Ave Maria Meditations
Today we have the heart-shaking Gospel of the Annunciation, when Our Lady said her great fiat, on which, so to speak, God himself waited… She said the greatest word that could be spoken to the greatest event in our history, but it was only the first time out of many. She said “Fiat” all of her life, not just at the Annunciation. Her fiat was not what we would call “lip service”. It was not a matter of words, although that word was great, sublime. It was a matter of going beyond the spoken word to a lived vow.
This is what Our Lady shows us. She tells us not just how to say fiat, but how to live it, not only in the large, dramatic occasions of life, but in the little hidden ones. She had many a hidden fiat to say in her life. Her “Let it be it done” was said over and over and over. She was a very active doer in letting it be done.
Fiat is a very active word. In the beginning God said, “Fiat!” And it was. Oh, was there action! The world came into being. He said, “Fiat!” to light, and light was. He spoke that word for each of us: “Fiat! Let her be.” I was; you were.
In our human fiat, we have to be active doers in letting it be done. Fiat was not just a lovely word of God. It was a word that galvanized into action, made the light to be, the world to be, the ocean to be, man to be. Our fiat must be the action of our whole life, expressed in our giving. Then it really is done; it really is lived.
+Mother Mary Francis of Our Lady, P.C.C.
