Wednesday, Week Two of Advent by Julia Dzierwa
Luke 1:26-38
26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 37 For no word from God will ever fail.”
38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.
Luke 1:26-38 (NIV)
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The Annunciation is one of the richest parts of Scripture. Not only does it announce the intersection of heaven and earth in the person of Christ, it is intensely personal: for Mary as described in the text, and for us as Christians likewise called to bear Christ into the world. There is much to contemplate and respond to in the text. For this meditation, I offer the three quotations below.
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The Book of Genesis tells us that the work of creation began when the Spirit of God hovered over the waters. The Gospel of Luke tells us that the re-creation of the world, the work of redemption, began at the Annunciation, when the Holy Spirit hovered over Mary and the Son of God began to take flesh within her womb.
Minute Meditations on the Mysteries of the Rosary, by Rev. Thomas M. Feeley
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At the Annunciation, Mary, overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, began to carry in her womb the Son of God. She became the living temple of the Lord, the sacred tabernacle where “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:13).
We too are temples of God, who dwells within us by grace. For Christ told us, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him. We will come and make our home in him (John 14:24).
Minute Meditations on the Mysteries of the Rosary, by Rev. Thomas M. Feeley
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For nine months Christ grew in His Mother’s body. By His own will she formed Him from herself, from the simplicity of her daily life.
She had nothing to give Him but herself.
He asked for nothing else.
She gave Him herself.
Working eating, sleeping, she was forming His body from hers. His flesh and blood. From her humanity she gave Him His humanity.
Walking in the streets of Nazareth to do her shopping, to visit her friends, she set His feet on the path of Jerusalem.
Washing, weaving, kneading, sweeping, her hands prepared His hands for the nails.
Every beat of her hearts gave Him His heart to love with, His heart to be broken by love.
All her experience of the world about her was gathered to Christ growing in her.
Looking upon the flowers, she gave Him human sight. Talking with her neighbours, she gave Him a human voice. The voice we still hear in the silence of souls saying: “Consider the lilies of the field.”
Sleeping in her still room, she gave Him the sleep of the child in the cradle, the sleep of the young man rocked in the storm-tossed boat.
Breaking and eating the bread, drinking the wine of the country, she gave Him His flesh and blood; she prepared the Host for the Mass.
This time of Advent is absolutely essential to our contemplation too.
If we have truly given our humanity to be changed into Christ, it is essential to us that we do not disturb this time of growth.
It is a time of darkness, of faith. We shall not see Christ’s radiance in our lives yet; it is still hidden in our darkness; nevertheless, we must believe that He is growing in our lives; we must believe it so firmly that we cannot help relating everything, literally everything, to this almost incredible reality.
This attitude it is which makes every moment of every day and night a prayer...
We could scrub the floor for a tired friend, or dress a wound for a patient in a hospital, or lay the table and wash up for the family; but we shall not do it in martyr spirit or with that worse spirit of self-congratulation, of feeling that we are making ourselves more perfect, more unselfish, more positively kind.
We shall do it just for one thing, that our hands make Christ’s hands in our life, that our service may let Christ serve through us, that our patience may bring Christ’s patience back to the world…
If Christ is growing in us, if we are at peace, recollected…we know that however insignificant our life seems to be, from it He is forming Himself.
The Reed of God, by Caryll Houselander