For many of us, our relationships with our parents evolve as we do. The same holds true for my relationship with Mary. Last year, I had the wonderful opportunity to make the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius in everyday life. Much to my surprise, I was bowled over by meditating with today’s Gospel, which I had heard countless times before.

“Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” Not “The Lord will be with you if…” or “…will be with you when…” Mary was favored by God as she was – a poor, unmarried, young, lay woman. She was favored because she was – a remarkably generous, loving, faith-filled human being with dignity in and of herself. Mary’s radical availability as a person allowed her, in freedom, to welcome God into the home of her humanity.

Can I see myself as “favored” by God? What gets in my way of saying “Yes!”?

—Katie Davis is a former member of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps and JVC Magis currently working as a Chaplain and Religious Studies teacher at Saint Ignatius College Prep in Chicago.  She serves on the Advisory Board for Jesuit Connections in Chicago and the Chicago Women’s Team for the Ignatian Spirituality Project.

 

 

 

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