 This isn't one of them. Praise be Jesus Christ. Eminence Cardinal Turkson, my brother clergy, dear seminarians, and my dear friend professor. Praise be Jesus Christ now and forever. Now, I don't know about you, but many of us have attended conferences for our own ministerial enrichment or vocational reinforcement and asked ourselves halfway through the presentation A nice talk. Where is he going with this? This day, Jesus cries to the center of our presentation, viewing his ministry through the apostolic lens, right and left lens, namely humility and obedience. I will begin with humility, follow with obedience, providing three scriptural references for both. References which hopefully will be seared into our minds and our hearts, especially as so many of us have made those promises. Finally, I will conclude with the first Christian disciple, Mary, the mother of God and her instruction to you and to me as fellow missionary disciples venturing as we serve our brothers and sisters in this third millennium of Christianity. Remember, missionary discipleship is not merely doing what Jesus commands. Missionary discipleship requires both hearing and understanding. And then finally, missionary discipleship depends on faithful missionary leadership. We all share the Christian motto, if I may. It's all about Jesus and his compassionate mercy, period. Now, some of you may have heard this story before, but in my first year as a bishop here in the diocese of Steubenville, Catholic Schools Week, I had opportunity to visit all 13 of our Catholic schools in the diocese. And in the center of my diocese, on Wednesday I had a chance to visit, this was on Tuesday, I had a chance to visit with the school. They had a preschool and there were 12 students in this preschool, four-year-olds, and I walked in and I could hear them giggling around the corner. I thought, okay, this would be pretty cool. I mean, if you ever have a bad day, go visit four-year-olds and the day's great after that. Well, it so happens, I come around the corner and they're giggling, but as soon as I come around the corner, the giggling stops and the eyes are like saucers looking at me. Like I just came from the planet Mars. They're looking at me and I go, hello, how you doing? Dead silence, nothing. So I decide to walk a little closer to them. I said, how are you doing? And you can see the teachers are trying to egg them on and nothing. So I finally go down on one knee. How old are you? I pretty much, I level and one of the young ladies walks over to the teacher, whispers in her ear and the teacher says, four years old. I'm thinking they're four years old and they already have a spokesperson. So I look over their shoulder and there are these pictures in the back. I don't know if anybody here is familiar with when we used to make turkeys growing up. We'd have it like this. You had the head and you'd have the feathers. Well, if you do it upside down and black and put a beak on it with some eyes, you have a penguin. And so all these penguins up there with names of each one of the students there. And so I looked up there and I said, are you studying penguins? And they go, yes. And I'm like, great, they talk. So I said, what do penguins eat? Nothing. Nothing, but whatsoever. I said, okay, do they snickers bars or do they eat Big Macs or Whoppers? No, no, no, no, they eat fish. They eat, okay, good, good. Now where do they live? They live in the Sahara Desert? No, no, no, no, they live in South America. I said, well, what do they do? Do they basically fly around or no, no, they swim? I said, well, did they take an airplane? No, no, they, finally, one of the young ladies walks up to the teacher and goes, he knows nothing about penguins. Within five minutes I went from scary bishop to stupid bishop. But what happens here, one of the acts that I did, if you saw that, one of the physical acts, I went down on my knee, eye level. My brothers, is that not how we pray in supplication, in humility? In Matthew chapter 6 verses 6 through 15, we have the Lord's prayer, in particular beginning at verse 9, how this is how you are to pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. When we pray, we go down on our knees. So let's begin with the fundamentals. What is prayer? We all are quite familiar with the expression, lex orrandi, lex credendi. Or the working definition from the Catechism. Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God, or the requesting of good things from God. Prayer is a gift from God. God reveals himself to us in the midst of our worldly distractions in prayer. Prayer is not always reduced to spontaneity. No, prayer is intentional. Prayer is conversation with God. It is in prayer where humility begins. In prayer we do not seek to bend God's will to ours, but we seek to know God's will. And in the Lord's prayer, Jesus reshapes prayer. It's not so much the repetition of words. It's the substance of the words. It's the inclination and subordination of heart and mind behind these words. Think about it in the third petition in this Lord's prayer. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Thy will be done. At times, challenges teach us how to pray. We want God to intervene in our favor. But in fact, we should allow God to answer in his own way, in his own will, and for his will to become our will. Who does God's will in heaven God himself? In the Holy Spirit, God the Father gives of himself to the Son, who in turn gives of himself to the Father. Here is where the angels and the saints find perfect fulfillment in God's ever-giving eternal presence. In blessed existence, they live by the spirit of God without compulsion or effort, through word and action because by their very nature they cannot do otherwise. And they have an unimpeded view of God, and it is good. In heaven, God's will is done effortlessly. But on earth, it can be difficult because God's holy truth is not easily recognized in the midst of the worldly distractions or attractions. In heaven, the blessed are holy because they are unable to sin. The air they breathe and the force of their existence is divine perfection. They cannot do other than God's eternal will, and their love is their freedom. Do you and I want that? Of course we do. To manifest it here on earth. Our second scripture is from the Gospel According to Matthew chapter 20 verse 28. Just so the Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as ransom for many. My brothers, Jesus didn't do this and then say, okay, go everybody else, do your thing. No, we're meant to understand and to do, to embrace. And that entails humility. A couple of years ago, I engaged in a survey of all the family's households in the diocese of Steubenville. And lo and behold, nearly 25% of the households responded. Everything from what is your general impression of the diocese, what can we do? And we were able to establish four priorities in the midst of all that, but I won't get into it. That'll be another talk, another homily. But I also shared the surveys with my priests. For them to grade the chancery. That's dangerous. What's more dangerous, I had them grade me as well. Yes, I probably went in an area where angels were feared to tread. But that's good. If I am not open to criticism, I cannot be a better bishop, a better shepherd. And I took to heart the commendations and recommendations. Yes, that's humility. I mean, certainly as Pope Francis says, there is no humility without humiliation. That builds us up. And that's important, because priests will have different impressions of me. But in the end, they need to know that they trust me, that I trust them, that I have their six, as they say. That's so important. Yes, I open myself up to criticism. Maybe it's because I was a baby bishop. But it made me a better bishop as a result. That criticism, those commendations and those recommendations. That's what it means to serve, not to for us to live in our own little world, because we're taught these days in secular relativism that perception is reality, when in fact we know contrary. Perception is just that. Our opinion, our subject of focus on the reality in front of us. We need to be calibrated with reality. We need our GPS to be adjusted by God himself. There's an article I read a while back from a Carmelite, Father Nicholas Blackwell, who speaks about Christ's face, a revelation of humility. And he says, the face of Christ is the face of God, has chosen to reveal himself to us in that face, and is a means to reveal our own humanity to us. God's embrace of the human condition, which God himself has created, shows us the path to understanding what it means to love one another as I have loved you. As God has shown us his path of love to the face of Jesus, we are invited to walk down that path with him, through him and in him. Every step we take, though, is done in the spirit of humility. Humility is that blessed gate. God has fashioned that allows the Holy Spirit to enter the heart and purify it with the flames of divine love. It is the face of Jesus greeting us at the gate that gives us the strength to open it. Humility creates within a person a perspective that allows him or her to see and to know that the world around herself or himself does not depend upon them. And unlike Atlas, the presence of humility removes the burden from the person's shoulders. The world and our very lives are not ours to hold up. And he quotes St. Teresa of Benedicto of the Cross, either Stein, she teaches that it is necessary to put oneself entirely into God's hands without any human assurances. All the deeper and more beautiful the sense of being safe in him. In fact, a childlike heart is a way we say yes to God and to allow him to carry us so that we may be able to focus on his compassionate eyes. My brothers, we can never overstate that by virtue the life of Jesus Christ lives within us, by virtue of our baptism, by virtue of our ordination. As individuals and as an ecclesiastical community, drawing us together in word and sacrament, most especially in the sacrifice of the mass, the Eucharist. Third scripture passage, humility. The Gospel according to Matthew chapter 26 verses 36 to 39. Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane and he said to his disciples, sit here while I go over there and pray. He took along Peter and the two sons of Zebedee and began to feel sorrow and distress. Then he said to them, my soul is sorrowful even to death. Remain here and keep watch with me. He advanced a little and fell prostrate in prayer, saying, my father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will. Years ago I had the honor to be a rector president of Sacred Heart Major Seminary. And every month I would provide a rector's conference to those seminarians, enlightening them, just in terms of what it, I guess you would say, to synthesize what they've learned in the classroom, what they've learned in prayer, in the chapel, and how to apply it, of course, in parish life. And they're not simply passing all these classes, jumping through hoops in order to have hands placed on their head. That is not the goal to become like Jesus Christ is. But that means to let go and also to embrace humility. I said, in fact, I recalled as a pastor of a parish before I came to the seminary, oftentimes people would walk and we have a lot of deacons and priests out there. How many deacons do we have out here? How many priests? You can keep your hands. So how many holy orders, okay? I can raise my hand too. Cardinal Turks and also, yes, all three orders. You can put your hands down. I don't want to answer the question, but how many of us, after Mass, if we are shaking hands as people are leaving Sunday morning or Saturday evening, we would homely father or good homely deacon. Now, we could get ourselves in trouble and ask, what did you like about it? And we would be in trouble. Because we know, really, translated, good homely means good evening or good morning. And I mentioned that to the seminaries because their job in delivering the homely, their mandate is not necessarily to be liked or to be affirmed by every of the parish. You want your homely to impact people, but sometimes you have to share difficult news. That sometimes becomes difficult for some people. You don't want to admit, we do not make it in which it is impossible for them to follow our words. That's a homely failure. We are spiritual enablers. And to do so, we need to keep our hearts open to God's work, and that requires our humility. As I mentioned, doesn't our Holy Father, Pope Francis, say there is no humility without humiliation? Jesus Christ, passion and death. Here we hear this, right at the seminary. Jesus, passion and death underscore that very fact. In his apostolic exhortation, gaudete exaltate, rejoice and be glad, Pope Francis reminds us that we are justified by the grace of God, not by our own works or efforts. In the second chapter of this exhortation, the Holy Father shares the teachings of St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil the Great. The first, John Chrysostom instructs, God pours into us the very source of all gifts even before we enter the battle. And the second, St. Basil the Great, he teaches us to be faithful and to be faithful is to realize that you and I really do lack true justice and are only justified through faith in Christ. We read in the Competitum of the Catholic Church, the Catechism, that the prayer of Jesus during the agony in the garden, the garden of Gethsemane, and his last words on the cross reveal the depth of his filial prayer, his sonship. Jesus brings to completion the loving plan of the Father. He brings to completion the loving plan of the Father and takes upon himself all the anguish of humanity and all the petitions and intercessions of the history of salvation. Yes, even 2018, he presents them to the Father who accepts them and answers them beyond all hope by raising his son from the dead. Remember, my brothers, in using a sports metaphor, in Jesus Christ, God has already brought this salvation history, this game, if I might, to a close. Jesus has already won. Our ministerial mandate is to bring this game to a dignified conclusion through our apostolic work. You say, here is the perfect segue from humility to obedience. That's good, Bishop. We're going to see if we're going to bring that up. For it is in the prayer of Gethsemane, the human will transforms into the divine will. As Heaven said, a true man is born and humanity is redeemed. I was ordained a deacon December of 1992, December 19th, and I was ordained a priest in 1994 on June 25th, and on June 26th, 2012, I received a phone call. And I just celebrated my 18th anniversary with my brother priest. It was the next day I had just become a pastor of a parish. Just, well, I became a pastor on May 5th, so it was just seven weeks earlier, finishing my six years as rector of the seminary. I was pretty geeked. I had a school of 1,100 kids, a parish of 4,800 families, with an associate on the way. We had a lot of work to do. And that evening, after I came back from a couple of the hospital visits, my secretary informed me that I had received a phone call from somebody. Actually, I went upstairs and I realized in the office it wasn't one, but six. Each one of those messages were two seconds in length, dead silence. So I thought, well, it's got to be somebody who's got issues, and that's the way it is. Yeah, you're right, issues in the church, you're kidding? So I thought nothing of it. Went back to my rectory, made myself, at the time I was by myself, I did not have a cook, so I made what any guy will do if he's living in the house by himself, lean cuisine. And they were spring rolls. Made them, I zapped them in the microwave, sat down to watch the news and making phone calls and meetings in the evening. And I recognized when I was in the kitchen I had received a phone call. And it was the Apostolic Nuncio for the United States, Archbishop Vigano. And he indicated, said, Monsignor Monfortin, this is the Nuncio, I need to speak with you, please call me as soon as possible. Well, thank goodness I have caller ID on my cell phone, but my first thought was, whenever somebody in authority over you asks if I'm going to need to speak to you, they don't say why. My first thought is, what did I do wrong? I'm scanning my head. I didn't do anything that kept the attention of anybody, let alone the Nuncio. I called him and the Nuncio said, Monsignor Monfortin, Pope Benedict, wishes to appoint you Bishop of Steubenville, what is your answer? I did not even know we were missing a bishop. I didn't pay attention to stuff like that, I was focused on the parish. Well, obviously you know what I said. I scanned my memory, is there anything? It was my will. I was happy in the parish, I entered the seminary, I wanted to be a parish priest, but it's thy will be done. When it comes to obedience, there was nothing at all to convince me to say no. So my answer was, please tell the Holy Father I humbly accept the appointment. And then the Nuncio mentioned, well Monsignor Monfortin, I understand you just became pastor of the parish. And I said, yes I did. And he goes, I'm sorry. I thought so am I. But I'm so grateful because that's how the Lord leads us. We don't make those plans, we follow. And I say that because I've had a number of assignments as a priest. Say a little bit more about that in a little bit. But each one of those assignments I never asked to leave it. I was asked to go to it. And to exercise my service to the best of my ability. Obedience. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we find that the submission to the authority of God which acquires everyone to obey the divine law. Obedience to the church is required in those things which pertain to our salvation. And obedience is due to legitimate civil authority which has its origin in God for the sake of the common good in the order of society. Obedience is one of the evangelical councils. What is an evangelical council bishop? Good question. The new law proposed by Jesus to live the perfection of the Christian life. They remove whatever is incompatible with charity. Instilling mercy. The consecrated life embraces the councils of poverty, chastity, and obedience. And what about the obedience of Jesus Christ? My brothers, Jesus Christ gave his obedience to the will of the Father. Even to suffering and death. This has been done in response to the disobedience of sin, offering us instead the grace of justification to satisfy our sins. Need I remind anybody, the Code of Canna Law, Canon 273, clerics are bound by a special obligation to show reverence and obedience to the supreme pontiff and their ordinary promises made at ordination to the diaconate as well as the presbyteral ordination, as well as the Episcopacy. Pastoris tabovobis, I will make you shepherds after my own heart, in the words of the prophet Jeremiah, is quite clear that all of us priests and bishops alike to be effective in nature and effective in sharing our ecclesial solicitude. Together we must be dedicated to the evangelical care of the people of God, our brothers and sisters. This also means we need to be constantly attuned to the condition in which we find ourselves in the present moment. This is for the good of the local church. Yes, priests in my diocese at times will disagree with me, such as they may follow the Pittsburgh penguins and I follow the Detroit Red Wings. Not to make light of it, but the method of some dying may be a question, but the goal shall never be. And I do expect complete obedience from my priests just as Pope Francis expects my complete obedience as well. In a Vatican letter to priests on obedience in 2009, Archbishop Piazenza, secretary of the congregation of clergy at the time plainly stated, even if they are not bound by a solemn vow of obedience, ordinands profess a promise of filial respect and obedience to their own ordinary and his successors. If the theological standing of a vow and a promise is different, the total and definitive moral obligation is identical. And likewise identical is the offering of one's will to the will of another, to the divine will mediated through the church. Such a promise respects the dignity of the person, never abandonment of responsibility. We live in a society that embraces relativism and autonomous individualism as cultural deities. This approach is incompatible to an even incomprehensible with obedience. For autonomous individualism views Holy Order's obedience as a compromise of human freedom and dignity, when in fact you and I promise to remain in the truth, to be in continuity with the ages which are part of salvation history. I mentioned to you that I've had a number of assignments. As a priest, in 1994 I served at the National Shrine, well actually it was just the Shrine of Little Flower in Royal Oak, Michigan before it became a National Shrine and now a Basilica. I was there for a couple of years and then my ordinary at the time Cardinal Maida sent me to Rome to work on graduate studies. And I was there for a couple of years, I returned and then I was Cardinal Maida's pre-secretary for seven years finishing with the funeral of St. John Paul and the conclave of Pope Benedict. For the next 15 months I was pastor over at Santorreza-Lizzo Parish in Shelby Township. Mind you I said 15 months. Because then Cardinal Maida asked for me to become rector of Sacred Heart Major Seminary where I was at from 2006 to 2012. And then in May, beginning of May 2012 I became pastor at St. Andrew's in Rochester and then in June I received the phone call. Translated, I can't hold a job. No, actually I'm grateful it's five and a half almost six years now I love it being here but each and every time I was asked I didn't petition, I didn't say get me out of here I had a job to do. I had work to do on behalf of Christ and his church. And I would do it to the best of my ability. Matthew chapter five verse three blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Does not this beatitude communicate that in giving we receive and also in giving also in our obedience we take a risk. St. Gregory of Nisa a fourteenth or fourth century bishop an ardent defender of our belief in the Holy Trinity and that Jesus is both God and man beliefs that got him exiled in the Christian Roman Empire by a group that denied the full divinity of Christ and they had the emperor's ear at the time. St. Gregory says that the quality of our holiness is not demonstrated so much by what we say but by what we do in life. How do we mold our lives after the words of the Lord? How are you and I poor in spirit? Meek, being the light of the world. Our service, our role as Christians is to recommit our brothers and sisters to faith in God's saving action. In one of our mausoleums at the diocese and cemetery I just dedicated an area that's the bishop's section. Now there's only one bishop there, bishop Muzio the first bishop that dies in the Stubborn bill but there are other niches above him and I have a quote at the top in Latin and then translated in English just before that realizing that 99% of the people who look at the Latin would be that's pretty what it means but it says down right under that from St. Augustine of Hippo for you I am a bishop with you I am a Christian smell the sheep we must be with our brothers and sisters we don't legislate behind desks thank goodness we are here to recommit our brothers and sisters to faith in God's God bless you God's saving action didn't think I'd say that did you? You see reason compliments faith just as we need God to sustain hope and that first essential setting of learning hope is we'll go all the way back to the beginning prayer for we can always talk to God yes blessed are the poor in spirit recognizing that when the day is done you and I are not totally self sufficient we depend on him we are obedient and our inheritance is Jesus Christ to be poor in spirit means that we are waiting to be poor in spirit means that in absence of Jesus Christ we are incomplete put on the obedience of Jesus the same obedience he wore he wore his obedience to his heavenly father our heavenly father I'll put it this way Jesus has saved us but we still remain in an advent of waiting for all history to come to fulfillment the game is won but we have a role not static but active so let us ask ourselves at the end of the day in obedience how do you and I give thanks to God who has showered upon us both joys and challenges or through our own selfishness how have you and I poisoned ourselves by a spirit of entitlement on this very beatitude Father Contalamessa the preacher of the papal household says it is the evangelist Matthew who writes like a teacher with a catechetical intention to make explicit the religious meaning of the word poor in Jewish spirituality and in Jesus' thinking in the adding of in spirit the poor means intelligent and unfortunate the hungry my brothers are you hungry in Hebrew the corresponding word is a familiar one that word had the connotation of bowed down or crushed humiliated oppressed the best exegesis of this beatitude is the life of Jesus Christ himself look at 2 Corinthians chapter 8 verse 9 Jesus made himself poor materially so that we can be rich spiritually St. Thomas Aquinas states it well that when he says that Jesus did not become poor so that we can have earthly possessions and abundance don't we hear that time to time when it comes to preachers out there follow God and you're going to have a ton of money no Jesus became poor in order that we may be sons of God and heirs to his heavenly kingdom Romans 1.5 through him we have received the grace of apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among the Gentiles brothers we need to get out among our brothers and sisters one of the initiatives I had implemented two years after two years two months after I was ordained a bishop was the practice called ask the bishop and it's in our diocesan paper once a month I have K through 12 kids will submit the questions and I will publish three questions and of course the accompanying answers now I've learned that while the kids are the ones who submit the questions from our schools or catechetical programs it tends to be the older kids like your age that read the answers well telling of course is to see for me it tells me what are the concern what are the issues because often times the kids are asking questions they're basically being surrogates to their parents they're asking the questions they're sharing their parents' concerns but we're making impact a couple of the questions that came to me though were quite telling and I will never be able to print these two I can't ever print because we print the name of the student with the parents permission as well as the parish they come from one question comes from a student the question was why is mass so long can't publish that because it's going to have the location that pastor is going to have a lot of red on his face so didn't do that but another one even more telling and deeper more profound Bishop can I have new godparents because the ones I have are not part of my life boy isn't that condemnation or indictment you're right I could not print that one either but those words means there's a desire to learn to know yes there's a lot of confusion with the culture in which we find ourselves but deep down the soul thirsts and you and I are the ones to share Jesus Christ with others to satisfy that longing if we don't hear them we fail, we fail, we fail we've got to hear where are our brothers and sisters and how do we meet them yes Roman says to him we have received the grace of apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the Gentiles you know how many of us have thought we should have been or should be entrusted with more that our talents are wasted on responsibilities minimal entrusted to us it's not about us it's about Jesus Christ within the context of obedience St. Paul reminds us that what we have received is unmerited for God freely bestows his gifts upon us our obedience expresses our faith our obedience expresses our faith if you didn't hear that our obedience expresses our faith you know how many times are we tempted to gain heaven in this neopelagian manner as Pope Francis pointedly instructs an engine driven by pride instead of exercising trusting acceptance in the mission of God that he has placed before us faith and obedience are inseparable and both themes complement each other throughout the Pauline letters no we have not earned or merited the gifts of holy orders yes there are times like I can't wait I've done a lot I can't wait to be ordained but again it's God's call not ours we say yes but God does the inviting first we have not earned or merited the gifts of the holy orders we have been entrusted with them put them on configured in order to win souls for Jesus Christ even if we find ourselves in of course a neopelagian a neo-nostic world Philippians 2 verses 7 through 8 rather he emptied himself taking the form of a slave coming in human likeness and found human in appearance he humbled himself becoming obedient to death even death on a cross St. Paul is quite direct in telling us that we have someone to follow and we have something to follow Jesus canosis or his self emptying by taking on our own human nature Jesus incarnation is not a God bucket list item its purpose his purpose is our salvation it has been said that this passage mirrors the Gospel according to John chapter 1 verse 14 the word became flesh still the focus here is on the incarnation of Jesus Christ to place this in the proper context St. Paul alludes to the servile state which would have made quite an impact on the Philippi community that ancient Philippi community one that possessed great pride in social status bragging about all that each person has done it could be 2018 look at social media but fast forward in the scripture passage from St. Paul to the Philippians to Jesus Christ's crucifixion this as you know would have been the most humiliating manner in which to die in the ancient world in a city where citizens boast of their accomplishments St. Paul counters with the greatest accomplishment of all Jesus self emptying humility in complete obedience to God the Father the obedience of the son to the father Jesus as a humble servant defines our earthly life among us it defines holy orders of who we are that self emptying that complete obedience when I visit our schools I like to visit the science classes in high school because they're going to be embarking into a world that says faith and reason are incompatible or science and religion are incompatible and I explain to them how if you get 99% of a test right you get an A in our school system if you get 90% you get a B, 80% a C and so on and I said you know when it comes to God creating the universe creating reality as we know it when it comes to the law of gravity if God would have got it right the law of gravity 99.9999 and add 3.9 billion after that percent right he would have failed God had to nail it and that's just the law of gravity I have to mention the second law of thermodynamics and all these other laws out there that are well beyond my pay grade God had to nail it and when it comes to obedience we have to nail it it doesn't come down to obedience up to this point I'm not going to follow up no it's either yes or no and who best to exemplify this but our lady the Immaculate Heart of Mary she is the patroness of the diocese the Steubenville and just a year ago I reconsecrated our diocese to the Immaculate Heart and I firmly believe this reconsecration has given us strength and resolve in the midst of our own challenges and the diocese right now Lord help us have we had not had that reconsecration allowing her to lead us do we not hear in the canicle of Mary the Magnificat and Mary said my soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord my spirit rejoices in God my savior for he has looked with favor upon his handmaid's loneliness behold from now on will all ages call me blessed the mighty one has done great things for me and holy is his name his mercy is from age to age I fear him he has shown might with his arm disperse the arrogant of mind and heart he has thrown down the rulers of their thrones and lifted up the lowly the hungry he has filled with good things and the rich he has sent away empty he has helped Israel his servant remembering his mercy according to his promise to our fathers to Abraham and to his descendants forever my brothers the prophet Isaiah tells of the rejoicing and blessedness of one such as Mary the mother of Jesus the mother of God the mother of the church who follows God without reservation remember her response was like can I sleep on it no fia vons us to all be it done to me according to your word namely Mary's answer is with an undivided heart it's a hundred percent 99 not 99.999 you get the point a hundred percent and in doing so Mary our mother gives praise to God and what God he has done and will continue to do in his son Mary's son Jesus the Christ in her humility Mary exemplifies humility manifesting both mercy and joy all within the holy context of her loving obedience to God brethren humility is a Christian attribute that cannot be replicated or matched it has a strength that has no peer humility and obedience enjoy a symbiotic relationship as we have heard today in sacred scripture through the words and life of Jesus himself as we embark into our respective apostolic work and ministry we can share that missionary discipleship through humility and obedience joyfully joyfully be contagious yes joyful is Mary the immaculate heart is joyful as fellow members of God's plan of salvation fiat ointas tua God bless you amen