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The Annunciation of the Virgin Mary – By Father Andrew Bahhi

November 21, 2021
in Feature Articles, The Word
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I pray that God will open our spiritual eyes so we can see His presence. We believe He is with everyone of us, to comfort us and bless us.

This is the Sunday of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary. Usually, we celebrate this 9 months before Christmas. But the fathers prepared this for now so we can be ready for the blessed event, the birth of the Savior.

At this time, Mary was living in the temple. She was not too old, and not too young, when the angel Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Blessed you are among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” So, we can understand God’s only begotten son can be birthed from her.

When Mary answered the angel, she said “Behold I am the maidservant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word.” Luke 1:38.

From this story, we learn the virtue of submission, or surrender.

When you take an airplane, do you realize you submit yourself to the captain? Trusting that he will take you from where you are to where you want to go? Also, when we sleep, we cross ourselves, and go to sleep and submit ourselves that we will wake up.

However, with Jesus, we sometimes put a lot of conditions before we submit ourselves to Him. Unlike the Virgin Mary, when the angel told her not to be afraid, and she said, “let it to me according to your word.” Do you know what it was like for this young girl to submit herself to this very weird, strange yet strong message?

I am pretty sure she was asking “why me?” and yet she submit herself “because you said so.”

One time Peter and his brother went to catch fish but were not catching fish. Then the Lord told them to go deep into sea. Because you said so, they answered, we will throw our net, and they caught a big number of fish.

This is what we call surrender or submission to God.

Every single day, how many time do we pray the Lord’s prayer. And every time we say, “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” But we say in reality “Do what I want.”

This is how we try to submit ourselves to God, while Mary says, “Let it be according to YOUR word.”

We need to trust God. What does this mean?

If we believe that God will always choose the best for us. If I don’t submit myself to God 100%, that means I don’t trust God 100%. I want my own direction.

Who is working for who? Am I working for Him, or is He working for me? Do I believe in His knowledge?

When I submit myself to Him, that means I believe the Lord is the best manager of my life.

A lot of times, we give God a plan with a limited mind. Do you think there is something in this world outside of God’s control?

God almighty means He is the maestro. 100% of the time he can make all things work for good of me if I believe in Him. So, no matter what, his mighty hand is planning in front of me.

When I submit myself to Him, He is working on me, to shape me. When you submit yourself according to what He says, God must be our corrector to work on us.

But why should you submit myself to God? Because of 3 things

  • His is mightiness is infinite. There is nothing outside of His mightiness
  • His wisdom is infinite. God really knows all. He is like an ocean, and we are not even one drop.
  • He is the true love, infinite love.

Do we as Christians take the Virgin Mary as a role model to submit ourselves to God? She is the ever virgin because she submitted herself to God.

“If you want to be a true child of God. You want to be, or you want your name to be written in the book of life, the key is you trust God’s goodness and you submit yourself to Him 100%.

Learn more from Father Andrew’s sermon video here.

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