I tip my hat to Notre Dame in Paris as it reopened its doors to humanity this past weekend. Here is a new choral setting to Mary’s Magnificat used for this historical event:

One of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s most significant titles is the Immaculate Conception. She uttered this title in Lourdes when she appeared to Bernadette on March 25, 1858. Pope Paul VI solemnly closed the most significant church council of our time on December 8, 1965. The Immaculate Conception is influential on our shores. She is the principal patron of the United States, declared by the US bishops on May 17, 1846.

I want to share an idea or two about today’s Gospel. It will return later in Advent when I’ll have the chance to say more.

Here is the The Annunciation by Henry Ossawa Tanner, painted in 1898. Tanner visited the Holy Land and was a master at realism. I enjoy this work for its utter simplicity. Mary sits quietly in her room, depicted as a modern-day Palestinian home. The shaft of light is the presence of the Angel coming to announce Mary’s tremendous vocation. In this moment’s simplicity, light fills the room. Light illumines the viewer’s heart for sustained contemplation and replenishment. We find God’s great deed that changes the course of the cosmos!

The Angel greets the Virgin with “Ave!” It is a royal greeting to this simple Jewish girl. After this royal greeting, the Greek word that expresses “full of grace” is Kecharitomene. It suggests grace in abundance filled Mary from the beginning of her existence. Mary overflowed with God’s favor, protection, and love from all eternity. Mary, filled with grace, “listens and lives in the Word of God, who cherishes in her heart the words that God addresses to her and, piecing them together like a mosaic, learns to understand them” (Pope Benedict XVI, December 8, 2005 homily).

Mary’s fiat reveals her as holy Israel. She is wholly disposed to God’s will, and her physical body and entire self are open to God. She is the shoot that brings the fruit of goodness and life.

Mary’s fiat teaches us to be completely human. When fully human, we say no to sin and yes to God. We say yes to living in God, which brings us closer to each other. Because she is perfectly united to God, we can dare to call her Mother.

In Mary’s fiat, God imprints his very image of tenderness and infuses in her the desire to seek the lost. She becomes “Mother of every consolation and every help, a Mother whom anyone can dare to address in any kind of need in weakness and in sin, for she has understanding for everything and is for everyone the open power of creative goodness” (Pope Benedict XVI, December 8 2005 homily).

As you gaze at this beautiful work by Tanner, you see a young Jewish girl sitting in her room. At the same time, dig deeper with eyes of faith. You’ll contemplate God’s goodness as Father and God’s generosity to give all of us a Mother in his faithful servant. Oh how God loves us!