"Conversations with Mary"

"The Annunciation: Conversations with Mary"
-Fredrica Harris Thompsett, PhD

Mary, we've landed on your feast!  Help us, we beseech thee, find common voice with you and with one another.

Mary, theotokos, God-bearer, help us travel with our humor and our pain as we seek to be God-bearers in our own day!

Mary, Sweet Mother have we traveled this far only to be put in places where we are "acceptable," places were we "fit" as long as we "are seen but not heard"?

Ah Mary, surely you know that reality all too well, the one about learning "in silence with full submission".(1 Timothy 2:11)!

Blessed Mary, if we can hear your voice anew, perhaps we can learn to challenge those in our own day who fear and distrust women.

Mary, Mother of Mercy, help us shed our placid timidity!

Mary, Co-Redeemer, you give birth to a new humanity and a new community born of suffering and of undefeated hope.  Help us embrace new life.

Mary, Mother of Compassion, have we forgotten you said "Yes!" to the liberation of oppressed peoples?

Mary, Mother Bird with a mature womb and hope-filled wings, push us out of the warm nest, help us fly onward and outward!

Mary, Sister and Mother, teach us to proclaim hope amid the reality of aching pain.

Holy Mary, are not we ourselves the God-bearers of this age:  women stepping forward together and saying "Yes!"  Let it be with us according to your word(Luke 1:38)

*Information about the Annunciation: The Annunciation, also referred to as the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary or Annunciation of the Lord, is the christian celebration of the announcement by the angel Gabriel to Virgin Mary, that she would conceive and become the mother of Jesus the Son of God. Gabriel told Mary to name her son Jesus, meaning "Savior". Many Christians observe this event with the Feast of the Annunciation on 25 March, nine full months before Christmas. According to Luke 1;26, the Annunciation to Mary occurred "in the sixth month" of Elisabeth's pregnancy with the child later called John the Baptist.