“Pondering While We Wait” by Colleen O’Sullivan

“Pondering While We Wait” by Colleen O’Sullivan

Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Advent

Hannah, (Samuel’s) mother, approached Eli and said: “Pardon, my Lord!  As you live, my Lord, I am the woman who stood near you here, praying to the LORD.  I prayed for this child, and the LORD granted my request.   Now I, in turn, give him to the LORD; as long as he lives, he shall be dedicated to the LORD.”

She left Samuel there. (1 Samuel 1:25b-28)

Mary said: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;

my Spirit rejoices in God, my savior.
For he has looked upon his lowly servant.
From this day, all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.  (Luke 1:46-49)

 

Piety

Oh, Jesus, you hold the key that will unlock my constricted heart.  It gives me great hope that Mary said yes to you and your plan.  She was filled with the Spirit and put aside her doubts.  Fill me with the light of your Spirit and enter, in all your glory into my life.  Let me rejoice!   (from Prayer for Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Advent from Creighton University Online Ministries)

Study

Sebastiano del Piombo, The Visitation, 1518-1519,
Louvre Museum, Public Domain Wikimedia Commons

Hannah has longed for a child for as long as she can remember, and after many years of countless bitter disappointments, God, at last, gives her a son in her old age.  At the same time, God also gives Israel a gift, a baby who will grow up to be a prophet.  Hannah had made a promise to God.  If God answered her prayers, she would return that gift to the Giver of life.  So, she raises young Samuel until he is old enough to serve the Lord, and then she turns him over to Eli.

As we read through the Scriptures, this is not the only time God gives a child to an infertile couple. And, in every case, that child is destined to play a significant role in salvation history. Isaac, Samson, and John the Baptist were such gifts from the Lord.

In our Gospel reading today, Mary has gone to visit her cousin Elizabeth, also with child, at the angel Gabriel’s urging.   She greets the older woman, and immediately Elizabeth feels her child leap for joy within her.  She exclaims to Mary, “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.” (Luke 1:42b-44) 

Perhaps this was the moment that validated what the angel Gabriel told Mary. Mary’s response is the Magnificat.  She didn’t imagine the angel’s visit or words.  She is really going to give birth to the Son of God!  Her life will never be the same again.  For the rest of time, she will be called blessed.  Mary knows she is a lowly peasant girl, and now she knows how very much God cares for the lowly and downtrodden of the world.  God bypassed all the rich and powerful and asked a poor girl from a tiny, insignificant village to be the mother of God’s Son.  We can hear the joy in her voice.  We know that she will one day have to give up her son to the wood of the Cross just as we know that God will raise Jesus from death.  Mary isn’t thinking of anything along these lines that day standing before Elisabeth, but, like Hannah in today’s first reading, when the time comes, she will let Jesus walk out the door to do his Father’s bidding and will be his most faithful follower.

Action

During Advent, we prayerfully ponder the gift of Jesus to our world in a rude stable in Bethlehem that first Christmas.  We also look ahead to the end of time, to the return of our Lord in glory, gathering and redeeming all creation.  One gift in the past, one still to come.

The Advent season is also when we consider the gifts of the present time.  These gifts include how the Lord enters our hearts every day in the here and now, and our response.  As I look at Hannah, Elizabeth and Mary, I wonder how open my heart is to all the gifts God bestows on me, and I have to ask myself how I use those gifts in the Lord’s service.

When you have some quiet time today, name some of the gifts you have received from the Lord.  Ask yourself if you can be as generous as Hannah and Mary were in giving back.     

Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Piombo,_Sebastiano_del_-_The_Visitation_-_1518-19.jpg