Homily for November 21, 2019

Today the Church celebrates that from the time she was a  young child, and for the rest of her life, Mary was totally committed to letting God’s plan be realized through her life. As a result of her devoutness throughout her life, she was called by God to become a living temple, a place where God was present in a unique way. God dwelled within her, in a real physical sense, through Jesus, because she was fully open to divine inspiration from the earliest years of her life.

Our Blessed Mother is the first and most perfect example of those to whom Jesus refers in today’s gospel passage as “doing the will of my Father in heaven.” Again, today’s memorial celebrates how, from childhood Mary was devoted to the will of God and was, therefore, fit to become the temple of God’s Son as He prepared to enter this world.

We, too, are called by God the Father to do His will so that we, too, may be temples of the LORD, carrying the LORD’s presence to others. This memorial echoes St. Paul’s words, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”

And so, we ask our Blessed Mother to pray for us so that we may always do the will of the Father and so become temples of the living God, that God’s Spirit may truly dwell in us. +