21st of December

Gospel text

(Lk 1,39-45): 

Mary then set out for a town in the Hills of Judah. She entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leapt in her womb. Elizabeth was filled with holy spirit, and giving a loud cry, said, «You are most blessed among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb! How is it that the mother of my Lord comes to me? The moment your greeting sounded in my ears, the baby within me suddenly leapt for joy. Blessed are you who believed that the Lord's word would come true!».

The Application

We have ended the Sunday’s Gospel by saying, ‘and the Angel left her.’ The fruit of the WORD conceived pushes her in motion, with a sense of hurriedness, and since this motion is already initiated, the Angel justly left her.

The fruit of the Holy Spirit is life, it makes us active, pushes us towads the service of the humanity, helps us to accomplish the divine will. The second important fruit of the Holy Spirit is, it creates many encounters, which are purely human, but in later transformed into divine. It transforms every humane conter as divine, by brining God at the center of every human encouter. Since it’s a divine encouter, there is an immense joy.

It is in the people who believe the accomplishment of divine will in and through them, who engage positively to bring it into a treality, are blessed with the fulness of divine grace.

Action of the day : Be active in service, filled with compassion and love.

«Blessed are you who believed»

Fr. Àngel CALDAS i Bosch

(Salt, Girona, Spain)

Today, the text of the Gospel corresponds to the second joyful mystery: the «Visitation of the Blessed Virgin to Her Cousin, St. Elizabeth». It certainly is a complete mystery! A silent inburst of profound and intense joy as History has never ever narrated! It is Mary's joy that has just become a mother, because it is fitting that all grace continues to come through Mary by the work of the Holy Spirit. The latin word “gaudium” express a deep and intimate joy that does not burst out. Despite that, the mountains of Judah were covered with joy. Mary exulted as a mother who has just realized she is expecting a child. And what a Child! A Child that, before being born, already peregrinated through the bouldery trodden tracks leading to Ain Karim, nestled in the heart and lovely arms of Mary.

Joy in Elisabeth's soul and face, and in the baby leaping in her womb. The words of Mary's cousin will travel through time: «Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!» (Lk 1:42). The prayer of the Saint Rosary, as a source of joy, is one of the new perspectives discovered by our Pope John Paul II in his apostolic Letter about the Rosary of the Virgin Mary.

Joy is indivisible from faith. «But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?» (Lk 1:43). The joy of God and Mary has spread all over the world. To allow it within us, we need only to open ourselves through our faith to God's constant influence in our life, while walking our path with the Infant, with She who has believed, by holding St. Joseph's strong and enamored hand. Earthen paths, asphalt, cobblestones or muddy roads through, any Christian always carries upon him, two dimensions of faith: the union with God and the service to others. Both quite closely linked up: with a unity of life that establishes no solution of continuity between one thing and the other.