Annunciation: From the prayers of Saint Catherine of Siena: Proper of the Order of Preachers

 

Annunciation: From the prayers of Saint Catherine of Siena: Proper of the Order of Preachers

 

You, O Mary, have been made a book in which our rule is written. In you today is written the eternal Father' s wisdom; in you today our human strength and freedom are revealed.

If I consider your own great counsel, eternal Trinity, I see that in your light you saw the dignity and nobility of the human race. So, just as love compelled you to draw us out of yourself, so that same love compelled you to buy us back when we were lost. In fact, you showed that you loved us before we existed, when you chose to draw us out of yourself only for love. But you have shown us greater love still by giving us yourself, shutting yourself up today in the pouch of our humanity. And what more could you have given us than to give us your very self? So, you can truly ask us, "What should I or could I have done for you that I have not done?"

I see, then, that whatever your wisdom saw, in that great eternal council of yours, as best for our salvation, is what your mercy willed, and what your power has today accomplished.

So, what did you do? What way did your eternal unfathomable wisdom find to fulfill your truth and be merciful, and to satisfy your justice as well? What remedy did you give us? Oh, see what a fitting remedy! You arranged to give us the Word, your only-begotten Son. He would take on the clay of our flesh which had offended you so that when he suffered in that humanity your justice would be satisfied—not by humanity' s power, but by the power of the divinity united with that humanity. And so, your truth was fulfilled, and both justice and mercy were satisfied.

O Mary, I see this Word given to you, living in you yet not separated from the Father—just as the word one has in one's mind does not leave one's heart or become separated from it even though that word is externalized and communicated to others. In these things our human dignity is revealed—that God should have done such and so great things for us.

And even more in you, O Mary, our human strength and freedom are today revealed, for after the deliberation of such and so great a council, the angel was sent to you to announce to you the mystery of the divine counsel and to seek to know your will, and God's Son did not come down into your womb until you had given your will's consent, He waited at the door of' your will for you to open to him; for he wanted to come into you, but he would never have entered unless you had opened to him, saying, "Here I am, God's servant; let it be done to me as you have said."

The eternal Godhead, O Mary, was knocking at your door, but unless you had opened that door of your will God would not have taken flesh in you. Blush, my soul, when you see that today God has become your relative in Mary. Today you have been shown that even though you were made without your help, you will not be saved without your help.

O Mary, my tenderest love! In you is written the Word from whom we have the teaching of life. You are the tablet that sets this teaching before us.