The Freedom Behind Mary's Fiat
All Things Catholic with Dr. Edward Sri
Ascension
5 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 25 March 2025
⏱️ 19 minutes
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Summary
Mary's fiat reflects her deep love for God and willingness to serve. Dr. Sri explores the significance of Mary's response to God at the Annunciation. He delves into the meaning of the term 'slave' as used by Mary, contrasting modern and classical views of freedom and emphasizing the importance of virtue in living a life of authentic love.
Snippet from the Show
"Mary has the inner self-possession to be able to give her life truly as a gift to others."
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Edwards Sari, and welcome to all things Catholic, where real faith meets real life. |
| 0:13.5 | Many years ago, something dramatic happened in the middle of one of my lectures, something that |
| 0:18.2 | had never happened before while I was giving a talk. |
| 0:21.5 | So picture the room. I'm in Michigan with about 100 deacons from all over, and we're there |
| 0:26.7 | for a workshop, and I was asked to present on a day-long retreat about the Bible and the Blessed |
| 0:32.4 | Virgin Mary. And I'm walking through the different biblical passages. I came to the Annunciation, |
| 0:36.8 | and then I arrived at the |
| 0:37.9 | climax of the scene of the enunciation when Mary gives her yes, her fiat. And I commented on Luke 138, |
| 0:45.7 | where Mary says in many translations, behold, I'm the handmaiden of the Lord, or behold, I'm the servant |
| 0:51.7 | of the Lord. And I underscored how that particular word there for handmaiden or servant, in Greek, it's |
| 0:58.2 | actually the Greek word duly, which means slave. |
| 1:01.1 | So that Mary is actually saying, behold, I am the slave of the Lord. |
| 1:06.5 | And as soon as I said this, all of a sudden, one of the deacons of the room just stood up. |
| 1:10.3 | And he raised his hand and interrupted me. And he said, excuse me, excuse me, I disagree with that. |
| 1:16.8 | I disagree with that. I don't think that's right. And I looked at him kind of surprised and |
| 1:20.9 | everyone else looked a little shocked and we're all looking at him. And he says, I don't like that word. I don't like that word slave. |
| 1:32.4 | I don't think we should use that word. I think we should just freely choose to follow God. |
| 1:37.4 | We should love God and want to follow him and serve him, but I don't like that word slave. |
| 1:46.2 | And then once I understood what his issue was, I smiled and I said, oh, I totally understand. I get it. I get where this question comes from. And I want you to know, Deacon, I understand in our modern era that this word, |
| 1:51.9 | slave, sounds a little harsh. It sounds a little repressive. It has a lot of negative connotations |
| 1:56.9 | with it. I get that. But I want you to know, Deacon, that this word slave is not my word. I didn't |
| 2:02.7 | use this word. This is the word Mary use. This is on Mary's lips in the Bible. And it's in, |
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