Hi, I'm Edward Sree, and welcome to all things Catholic Catholic where real faith meets real life.

Have you ever said a prayer to God that goes something like this?

Lord, not my will, but your will be done. Lord, show me what your will is.

I want to follow your plan for my life. I surrender my life to you. I want to do what you want. Just show me what I'm supposed to do. It's a wonderful moment when a soul comes humbly before the Lord and begs God for clarity, for guidance in his life, and a desire to serve God with their life. It's a wonderful

thing, but I gotta tell you, it's not enough. It's a wonderful thing to have an open heart

to God's will, and we should all have that but ultimately

God wants to act he wants us to allow him to act in our lives when he he does make clear his will, will we actually do it?

It's one thing again to say, Lord, just show me your will, but be careful because if you say a

prayer like that, he may call you on it and he may invite you to do something that's

difficult do something that's demanding you invite you to do something you're

scared to do you're afraid to do but will you still say yes? That's the crucial step that we're called to take in our

discipleship with the Lord and I want to talk to you about one great saint. It's really my

favorite scene and I know it's probably your favorite saint too,

the Blessed Virgin Mary models this for us because in Luke's Gospel, chapter 1,

verse 38, at the climax of the enunciation scene, Mary doesn't just say she's open to God's will.

When God's will is clearly revealed to her, she gives a wholehearted yes in her Fiat. She says,

behold I am the servant of the Lord, the handmaiden of the Lord,

be it done unto me according to your word.

Now what I want to do here is unpack those words of Mary as a great biblical

model for the response God wants all of us to have in following him and I'm going

to be sharing some reflections from my brand new book on Mary.

It's called Rethinking Mary in the New Testament.

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