{"id":7421,"date":"2022-08-08T22:42:54","date_gmt":"2022-08-08T12:42:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/?p=7421"},"modified":"2022-09-13T19:30:41","modified_gmt":"2022-09-13T09:30:41","slug":"she-chose-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/she-chose-him\/","title":{"rendered":"She Chose Him"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n
By Mirette Abraham<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Of all the virtues of\nSt Mary, her purity feels a little understated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We know of her purity.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We recite hymn lyrics\nand read books about her purity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We wish to emulate and\nembody her purity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I think we tend to\nglance over words without truly understanding the fervency in her commitment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mary was pure in her\nsacrifice of both her body and soul, bringing them into complete submission\nbefore God. What is even more beautiful about her submission is that her\nchastity was a choice she had made as a young girl; a young girl with her\nentire life before her. While girls her age were busy planning their futures\nand preparing themselves for marriage, she had set her eyes on eternity and\nconsecrated her heart to God. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think about the\nmagnitude of this sacrifice for a moment!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By choice, she spent\nher childhood serving in the temple, rather than playing with girls her age and\nrunning around the neighbourhood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By choice, she spent\nher evenings in the presence of God, rather than drinking and dining with her\nfriends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By choice, she\ncommitted her mind to learning about God, her body to kneeling before Him and\nher heart to being completely taken over by His love.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking at her life\nthrough this lens-seeing her life as the complete embodiment of sacrifice and\nthe purest of offerings-we can finally appreciate her response to Gabriel:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow can this be,\nsince I do not know a man?\u201d<\/em>\n(Luke 1:34 NKJV)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Giving her heart and\nbody to somebody else wasn\u2019t ever on her agenda. She wanted God alone. She gave\nher heart to God alone. Her purity, though, was more than simply a vow of\ncelibacy. A vow to keep her body untouched and sanctified. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She set aside her\nwhole self-mind, body, spirit. Everything she had, she gave to God. She knew\nthat all the happiness and wealth this world could offer, \u201ccould not be\ncompared to the glory\u201d (Romans 8:18 NKJV) that was to be found with God alone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She lived for more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She lived in God\u2019s\ngrace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She lived for Him\nalone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She chose Him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And because of her\npurity, \u201call generations shall call [her] blessed.\u201d (Luke 1:48 NKJV)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, may we learn how\nto become sanctified for God alone, letting go of all the treasures we are so\ndesperately trying to hold onto here, in this impermanent, imperfect world.\nInstead, we need to lay down the foundation for our forever-home in heaven, offering\nup our hearts, bodies, minds, our entire selves, brick by brick. And may we\nesteem the virtue of purity and learn, from our mother Mary, how to make it a\nway of life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mirette Abraham Of all the virtues of St Mary, her purity feels a little understated. We know of her purity. We recite hymn lyrics and read books about her purity. We wish to emulate and embody her purity. But I think we tend to glance over words without truly understanding the fervency in her … Continue reading “She Chose Him”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7422,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[52,388],"class_list":["post-7421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-purity","tag-st-mary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7421"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7432,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7421\/revisions\/7432"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}