Pope Benedict XVI: MARY’S FAITH

Just as Abraham’s faith was the beginning of the Old Covenant, Mary’s faith, enacted in the scene of the Annunciation, is the inauguration of the New. For Mary, as for Abraham, faith is trust in, and obedience to God, even when he leads her through darkness. It is a letting go, a releasing, a handing over of oneself to the truth, to God. Faith, in the luminous darkness of God’s inscrutable ways, is thus a conformation to him …

Mary, saying Yes to the birth of the Son of God from her womb by the power of the Holy Spirit, places her body, her entire self, at God’s disposal as a place for his presence. In her Yes, then, Mary’s will coincides with her Son’s. The unison of these yeses – “a body you have prepared for me” – makes the Incarnation possible, for, as Augustine says, Mary conceived in Spirit before she conceived in her body.