How will this be done, …?” Luke answers that everything will happen through the action of the Holy Spirit.

 

How will this be done, …?” Luke answers that everything will happen through the action of the Holy Spirit. Only in the Spirit will the Word of the Father become the son of David, and will have his own Temple from which he will create new heavens and a new earth. God chose the LITTLE ONE among men, stating that He did not want a temple of human hands, but a human being built according to His will and His grace to be a sign of the Kingdom desired by Him in history. The little one of God, all HIS, bears within herself, by divine grace, the sign of the life embraced by Jesus, who wanted to live as a SERVANT. She is the servant of the SERVANT for the life of the world conceived by God. If the world wants to know what kind of Ark God wanted and what Temple will hold Him, then it needs to look at Mary, because by seeing her, it is possible to contemplate the admirable power of God.

Galilee, a place without expression, not orthodox in fact, an undervalued region, the setting for the unknown Nazareth. It is the region of the poor, the marginalized, those without credit and without a voice. In this environment we find Mary, poor but open to God's initiative, to His call. She inaugurates the new era of the poor as God's beloved. Being from this region, she was known, prepared, predestined and chosen to be the Mother of the Lord. God chose what the world continues to reject, to transform into a treasure for Himself. Through this little girl, "THE GIRL FROM NAZARETH", God entered history, participating in it as an equal, taking on our flesh, our reality, certainly without sin, but taking on our sins in order to save us. Mary became the Kecharitoméne, that is, the BLESSED ONE in the full sense, "full of God's benevolent love". There was no room for sin in Mary. She is the ENEMY of the Serpent (cf. Gn 3:15). She has no connection whatsoever with evil, her entire being belongs exclusively to God, who created her entirely for Himself so that she could be entirely for the good of humanity. Only those who are whole can place themselves totally for the salvation of men. Mary is a treasure of God, loved by Him, prepared for His salvific Plan and to be a sign of His liberating and salvific action. God wanted her to be His ARK, as HIS TEMPLE, not made by human hands (cf. Is 66:1-2; Acts 7:48), as the Ark of the New and Eternal Covenant, the Bearer of Christ and the Spirit, the “MOTHER OF MY LORD” (Lk 1:43). Mary’s virginity, totally consecrated to God, became an authentic sign of Jesus’ divinity. Being all of God, her interests were exclusively directed towards Him, so that St. Augustine would affirm that Mary was a virgin both because she had never known a man and by personal choice. That is why she asked for an explanation of how to conceive that son. In fact, in her the Son of God would become flesh, one of us, through the action of the Holy Spirit. Precisely at this favorable time, the Church celebrates the Savior's entry into our history, the day when humanity rediscovers its future and the conditions for its fulfillment. In light of Mary's choice, the angel makes it clear that God's work in her will not involve man's participation and that this is not impossible for God, who allowed Elizabeth, a sterile old woman, to bear children. Luke clarifies that the child Jesus, in His human condition, was created directly by God, as He did with Adam, but not using the earth, but rather a human being full of His grace, a WOMAN, one who has no communication with the SERPENT, who is not deceived by evil, the ENEMY of the SERPENT. Luke therefore indicates the NEW CREATION, the new beginning, the new EDEN. Mary's poverty, as well as her faith and total openness to God's will, allowed the Virgin to BE THE MOST PRECIOUS PLACE OF GOD'S MOST IMPORTANT ENCOUNTER WITH HUMANITY. Mary, unlike Eve, did not dialogue with the Serpent, she did not allow herself to be attracted by the temptations of the world, she did not seek herself, nor did she doubt God. On the contrary, she placed herself absolutely at the disposal of the Lord. Mary is not a closure of grace, but an opening to God; she is not a contradiction, but a clarity; she is not at the beginning of the history of sin, but of divine grace, which enters history in a personal way; she does not lead a sinful humanity, but a new reality of disciples, made children in the Son; she is not Eve, but Ave; she is not a disgrace, but the Kecharitomene, the full of God; she is not hidden because of sin, but with open arms to receive the Savior; she was not expelled from the Garden, but became the door to it; she is not a place of separation, but of salvific encounter.