Saturday December 8 ~~ Will I say ‘yes’ to God today?

Lesser Festival of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Genesis 3.8-15, 20   Luke 1.26-38   Psalm 45.10-17    Acts 1.12-14

Genèse 3.8-15, 20    Luc 1.26-38    Psaume 45.10-17  Actes 1.12-14

Many Christians, particularly since the Reformation have been troubled by what they see as an undue focus on Mary, the mother of Jesus, in some of the ancient churches.   But today’s feast has been in our church’s calendar since the 7^th Century and was not removed at the Reformation.

Why?  Because all the feasts of Mary are, at their heart, feasts of Jesus, the Incarnate Son of God, ‘born of the Virgin Mary’.

Mary’s obedience – “Let it be with me according to your word.” (Luke 1.38) made it possible for the Saviour of the World to be born.

The choice of the reading from Genesis 3, contrasts Mary’s obedience with the disobedience of Eve, (though of course Adam was equally disobedient), and the consequences of their disobedience.  

It reminds us that Mary’s ‘yes’ to God, comes together with God’s ‘yes’ to humanity (including Mary herself).

God’s ‘yes’ in the birth, death, resurrection, and exaltation of Jesus, undoes the effects of humanity’s ‘no’, bringing life where there was death, freedom where there was bondage, pardon where there was guilt, light where there was darkness.

All that is required to receive this gift is a ‘yes’ from us.

Will I say ‘yes’ to God today?

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Notre Seigneur nous appelle à lui dire ‘oui’, comme la vierge Marie lui a dit ‘oui’, afin que nous puissions recevoir les bienfaits de la naissance, la mort, la résurrection, et l’exaltation de son Fils incarné.

Sommes-nous prêts à lui dire ‘oui’ aujourd’hui ?

John Wilkinson


Attribution:

Arcusiridis [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

Description:

Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Bletsoe, Bedford. Grade II Listed Building.  Medieval parish church, much restored in mid C19. Coursed limestone rubble. Irregular cruciform plan with central tower, whose form suggests Saxo-Norman origins, though details at top, corner gargoyles and double trefoiled lights in each side, are C14. The chancel is a C19 restoration of a C14 rebuilding. It has two arched tomb recesses and is derelict, being bricked off from the tower. The roofless vestry to the north is a C19 rebuilding. The north transept overlaps both tower and chancel: approached from the tower, it is a C19 renovation of the St John Chapel, and contains a wall memorial to Frances Countess Bolingbroke d. 1678. The south transept, C14 restored, is slightly askew to the axis of the tower. The aisleless nave, heavily restored but probably of late C13 origins, now contains the Sir John St John (d. 1559) memorial, moved in 1978 from the north transept. It is in alabaster and shows his family under a canopy supported by columns. There is a C19 rebuilt porch to the south of the nave, which has diagonal corner buttresses at its west end. The octagonal font is C15.