Memorial of the BVM

ACCORDING TO YOUR WORD
From the writing of St Bernard of Clairvaux 7
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‘And the Lord will give to him the throne of his father David’. Those are
the very words spoken by the angel to the Virgin about the Son who had been
promised to her, and by them he promised also that He should possess the
kingship of David…

At first, as long as she was doubtful, she prudently kept silence…
preferring, of course, humbly to give no reply rather than to speak hastily about
matters of which she knew nothing. But once she was reassured… for the Lord
was with her as the angel had said… once she was strengthened by the faith
which casts out fear, and by the joy which casts out confusion, she said to the
angel, ‘How can this be, since I know no man?’ She does not doubt the event,
but wonders how it shall occur…

He said then, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the
Most High will overshadow you.’… It is as if the angel replied to the Virgin, ‘Why
ask me about something which you are going soon to experience in yourself?
You will find out…how happily you will find out, and your teacher will be none
other than he who works this [within you], I have been sent only to announce
this virginal conception, not to bring it about. This is something which can only
be taught by the giver, and learnt only by the receiver. “Therefore the Holy to be
born of you will be called the Son of God.”…

What then? Are you the one who was promised, or must we look for
another? No, it is you and no one else… So, answer the angel quickly or rather,
through the angel, answer God. Only say the word and receive the Word: give
yours and conceive God’s. Breathe one fleeting word and embrace the
everlasting Word. Why do you delay? Why be afraid? Believe, give praise and
receive. Let humility take courage and shyness confidence… Blessed Virgin,
open your heart to faith, your lips to consent and your womb to your Creator.
Behold, the long-desired of all nations is standing at the door and knocking. Oh,
what if he should pass by because of your delay and, sorrowing, you should
again have to seek him whom your soul loves? Get up, run, open! Get up by
faith, run by prayer, open by consent!

‘Behold,’ she says, ‘I am the handmaiden of the Lord; let it be to me
according to your word’… May the Word who in the beginning was with God,
become flesh of my flesh, according to your word… I do not want it to be a word
proclaimed to me in discourse, symbolized in figures, or dreamed in the
imagination, but one silently inspired, personally incarnate, corporally
inviscerate. May the Word which could not…be made in himself, deign to be in
me, deign to be to me according to your word. Let it be for the whole world, but
let it be to me uniquely ‘according to your word’.

7 Bernard of Clairvaux. Homilies in Praise of the Blessed Virgin Mary. CF 18A. Trans. Marie-Bernard Saïd. Kalamazoo, MI:
Cistercian Publications, 1993. 45, 48-50, 54-55.