Dai­ly Reflec­tion
Decem­ber 23, 2003

So as to be more avail­able to the Advent graces con­tained in our read­ings, we might imag­ine Mary leav­ing her home and head­ing for her cousin Elizabeth’s house. She has had a strange vis­i­tor whose message/invitation have called her past her fears to this jour­ney of faith.

Per­haps she stops to rest and revis­it. She looks up into the sky and won­ders if she were dream­ing or did it all real­ly hap­pen. She pon­ders whether or not she should con­tin­ue and see if her cousin is real­ly preg­nant as her vis­i­tor had said. “What if that isn’t true; what if it is!!!”

PRE-PRAYER­ING

We pray sim­ply for the grace of recep­tiv­i­ty. It is bet­ter to give than receive if you are God. It is bet­ter to receive than give if you are human. We can pray for the empti­ness, the incom­plete­ness, the open­ness, which are nec­es­sary for God’s annun­ci­a­tions and promis­es to fill us.

Advent, litur­gi­cal­ly, takes four weeks, but spir­i­tu­al­ly it can take but a flash of sen­si­tiv­i­ty when we sense that we are as lit­tle as Beth­le­hem, as emp­ty as a sta­ble, and recep­tive as a preg­nant girl of faith in Nazareth. If there is no room in the inn, then Christ­mas will be a hol­i­day, not a holy day. We pray with any image or object which speaks of recep­tion; a glass, the hol­low space of the Advent Wreath, the soft­ness of our up-turned hands.

REFLEC­TION

David was the great king of Israel who ruled with pow­er and jus­tice. It seemed that Israel would pros­per for­ev­er and all nations would see her and rev­er­ence her God. With the even­tu­al decline and infi­deli­ties of God’s cho­sen peo­ple, Jerusalem fell into for­eign hands and Israel was led into the dark­ness of exile.

Michah, from whom we hear in the First Read­ing, has been fore­telling this appar­ent aban­don­ment of Israel by God. What we hear are vers­es of great hope that the great­ness of David’s time and lin­eage will be born anew. The Lord will “give them up”, but this birth from with­in the small realm of Beth­le­hem will sig­nal God’s fideli­ty to ancient promises.

The one to be born will be davidic-like in that he will be a shep­herd to his peo­ple, but” Now his great­ness shall reach the ends of the earth; he shall be peace.” The great­ness that was the Jerusalem of David, will now return again from the small­est place, Beth­le­hem, and move beyond and cov­er the earth bring­ing Peace.  This is a dra­mat­ic change in this proph­esy. Jerusalem, the great city, stood in siege and often had to defend itself with­in its walls. Now with this prophe­cy, instead of mil­i­tary defens­es and defen­sive­ness, there will be a great­ness of peace going forth from Jerusalem and Israel. The first three vers­es of the pre­vi­ous chap­ter speak of this peace­ful time and end with the star­tling words, “there will be no more train­ing for war.” It will all begin with the Almighty becom­ing pow­er­less with­in the small­est of places.

We are treat­ed to a jour­ney-sto­ry in two sens­es for our Gospel read­ing. There is a foot-by-foot has­ten­ing by Mary to the house of her cousin. When she arrives, Eliz­a­beth, under the influ­ence of the Holy Spir­it, con­firms Mary’s spir­i­tu­al jour­ney of faith. All Mary had was a mys­te­ri­ous invi­ta­tion, her per­son­al won­der­ing, her faith­ful response and a wait­ing to see. Elizabeth’s response to Mary’s greet­ing ends the first seg­ment of both her jour­neys. Mary stays with Eliz­a­beth, but then has to return to let it all be done accord­ing to the promise and Promiser.

As Mary makes her way towards Elizabeth’s house, she has no proof to for­ti­fy the invi­ta­tion and promise. She is young, her town is small, her faith ten­der. She has only her mem­o­ry by which to review and faith for her pre-view. She might be going in haste to see if her cousin is preg­nant and use this as some evi­dence that she was not being tricked. That jour­ney would be very excit­ing in expec­ta­tion. The jour­ney back to her own home, I won­der what her spir­it was then. Hav­ing a child is a won­der­ful event to which to look for­ward, but there were promis­es made that inten­si­fied the life after the child’s birth. The vis­i­tor had not giv­en Mary a “Mother’s Guide to “Mes­si­ah-Rais­ing”.

The area around our eyes, ears, nose and mouth are extreme­ly sen­si­tive and in a way, pri­vate. I have noticed that when offer­ing a per­son some­thing to smell, for exam­ple, that per­son will take the object in her or his hands and guide it towards their own nose. The same when offer­ing some­thing to taste or view close­ly. We do this instinc­tive­ly and pro­tec­tive­ly. To let some­body else get so close to the vul­ner­a­ble and pri­vate takes great trust.

Here then is Mary in the pri­va­cy of her own life. Here is a vir­gin girl whose womb is most sacred to her as woman. Here is a frag­ile life whose own future is being trans­formed through inti­ma­cy. The pri­va­cy of her ears have heard an invi­ta­tion; her mouth has voiced the truth of her ques­tions and the words of a hope-filled “yes”.

You and I are on sim­i­lar jour­neys of faith, hope and a love which is meant to spread out and extend the king­dom of peace. As with Jerusalem, Mary was the place from which God’s pres­ence would be revealed and extend­ed. As with Mary, our jour­neys begin and con­tin­ue by our let­ting God invite, inter­rupt and offer things for us to taste, smell, see, feel and espe­cial­ly hear. God rev­er­ences our pro­tec­tive­ness and so is as gen­tle as angel’s wings.

“The vir­gin is with child and shall bear a son, and she will call him Emmanuel.” Is. 7, 14