Blessed Art Thou Among Women and Blessed Is the Fruit Thy Your Womb Jesus
Readings:
• Mi five:one-4a
• Ps 80:2-3, 15-16, 18-19
• Heb x:five-10
• Lk 1:39-45
St. Augustine, in his treatise, "On Holy Virginity," made this profound, even startling, argument: "Thus likewise her nearness as a Female parent would have been of no turn a profit to Mary, had she not borne Christ in her centre subsequently a more blessed manner than in her mankind."
In that unmarried line, the great Doctor predictable the objections voiced by many Protestants while also explaining the honor and dear shown past Catholics (and Eastern Orthodox) for the Theotokos, the Mother of God. I heard and repeated, while growing up in a Protestant home of Fundamentalist persuasion, many of those objections: "Mary was just an ordinary woman," "Mary was not sinless," and, of course, "Catholics worship Mary!" People would sometimes become to extremes to avoid any appearance of praise for Mary. A close relative one time told me that Mary had merely been a "biological vessel" for the babe Jesus!
Two things changed my listen: reading actual Catholic educational activity near Mary and re-reading Scripture. The commencement came from a sense of fairness toward what I didn't know; the second came from a growing (and inappreciably characteristic) humility about what I thought I knew. Sure, I had read the opening chapters of the Gospel of Luke many times. But I must have read it dozens of times before I began to slowly cover the astonishment of the Announcement, the wonder of Elizabeth'southward ecstatic greeting, the magnitude of the Magnificat.
Today's Gospel reading follows the Annunciation and immediately precedes the Canticle of Mary. The young Mary, told by Gabriel that she had found favor with God and would bear a son, somewhen sets out to run into Elizabeth, likewise pregnant with a son. Having already been confirmed by a heavenly messenger of God, Mary was then confirmed by her own flesh and blood in words heard and repeated by endless faithful through the centuries: "Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb."
To be blessed is to have found favor with God, to be filled with the grace—the supernatural life—of God. It is to possess the kingdom by belonging to the King (cf. Matt five:3, x). As mother of the King of kings, Mary bore the kingdom within her. As mother of the Messiah, she is also the female parent of the Church. Pope John Paul II, in Redemptoris Mater (1987), wrote that "in her new maternity in the Spirit, Mary embraces each and every one in the Church, and embraces each and every one through the Church" (par. 47).
Mary and Elizabeth, bearing their sons—one a prophet, the other the Son of God—prefigure the Church that would afterwards be built-in from the side of the crucified Lord and made manifest on Pentecost (come across CCC 766, 1076). Blessed past the Father, impregnated by the power of the Holy Spirit, and filled with the Son, the Virgin brings joy and gladness into the dark, silent womb of human being'due south deepest longing.
Like St. Augustine, John Paul II provided a profound reflection on the belief and organized religion of Mary. In the expression "Blessed are y'all who believed," he wrote, "we tin can therefore rightly notice a kind of 'key' which unlocks for us the innermost reality of Mary, whom the angel hailed as 'full of grace.' If as 'full of grace' she has been eternally present in the mystery of Christ, through organized religion she became a sharer in that mystery in every extension of her earthly journey" (par. 19). The miracle of Mary's pregnancy and Virgin nascency go paw in mitt with the mystery of organized religion.
At Christmas we celebrate the birth of the Christ kid while recognizing that Christ always remains in the heart of Mary. Having given nascence to the Savior at one particular moment in time, Mary has continued to give the Savior to the earth e'er since. It is her one desire, her unending gift of joy and life to each of u.s.a.. "And how does this happen to me," we ask ourselves, "that the mother of my Lord should come up to me?"
(This "Opening the Discussion" cavalcade originally appeared in the December 20, 2009, edition of Our Sunday Company newspaper.)
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Source: https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2018/12/22/blessed-are-you-among-women-and-blessed-is-the-fruit-of-your-womb-on-the-fourth-sunday-of-advent/
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