Vocational discernment always begins with listening to the Word of God and is complete only when we act upon what we hear. In the language of the Gospel, this is expressed pithily as hearing the Word of God and acting on it (cf. Lk 8:11). In the previous letter, we talked about the importance of helping our children to become capable of hearing the Word of God. Now in this letter, we give our attention to acting on God’s Word. The focal point for our contemplation remains the first and perfect disciple: Mary, Mother of God.
It might seem that acting is the automatic response to hearing well. If you can grasp and understand, then the only thing that remains is to do what you’ve been told. But the Lord’s call is not like a programming manual — here are the instructions, now just follow the steps. The Lord is not merely interested in what we do; rather, it matters who we become. He wills us to become free, to choose his will, and to offer our own creativity in obedience to his call. In forming our children well, we must, therefore, resist the temptation to program them and instead form them for responsibility and love.
In hearing the Word of God, Mary displayed freedom from fear, presumption and pride. And when she acted on God’s Word, she displayed the freedom to make a sacrifice, take responsibility, and bear the cost of love. When she said, “May it be done to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38), she followed through on that “yes,” all the way to the end, even to becoming the Mother of the Church and all disciples. She was not pre-programmed; she offered and continues to offer her own sacrifice to and with the Lord.
Acting, in power
Mary is available to the Word of God through her posture in silence: she is open rather than fearful like Zechariah. She can recognize how the Lord is speaking to her because she has cultivated a scriptural memory. When she interprets the Word of God for her actions, she does not depart from listening well; instead, she remains a disciplined student of the way God moves.
If we pay attention to what the angel Gabriel says in the annunciation to Mary, we can see (or hear) that the angel describes Mary’s child in terms of power. He is a king, the son of the Most High, the one who shall inherit a throne and whose kingdom will have no end. Mary indeed hears these terms of power. The question, though, is twofold: whose power and for what?
Mary answers these questions in her magnificat when she proclaims that the power of her son is not worldly power but rather the undoing of false, worldly power. The power of God is the power of mercy — the power to heed suffering and to heal. Indeed, divine mercy reveals itself as the willingness to suffer the consequences of a power-hungry world rather than play its game.
When Mary declares herself as “the handmaid of the Lord” (Lk 1:38), she commits herself to follow the Lord’s ways, now and always. If the God of Israel is the one who hears the cry of the poor and hastens to respond in person, then she will move in like manner. She pledges to suffer with him to love whom the Lord himself loves. Mary, the first disciple and Mother of God, wills to add her sacrifice to the sacrifice of God. This is the perfection of creaturely freedom: the freedom to offer your will and action to God’s will and action. Mary serves the action of God in receiving and following her own son.
The time for haste
Mary’s union with the will of God begins immediately, with haste. Indeed, her first action upon offering her fiat to the angel is to go “with haste” to the hill country, to be with her kinswoman Elizabeth. She is ready to act. What is the importance of this haste?
We might grasp this if we consider a time when we have just known what the right thing to do was, but that thing was hard (like forgiving someone, giving something away or making some kind of sacrifice). What tends to happen if, rather than doing that thing immediately, we instead hesitate and stall? What happens is that we start to become less certain of the action. We are good at finding reasons to not do that one thing we knew was right. Justifications creep in either for doing something else or for doing nothing at all. In like manner, a doctor would be unwise if she operates before she knows what is wrong with the patient, yet unwise again if she does not do what needs to be done after she completes her diagnosis. Waiting to hear is wisdom, and acting in haste when clarity dawns is wisdom again. Mary is no coward; she acts in haste.
When it comes to acting in union with the mercy of God, Mary goes willingly time and again, even as the costs increase. In the Gospel of John, we are given an image of just how free and sacrificial Mary’s actions are, even when she has everything to lose. Unique to John’s Gospel, those who are closest to Jesus are next to him while he is on the cross (in the synoptic Gospels, they are all off at some distance). Mary and the beloved disciple are right there. Upon the cross is the child Mary herself was promised, the one whom she received in fidelity and generosity, whom she alone may claim as her own with God. He is the one she was promised. And what does he say to her? He tells her to take another as her son. This is the most urgent moment of Mary’s discipleship; this is where the temptation to grasp control of her son is at its greatest. But what does she do? She exercises the power to let him go and receive the one whom Jesus gives her to love. She loves in obedience to the Word of God. She suffers the pain of mercy; she is the mother of mercy.
The priority of commitments
Where does power like that come from? It is surely the gift of grace, especially in the one who is “full of grace.” But again, Mary is not pre-programmed; this is not a matter of just following the instructions. The awesome mystery is that she has become capable of a sacrifice like the Father’s own, in union with her son. It began not that day on Calvary, but back at the angel’s annunciation. It was strengthened when she went to Elizabeth, when she repeatedly pondered the Word of God when she allowed her heart to be wounded time and again as Simeon foretold. What is true of Mary is true of every disciple: we become capable of great sacrifices, in part, by making smaller sacrifices along the way.
This is where we parents find guidance for how to prepare our children well for being able to act on the Word of God. We are called to help and challenge them to make and follow through on smaller commitments along the way. Truly, in today’s day and age, it has become something of an art form to maintain as many soft commitments as possible, all of which are revisable or breakable at a moment’s notice.
My college students tell me that plans for a typical Friday night are not firm until right before something happens. They have become experts in keeping potential options open. That itself is a form of training, one that cuts against what is necessary for vocational commitments.
The right kind of training and formation for becoming more capable of the kind of action that God desires for our children — for their own sacrifices in love — requires us to help them to make fewer and stronger commitments. Over the long run, the practice of holding to these commitments (or even taking responsibility for having to break a commitment for legitimate reasons) will prepare them better for the more meaningful sacrificial commitments of Christian maturity.
Sincerely,
