Let it be to me...

“Because I lack great things, I have an even more binding obligation to persevere in little things.

In everything I do, my role is always that of the insignificant extra. There is only one thing I must not do: prevent or conceal what You do.

The emergence of action out of contemplation has perhaps never been so evident as in the Virgin Mary’s ‘Fiat mihi secundum Verbum tuum.’ [‘Let it be to me according to Your word.’] We see in these words the inclination to say Yes and how the consequences unfold out of that Yes like an avalanche—though the unfolding is left entirely to God’s power, and its flow is henceforth only suffered passively. It can no longer be influenced. Some elections are irrevocable; crossroads that one comes to afterward are only a sign that there is no turning back. They seem to offer a further possibility of decision, but the most vehement No would only be judged as if it were a weak Yes.

...Only when I am hard pressed and encompassed by an ultimate weakness do I sense the magnitude of Your strength. Lord, if there is no other means to bind us irrevocably to You, let us live hard pressed until the end: hard pressed by our imperfection and our incapacity; but take our refusal from us, Lord. Let it fade beyond hearing, let it perhaps become mute in anguish and affliction. And if even that still is not enough to suffocate it completely, at least let it become lifeless by refusing to hear it. Then we will no longer be mere obstacles to You, and what You have awakened will have a chance to develop.”

~Adrienne von Speyr (from Lumina – New Lumina)