“Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be done with me according to your word.” (Lk 1:38)
Answering this question will be difficult since we don’t know what was in the mind of God at the moment when he decided to choose Mary as the one who would bear God’s Son, the savior of the world. I will try to answer this question not as a Mariologist but as a Christian who knows the importance of the Blessed Virgin Mary in his Christian life. God knows us better than we know ourselves. As Jeremiah said, he tests the mind and searches the heart. (Cf. Jr 17:10) This means that he knows all our desires and intentions. To really know why God chose Mary, we have to be in the perspective of His plan for salvation. Mary was a lady of her time; she was waiting to get married as other girls do but she was in the mind and the heart of God. In other words, Mary was in the project of God’s salvation to all humanity. Someone said that man plans his projects but God smiles. Why? Because he knows that our project of life does not always enter in the framework of his project.
I am wondering what Mary's thoughts were when she received Gabriel’s message. It's amazing to see that the Annunciation is among the joyful mysteries. A mystery that gives joy to the world. Despite the fact that I don't fully understand God's plan for my life, I'm grateful that he chose me over someone else. This implies the disposition of Mary to be a protagonist of the salvation of the world. On the one hand, I can dare say that God prepared her beforehand. On the other hand, after receiving God’s message through the angel Gabriel, Mary asked a question. How can this be? Mary was humble and obedient, but she was also a person who questioned the message of God without standing against it. We may ask ourselves: What would the world have been if Mary had rejected God’s message? Mary accepted the will of God and gave birth to the savior of the universe. “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be done with me according to your word.” (Lk 1:38)
While reflecting on this topic, I discovered again the beauty of the words we use when we pray the holy rosary. We repeat God’s message to Mary and end up asking for her intercession in order to become humble, obedient, and flexible to the will of God like her. We have a model of holiness, a model of obedience. God made, to say the least, the right choice when he chose Mary as the mother of Jesus. I would like to wrap up my article with some questions: Do we accept God’s choice in our lives? Do we let him accomplish his project in our lives? As we are in the Holy week, let us all remember that Jesus, who suffered so much and died for us, was first born from the womb of the Virgin Mary. Let us make a good choice at the end of this Lenten season, that will help us become stronger and better in our Christian lives. Mother Teresa once said, “We can become saints only with the help of our Lady. Let us cling to her. Let us keep hold of her by praying the rosary.”