Today we hold up the Virgin Mary as a source inspiration. For anyone of us, it would be extraordinary to make it through a single day without committing some sort of sin - a lie, an act of impatience or anger, the giving in to a base desire. By way of contrast Mary lived each day in God's grace.

Mary could have sinned. She was capable of sinning but didn't; unlike all of us who are capable of sinning. But through the grace of God and by her choices she remained sinless her whole life. Mary lived her whole life in the state in which Adam and Eve lived before their sin. Her life, like ours, was a series of choices between good and bad, self and other, God's will and her own. Her glory, for which all generations will call her blessed, is that in every instance she said, "I am your servant. Let it be done to me in accordance with your word." She, who was full of grace, said, "Your will be done, not mine." She relied upon God her whole life and thus is a role model for all of us.