Gospel for Sunday, December 22: Luke 1:39-45
IV Sunday of Advent C
39In those days Mary arose and went in haste to the mountainous region, to a town in Judah. 40She entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41As soon as Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child gasped in her womb. Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42and she exclaimed in a loud voice, “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb! 43To what do I owe that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44Behold, as soon as your greeting reached my ears, the child leaped for joy in my womb. 45And blessed is she who believed in the fulfillment of what the Lord told her.”
Lk 1:39-45
Dear sisters and brothers of Misericordia, I am Carlo Miglietta, a doctor, biblical scholar, layman, husband, father and grandfather (www.buonabibbiaatutti.it). Also today I share with you a short thought meditation on the Gospel, with special reference to the theme of mercy.
MARY, ARK OF THE COVENANT, ON MISSIONARY AND DIACONAL JOURNEY
Mary’s visit to Elizabeth should be read along the lines of various Old Testament passages (2 Sam 6:9,11,18; 1 Chr 15:28; 2 Chr 5:13; Jdt 13:18; Deut 28:3-4).
1. Mary is the ark of the covenant:
(a) before whom we feel unworthy: “To what do I owe that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (1:43), exclaims Elizabeth, like David who had said, “How shall the ark of the Lord come to me?” (2 Sam 6:9);
(b) which remains three months (1:56-> 2 Sam 6:11: “The ark of the Lord remained three months in the house of Obed-Edom of Gath, and the Lord blessed Obed-Edom and all his house”);
(c) in front of which it dances: “the child danced with joy in my lap” (1:44), like David in front of the ark (2 Sam 6:14,16);
(d) before whom blessing and praise burst forth: Elizabeth “anaphonesen” (1:42), loudly raising the liturgical cry of the ark’s attendants (1 Cr 15:28: “All Israel accompanied the ark of the covenant of the Lord with shouts”; cf. 16:4; 2 Cr 5:13);
(d) incorruptible ark, hidden for the end of time (2 Mac 2:4-8: “It was also said in the writing that the prophet (Jeremiah), having obtained a response, commanded that they should follow him with the tent and the ark. When he arrived at the mountain where Moses had gone up and contemplated the inheritance of God, Jeremiah went up and found a cave-like chamber and there he introduced the tent, the ark and the altar of incense and barred the entrance. Some of his retinue then returned to mark the way, but they never found the place again. Jeremiah, learning of this, rebuked them, saying, “The place must remain unknown, until God has gathered the whole of his people together and shown himself propitious. Then the Lord will show these things, and the glory of the Lord and the cloud will be revealed, as it appeared over Moses, and as it was when Solomon asked that the place be solemnly sanctified’”; cf. ->Ap 11:19): from such reflection will arise the dogma of Mary’s Assumption.
2. Mary is the blessed one (1:42,45,48), because the Blessed One is embodied in her: she is the only beatitude ad personam in the New Testament with that of Peter in Mt 16:17. Mary is “the summary woman of the feminine open to God and his plan: Joel, Judith, Sarah, Rebekah, Leah, Rachel, Tamar, Rahab, Bathsheba, Ruth, Anna and Elizabeth” (G. Bruni). And only in the Holy Spirit (1:41) is it possible to praise Mary.
On this occasion Elizabeth proclaims the blessedness of Mary: “Blessed is she who believed in the fulfillment of the words of the Lord” (Luke 1:45). Mary is blessed because she is a woman of faith. Her happiness consists in the trust she has placed fully in her Lord. She is clearly a model for every believer, blessed precisely because she is a believer. Forcefully Augustine emphasizes, “Beatior Maria percipiendo fidem Christi quam concipiendo carnem Christi”; faith is a source of greater happiness than being a mother according to the flesh. The great doctor continues, “It would have availed Mary nothing to be close to motherhood, if she had not been content to bear Christ more in her heart than in her flesh.” The value of Mary’s motherhood thus lies in the original attitude of faith that made it possible.
3. Mary’s journey is missionary: for Luke there is no “going” that is not determined by the Spirit. The “in haste” of v. 39 corresponds to the “Greet no one on the way” of Lk 10:4, and the “entered the house greeted” of Lk 1:40 to the “Into whatever house you enter, first of all say, ‘Peace to this house’” of Lk 10:5, the typical admonitions to disciples on mission.
4. Mary’s journey is diaconal: Mary remains in service to her elderly relative until the birth of John. She is the “handmaid of the Lord” (1:38) where he wants to be served, in the brethren.
MARY, WOMAN OF SERVICE
Don Tonino Bello wrote:
“It may seem irreverent. And some will even smell sacrilege. I am not sure if it is because of the impression of seeing such a poor appellation attributed to the Queen of angels and saints, or because of the lack of consideration for the category of those who earn their bread by toiling in the house of others.
To tell the truth, modern custom has also detected something demeaning in the ancient language: so that, instead of speaking of servant or service person, the vocabulary, going through the lexical rigmarole of maid or maid, fiddles with more fashionable terms, and speaks of au pair worker or, even, of “colf,” which is then nothing more than a sly acronym taken from the initials of family helper.
Yet, that appellation, Maria chose it for herself. Twice, in fact, in Luke’s gospel, she calls herself a servant. The first time, when, responding d’angelo, she offers him her calling card, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.” The second, when in the Magnificat she states that God “has looked upon the humility of his handmaid.” Woman of service, then. In her own right.
A title she carries incorporated by birthright and to which she seems to jealously cherish as to an ancient noble coat of arms. Was she or was she not, if not quite a descendant like Joseph, at least involved with “the house of David his servant”?
A title that, by a kind of mirror symmetry, causes her to recognize at a stroke an equal professional qualification in old Simeon, and induces her to deliver the child Jesus into the arms of that “servant,” who can now, at last, leave in peace.
A title that, during the banquet at Cana, since we understand each other better among colleagues, authorizes her to address “the servants” with those words that, having remained a demanding delivery for us as well, seem to be an invitation to go and join all of us to the same union: “Do whatever he ‘shall’ tell you.
A title, in short, that would legitimize the request of the competent organizations to have the Blessed Virgin as the patroness of those who, though with diversity of performance, from the housekeeper to the baby-sitter, from the “nurse” to the “fantesca,” with livery or without livery, express services in the employ of a family.
Yet, that appellation, so self-referenced, has no place in the Lauretan litanies! Perhaps because, even in the Church, despite the much talk about it, the idea of service evokes specters of awe, alludes to declines in dignity, and implies declines in rank, which seem incompatible with the prestige of the Mother of God. Which makes one suspect that even the Virgin’s diakonia has remained an ornamental concept that intrudes on our sighs, and not an operative principle that innervates our existence.
Holy Mary, servant of the Lord, who surrendered body and soul to him and entered his household as a family collaborator in his work of salvation, a truly equal woman, whom grace introduced into the Trinitarian intimacy and made a treasure chest of divine confidences, a maid of the kingdom, whom you have-interpreted-service not as a reduction of freedom but as irreversible belonging to God’s lineage, we ask you to admit us to the school of that permanent diaconate of which you have been our unparalleled teacher.
Unlike you, we struggle to place ourselves in God’s dependence, and we struggle to understand that only unconditional surrender to his sovereignty can provide us with the primordial alphabet for reading every other human service. Entrustment into the Lord’s hands seems like a gamble to us.
Submission to him, instead of placing it in a framework of bilateral alliance, we feel it as a variable of slavery. We are jealous, in short, of our autonomy.
And the solemn assertion that “serving God means reigning” does not persuade us much.
Holy Mary, servant of the Word, servant to such an extent that, in addition to hearing and keeping it, you received it incarnate in Christ, help us to put Jesus at the center of our lives.
Let us experience its secret suggestions. Give us a hand that we may know how to be faithful to him to the end. Give us the bliss of those servants, whom he, returning in the middle of the night,
will find still awake, and whom, after girding their garments, he himself will cause to be set at table and pass to serve.
Make the gospel the inspiring norm of our every daily choice. Preserve us from the temptation to discount his exacting demands. Make us capable of joyful obediences. And put, at last, wings on our feet that we may render to the Word the missionary service of proclamation, to the ends of the earth.
You who have experienced the tribulations of the poor, help us to make our lives available to them, with the discreet gestures of silence and not the commercials of protagonism. Make us aware that, under the disguise of the weary and oppressed, God is hidden.”
Happy Mercy to all!
Anyone who would like to read a more complete exegesis of the text, or some insights, please ask me at migliettacarlo@gmail.com.