Luke
1:39-55
During
those days 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, "Most 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."
And Mary said: "My soul proclaims the greatness
of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior. For
he has looked upon his handmaid's lowliness; behold, from now on will all ages
call me blessed. The Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name. His mercy is from age to age to those who
fear him. He has shown might with his arm, dispersed the
arrogant of mind and heart. He has thrown down the rulers from
their thrones but lifted up the lowly. The hungry he has filled
with good things; the rich he has sent away empty. He has
helped Israel his servant, remembering his mercy, according to
his promise to our fathers, to Abraham and to his descendants forever."
12/23/2012 - 4th Sunday Advent – Luke 1:39
- 55
Reader: We
usually look at the Gospel from our own perspective, of how it speaks to us in
the reality of our own lives. Today, the
fourth Sunday of Advent, we hear of the visitation of Mary to her cousin of
Elizabeth. We hear Mary sing the Magnificat
in response to the greeting she receives from Elizabeth. What if we look at Mary from a different
perspective than our own today? What if
we saw Mary’s visitation to her cousin Elizabeth from the perspective of a poor
peasant farmer in Chile in a conversation with his priest, and of how the
Virgin Mary herself might respond to them. Let us use our imagination to hear
today’s Gospel from a different perspective, perhaps a perspective very
different from our own.
PRIEST:
Today's Gospel brought to mind a conversion I had with my friend, Joe, before
he was ordained a priest. He was
planning his first mass and wanted to have the Magnificat sung at it. But, when he came to the phrase, “The rich
will be sent away empty,” he decided he was going to change the words. Instead
of the rich being sent away empty, he wanted it to be the arrogant, the proud
or the haughty. You see, Joe didn’t want
to offend his sisters who would attend the mass. They happen to be quite wealthy.
MARY: Why would someone want to change my words? Why can’t they just hear what I have to
say?
PEASANT: Hey,
Father Lincoln. Could I talk to you
about today’s Gospel reading? When I
heard it this weekend, it reminded me of September 11.
PRIEST: Why
would Mary’s Magnificat remind you of the terrorist attacks on September 11 in
the United States?
PEASANT: No,
not the attacks in New York on September 11.
That's so far away from here. I thought about what happened in my own country
of Chile, on September 11 back in 1973, when our President Salvador Allende was
killed by the military coup of General Agosto Pinochet. President Allende was concerned about the
poor of our country, just like the Virgin Mary in the Magnificat. That's what came to my mind.
MARY: Now this conversation is getting very
interesting. Let’s see how he
understands what I expressed in my visit to my cousin Elizabeth, how he
connects it to his life.
PRIEST: Let's look at the Magnificat, Miguel. How
does it help you better understand Mary and her situation?
MARY: I was in quite a predicament when those words
came out of my mouth: I was pregnant, alone, and scared. I wonder if they will
understand the desperation of my situation.
PEASANT: I
look at the Magnificat, and I think about the
woman who said those words: “The Lord... has looked upon his handmaid's
lowliness.” When I see the image of the
Virgin Mary in the Cathedral in Santiago, I see a beautiful, refined woman with
a crown, with gold rings and jewells on her fingers, dressed in a beautiful
blue dress embroidered in gold. In
reality, Mary was a lowly handmaid, a member of the poor in Nazareth. She was engaged to a local carpenter.
MARY: Yes, I
was a poor Jewish girl wearing the same type of clothing all the young women in
my village wore. There were blisters on
my hands from the hard work I did all day long.
It was not an easy life.
PRIEST: In the
Magnificat, Mary tells us what God is doing for her, what He is doing for
Israel. He chose a poor, humble servant
as the mother of his Son.
PEASANT:
Exactly, Father. Mary would have been
like me and the poor of my village who work our fingers to the bone in order to
make a living.
MARY: What I
was saying in the Magnificat was that the lowly were being lifted up, that
those on high were being cast down.
That's what God was doing in his selection of the mother of his Son, in
choosing me for this special task. And
it was all God's doing. It was all God's
plan.
PRIEST: You
know, Miguel, Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth in obedience to the Angel's
instructions. She did so out of love and
charity. Mary responded to Elizabeth with praise for God.
MARY: My soul
magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior.
PEASANT: I
believe Mary praises God because he has turned the world upside down. You would have thought that our powerful God
would have chosen the mother of his son from royalty. He could have chosen a princess or a young
woman from a rich family. God's message
in choosing the Virgin Mary was that he pays special attention to people like
me – to the poor, the oppressed, and the hard working people of the world.
MARY: Yes, God
raised me up, and all generations now call me blessed. Who would have imagined such a thing?
PEASANT: Father, Mary proclaims that God has put down
the mighty from their thrones. What does
that mean to me in language that I can understand? I am just a poor farmer. My family struggles to put food on our
table. The economic situation in the
world and the political turmoil in our country can make our situation so much
worse, but it is way beyond our control.
PRIEST:
Miguel, think of the empires that existed in Jesus' day and how often they rose
and fell – the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Egyptians, and the
Romans. We've seen it in our own day too.
Many colonial empires that have come and gone in the last few centuries. We
were controlled by Spain for a long time here in Chile – but that rule ended a
long time ago. Empires will come and go,
but the poor, humble people of the world will always be here.
MARY: Those
empires mean nothing – God's kingdom is what really matters.
PEASANT: When
I hear Mary proclaiming that God has filled the hungry with good things, and
the rich will be sent away empty, I see God empowering me. By the poor having more, the rich will have
less, because of course there is only so much to go around. But, I think God expects me to work hard and
to feel empowered as well. God took the
people of Israel to the promised land, but the people had responsibilities
too. They had to undertake that
journey.
MARY: Yes, Miguel, you and the others have a hand
in proclaiming God's kingdom here on earth, just as I had my special role in
God's plan of salvation. God is calling
us to challenge the unjust structures that exist in our society. God is calling us to work for peace and
justice.
PRIEST: We all
are called during Advent to rejoice at the coming of our Lord. We are to joyfully give thanks for God’s
presence in our lives. Mary gives thanks
in the Magnificat. What God did for Mary
shows the great love he has for us all – the rich & the poor – everyone.
PEASANT: Yes, Father.
That is what I like about the joyful celebrations we have at our
parish. I give joy and thanks to a God
who liberates the poor like me, who humbles the arrogant and the powerful by showing
them that they are not the ones in charge, because it is really God who is in
charge.
MARY: No one else in the world loves the Magnificat
as much the poor of Latin America. I sometimes hear them singing the Magnificat
as they leave mass, as they go out into the world. In fact, right here in this very church in
Yazoo City, the Hispanics sing a song to me at the end of their Spanish mass
every single Sunday. The Magnificat is
not just the hymn of praise that I sang while visiting my cousin Elizabeth – it
is a hymn of praise for all of us.
PRIEST: How
would King Herod have reacted if he had heard Mary sing the Magnificat?
MARY: He
probably would have laughed at me! He
probably would have thought that I was crazy!
PEASANT: Well, I am certainly not laughing, and the
Virgin Mary certainly wasn’t crazy. The
message of the Magnificat gives me hope.
I may struggle to put food on my table, I may not have a lot of power in
my world, I may not be rich or famous, but I have a God who loves me.
PRIEST: I am glad you have hope, Miguel. We will have hope together.
PEASANT: Mary
may have been a poor Jewish girl who was pregnant and scared, but I also know
that now she is the Mother of our Lord and the Queen of Heaven – our
mother. That is why these words mean so
much to me.
MARY: It’s so
complicated for those in the modern world to understand who I was and who I am,
to understand what was going on in ancient Israel at the time of Jesus’ birth. I hope they keep searching. I hope
they keep asking questions. Please don’t ever give up!
PRIEST: Miguel, I thank you for sharing your thoughts
with me today. This conversation has
been a blessing. God bless you.
PEASANT:
Adios, Padre.
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