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missionfamily
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Share your thoughts on this mystery below.
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Colleen
dh Greg
mom to Quinn,Gabriel, Brendan,Evan, Kolbe, and sweet St. Bryce
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KackyK
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At a Mass one time, I heard a priest give a great story to think about when thinking of this. He told of time when he was at a friend's house for a party. One of his friends (this when he was younger :-) was going to ask his girlfriend to marry him. The friend was so nervous. His friends were giving him support and when the girl arrived, the friend took her to the side and asked, in a private moment. Then he reappeared with a huge smile, fist pumped in the air, he jumped into the air and yelled, "She said YES!".
Father said he likes to imagine Gabriel doing the same thing. Returning to heaven saying "She said YES!" I love that image and it is one that I think of all the time. We rejoice in her YES! As mommies, we know the sacrifice of mind, body and spirit it is to be a pregnant mommy...many of us have said YES to God many times. Each child in our home is a YES to God. I think of each of my children during this mystery and how saying YES to each of these persons, I have committed to guiding them on a path to God...to path that will lead them to say YES to God.
I think I'm rambling!
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KackyK
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Helen
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Lately, while praying this mystery with my children, I've been linking the Angelus. I didn't realize my younger children didn't know that the Angelus prayers were all about the annunciation. To announce this mystery, we say
The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary
and she conceived by the Holy Spirit.
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Ave Maria!
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Mimip
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This is my absolute favorite mystery.
My youth group when I was in middle school was named the Annunciation Youth group and so when I think of this mystery I always think of those leaders and youth that helped me personally say "YES" to Christ and His call.
BTW: That picture of the Annunciation is my favorite and the one I always meditate on when I think of this mystery. I love Mary's blue dress and the positioning of her hands.
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Mimi
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Donna Marie
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I heard a wonderful homily on the Annunciation and the priest talked about this tapestry of the Annunciation:
Annunciation Tapestry
I was so taken by the fact that Her response was so immediate that through her ear she gives her consent to God..the instant she heard she said yes...
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missionfamily
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Kacky--I really love that image of St. Gabriel. It made me think. I often reflect on Mary's yes in these mysteries and how to make mine yes like hers-so faithful, so submissive, so whole-hearted.
But as I read your description I thought about how all of heaven and the souls of the faithful departed waiting at its gates must have shouted with triumphant joy when she said yes. Am I sober to the reality of what her yes meant for me? Do I rejoice with resounding joy daily at the coming of my Savior? Do I consider what life was like for those who waited thousands of years for His coming? What her yes meant to them? How can I live in such a way that I do not take for granted the fact that I live in a post-redemptive world?
This Advent, I will pray to have a little glimpse into the anticipation of the faithful who waited for so long for this little Savior's birth and to know a little of the joy they felt when she said yes. I will imagine Abraham and Noah and Moses and David and Solomon and Isaiah and so many others at the moment her yes meant the gates of Heaven would welcome them. I will pray to live in that joy.
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Colleen
dh Greg
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CrunchyMom
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Helen wrote:
Lately, while praying this mystery with my children, I've been linking the Angelus. I didn't realize my younger children didn't know that the Angelus prayers were all about the annunciation. To announce this mystery, we say
The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary
and she conceived by the Holy Spirit. |
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I, too, link this mystery to the Angelus (which, of course, this is a perfect time of year to redouble my efforts to start saying the Angelus again) and my thoughts then.
Most especially, I linger on the words, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me according to thy word" and ponder the word handmaid, especially as I wish that I were able to make myself a slave of God in such a way.
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Lindsay
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[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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CrunchyMom
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mimip wrote:
| BTW: That picture of the Annunciation is my favorite and the one I always meditate on when I think of this mystery. I love Mary's blue dress and the positioning of her hands. |
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That is lovely.
I must say that I am not aware of a piece of art that matches my own image. I usually imagine her to be prostrate before Gabriel, or at least on her knees, offering her hands, wrists together, with her head bowed, almost as if she were to be taken captive. I'm not sure why, exactly. I think that is one thing that is lovely about rosary meditation in that it affords a medium for "praying" an image even though we don't have the words to properly express it.
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Lindsay
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[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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Marcia
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I think a lot about how scared I would have been to be approached by an angel. I think about how scared I am sometimes with the crosses that God gives me. Mary quickly said Fiat! Let it be done to me. I try to consider how I can quickly (!) say Yes to the things that God will give me today. Perhaps generations will not call me blessed, but at least they can find me faithful.
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Marcia
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Homeschooling 10th, 7th, 5th, 2nd, PreK and a toddler in tow.
I wonder why
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organiclilac
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CrunchyMom wrote:
I must say that I am not aware of a piece of art that matches my own image. I usually imagine her to be prostrate before Gabriel, or at least on her knees, |
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I think it is usually portrayed the other way around - since Mary is the Queen of the Angels, Gabriel would have bowed to her. I love that image!
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Tracy, wife to Shawn, mama to Samuel (4/01) and Joseph (11/11), and Thomas (2/15)
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aussieannie
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When Hidden Treasure first opened and True Devotion was studied as a group for the first time, the discussion of holy slavery came up.
In our modern times, this word can be a real jolt to us, and a meaty discussion at the time developed. I eventually walked away with a complete understanding of the very heart of True Devotion THROUGH the mystery of the Annunication.
Here are some of the passages that helped:
This quote from Catholic Culture was especially important to me. It has been a part of my reflection when meditating on the Annunciation ever since.
Catholic Culture wrote:
| As the Fathers never tired of retelling, Eve had ruined us by disobedience. Now, at the beginning of the restoration, all is obedience. Mary looked to the depths of her soul. She, the blessed among women, the one full of grace, the only one conceived immaculate, the Mother of God-what is her reaction? "Behold the handmaid of the Lord!" The word handmaid is but a poor translation of the original Greek word doule. For to us the word handmaid means merely a hired servant. But doule meant a slave girl. Here is an obedient humility to balance the proud disobedience of Eve. Mary had just been raised to the peak of all creation, yet she replies by calling herself a slave girl: "Be it done to me according to thy word." Heaven itself waited in obedience for this obedience. For, as St. Thomas Aquinas tells us, "At the Annunciation, the Virgin was asked to give her consent in the name of the whole human race." The world had been created by the fiat of the Word of God. Now the beginning of the recreation in grace is ushered in by the fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum of the one who calls herself the slave of the Lord. |
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Pope John Paul II wrote:
In Montfortian spirituality, the dynamism of charity is expressed particularly through the symbol of the slavery of love for Jesus, after the example and with the maternal help of Mary. It is a matter of a total communion in the kenosis of Christ: a communion lived out with Mary, who is intimately present in the mysteries of the life of her Son. "No other human state involves belonging more completely to another than slavery. Among Christian peoples, nothing makes a person belong more completely to Jesus and his holy Mother than voluntary slavery. Our Lord himself gave us the example of this when out of love for us he 'took the form of a slave'. Our Lady gave us the same example when she called herself the handmaid or slave of the Lord. The Apostle considered it an honour to be called 'slave of Christ'. Several times in Holy Scripture, Christians are referred to as 'slaves of Christ'" (True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, 72).
In fact, the Son of God, come into the world through obedience to his Father in the Incarnation (cf. Heb 10.7), then makes himself humbler yet in accepting to be obedient unto death, death on a cross (cf. Phil 2.7-8). Mary responded to the will of God by the total gift of herself, body and soul, for ever, from the Annunciation up to the Cross, and from the Cross up to her Assumption. Between the obedience of Christ and that of Mary, there is, to be sure, an asymmetry engendered by the ontological difference which exists between the divine Person of the Son and the human person of Mary, from which flows the exclusive nature and the salvific efficaciousness of the obedience of Christ. It was from this primary obedience of Christ that his Mother herself received the grace to be able to obey God in a total way and thus to collaborate in the mission of her Son.
The slavery of love, therefore, must be understood in the light of the marvellous exchange between God and humanity in the mystery of the Incarnate Word. This is a true exchange of love between God and his creature in the reciprocity of the total gift of oneself. The "spirit (of this devotion)… requires an interior dependence on Mary, and effectively becoming her slave and the slave of Jesus through her" (Secret of Mary, 44). Paradoxically, this "bond of charity", this "slavery of love", makes a person fully free, with the true liberty of the children of God (cf. True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, 169). It is a matter of dedicating oneself totally to Jesus, in response to the Love with which he first loved us. The one who lives out such a love can say with St. Paul: "I live now not with my own life but with the life of Christ who lives in me" (Gal 2.20). |
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Pope John Paul II's Marian Legacy
Quote:
The French saint taught that we should freely
choose to become slaves of Mary. The Polish
Pontiff was aware that in today’s society the
word slave has negative connotations, but this is
not so with slavery to Mary. He explained: “It is
well known that (St Louis) defines his devotion
(to Our Lady) as a form of ‘slavery’. The word
may upset our contemporaries. Personally, I do
not see any difficulty in it. I think we are confronted
here with the sort of paradox often to be
noted in the Gospels, the words “holy slavery”
signifying that we could not more fully exploit
our freedom, the greatest of God’s gifts to us.
For freedom is measured by the love of which
we are capable.”
How beautifully the Pope explains slavery to
Mary and ultimately to Jesus. He says it is a
paradox, which is something that at first glance
seems contradictory but is really well-founded.
The paradox is that by becoming Our Lady’s
slave, we are really exercising our freedom to the
highest level. Our Lady gave Her Fiat to God at
the Annunciation, when She said: “Behold the
handmaid of the Lord! Be it done unto me according
to thy word.” We give our Fiat to Our
Lady in consecration to Her, so that we may give
our total yes to God. |
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Quote:
| Chosen soul, this devotion consists in a total surrender of one's whole self in order to become the absolute possession, and the perfect instrument of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We must abandon ourselves to dependence upon Mary as Christ himself did within her womb. For us, it must be a total abandonment of ones own self, and all that one possesses, both materially and spiritually. One must will to become the total possession and property of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Finally, this will require us to adopt her own spirit as the spiritual chapel of our own soul. |
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stefoodie
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What has always struck me about this mystery is how Mary was so PREPARED to say YES. She's in the middle of prayer, or in some images reading scripture. I think about the times in my life when I do not say yes to God or miss the chance because I am/was unprepared, or "bothering" elsewhere. I'd like to always be in a state of preparedness, so that when the moment comes I can say YES unreservedly, surrendering all to Him.
I link this mystery often with St. Ignatius' prayer:
Take, O Lord, and receive my entire liberty,
my memory, my understanding and my whole will.
All that I am and all that I possess You have given me.
I surrender it all to You to be disposed of according to Your will.
Give me only Your love and Your grace;
with these I will be rich enough,
and will desire nothing more.
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stef
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aussieannie
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"Dear Mary, give me a heart like yours, a heart full of the Holy Will of God in all things..."
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aussieannie
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organiclilac wrote:
| I think it is usually portrayed the other way around - since Mary is the Queen of the Angels, Gabriel would have bowed to her. I love that image! |
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Yes, I do as well and my husband insists on it!  The Angel Gabriel would surely be on his knee in front of the Queen of the Angels, and while Our Lady would have been humble in her demeanour, I don't imagine her on her knees in front of the angel (unless she was on her knees deep in prayer when he appeared) so I suppose I'm more aware of how the Angel Gabriel is depicted..
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CrunchyMom
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I actually think I don't see her on her knees "to Gabriel" per se but rather to God as Gabriel is merely a messenger. I never really thought of it as her bowing to Gabriel, and I'm not sure that I have a clear picture of what Gabriel was doing, so, perhaps I will now see him more clearly and on his knees as well. I especially see it from her as she moves to say "be it done unto me according to thy word."
Also, perhaps it is because on my knees is how I desire to see myself in whatever God might ask of me and how I imagine myself imitating her.
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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4Real Forums : Hidden Treasure
Topic: First Joyful Mystery: The Annunciation
