Mary’s generous response

Saturday, December 21, 2019
3rd Week of Advent
1st Reading: Zep 3:14–18a
 Gospel: 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!”

D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)

We do not know if Mary fully understood the extent of the favor she found with God. If she did, there was reason to throw a party to celebrate her change of status. If she did not, there was reason to withdraw to privacy in order to analyze what had happened. She did none of these. Instead she went in haste to her cousin Elizabeth who was in her sixth month of pregnancy. Elizabeth’s case was just an “obiter dictum”, a concern mentioned in passing by the angel. But it became Mary’s major concern.

I was always wondering why the angel appeared to Mary on Elizabeth’s sixth month of pregnancy and not some other time. I got some clues when I read the case of Aquino vs. Delizo (G.R. No. L-15853, July 27, 1960) in law school. The Supreme Court, quoting Lull’s “Clinical Obstetrics” (p. 122) wrote: “even on the 5th month of pregnancy, (…) the enlargement is limited to the lower part of the abdomen so that it is hardly noticeable and may, if noticed, be attributed only to fat formation on the lower part of the abdomen. It is only on the 6th month of pregnancy that the enlargement of the woman’s abdomen reaches a height above the umbilicus, making the roundness of the abdomen more general and apparent”.
Elizabeth’s pregnancy had to be apparent in order to establish that if such was possible upon an old woman, so was pregnancy without losing virginity possible on Mary because nothing is impossible with God. I am not convinced, though, that Mary went in haste to Elizabeth primarily for verification purposes, otherwise she could have returned home immediately after their exchange of greetings. The fact that she stayed until John the Baptist was born proves that Mary went there primarily to serve Elizabeth.

Mary was not obliged to help Elizabeth because she also had a pregnancy to manage. But she made the need of her neighbor part of her immediate concern. Mary’s story shows to us that there is never a valid excuse from helping those in need. –(Atty) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., J.D., D.M.