"Let it be to me according to your word."

It is Mary's response to being told that she will conceive and bear the child, Jesus. As a staff we are reading "Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas". I was trying to figure out which of the past readings to highlight at Staff Meeting tomorrow (as I will be going around the table asking each staff for their favorite from the week -- guessing that they didn't read -- grades will then be handed out -- Yes, I'm preaching on John the Baptist this Sunday, so I'm trying to get in the part -- REPENT YOU SNAKES!) ... as I was reflecting upon our time of confession and repentance during staff meeting tomorrow, I realized I hadn't read today's reading. Knowing that I was probably going to highlight Henri Nouwen's "Waiting for God", I read today's devotion, "In Defense of Humility" by Bernard of Clairvaux. I had one of the "wow" moments as I read what Bernard wrote about Mary and her response, "Let it be to me according to your word." It reads like a prayer:

Let it be to me according to your word concerning the Word. Let the Word that was in the beginning with God become flesh from my flesh. Let the Word, I pray, be to me, not as a word spoken only to pass away, but conceived and clothed in flesh, not in air, that he may remain with us. Let him be, not only to be heard with the ears, but to be seen with the eyes, touched with the hands and borne on the shoulders. Let the Word be to me, not as a word written and silent, but incarnate and living. That is, not traced with dead signs upon dead parchments but livingly impressed in human form upon my chaste womb; not by the tracing of a pen of lifeless reed, but by the operation of the Holy Spirit. Let it thus be to me, as was never done to anyone before me, nor after me shall be done. I desire that he may be formed, not as the word in preaching, not as a sign in figures, or as a vision in dreams, but silently inspired, personally incarnated, found in the body, in my body. Let the Word therefore deign to do in me and for me what he needed not to do, and could not do, for himself, according to your word. Yes, let it be done for the sake of the whole world, but specially let it be done unto me, according to your word.

Excerpt from "Watch for the Light"

BIT: It's no John the Baptist ... Happy Advent!