‘Blessed are you among women’

“He shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD” (Micah 5:4)

Micah’s prophecy of Jesus in Sunday’s first reading looks forward to when he will be our Good Shepherd, carrying us home on his shoulders spiritually, by carrying the cross on his shoulders physically.

We can resist him lifting us up out of our wretchedness, through our pride, fear or our desire to control. So before Jesus carries us, he himself gives us an example of how to be carried, in the womb of his mother.

Forgetting herself, Mary takes him, unborn, to visit Elizabeth, and Jesus humbly lets himself be carried where she wants. He lets his mother speak, and then receive the blessing of Elizabeth, even though he is the reason for her graces. Do I let others speak and be blessed, or do I put myself at the centre and try to control proceedings?

Even before birth, John the Baptist is filled with the Spirit, as Gabriel had predicted to his father (Luke 1:15). He has miraculously recognised Jesus from Mary’s greeting and now this grace of recognition is shared with his mother, Elizabeth, when John joyfully leaps within her. When I hear the voice of Mary, do I rejoice that Christ is near? She always brings us to her Son. Is my rejoicing infectious to those around me?

Elizabeth’s first words to Mary, so familiar to us, were previously addressed to Jael and Judith: “Blessed are you among women.” Both these women killed an enemy of Israel by striking his head unexpectedly; Mary’s son will strike the head of the devil, as predicted just after the fall of our first parents (Genesis 3:15). Do I address Mary as a warrior with power to crush the demon’s head through her prayers to Jesus?

The gratitude of Elizabeth is also exemplary: “Why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”

Knowing Christ, his Church and his Mother is an incomparable gift, and if we have been given it, let’s give thanks and seek to offer it to others.

Elizabeth has reason to be grateful to Mary too. No-one had thought her capable of pregnancy at her age, not even Elizabeth herself, and yet Mary instantly believes God could work this “impossible” miracle in her. She blesses Mary for this confidence – “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of the things spoken to her by the Lord”, – referring not only to Gabriel’s announcement of Mary’s pregnancy but also that of her own.

When we do not believe that God can work miracles in our barrenness, let’s be encouraged by Mary, who always believes that we can receive grace. And if we ever doubt that God can work in certain other people, let’s ask for the faith of Mary, to have confidence that “nothing is impossible to God”.

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