We continue reflecting on Luke's story of the coming of Christ with this episode of the Visitation.

It is rich at so many levels, and the four videos explore different aspects, including how St Luke draws from the Old Testament and looks forward to the era of the Church, inaugurated by the Holy Spirit. We also reflect on Mary's powerful song, the Magnifcat. 

I wish you a blessed Advent.

Fr Brendan 

1:39 Mary set out at that time and went as quickly as she could to a town in the hill country of Judah. 40 She went into Zechariah's house and greeted Elizabeth. 41 Now as soon as Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42 She gave a loud cry and said, "Of all women you are the most blessed, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 Why should I be honoured with a visit from the mother of the Lord? 44 For the moment your greeting reached my ears, the child in my womb leaped for joy. 45 Yes, blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled." 46 And Mary said: 

My soul glorifies the Lord,

my spirit rejoices in God, my Saviour.

He looks on his servant in her nothingness;

henceforth all ages will call me blessed.

The Almighty works marvels for me.

Holy his name!

His mercy is from age to age,

on those who fear him.

He puts forth his arm in strength

and scatters the proud hearted.

He casts the mighty from their thrones

and raises the lowly.

He fills the hungry with good things

sends the rich away empty.

He protects Israel, his servant,

remembering his mercy,

the mercy promised to our fathers,

for Abraham and his sons forever.

56 Mary stayed with Elizabeth about three months and then went back home.

Collect

Almighty ever-living God,

who, while the Blessed Virgin Mary was carrying your Son in her womb,

inspired her to visit Elizabeth,

grant us, we pray,

that, faithful to the promptings of the Spirit,

we may magnify your greatness

with the Virgin Mary at all times.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

God, for ever and ever.

Imagine a circle drawn on the ground, that is, a line drawn round with a pair of compasses, with a centre. What we call the "centre" is of course the exact middle of the circle. Use your imagination to picture what I am saying. Imagine that the circle is the world; the centre is God; and the radial lines, like spokes, are people's different ways of life. When good people want to come closer to God and so come towards the centre of the circle, as they get nearer to the middle, they get closer to one another at the same time as they approach God. The closer they get to God, the closer they get to one another; and the closer they get to one another, the closer they get to God."

“We must be swift to obey the winged impulses of His Love, carrying Him to wherever He longs to be; and those who recognize His presence will be stirred, like Elizabeth, with new life. They will know His presence, not by any special beauty or power shown by us, but in the way that the bud knows the presence of the light, by an unfolding in themselves, a putting forth of their own beauty.”

From: The Reed of God, p.32-34

"An attitude of acceptance does not try to occupy the space and life of others, but to sow the good news in the soil of their lives; it learns to recognize and appreciate the seeds that God already planted in their hearts before we came on the scene. Let us remember that God always precedes us, God always sows before we do. Evangelizing is not about filling an empty container; it is ultimately about bringing to light what God has already begun to accomplish."

Cathedral of Saint Dionysius in Athens

Saturday, 4 December 2021

"Mary, in whom the Lord himself has just made his dwelling, is the daughter of Zion in person, the Ark of the Covenant, the place where the glory of the Lord dwells. She is 'the dwelling of God . . . with men"' CCC 2676. 

“A woman, adorned with the sun, standing on the moon, and with the twelve stars on her head for a crown. She was pregnant, and in labour, crying aloud in the pangs of childbirth.” Revelation 12

“A woman, adorned with the sun, standing on the moon, and with the twelve stars on her head for a crown. She was pregnant, and in labour, crying aloud in the pangs of childbirth.” 

Revelation 12

2 David …set out and went from Baal-judah, to bring up from there the ark of God 3 They carried the ark of God on a new cart...

5 David and all the house of Israel were dancing before the LORD with all their might, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines David danced before the LORD and castanets and cymbals with all his might...

9 David was afraid of the LORD that day; he said, "How can the ark of the LORD come to me?"

11 The ark of the LORD remained in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite three months; and the LORD blessed Obed-edom and all his household. 

2 Samuel 6

2 David …set out and went from Baal-judah, to bring up from there the ark of God 3 They carried the ark of God on a new cart

5 David and all the house of Israel were dancing before the LORD with all their might, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines David danced before the LORD and castanets and cymbals…14 with all his might

9 David was afraid of the LORD that day; he said, "How can the ark of the LORD come to me?"

11 The ark of the LORD remained in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite three months; and the LORD blessed Obed-edom and all his household. 

2 Samuel 6

My soul glorifies the Lord,

my spirit rejoices in God, my Saviour.

He looks on his servant in her nothingness;

henceforth all ages will call me blessed.

The Almighty works marvels for me.

Holy his name!

His mercy is from age to age,

on those who fear him.

He puts forth his arm in strength

and scatters the proud hearted.

He casts the mighty from their thrones

and raises the lowly.

He fills the hungry with good things

sends the rich away empty.

He protects Israel, his servant,

remembering his mercy,

the mercy promised to our fathers,

for Abraham and his sons forever.

Advent sermon in 1933.

“The song of Mary is the oldest Advent hymn…It is at once the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung. This is not the gentle, tender, dreamy Mary whom we sometimes see in paintings; this is the passionate, surrendered, proud, enthusiastic Mary who speaks out here. "This song has none of the sweet, nostalgic, or even playful tones of some of our Christmas carols. It is instead a hard, strong, inexorable song about collapsing thrones and humbled lords of this world, about the power of God and the powerlessness of humankind. These are the tones of the women prophets of the Old Testament that now come to life in Mary's mouth.”

Sermon preached on 3rd Sunday of Advent 1933

The Church’s love of preference for the poor is wonderfully inscribed in Mary’s Magnificat. The God of the Covenant, celebrated in the exultation of her spirit by the Virgin of Nazareth, is also he who “has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly, …filled the hungry with good things, sent the rich away empty, …scattered the proud-hearted…and his mercy is from age to age on those who fear him.” Mary is deeply imbued with the spirit of the “poor of Yahweh,” who in the prayer of the Psalms awaited from God their salvation, placing all their trust in him (cf. Pss. 25; 31; 35; 55). Mary truly proclaims the coming of the “Messiah of the poor” (cf. Is. 11:4; 61:1). Drawing from Mary’s heart, from the depth of her faith expressed in the words of the Magnificat, the Church renews ever more effectively in herself the awareness that the truth about God who saves, the truth about God who is the source of every gift, cannot be separated from the manifestation of his love of preference for the poor and humble, that love which, celebrated in the Magnificat, is later expressed in the words and works of Jesus.

The Church is thus aware-and at the present time this awareness is particularly vivid-not only that these two elements of the message contained in the Magnificat cannot be separated, but also that there is a duty to safeguard carefully the importance of “the poor” and of “the option in favour of the poor” in the word of the living God. These are matters and questions intimately connected with the Christian meaning of freedom and liberation.

Pope John Paul II, Redemptoris Mater 37, 1987.