To the Blessed Virgin

"Lo! You were somebody all of a sudden." (Magnificat, Paul Claudel)

You were an ordinary peasant girl. Perhaps you were hanging clothes to dry or shelling peas when it happened. One moment you were Mary, daughter of Joachim, and the next, there was an angel kneeling before you and you were Mary, mother of God.

Suddenly you were somebody. You never saw it coming. Perhaps your recent prayers had been lukewarm. But God had already singled you out from the moment of your conception to be His special handmaiden. That was why the angel hailed you as "full of grace." You possessed within your soul the grace to say yes to God's plan. And that yes was not without its concomitant questions. 

"How can I be with child? What will those around me think? Will Joseph understand? Will I be deserted?" And most deeply, "Why has God chosen me to perform this sublime task?"

But the angel reassured you, and you took God at His word.