Abigail is a non-Catholic friend harboring sometimes surprisingly Catholic thoughts. She suggested the title of this piece and contributed some ideas, which Your Humble Scribe wishes to share with readers.
“Two moments in salvation history hinge on a single Latin word: fiat — “let it be done,” wrote Abigail. “The first came at the dawn of Creation: Dixitque Deus: Fiat lux. Et facta est lux; ‘And God said, Let there be light. And light was made.’” (Genesis 1:3).
“Millennia later, in a quiet corner of Nazareth, another fiat was spoken — not by God, but in answer to the angel of God: Dixit autem Maria: Ecce ancilla Domini; fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum. ‘And Mary said: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done unto me according to thy word.’” (Luke 1:38)
And that is how easily, yet how momentously, the Lady Mary became a mother, God became a man, and human history was split in half.
Abigail saw how the world’s redemption hung on Mary’s “Yes.” This is the entire understanding of the title "co-redemptrix." Mary is not the Redeemer, Jesus is. However, to become man, God selected a special woman for Him to born in human history. So, then, the title simply refers to Mary's accepting the responsibility of giving birth to the Redeemer by saying "Yes" to God.
“In Genesis, God’s fiat is a command — a divine utterance that births light, order, and life,” Abigail continued. “It’s the Voice that carves cosmos from chaos. The Latin fiat lux isn’t just poetic, it’s performative.” In other words, God speaks, and atoms rush to obey.
“The Virgin’s fiat is not a command — it’s her consent,” my friend wrote. “Spoken in obscurity, without fanfare, her ‘yes’ is no mere passive acceptance. It is vigorous, courageous, and world-altering. Mary becomes the hinge of redemption. She doesn’t ask for guarantees, she only asks how the event will take place.”
Already full of grace but now overshadowed by the Holy Spirit of God, whose clouds once thundered as they enshrouded the peaks of Sinai (Exodus 19:9ff), the Lady Mary becomes the first to welcome the Word as He is made flesh.
The Virgin’s word of consent didn’t sound only in Nazareth. Echoes of her fiat rang out in Bethlehem, in Jerusalem and in Egypt; in Cana, on Calvary, and in the Upper Room, when the Queen Mother of the King of Kings was once again overshadowed by the Divine Spirit.
Mary’s fiat reverberates through every Christ-centered Advent or Christmas chant, hymn, carol, anthem and song. Abigail picked up on that theme. “In ‘O Come, O Come Emmanuel’ and other Advent music, longing touches fulfillment. Melodies highlight theology. Lyrics of longing allow singers to participate in longing to experience the mystery of the Incarnation.”
In every party and celebration of the season, believers echo the Blessed Virgin’s profound trust “in God, my savior,” as they wait for Christmas morn. The Lady Mary’s fiat rings throughout the liturgies of the four Sundays of Advent.
Home ornamentation should wait until Advent — unless you put up your Christmas decorations in early November, to greet the start of football season, as is too often seen. It reminds me of a part of family history which shows how much the culture has changed.
Eight decades ago, my sister Helen was born on Dec. 18, only one week before Christmas. Mom and Dad decided to decorate the living room and deck our front porch with colored lights as a way of making her birthday all the more special. In later years, Papa fondly told of his amusement when neighbors came by, concerned that he was “rushing the season.”
The Lady Mary’s fiat lives not only in churches and song, but echoes in homes, throughout everyday life. Since parents are their children’s first and principal teachers, Abigail says, “Mary’s fiat is further mirrored in the mother who forgives her child again. In the father who works quietly to provide and joins his wife in helping their kids each week with their homework. In the widow who lights a candle alone. In the priest who approaches the altar with a steady heart.
“Mary’s fiat is heard when a toddler rearranges the Nativity scene. It is there, in a grandmother humming 'Silent Night' while stirring the soup she made from scratch. The Virgin’s fiat is in the chaos of Christmas morning, where wrapping paper flies, and grace sneaks in through a family’s laughter.”
Your Humble Scribe believes Mary’s fiat rings joyously when a newborn baby is looked upon with love — parents gazing at their child as Mary and Joseph once did: the manger crib is quietly mirrored in hospital rooms and living rooms.
Abigail went on, “Mary’s fiat wasn’t merely a feeling, a whim. It was a decision. A posture. A rhythm of obedience that doesn’t demand full understanding, only faith. So, whenever anyone, man or woman, boy or girl, faces a moral dilemma — a crossroads — and chooses trust over certainty, surrender to God over personal control by saying 'yes' to God’s will, regardless of the cost, they echo Mary’s courageous fiat.
“In a world that prizes control, Mary’s fiat is countercultural. It says: 'I don’t need to understand to obey. I don’t need to see the end to begin.'”
Many of us, Catholics and Protestants, dust off a Mary statuette in early December for their Christmas creches. Then put her away again for another year. Some are afraid to think about her in relation to her Son. But Mary’s fiat goes to the very heart of Christmas. Echoes of the Lady Mary’s fiat are heard each time we say, “And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”
So, then, we see God’s fiat lux united to Mary’s fiat mihi. For both fiats are united in Jesus: “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness; and the darkness grasped it not” (John 1:4, 5). Reverberations of these fiats echo throughout the ages until the end of time.
Sean M. Wright, MA, award-winning journalist, Emmy nominee, and Master Catechist for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, is a parishioner at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Santa Clarita, Calif. He answers comments at [email protected].
