Your boss approaches you and says, “You’re doing a great job. There’s a 10% increase for you starting next month.” You smile back to him and reply, “Thank you very much but, no. I make enough money. I’m not sure what to do with all the money I make now. So, I’ll say no.”

If you ever say or meet someone who tells his boss that, please let me know.

This Marian feast about that simple, three-letter word that allowed a divine entry into our humanly broken world. “Yes.” It’s followed by her beautiful prayer (“The Magnificat”) that ought to all memorize as well as we know the “Our Father.”

Back to the boss. She tells you to stay late tomorrow. You immediately think, “no.” But you comply. The work is finished the next night, and you drive home feeling satisfied, complete. Mary might have felt way, being a teenager as we think she was. No husband, probably working some menial job. And, ready for this? There’s a full bloom angel standing in front of her asking her, “Not to be afraid.” What would your first thought be?

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.” We all know all sin begins and ends with selfishness. Some writers simply call sin “forgetting.” We’ve forgotten the tenets and beauties of our Christian faith. “It’s all about us, as individuals,” we think. Those may not be the words you use, but our actions show them loudly. Mary didn’t say, “My mind proclaims.” Her “Yes” arose from her soul. That divinely trusted organ that God placed within us to inform, guide our minds. Mary’s “Yes” amounted to saying to the angel and to God, “I trust you. I’m not sure why, but I truly trust you.”

Now, what about our “Yes’s?” The answer is the Church. We even name the Church after her. I don’t mean “Queen of Apostles,” I mean “Holy Mother Church.” I need all of you to validate my “Yes’s” in my life, and I need to validate yours. This isn’t a priestly thing but as Catholic to Catholic or Catholic to any Christian denomination or person to person.

“He has scattered the proud in their conceit (selfishness, forgetfulness anyone?). He has cast down the mighty from their thrones (“I’m usually, if not all the time, pretty much right.”) and has lifted up the lowly.

When we say “No” when the divine response is “Yes,” a needed duty. Then the soul informs the mind. Grace fills us up. When the “Yes’s” of your decisions so often turn out to be “No’s,” there a helpful church friend, an assisting church organization to wake up your soul and tune down that over-working mind of yours.

“He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.”

“Yes,” my husband is dying. “Yes,” I lost my job, but I didn’t lose me, “Yes,” my life is going well for me, now how can I help others?

Multiple choice questions often offer a third option, “Not sure.” Mark that one when your first thought is “No.” We may be baffled by the mystery of this day, then check “Not sure.” Times in life and days like this are a mystery to be lived, not solved. (You’ll hear me say that often.)

From Our Lady of Guadalupe, another mysterious event. “Have you forgotten? I am your Mother. You are not alone. You are under my protection. Anything you need, ask me. Do not worry about anything. Am I not here, I who am your Mother? Have you forgotten? I love you, and you are under my protection.”