Exodus 38:28. "And of the thousand seven hundred and seventy-five shekels he made hooks for the pillars, and overlaid their capitals and made fillets for them." The "he" here is Bezalel, a skilled artisan who the Lord told Moses was to help build the sanctuary. "See, the Lord has called by name Bezalel ... and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability, with intelligence, with knowledge, and with all craftsmanship." Exodus 35:30-31.

Bezalel did tremendous work designing and building the sanctuary and all of its component parts (including the ark of the covenant described in detail in Exodus 37:1-9). In fact, much of chapters 36 and 39, and all of chapters 37 and 38, of Exodus describe everything Bezalel did in detail. It is incredible! It is sentence after sentence of "He made... " "He made... " "He made..." followed by descriptions of the most amazing works of art and design. Reading page after page of this tremendous creativity and workmanship of Bezalel can get a little disheartening, to be honest. Why did God give this one man such ability and talent? It hardly seems fair! Of course, while Bezalel clearly designed and oversaw all the work, there were plenty of other workers adding their skills and labor in order to bring all of these things into existence. ("And Moses called Bezalel and Oholiab and every able man in whose mind the Lord had put ability, every one whose heart stirred him up to come do the work." Exodus 36:2) Despite his massive talent, Bezalel could never have built God's sanctuary on his own.

This reading made me think of how I think of Mary sometimes. I love and admire her so much, but sometimes her perfection in all virtue can be a bit intimidating and overwhelming - something I would love to aspire to but know I can never achieve! But she is so approachable and loving, and she wants to bring me and all of us as close to her Son as we can possibly be. She wants to help us build our virtue and find and use our abilities. She is the most perfect of God's creatures, but even she knows she cannot do everything on her own. In fact, not she, nor Bezalel, nor any of us, can do anything on our own - it all comes from God, but we can choose to use what He has given us to cooperate with Him, and that is when amazing things happen!

God has put some kind of ability in each of us, and He wants to stir up our hearts to use it to build His Kingdom. Most of us will never be as talented as Bezalel, and none of us will ever be as virtuous as Mary, but God created us to use our talents as best we can, just as He did the two of them. God needed both Bezalel and Mary at the time that He needed them, and He created and chose the right man and woman for the job! Most of us are not called to the same level of talent or perfection, but we are all called to use our abilities in the best possible way for the furtherance of God's plan. We are each the right man or woman for some job; God will show us what it is if we let Him, and Mary will help us get there.