CHESAPEAKE, Va. (Catholic Online) - Several years ago I was an invited guest at a celebration of the life and ministry of a significant evangelical Protestant leader.

It was a “black tie” affair, accompanied with all the fanfare. Held in a posh ballroom in Southern California, it was a nice opportunity for my wife and me to experience this kind of an event and to pay tribute to this man who had touched our own lives in many ways.

I was one of only a handful of Catholics who attended the event and I was honored to be there to pay tribute to this man.

At the end of the evening, Reverend Jack Hayford, a giant of evangelical Protestantism, and a man of great integrity, gave the concluding tribute, address and prayer to conclude the nights’ festivities.

Most of the evening was filled with accolades, music, stellar performances, multi-media presentations and the consumption of the finest of food fare. There was nothing inappropriate about it all. It was all well intended and everyone enjoyed the evening.

For my wife and me it was doubly unusual.

We were in a grand, lavish ballroom, surrounded mostly by Christians of a different tradition and “culture” than our own as Catholics. We did not fit in. That was not that unusual. Over many years I have been the “Catholic guy” in collaborative efforts with evangelical Protestants and other Christians. It is a unique distinctive of my own vocation. It flows from a long term commitment to integrate my faith, my life and my convictions by living in the “real” world. Hopefully it is also a response to my hope that my small efforts can make a meaningful contribution to the common good.

However, I was truly surprised at the final fare that ended this lavish event. It was better than any of the food courses because it satisfied a deeper human hunger, a hole in the soul. Pastor Hayford’s message, (to the surprise of some), was that we are living in, what he called a “Mary Moment.”

With genuine affection and deep insight he broke open the meaning of the life and mission of the mother of the Lord as a model for all in that room and beyond who would follow her Son in the Third Christian Millennium.

I was delighted because I agree.

Through an inspiring exegesis of the biblical text often called the “Magnificat”, and using the few other references to Mary in the biblical texts, he offered the life of the Mother of the Lord as a model for all Christians and encouraged all those present to follow the path of simplicity, humility and obedience.

He emphasized the particular words spoken by Mary at the Wedding Feast of Cana when, after imploring her Son to perform His first public miracle (ah, the powerful intercession of a mother!) she directed those who were serving to: “Do whatever He tells you.”

With characteristic evangelical fervor and a heart of compassion he suggested to all of us that as we approached the Third Christian Millennium, we were living in a “Mary Moment.”

Over the years since that event, we have crossed over what John Paul II called the “threshold of hope” and we have entered the Third Millennium.

Truly understanding, and living, the implications of what that good preacher called this “Mary Moment,” could help us all. Mary is a model of true humility and a needed antidote to an age of arrogance.

There is a lot of misunderstanding, fear and sincere disagreement concerning so much of what has evolved over two thousand years of Christian history as it relates to this little Virgin of Nazareth. Some of the practices of piety that have evolved around efforts to honor her in my own tradition are subjects of great tension with other Christians.

Yet we all believe that she was chosen to bear the Word of Life. Perhaps we can begin by acknowledging that the heart (and fruit) of true "Marian" piety in any Christian’s life should be the rare and priceless virtue of humility. It was this virtue that so characterized her response of faith to the invitation of the Holy Spirit in her own life. When understood in this sense, this kind of "Marian" piety is not only piety but prophecy.

Those who live surrendered lives of poured out love, like Mother Theresa of Calcutta, are esteemed these days by all who have the eyes to see precisely because of the way that they personify the Love that they profess.

They make that love real in the flesh.

In conforming their lives to love they are not arrogant, rather they are prophetic. In that sense they are also “incarnational”. They “en-flesh” the gospel, the “good news” and show forth the Love of Jesus Christ in ways that transform other peoples lives. Ultimately, one person at a time, they literally change the world around them.

A great hero of the Christian faith, Francis of Assisi once captured the spirit of ...