Day 14: Mary Hidden in Advent-Samuel

Samuel Called by God, Marc Chagall

Day 12: Samuel is Called by God

     Read The Jesse Tree pp 46-49.  Hang ornament (burning candle).
     God calls Samuel to be His prophet.  Samuel is the last judge of Israel and anoints David king.

     Scripture reference: 1 Samuel 3

     Comment:  God calls to Samuel in the dark of the night and Samuel rises and obeys the voice of God.  He presents himself to God and is prepared to do God's will; he listens to hear what God has to say and does what God commands him to do.  Our Lady also heard the Word of God when the world was in the darkness of sin.  She listened to the Angel who told her she was to be the Mother of the Messiah and replied in faith, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to  me according to your word."  (Luke 1:38)



Related Title:  Mary, the Handmaiden of the Lord

The Annunciation, Fra Angelico

 In the gospel according to Luke the Blessed Virgin twice describes herself as "the handmaid of the Lord": when she gives her consent to the message of the angel (see Luke 1:38), and when she proclaims the greatness of the Lord because of "the great things" he has worked in her (see Luke 1:49). To understand fully the meaning and force of her title of "handmaid of the Lord" we must read it in the light of the songs of the "Servant of the Lord" (see Isaiah 42:1-7; 49:1-9; 50:1-11; 52:1-53:12), and above all in the light of Jesus Christ as the one who fulfills the figure of the "Servant of the Lord": he "did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for the many." (Mark 10:45)  Source: Excerpts from the introductory commentary to the Mass, Collection of Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Volume 1, Sacramentary, Catholic Book Publishing Co., 1992, p. 200.]

Excerpt from the Prayer of the Holy Father at the Conclusion of the Rosary

(Esplanade of the Basilica of the Rosary, August 14, 2004)

Hail Mary,
lowly handmaid of the Lord,
Glorious Mother of Christ!
Faithful Virgin,
holy dwelling-place of the Word,
Teach us to persevere
in listening
to the Word,
and to be docile
to the voice of the Spirit,
attentive to his promptings
in the depths

of our conscience
and to his manifestations
in the events of history.

Read here at EWTN the text of Pope John Paul II's remarks on Mary, the handmaid of the Lord.

Few souls understand what God would accomplish in them if they were to abandon themselves unreservedly to Him and if they were to allow His grace to mold them accordingly.--St. Ignatius of Loyola