Recently a friend told me that sometimes in my musings I paint perhaps too “rosy a picture” of the Prophets. This observation pushed me to remember that not all prophets always did what God told them to do. Not at first, anyway. When the call came to them, most of them turned left and then right, then hemmed and hawed: “Who, me?” they murmured. If the call is a true one, the voice of the Holy Spirit will roar: “Yes, you!” Even then, the Prophets often haggled and bartered with the Holy One. Moses, certainly one of the greatest of all God’s Prophets, responded to God’s call in these words: “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” 12 God said, ‘I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain’” Exodus 3:11-12. But the God of Love is a patient God. The God of Love calls not once, but twice, three times, and only then does the Prophet of God square his or her shoulders, gird their loins, open their hands, and say what the great prophet Isaiah said: “Lord. Here am I. Send me” Isaiah 6:8.
Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, heard the prophetic calling of God in Luke’s Gospel as the announcement of Jesus’ birth calling Mary as a woman commissioned by God. Clearly Mary is engaged to Joseph for a prophetic task, one in a long line of God-sent deliverers positioned at significant junctures in Israel’s history. Saturated with angelic voice, fear and reassurance, message, objection, and sign, this is a story of Mary being commissioned to carry forward God’s design for the redemption of the world. The announcement of her impending motherhood is at the same time her prophetic calling to act for the deliverance of all humanity. She now takes her place among those prophets called to give word and witness to the hidden plan of God’s salvific activity not yet seen by other members of the community of faith. Her affirmative response to this Divine initiative sets her life off on an oftentimes painful adventure into the unknown future. The Divine presence will be with her through good times and bad, and ultimately the world community will remember her life with gratitude.
Listening to the Spirit, rising to the immense possibilities of her call, she walks by faith in the integrity of her own person. Inspired by the Holy Spirit Mary makes her decisions before God without bartering or negotiating or putting it off to tomorrow. Mary was a working-class Jewish teenager. Unmarried but engaged. She receives an uninvited visit from a vast winged being, who fills her room with his radiance and hands Mary her sacred instructions: “‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to Him the throne of His ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end… The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; He will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.’ Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word’” Luke 1:31-38.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.
From the Bible:
“And God said, ‘Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision; I speak with him in a dream’” Numbers 12:6.
“I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him”
Deuteronomy 18:18.
“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” 2 Timothy 3:16-17.
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” Romans 12:2.
“Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me, “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth” Jeremiah 1:9.
“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction”
Malachi 4:5-6.
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