{"id":1317,"date":"2019-03-25T19:30:48","date_gmt":"2019-03-26T00:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/?p=1317"},"modified":"2019-03-25T19:30:59","modified_gmt":"2019-03-26T00:30:59","slug":"marys-receptivity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/?p=1317","title":{"rendered":"Mary’s Receptivity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today we celebrate the Annunciation. God sends the archangel\nGabriel to announce our salvation to the Virgin Mary. God promises to send us a\nsavior, a mighty king, the Messiah, his own beloved Son. Mary gives her free\nand wholehearted \u201cyes!\u201d to God\u2019s message. The Word becomes flesh and dwells in\nour midst, beginning by abiding in the womb of the Virgin Mary for nine months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mary models for us what it means to receive. She is an empty\nvessel who eagerly accepts all that God gives \u2013 without adding or subtracting\nor altering. Yet, far from a passive bystander, she actively engages the entire\nprocess from beginning to end. Moreover, she shares the experience in communion\nwith many others. The joy of the gift she is receiving leaps like flames of fire\ninto the hearts of John the Baptist and Elizabeth, the shepherds, the angels,\nthe Magi, Simeon, and Anna.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Receiving love should be the easiest thing in the world to\ndo. Is it not a deep desire of our human heart? Yet somehow, receiving love proves\nexceedingly difficult! Speaking for myself, I daily notice layers of\nself-protection and resistance to the free and wholehearted receptivity that\nMary so joyfully exhibits. My fear and my pride repeatedly get in the way. Even\nwhen I do begin to receive, it is not usually a steady abiding. It proceeds in\nfits and starts, two steps forward and one step back. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Receptivity is a theme quite dear to me \u2013 one that I ponder often. In a more academic fashion, I delved deeply into this topic as I researched and wrote my doctoral thesis<\/a>. If you are ever needing a sleep aid, you may find it a great help! Truly it has the worst title ever: The Ecclesiological Reality of Reception Considered as a Solution to the Debate over the Ontological Priority of the Universal Church<\/em>. In fact, I had to add another hundred pages just to ensure that the title would fit on the spine of the book. Well okay, maybe not \u2013 but it\u2019s still a terrible title, and not a book most people would enjoy reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, the core insight I received in writing the thesis was a simple and spiritual one: Receptivity is at the core of our identity in Christ. The Church is a community of reception by her very nature. To be a Christian means being received and receiving. First and foremost, that means being taken up into the one Body of Christ \u2013 a reality that always looms over us and calls us into deeper conversion. Ephesians describes God\u2019s eternal plan of drawing all things into one in Christ. Little by little, this Body of Christ grows to full stature. One day, he will become all in all. The life of heaven will be the life of the one Body of Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our encounter with this living and breathing Body of Christ changes everything. Think of Saul on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-19). Jesus did not say \u201cSaul, Saul, why are you persecuting my followers?\u201d He said, \u201cWhy are you persecuting me<\/strong><\/u>?\u201d To be a disciple of Jesus is to be received into his very flesh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, being a Christian also means actively and freely\ncooperating, eagerly desiring to grow and to receive more and more of the\nfullness of Christ, to become who we are. Our faith in Jesus becomes active in\ngood works, as we grow and bear fruit, building up the body in love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, to be a Christian means to be receptive of each\nother, just as Christ has received us (Romans 15:7). That visible communion\namong believers is the good fruit that emerges. Love of neighbor is a wonderful\nlitmus test of our love of God. As the apostle John reminds us, if we do not\nlove our fellow Christians, whom we see, we cannot claim to love the God we do\nnot see (1 John 4:20). Saint Augustine comments on our need to love our enemies\nand to love the poor in our midst. If we say we love Jesus, but do not love these\nlittle ones, we are effectively giving Jesus the embrace of peace while\nstomping on his feet with spiked boots. Ouch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That brings us back to the Virgin Mary, and her holy example\nof receptivity. She models all these virtues of reception. First and foremost,\nshe is passive. There was no question of being \u201ccreative\u201d in the moment of the\nAnnunciation. The initiative was entirely on God\u2019s side, and her deepest desire\nwas to receive. True receptivity is perfectly passive before the divine\nmystery. In humility and silence and peace, we become like a mirror that\nreflects God\u2019s glory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet her passivity, her radical receptivity, did not mean any\nshutting down of her God-given faculties. She loved him with all her heart and\nmind and soul and strength. And so she asks the angel, \u201cHow can this be?\u201d\nActually, the Greek literally says, \u201cHow is this?\u201d Unlike Zechariah,\nMary does not doubt God\u2019s promise. She believes that what is spoken will be\nfulfilled (Luke 1:45). But true faith desires understanding. True faith desires\na free and active cooperation, matching God\u2019s initiative step for step with\na  free and wholehearted response, a\ntotal \u201cyes!\u201d \u2013 as though she were a partner in a divine dance with the Lord. She is always attuned to God\u2019s\ninitiative and responding to it. Luke tells us twice that Mary ponders God\u2019s\nmysteries in her heart (Luke 2:19, 51). Recognizing that the mystery is ever\ngreater than she is, she keeps actively cooperating while passively\nsurrendering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, Mary\u2019s heart is wide open to communion with others\n\u2013 receiving and being received by the many members of the Body of Christ. She\nsets out in haste to visit Elizabeth and share what she has received. The scene\nof the Visitation is one of joyful recognition of the mighty deeds of the Lord. The infant John recognizes the\ninfant Jesus, and dances for joy. Elizabeth praises the mighty things God is\ndoing in and through Mary \u2013 a truth which Mary affirms and celebrates. Far from\nfalse humility, she sings God\u2019s praises, and even prophesies that all\ngenerations will call her blessed. However, all praise goes to God her savior.\nShe is merely the empty and receptive vessel who has received God\u2019s Word and\nfreely cooperated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The love of Jesus truly sets us free. He is our savior. That\nlove flows in and out of us in the person of the Holy Spirit, who is the soul, the\nlifeblood of this Body of Christ, whose members we are. We drink deeply of this\nSpirit, and share the same Spirit as we give our love to others. The gift is\nmeant to be received and given, to flow in and out as the Heart of Jesus\nsustains us all in unity and peace. On this, Mary\u2019s feast day, may she help unclog\nour hearts so that we may be truly receptive and abide in the love of Christ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today we celebrate the Annunciation. God sends the archangel Gabriel to announce our salvation to the Virgin Mary. God promises to send us a savior, a mighty king, the Messiah, his own beloved Son. Mary gives her free and wholehearted \u201cyes!\u201d to God\u2019s message. The Word becomes flesh and dwells in our midst, beginning by … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Mary’s Receptivity”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[61,56,55,54,60,59],"tags":[48,145,132,133,159,123,106,104,105],"class_list":["post-1317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reception","category-saints","category-scripture","category-spirituality","category-the-church","category-theology","tag-abiding","tag-augustine-of-hippo","tag-blessed-mother","tag-blessed-virgin-mary","tag-body-of-christ","tag-church","tag-mary","tag-reception","tag-receptivity"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Annunciation.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1317"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1319,"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317\/revisions\/1319"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}