Reflection for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception - December 8, 2023 

Sister Nicole Kunze 

On this feast day of the Virgin Mary, when I reflect on Mary’s fiat, her yes to God, I am pulled into the ordinariness of the event.  Last Advent, I read The Reed of God by Caryll Houselander for the first time.  What a wonderfully rich book!  In the section entitled Fiat, Houselander writes about the ordinariness of Mary’s life.  “She was not asked to lead a special kind of life.  She was simply to remain in the world.  She was to give Him her daily life.”  God is asking the same thing of each one of us.  God is asking us to be faithful to the commitment we made, whether that is to our family, our monastic community, our church community, or some other type of commitment.   

We are to offer the dailyness of our lives, the tasks, duties, and activities that compose it all.  Saint Benedict set for us a way of life where the daily schedule repeats over and over again and we are asked to show up, to participate in that life each and every day.  After more than 25 years of monastic life, I’m finding my relationship with God growing deeper through the dailyness of the liturgy of the hours, the Eucharist, and my personal prayer and reflection.  There may be an epiphany now and then, but it’s the ordinary things of life where I’m finding God and feel I’m living out what He is asking of me.   

So, I would ask us to consider:  In my ordinary life, can I say yes to God?