”May it be done to me according to your word”…..At the statement of Mary the gates of hell trembled!….And when we say that statement to this very day….The gates of hell tremble once again!

Today at Holy Mass we hear from the Gospel of St Luke….Mary is presented with the impossible……”Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus”…….As we all know, Mary was a virgin and having a baby as a virgin simply does not make any sense - Right?!?…..The angel Gabriel addresses that claim……"The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren; for nothing will be impossible for God”….So here is the question…Do you really believe nothing is impossible for God? - Do we put God in a box, thinking he operates like we do?…….God can do anything…More importantly, God can use YOU to do the impossible….Our job is to respond like Mary did - With absolute trust…..Recognizing that without God we can do nothing but with God all things are possible

“Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word."

Those who know about Mother Teresa may not know that before she founded the Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa was a high school principal in an elite school for all girls in Kolkata…She served in that school for 20 years until God called her to work for the poorest of the poor in the streets…If you read about Mother Teresa's life, she would say that if she did not pick up the first person she saw in gutter, the work that God called her to do would not have happened…It began with helping that first person……All good things start small…….On one of my trips to Kolkata I visited a Leper Colony that Mother Teresa founded on the outskirts of Kolkata - The Leper Colony is still there to this day…Before Mother Teresa founded this home for lepers, people who contracted this disease literally were expelled from the city, young and old alike, left to die along the railroad tracks…No joke…So when Mother Teresa heard about the plight of those people, she went to help them with one other nun…..And under a tree, she began to distribute food and clothing…..Over time people heard about what this brave nun was doing and donations started to come in…All by the way unsolicited…Money just kept coming in…..Why do I tell you this story?…When I visited this leper colony and was told how it started and how the project grew…All I could think to myself is HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN!….How could this huge village start from two nuns giving out food and clothing from under a tree…They did not even ask for money, yet people just donated tons of money…And with the funds, they gave the lepers of Kolkata dignity, a safe place to live, they created jobs for them so they could support their families…I simply could not believe how this could happen…Literally out of no where……….As I read the gospel this morning hearing what St Gabriel said…..”For nothing will be impossible for God”…This story came to my mind…..The Missionaries of Charity serve all over the world…..Feeding and caring for thousands upon thousands of people a day…I know because I have seen this with my own eyes…Did you know that the Missionaries of Charity NEVER solicit money - Never have…That all the donations they get come in unsolicited - To this very day…..As a person who works in corporate America and has an MBA - Tell Mother Teresa “business model” to Harvard School of Business…Allow me to “pitch it” right now….We are going to have 5000 nuns and around 100,000 lay volunteers all over the world….We are going to feed hundreds of thousand of people a day…..Without asking for one penny…And all the money we need is going to come in to address what we have to do without us asking for it….That is what Mother Teresa’s “business model” looks like - No joke - And it works - To this day!….If I was to “pitch” that business model to a bank asking for a loan - What do you think the loan officer would say - Allow me to translate - BEAT IT!……Yet, this is how the Missionaries of Charity operate around the world…..How you may ask yourself?……..”For nothing will be impossible for God”

"He shall receive a blessing from the LORD, a reward from God his savior. Such is the race that seeks for him, that seeks the face of the God of Jacob."

Today we read in the gospel about the impossible…A virgin gives birth to a child…Many people in the world say - Whatever!….Did not happen!…..Or…….People read this story and say, “God can’t work the impossible in my life”…….This is what I say to all the nay-sayers - WRONG! - God can do all things!…..I have found as a father of five that when we trust in God - With a radical trust - And we do our part - God can and does do the impossible…..We just need to learn to trust him…What prevents us from this kind of trust is we do not want to “give up control”…..This mindset limits us because we are all limited…We need to remind ourself God is limitless…..When we give up control and “step out into the deep”…God steps in…..God waits for us in “that space”……As he did with Our Lady….Mary gives us the example…..She was human, just like you and I - She was confused and afraid, just like we are at times……"How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?”…But Mary “stepped past” her fears and put her hand into the hand of God and NEVER looked back….This is what we must do as well…..Step out into the deep!……”May it be done to me according to your word”…..At the statement of Mary the gates of hell trembled!….And when we say that statement to this very day….The gates of hell tremble once again!