel Gabriel sent to St. Mary, exalting her – “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!”.

This event is the Annunciation to Mother Mary - that she has found favor in the Lord’s eye, and that she had been chosen by the Lord to bear the greatest of honors … be the mother of God.

As Christians we should have no doubt that Jesus Christ, the second person of the Holy Trinity, was always divine and existent. Christ was not "created" or “born” on December 25th – rather, He became incarnate, took the form of a human, on that day. Christ is God, and God became man by being born of the virgin Mary. This is why we pray -

“Hail Mary, full of Grace, Our Lord is with Thee … Blessed are thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, our Lord Jesus Christ”

Mother Mary is the mother of God, the Theotokos. Christ was divine, but owed His humanity to St. Mary. So, why did she, more so than any other, find favor?

Purity, faithfulness, humility … all characteristics we know of our Mother Mary. But, as we must realize, these are characteristics that ALL of us should have - the characteristics of an ideal Christian.

So why give honor to St. Mary? Why do we remember her in prayers, song and during the Holy Qurbana?

St. Mary and all the saints in the Church were human - they were born, and died, a natural human death. When she was chosen, she obediently and willingly accepted God’s request – “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word”.

Because of her willingness to accept God's will, she played an important role in God's plan for the salvation of us all. Because of her character and all we know happened when Mother Mary received Christ into herself … she is highly favored.

And because of her, this same glory will one day happen to us all when we too have Christ within us, as St. Mary did, and live the Christian life that is favorable in the eyes of God. Why doubt when we know that with God, nothing will be impossible.

Our duty as Christians is to join with our brothers and sisters, both living and departed, in prayer and exaltation to God. A critical step is to have the humility to understand how Mother Mary became highly favored and transform ourselves to that highest level of favor in God’s eyes, that we heard in Scripture. Hence, we also pray -

“O Virgin Saint Mary, Mother of God, Pray for us sinners, now and at all times and at the hour of our death”

May the prayers of our Mother Mary bring for us intercession, and let her be our role model as we continue to transform into the perfect One, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ

I had been invited to reflect on the Gospel reading on Sunday, November 22 (2009) at my home parish St. Gregorios Orthodox Church in Oak Park, IL and this blog-post is based both on the prepared notes as well as"real-time" deviations.