READING 1
Luke 1:34-38

And Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no husband?” And the angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, your kinswoman Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible.” And Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

READING 2
From Mary in the Mystery of the Covenant by Father Ignace de la Potterie, SJ

Mary’s response: “Behold, the handmaid of the Lord, may it be done to me according to your word” is, following the Latin translation, often called Mary’s “fiat.” Nevertheless, we have to take note that the Latin corresponds to two Greek expressions which manifest distinct nuances.

We know about the “fiat” of the Annunciation, but there is also the “fiat voluntas tua” of the Our Father (Mt 6:10), and that of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane (Mt 26:42) with its verb in the passive imperative “génêthêtô.” For the “fiat” of Mary at the Annunciation Luke employs the optative “genoïto” without a subject which is used postively only in this unique place in the New Testament. In Greek, the optative, expresses “a joyous desire to,” never a resignation or a constraining submission before something burdensome and painful. The resonance of Mary’s “fiat” at the moment of the Annunciation is not that of the “fiat voluntas tua” of Jesus in Gethsemane, nor that of a formula corresponding to the Our Father. Here there is a remarkable detail, which has only been noticed in recent years, and which even today is frequently lost from sight. The “fiat” of Mary is not just a simple acceptance and even less, a resignation. It is rather a joyous desire to collaborate with what God foresees for her. It is the joy of total abandonment to the good will of God. Thus the joy of this ending responds to the invitation to joy at the beginning.

REFLECTION

Mary’s yes was not resistance, nor even resignation, nor mere acceptance, but a joyous desire, a free and eager embrace of God’s will. Even when she asked “How will I know this…?” it was with no shadow of a doubt that God could do it, but simply clarifying how it would work. She wanted to know how she should properly cooperate so as to let it happen to her. Why was her Yes eager, but the Fiat that Jesus taught us by His prayer (the Our Father) and His example (Gethsemane) was only acceptance? Jesus was teaching us to accept God’s will in the midst of circumstances that were tainted by evil. We cannot give an eager Yes in those circumstances. But Mary was accepted the Incarnation. Her eager Yes was for God to manifest Himself in her life in an Incarnate way. This is the eager Yes we can give as well. When it is something purely good where God wants to manifest Himself more fully in us, we can give our eager Yes. This will invite God to be greater in our lives and may require us to become littler.

Are there any areas in your life where you have given a reluctant Yes to God that can become a little more eager Yes? Is there an opportunity to (re)commit to your vocation with a genoïto like Mary’s? Are there ways God is seeking to be greater in your life and is inviting you to become littler? Mary can help us give our genoïto to all the good God wants to do in us.

PRAYERS

O Holy Mary by John Henry Newman
Sub tuum praesidium
Litany of the Immaculate Heart of Mary or
Litany of Loreto or
at least one decade of the Rosary or
Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary

Copyright © 2026 by St. Vincent Archabbey

READING 1
Luke 1:46-55

And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden. For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm, he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts, he has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his posterity for ever.”

READING 2
From a homily for the Assumption by Pope Benedict XVI, August 15, 2005

Mary’s poem – the Magnificat – is quite original; yet at the same time, it is a “fabric” woven throughout of “threads” from the Old Testament, of words of God.

Thus, we see that Mary was, so to speak, “at home” with God’s word, she lived on God’s word, she was penetrated by God’s word. To the extent that she spoke with God’s words, she thought with God’s words, her thoughts were God’s thoughts, her words, God’s words. She was penetrated by divine light and this is why she was so resplendent, so good, so radiant with love and goodness.

Mary lived on the Word of God, she was imbued with the Word of God. And the fact that she was immersed in the Word of God and was totally familiar with the Word also endowed her later with the inner enlightenment of wisdom.

Whoever thinks with God thinks well, and whoever speaks to God speaks well. They have valid criteria to judge all the things of the world. They become prudent, wise, and at the same time good; they also become strong and courageous with the strength of God, who resists evil and fosters good in the world.

Thus, Mary speaks with us, speaks to us, invites us to know the Word of God, to love the Word of God, to live with the Word of God, to think with the Word of God. And we can do so in many different ways: by reading Sacred Scripture, by participating especially in the Liturgy, in which Holy Church throughout the year opens the entire book of Sacred Scripture to us. She opens it to our lives and makes it present in our lives.

But I am also thinking of the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church that we recently published, in which the Word of God is applied to our lives and the reality of our lives interpreted; it helps us enter into the great “temple” of God’s Word, to learn to love it and, like Mary, to be penetrated by this Word. Thus, life becomes luminous and we have the basic criterion with which to judge; at the same time, we receive goodness and strength.

Mary is taken up body and soul into the glory of Heaven, and with God and in God she is Queen of Heaven and earth. And is she really so remote from us?

The contrary is true. Precisely because she is with God and in God, she is very close to each one of us. While she lived on this earth she could only be close to a few people. Being in God, who is close to us, actually, “within” all of us, Mary shares in this closeness of God. Being in God and with God, she is close to each one of us, knows our hearts, can hear our prayers, can help us with her motherly kindness and has been given to us, as the Lord said, precisely as a “mother” to whom we can turn at every moment. She always listens to us, she is always close to us, and being Mother of the Son, participates in the power of the Son and in his goodness. We can always entrust the whole of our lives to this Mother, who is not far from any one of us.

REFLECTION

Mary’s heart is so filled with God’s Word. It was her heartbeat, her life breath, her light, her guide. It was her love, her joy, and by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit it even filled her womb and became her Son. Mary loved the Word and she let Him shape every dimension of our lives. She can help us to do the same. Through meditating on Scripture, learning its authentic interpretation in light of Magisterial teaching, and allowing it to penetrate our hearts by contemplation, we can come to resemble Mary more and more. Furthermore, because she is in God and therefore so close to us, she can help us to read, to ponder, to learn, and to take that Word to heart which is always a delight to her heart.

How important is the Word in your life? How can you internalize God’s Word more? Do you let Mary help you, like a good mother, to learn the Scriptures so that you can take the best things of God to heart?

PRAYERS

O Holy Mary by John Henry Newman
Sub tuum praesidium
Litany of the Immaculate Heart of Mary or
Litany of Loreto or
at least one decade of the Rosary or
Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary

Copyright © 2026 by St. Vincent Archabbey

READING 1
John 19:25-28

[S]tanding by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. After this Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfil the Scripture), “I thirst.”

READING 2
From a homily on Our Lady of Sorrows given at Lourdes by Pope Benedict XVI, Sept 15, 2008

Mary loves each of her children, giving particular attention to those who, like her Son at the hour of his Passion, are prey to suffering; she loves them quite simply because they are her children, according to the will of Christ on the Cross.

The psalmist, seeing from afar this maternal bond which unites the Mother of Christ with the people of faith, prophesies regarding the Virgin Mary that “the richest of the people … will seek your smile” (Ps 44:13). In this way, prompted by the inspired word of Scripture, Christians have always sought the smile of Our Lady, this smile which medieval artists were able to represent with such marvellous skill and to show to advantage. This smile of Mary is for all; but it is directed quite particularly to those who suffer, so that they can find comfort and solace therein. To seek Mary’s smile is not an act of devotional or outmoded sentimentality, but rather the proper expression of the living and profoundly human relationship which binds us to her whom Christ gave us as our Mother. …

In the smile of the most eminent of all creatures, looking down on us, is reflected our dignity as children of God, that dignity which never abandons the sick person. This smile, a true reflection of God’s tenderness, is the source of an invincible hope. Unfortunately we know only too well: the endurance of suffering can upset life’s most stable equilibrium; it can shake the firmest foundations of confidence, and sometimes even leads people to despair of the meaning and value of life.

There are struggles that we cannot sustain alone, without the help of divine grace. When speech can no longer find the right words, the need arises for a loving presence: we seek then the closeness not only of those who share the same blood or are linked to us by friendship, but also the closeness of those who are intimately bound to us by faith. Who could be more intimate to us than Christ and his holy Mother, the Immaculate One? More than any others, they are capable of understanding us and grasping how hard we have to fight against evil and suffering.

The Letter to the Hebrews says of Christ that he “is not unable to sympathize with our weaknesses; for in every respect he has been tempted as we are” (cf. Heb 4:15). I would like to say, humbly, to those who suffer and to those who struggle and are tempted to turn their backs on life: turn towards Mary! Within the smile of the Virgin lies mysteriously hidden the strength to fight against sickness and for life. With her, equally, is found the grace to accept without fear or bitterness to leave this world at the hour chosen by God.

…In the very simple manifestation of tenderness that we call a smile, we grasp that our sole wealth is the love God bears us, which passes through the heart of her who became our Mother. To seek this smile, is first of all to have grasped the gratuitousness of love; it is also to be able to elicit this smile through our efforts to live according to the word of her Beloved Son, just as a child seeks to elicit its mother’s smile by doing what pleases her. And we know what pleases Mary, thanks to the words she spoke to the servants at Cana: “Do whatever he tells you” (cf. Jn 2:5).

Mary’s smile is a spring of living water. “He who believes in me”, says Jesus, “out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water” (Jn 7:38). Mary is the one who believed and, from her womb, rivers of living water have flowed forth to irrigate human history. … From her believing heart, from her maternal heart, flows living water which purifies and heals. … In the liturgical sequence of this feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, Mary is honoured with the title of Fons amoris, “fount of love.” From Mary’s heart, there springs up a gratuitous love which calls forth a response of filial love, called to ever greater refinement. Like every mother, and better than every mother, Mary is the teacher of love.

REFLECTION

Mary is our strength in weakness, our health in sickness, our loving companion when we are overwhelmed by suffering and struggle to find meaning. Her heart is a font of life, a font of love, a font of healing, a font of hope. And we can receive all this by looking into her eyes as she delights in each one of us, her children. She smiles upon her little ones, whom she loves. Her warm tenderness radiates through her countenance as she smiles compassionately upon us.

Do you know Mary’s delight in you? Do you let yourself find strength and healing in her smile? Do you know her non-abandoning love which draws even closer in our sickness, sorrow and weakness? Let us open our hearts to receive from the streams of love that flow forth from her heart as we behold the love in her eyes.

PRAYERS

O Holy Mary by John Henry Newman
Sub tuum praesidium
Litany of the Immaculate Heart of Mary or
Litany of Loreto or
at least one decade of the Rosary or
Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary

Copyright © 2026 by St. Vincent Archabbey

READING 1
Luke 1:39-47

In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the child leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”

READING 2
From a homily for the Assumption by Pope Benedict XVI, August15 , 2005

In the Gospel we heard the Magnificat, that great poem inspired by the Holy Spirit that came from Mary’s lips, indeed, from Mary’s heart. This marvellous canticle mirrors the entire soul, the entire personality of Mary. We can say that this hymn of hers is a portrait of Mary, a true icon in which we can see her exactly as she is. I would like to highlight only two points in this great canticle.¹

It begins with the word “Magnificat“: my soul “magnifies” the Lord, that is, “proclaims the greatness” of the Lord. Mary wanted God to be great in the world, great in her life and present among us all. She was not afraid that God might be a “rival” in our life, that with his greatness he might encroach on our freedom, our vital space. She knew that if God is great, we too are great. Our life is not oppressed but raised and expanded: it is precisely then that it becomes great in the splendour of God. The fact that our first parents thought the contrary was the core of original sin. They feared that if God were too great, he would take something away from their life. They thought that they could set God aside to make room for themselves.

This was also the great temptation of the modern age, of the past three or four centuries. More and more people have thought and said: “But this God does not give us our freedom; with all his commandments, he restricts the space in our lives. So God has to disappear; we want to be autonomous and independent. Without this God we ourselves would be gods and do as we pleased.”

This was also the view of the Prodigal Son, who did not realize that he was “free” precisely because he was in his father’s house. He left for distant lands and squandered his estate. In the end, he realized that precisely because he had gone so far away from his father, instead of being free he had become a slave; he understood that only by returning home to his father’s house would he be truly free, in the full beauty of life.

This is how it is in our modern epoch. Previously, it was thought and believed that by setting God aside and being autonomous, following only our own ideas and inclinations, we would truly be free to do whatever we liked without anyone being able to give us orders. But when God disappears, men and women do not become greater; indeed, they lose the divine dignity, their faces lose God’s splendour. In the end, they turn out to be merely products of a blind evolution and, as such, can be used and abused. This is precisely what the experience of our epoch has confirmed for us.

Only if God is great is humankind also great. With Mary, we must begin to understand that this is so. We must not drift away from God but make God present; we must ensure that he is great in our lives. Thus, we too will become divine; all the splendour of the divine dignity will then be ours. Let us apply this to our own lives.

REFLECTION

Mary celebrated God’s greatness and wanted Him to be magnified further. He is magnified when we give Him our yes. He grows in our hearts and becomes more visible in our lives. He grew so great in Mary that He became flesh in her womb. She opened herself totally to Him, withholding nothing from Him. She did not fear losing anything by making more and more room for Him in her life.

Recalling Pope Benedict XVI’s words from his inaugural homily, Are we not perhaps all afraid in some way? If we let Christ enter fully into our lives, if we open ourselves totally to him, are we not afraid that He might take something away from us? Are we not perhaps afraid to give up something significant, something unique, something that makes life so beautiful? Do we not then risk ending up diminished and deprived of our freedom? And once again the Pope [John Paul II] said: No! If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation.”

Mary can help us give this generous response to God as we pray with her that He would be magnified in our own heart and in every heart.

PRAYERS

O Holy Mary by John Henry Newman
Sub tuum praesidium
Litany of the Immaculate Heart of Mary or
Litany of Loreto or
at least one decade of the Rosary or
Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary

1. N.B. the second point is on Day 25. ↩︎

Copyright © 2026 by St. Vincent Archabbey