The Old Covenant: Today’s first reading highlights the covenant God made and remade with his people: the moment when God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses, and through him, to the people. Moses tells the people in the desert, “Today you are making this agreement with the Lord…and today the Lord is making this agreement with you…” (Deut. 26:17-18)
The New Covenant
What was God looking for when He made that covenant? What is God looking for in His covenant with humanity? He is looking for a response of love, an act of consent.
Mary offered that response. Her “yes” was a response of love and trust. In these days of Lent as we contemplate Jesus’s “yes” of letting the will of the Father be done in Him, we also contemplate His Mother.
Through His “yes” Jesus redeemed us. Mary was co-redeeming by offering her “yes;” by accepting and embracing the suffering and giving it back to God. The sin of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:17; 3:6) was co-redeemed by Mary’s welcoming attitude of acceptance and embracing of the suffering of watching her only son tortured and killed. It was co-redemptive because of the attitude of her heart- her free and conscious decision to let God work through even this pain and suffering.
St. Bernard said that at the Annunciation, all of creation held its breath awaiting Mary’s “fiat.” (Hom. 4, 8-9: Opera omnia, Edit. Cisterc. 4 [1966], 53-54) At the foot of the cross, all creation held its breath awaiting the “fiat” of Jesus, our Lord, and it was accompanied by the constant “fiat” of his mother, Mary.
My Covenant of Consent
And we have this opportunity as well. We can also say, with Mary and with Jesus, “fiat” – let it be done unto me. This is different than the typical “I’m giving “x” up for lent this year” attitude. This is embracing what comes to you, without your prior choice, and saying yes to it as well. It takes more freedom, in one sense, since you have to choose your attitude to what is not your personal choice but rather the effect of circumstance. It is consent.
Nicole, you absolutely spoke to my heart. So many things that I have no control over. It’s not so much the “giving up “ as it is accepting what Our Dear Lord has allowed, That can be very hard… to give up the fighting and resistance and self-pity and just accept! What freedom there is in that! God bless you. 😘