A Gift is Fully a Gift Only if Well Received (I)

Let's use a concrete example to help us better understand that there is no contradiction or mutual exclusion between God's action and man's.

An octogenarian religious was hospitalized for a minor fibula fracture. He seemed to have lost his taste for life and rejected any food. If a nurse tried to spoon-feed him some yogurt he would spit it out at once.

In that same town lived a young woman who had been before her marriage a professor in the institution where the religious lived. He had helped her to better handle her job and she had a deep esteem and admiration for him. When she heard that the religious was in the hospital, she went to see him. Taking stock of his condition and his refusal to eat, she told him: "Really, Mr. Louis, you have to eat..." Then she picked up a little spoon and attempted to make him swallow the yogurt left on the table...

Mr. Louis ate the yogurt... She came back every day, and Mr. Louis regained his appetite and the habit to eat. (...) He lived a few more years and was almost 90 when he died.

The refusal to eat was his. Was the decision to eat his also? Of course it was. But what made him change his mind? It was the loving relationship between Mr. Louis and the young woman. Their mutual affection set off the opening of his mouth to accept the food.

When mankind was blocked by sin it couldn't open its mouth to welcome the Savior. But between God and the young Mary - thanks to the Immaculate Conception - a completely mutual loving relationship existed. And this love enabled Mary to welcome the Word so He could take flesh in her.
 

A MOMENT WITH MARY 
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