The Incarnation was something no one was anticipating. Even when, nine months later, the Divine Child was born, the angels seem to be astonished at the miracle of God in the flesh, even though presumably Gabriel had not kept Our Lady’s answer to himself when he returned heavenward!

Pope Benedict put it this way back in December, at Midnight Mass: "The Fathers of the Church offer a remarkable commentary on the song that the angels sang to greet the Redeemer.

"Until that moment, the Fathers say, the angels had known God in the grandeur of the universe, in the reason and the beauty of the cosmos that come from him and are a reflection of him. They had heard, so to speak, creation’s silent song of praise and had transformed it into celestial music.

"But now something new had happened, something that astounded them. The One of whom the universe speaks, the God who sustains all things and bears them in his hands: he himself had entered human history, he had become someone who acts and suffers within history."

It is Our Lady’s "yes" that made this miracle possible, and that teaches us something about your "yes" and mine to God’s holy will: there’s more to it than meets the eye.

For God’s most holy desire is that his Son be born anew, in every moment of human history, in every imaginable circumstance. A "yes" to whatever is asked means a "yes" to Christ’s entry into that precise time, place, and circumstance. Not just as the One who is everywhere in any case sustaining all things, but as "someone who acts and suffers within history."

To see this happening is the most powerful invitation to believe, it is the heart of all evangelization. (Interestingly enough, the icon of the Annunciation is called in the Eastern Christian tradition "The Evangelization of the Mother of God.")

As a spiritual son of Our Lady in her home called Madonna House, I saw this truth over and over again lived out by our foundress Catherine Doherty.

Once in a while God seemed to give me a glimpse of the "yes" she was offering to God, a "yes" that cost her plenty in suffering and surrender.

For a time this "yes" would look like a most heavy burden, as if it were pushing against the weight of sin of the whole world. But it would blossom before long into a flame of joy that could only be described as divine, because it was so much more than simply a human kind of rejoicing.

It looked to me like the joy of Christ in giving himself, loving to the end, reaching out with open, pierced hands to the sure gift of the Resurrection from his Father.

When I first saw Catherine in one of these heavy states of burden, I blurted out to a much more experienced staff member: "She looks awful!" I was told it might be better to keep some observations to myself (!) and to wait awhile.

Sure enough, it wasn’t too long before her beautiful blue eyes were on fire with a kind of radiance that seemed to light up her whole countenance.

I had never seen anything quite like this. Was it Russian "extremism" and melodrama, I wondered, or something more?

Even when the periods of suffering were sustained over longer periods of time, I was assured that, in time, all would be well again.

Time taught me to believe that this was something more, much more, than melodrama. I was being given a glimpse of what a "yes" to God really is.

It is the pouring in of the life of the One who "has himself entered human history": the crushing tragedy of it, the pathos of so many situations in which people live; yet also the assurance of God’s presence there, incarnate, sustaining, healing, leading the poor into the ambiance of heaven itself, even here on earth.

The beauty of this very earthly human "yes" to God has a great power to bear witness to his presence. There is an attraction in it, like that of a spiritual magnet that leads you to want what that person has: namely, God!

Yet there is also a kind of holy fear, because it becomes obvious that it is an awesome thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Your life is no longer "your own" (as if it ever was!), because he is living in it more.

He might ask you to carry the pain of the world—even of just one other human being—in a way you hadn’t ever thought of doing before. He might speak through you, admonish through you, walk in darkness in you.

Yet what a strange beauty emerges, something not of earth, yet lived on earth. It takes you over, so to speak, as you utter yet another "yes" to your God.

The way you sweep a floor shows something of this "takeover,"—the way you type, shovel, speak, split wood, study—it all begins to bear a presence that attracts, confronts, confounds.

There is more to a "yes" than meets the eye. That "more" is Christ himself, incarnate, living within our history, within our flesh. No one who has the gift of faith and exercises that gift in daily life is excluded from this divine offer.

But it is Mary our Mother
who sweetens the deal by a presence that heals fear and overcomes reluctance. "Just let him have his way," she seems to whisper. "It will be better if you do, I promise you! You may ‘understand’ less, but you will ‘be’ more, much more, for my Son’s kingdom. You will be my Son for his people, just by being who you were always meant to be."

There is more to a "yes" than meets the eye—as if the fate of the whole world might hinge upon it. Sounds exaggerated, I know, until you meet the Woman whose song of triumph resounds throughout the cosmos, especially in darkest hours.

When you "hear" this song, you want to join in the chorus, adding your "yes" to hers. It is faith like this that conquers a world for God.