Sunday Meditation: Blessed is the Virgin

The fourth and final Sunday of Advent is reserved for the honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and in Year C we read of Mary’s visitation to her kinswoman Elizabeth.  Here Mary has just been given this startling news of her supernatural conception, which undoubtedly is going to put her life at risk since it is a pregnancy without a human father, and the first thing she does is “in haste” rush to care for her elderly cousin who is also pregnant.  I find this one of the most touching scenes in all the New Testament. 

 

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,

“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.”

~Lk 1:39-45

First, Kimberly Hahn, Scott’s wife, provides a detailed exegesis of this passage.

 

Fabulous sermon.  Kimberly is a better preacher than her husband!

Next Bishop Barron provides a wonderful homily on the importance of the Blessed Mother in our spiritual life.

 

Next I am going to give you a third clip, a homily from a Fr. Anthony Craig that takes the meaning of the passage and the significance of the Blessed Mother as we have heard in the first two clips, and provides the moral on which we can be transformed.

Did you catch that at the beginning?  Check the 40 second mark.  Christ’s first action incarnate in the world while still in the womb is an act propelling the bearer to service and charity.  How important is that to contemplate?  I don’t think I have ever heard that before.

Finally if you still have the energy, a couple of months ago I provided an analysis of Thomas Merton’s poem, “The Quickening of John the Baptist” which is a meditation on the Visitation and St. John’s the Baptist’s leap for joy.  It’s a wonderful poem well worth reading and very fitting for today's Gospel passage.  l

 

Sunday Meditation: “And how does this happen to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”

 

John Michael Talbot put the “Hail Mary” to music and it’s outstanding.

 

I had never heard it before.  My goodness, that is just so lovely.  It should be more widely played.