The final reality, and the ultimate fact of our total situation to which we need to be adjusted,
is God. That indeed would be my definition of God: God is He with whom we have ultimately to deal, the final reality to which we have to face up, and with whom we have in the last resort to reckon.
- John Baillie (1886-1960), Christian Devotion
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ZEP 3:14-18A; ISAIAH 12:2-3, 4BCD,
5-6
LK 1:39-56
Mary set out
and traveled to the hill country in haste
to a town of Judah,
where she entered the house of Zechariah
and greeted Elizabeth.
When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting,
the infant
leaped in her womb,
and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit,
cried out in a loud voice and said,
"Most blessed are you among women,
and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
And how does this happen to me,
that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears,
the infant in my womb leaped for joy.
Blessed are you who believed
that what was spoken to you by the Lord
would be
fulfilled."
And Mary said:
"My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those
who fear him
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
the promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children for
ever."
Mary remained with her about three months
and then returned to her home.
Reflection on the
Scriptures |
This feast is one of the older celebrations of Mary, built on a biblical text in Luke’s gospel. The story is familiar – the young Mary has been visited by a messenger of God and not only invited to bear God’s child to the world, but informed that her cousin is also miraculously pregnant, with the child who, according to John’s Gospel, is destined to be
the greatest of all the prophets of the original covenant.
The text from the Prophet Zephaniah is one of the return-from-exile prophecies to the people of Israel. In this case, Israel is the paradigm for the entire world that is in exile from God because of sin. We can rejoice now – all of us – because our exile from our own humanity, from the rest of
Creation, and from God’s self, is finally coming to an end. Salvation is about healing the three curses of Genesis 3: 16-24 that afflict us because of human refusal to allow God to be our God. This refusal is one of arrogance and, we learn from the gospel, that those that practice such an attitude will be restored to their humanity only by pulling them away from their false power or wealth. (The mighty will be unseated and the rich sent away empty, Luke
asserts).
The lowly are redeemed from their separation by being raised up to their true dignity. Those who know the truth of their human condition are “happy” – that is, made righteous by God’s mercy and love.
- by Eileen Burke-Sullivan
Revelations of Divine
Love - by Julian of Norwich
Fourteenth Revelation, Chapter 51
“He is the Head, and we be His
members.” “Therefore our Father nor may nor will more blame assign to us than to His own Son, precious and worthy Christ” And therefore me behoveth now to tell three properties in which I am somewhat eased. The first is the beginning of teaching that I understood therein, in the same time; the second is
the inward teaching that I have understood therein afterward; the third, all the whole Revelation from the beginning to the end (that is to say of this Book) which our Lord God of His goodness bringeth oftentimes freely to the sight of mine understanding. And these three are so oned, as to my understanding, that I cannot, nor may, dispart them. And by these three, as one, I have teaching whereby I ought to believe and trust in our Lord God, that of the same goodness of which He shewed it, and
for the same end, right so, of the same goodness and for the same end He shall declare it to us when it is His will.
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