“Behold, I come to do your will, O God.” These words of Jesus, quoted by the author of the letter of the Hebrews, remind us of the total dedication of Jesus to the will of God. As disciples of Christ we, too, are called to a total dedication of ourselves to the will of God.
As we read and reflect on the Gospels, Jesus emphasizes continually that he came to do the Father’s will. The only story that we have of Jesus’s youth is the story of how he remained in Jerusalem after the celebration of the Passover in order to discuss the sacred scriptures with the religious experts. When his parents found him in the Temple, they asked Jesus why he had remained behind without telling them and Jesus replied: “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” Jesus wanted to be in constant communion with the Father in order to know his will and to receive the grace and wisdom necessary to fulfill that will. This explains why Jesus was regularly in prayer with his Father. Through their conversation together, Jesus received the grace and wisdom necessary in order to fulfill the Father’s will in his daily life and ministry.
In today’s Gospel, Elizabeth praises Mary, the Mother of Jesus with these words: “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” In consenting to be the mother of Jesus, Mary conformed her life to the will of God and remained faithful to that commitment in spite of the hardships she endured. She was clearly a woman of prayer and through that prayer, just as with her Son, Mary came to understand what God willed for her and how she was to fulfill the will of God for her.
We have just 5 days left in Advent. If you do not have a regular habit of prayer, now is the time to create such a habit so that you can hear the will of God for you, and seek the grace of God to do what God asks of you. If you do have a regular habit of prayer, then have you given God the space that God needs in order to share with you what God wills for you and to receive from God the grace and strength you need to do it?

Fr. Mark Hallinan, S.J.