This is the second post of several posts on Redeemer
in the Womb: Jesus Living in Mary by John Saward.
You can find Post #1 here.
Kerstin’s Introduction to Chapter 2: How Can
the Ark of the Lord Come to Me? The Gospels:
Seward:
“He is not only the inhabitant of the womb; he is also its “fruit” (Luke 1:42). His body does not come down from heaven; it is fashioned out of his Virgin Mother’s flesh and blood. Indeed, since she is made fruitful by the Holy Spirit, not by male seed (see Matt. 1:20), he is physically more indebted to her than any other child could be to his mother.”
My Comment:
The second chapter meditates on what the Gospels say of Mary’s carrying
of Jesus in her pregnancy.
The key Biblical event of Mary’s pregnancy is the Visitation, her travel
to assist her cousin Elizabeth in her pregnancy. Much of the chapter is taken up with
meditations on the Visitation.
Apart from the journey to Bethlehem, St. Luke records only one
event during Our Lady’s pregnancy: the Visitation. “In those days,” after the
departure of Gabriel, Mary hastened to visit her cousin Elizabeth in the hill
country of Judaea (Luke 1:39–56), probably in the neighborhood of Ain-Karim,
six kilometers to the west of Jerusalem. The Evangelist says that, in going
south, Mary “arose” (anastasa), the verb used to designate the Resurrection.
This strong and suggestive word, one of Luke’s favorites, heightens the drama
of the Blessed Virgin’s journey: it is an ascent, a climb into the high
country. Similar language is used to report the three other southward
expeditions of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph (Luke 2:4, 22, and 42).2 It is as if
Luke wants Theophilus to lift up his eyes to the mountains (see Ps. 120:1), to
the heights of Mount Zion. Later, he will show how, in his public ministry,
Jesus kept his sights on Jerusalem: “When the days drew near for him to be
received up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51). The message of
Luke 1:39 is that the first time the Savior ventured south, presaging his later
journey, was as an unborn child. Mary carries Jesus on the road that later he
will purposefully tread.
Saward quite rightly points out that as one travels southward from Israel’s north country (Nazareth and the towns about the Sea of Galilee) toward Jerusalem, one is traversing uphill, and in some places very steeply up hill. I have never been there, but I have seen topographic representations of the geography. Quite nice how the word “arose” is used here and tied to the Resurrection. Mary’s life is frequently portrayed as in communion with Christ’s life.
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Kerstin’s Comment:
When Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist,
she walks the same path as Jesus would later leading up to the
crucifixion. Even unborn, John is Christ’s herald; by his infant joy,
he is prophet. As St. Ambrose says, “Before his father or mother had done
anything wonderful, he leapt in his mother’s womb and preached the good news of
the advent of the Lord.”
Even before his birth, the Child Jesus is at his saving, sanctifying
work. While still in the womb, the Savior consecrates the forerunner for his
mission. What is more, grace comes to John from Jesus through Mary, who, in
Gerard Manley Hopkins’ words, “this one work has to do—Let all God’s glory
through.”10 Already, at Ain-Karim, Our Lady is at her handmaidenly, motherly
work of mediating the grace of her Son.
Mary is the New Ark of the Covenant. Just like the Ark of old had been
carried up the hills toward Jerusalem, so Mary carries Jesus.
The Baby in the womb is God, and so the expectant Mother is the definitive
Ark, and hereby God is made present in a very tangible way. Before God has
shown Himself in a cloud, an entity that eludes physical grasp. Now, in a very
real way, God makes Himself known in person without losing his transcendent
reality.
This New Testament revelation of Jesus in Mary presupposes the Old
Testament belief that the womb of woman is the stage on which the first scenes
of the human drama are played out. The Lord forms, “knits together,” every man
from the womb (see 2 Macc. 7:22–23; Ps. 139:13–16; Is. 44:2, 24). Indeed,
“He-who-fashions-you-in-the-womb” is one of the divine names in Deutero-Isaiah
(Isa. 49:5). The nakedness of the human person as he comes from the womb
foreshadows the nakedness with which he goes into the tomb: both signal his
utter dependence upon his Creator (see Job 1:21) … Thus in Mary, who conceives
her Son by the Holy Spirit, not by human seed, two major themes of the Old
Testament converge and are surpassed: the hidden presence of God and the secret
beginnings of man.
Mary speaks her sublime Magnificat. A
hymn of praise to God. Unfortunately modern scholars do not think the lowly and
uneducated Mary to be capable of uttering such beautiful poetry spontaneously.
What they do not acknowledge is that she has been immersed into Scriptures her
whole life, probably knowing much of it by heart, as many did at the time. From
this perspective her composing the Magnificat
is entirely plausible.
If the Annunciation narrative reveals the faith and love with which the
Holy Virgin welcomed God’s Son into her flesh, the Magnificat expresses the joy and gratitude with which she sheltered
him. These religious acts are more than simply individual. Mary of the Magnificat is Israel in person. Her ‘I’
recapitulates the ‘we’ of her people. What God has done for her, he has done
for all Israel (see Luke 1:54). The grace poured out on the lowly Handmaid is a
blessing for all the poor of the Lord (vv. 48 and 53). In the Child in Mary’s
womb, every promise made to Abraham is fulfilled (v. 55).
There is a long tradition wherein Joseph already knew of the Virginal Conception before the angel appeared to him in a dream. The angel’s message told him not to leave her but to protect her. We’ve all heard the translated words of Joseph wanting to “divorce her quietly” which is, when one thinks about it, nonsensical. All divorces are public then as now. A better translation would be that he decided to leave her quietly. Joseph is in awe and fear of the holy occurrence happening in front of his eyes, and like we see in the Bible so often, he is afraid and wants to withdraw. The angel tells him not to withdraw but to protect the Holy Child concealed in the Virgin’s womb.
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Michelle’s Comment:
What stood out to me the most in this chapter was the comparison of the
Ark of the Covenant to Mary as the new Ark. She traveled to the hill country of
Judea where David was with the OT ark. And Elizabeth and David both basically
said the same thing regarding their respective encounters with the ark:
Elizabeth: And why is this granted me, that the Mother of my Lord should
come to me? (Luke 1:43)
David: How can the Ark of the Lord come to me? (2 Sam. 6:9)
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My Comment:
It is so fitting that today, the fourth Sunday of Advent of Year C we
are in this chapter. Today’s Gospel
reading was the Visitation scene where Mary after the Annunciation and “in
haste” travels to visit Elizabeth who is pregnant with John the Baptist. Saward does a nice job of explaining the
Marian theology connecting her to the Ark of the Covenant.
The chief actors in the drama of the Visitation are two babies in the
womb—Jesus in Mary and John in Elizabeth, the Prince and the Prophet, the Word
and the Voice. Luke says that the unborn Baptist “skipped” (eskirtêsen) in his
mother’s womb when she heard the greeting of the Christ-carrying Virgin (Luke
1:41). Elizabeth is overwhelmed. Her baby’s inward dance—he jumps “for joy,”
says Elizabeth, en agalliasei (v. 44)—fills her with the Holy Spirit. She
recognizes her cousin’s unborn baby, the blessed fruit of her womb, as God, “my
Lord” (v. 43),3 and declares Mary to be “blessed among women,” blessed in body
and in soul, blessed because of the One she carries, blessed because she
believed (v. 45).
Saward goes on to point out the Old Testament connections to the Ark,
King David’s moving of the Ark, and David’s jumping for joy. Every word used in the Visitation narrative
has allusions to the Old Testament, which provides the significance of the
Blessed Virgin.
But I’m not sure I quite agree with Saward that the “chief actors in the
drama of the Visitation are two babies in the womb.” On the one hand, I could see that Jesus is
always the central character, but Mary is also quite central to this
scene. Can one minimize the Blessed
Virgin here as a supporting character? I
wouldn’t.
Saward quotes Origen who make this remarkable connection of the
Visitation as foreshadowing Pentecost.
The God-man sanctified his forerunner while they were both being carried
by their mothers. At the Visitation, the promise made to Zechariah comes true:
“[John] will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb” (Luke
1:15). The grace of the Holy Spirit flows from Jesus through Mary to John and
from John to Elizabeth. Origen (c. 185–c. 254) describes this cascade of the
Spirit, this proto-Pentecost,
I would never had made that connection but it is apropos. Saward then quotes Gerard Manly Hopkins how
Christ’s graces flow through Mary.
Even before his birth, the Child Jesus is at his saving, sanctifying
work. While still in the womb, the Savior consecrates the forerunner for his
mission. What is more, grace comes to John from Jesus through Mary, who, in
Gerard Manley Hopkins’ words, “this one work has to do—Let all God’s glory
through.”10 Already, at Ain-Karim, Our Lady is at her handmaidenly, motherly
work of mediating the grace of her Son.
Make sure you point that out to your Protestant friends!
But Saward doesn’t go far enough.
In listening to a bunch of homilies on the internet (I do this every
Sunday) for today’s Gospel reading, a certain Fr. Anthony Craig (no one famous
that you would know) pointed out that Christ’s first action incarnate in the
world while still in the womb is an act propelling the bearer to service and
charity. I don’t know if Fr. Anthony
came up with that himself (probably not) but I had never heard it before. I found that really worth contemplating. You can read my blog post on understanding
today’s Gospel reading of the Visitation here:
The Visitation is one of my favorite scenes in the New Testament. There is so much one can meditate upon.
Kerstin Reply:
Manny wrote: "The Visitation is one of my favorite scenes in the
New Testament. There is so much one can meditate upon."
Very much so. Our priest had a beautiful homily today with the theme of letting
Christ in, letting Him dwell within us just like Mary.
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