20/12/2024

Today the readings take us back first of all to Isaiah as the voice of IAMIAM speaking in the human past about what is going to happen in the human future as the event that will finalize his revelation of himself and his total awareness of every minute item that the Love that is IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT creates by his very being. 

We and all that we know are because God is.

Mary is a teenager. She is a bride to be. She knows the "facts of life". She also knows the history of her people. She knows that she is one of the chosen people of IAMIAM. She does not yet know that she is untainted by our first parents' original sin but she does know that she has always kept to the ten commandments and the "Law" that is the core of her Jewishness. 

She is totally unprepared for "Hail Mary full of Grace, the Lord is with thee."

The entirely human young woman can only respond to this revelation with "How can this be for I am a virgin?". She only knows the biological fact and its social implications but this fact is the complete revelation of the Holy Trinity, IAMFATHER|SONHOLY|SPIRIT is God.

The Scriptures contain the only knowledge that is essential for our lives. We can follow the story of Mary and Joseph in its brief details to Bethlehem, to Jerusalem, to Egypt and back to Nazareth. The Son of God lives an unknown life, he is not an "anonymous Christian" but our "Anonymous God".

One Saturday in the synagogue out of the blue he announces a jubilee for the whole world with "These words are being fulfilled in your presence" and for the next three years he lives to show how each one of us can live in accordance with the will of the Father by following the Son and supported by the Holy Spirit.

We are all saved by the "Yes" of that tiny young woman in Nazareth. That is the fact of Eternal Life revealed to us by the first "Hail Mary".

Dear Lord help me to get through the tasks of this day with the "good will" that you know is often lacking as I have never lived as I know that I should. You know that I still struggle to remain sinless and am only truly honest for these few moments that I turn to you each day. Let my deeds also be pleasing to you as I pray that you comfort all the unfortunate souls who have never been able to turn to you and are at this moment being killed just because they are alive. May the prayers of Mary who has never sinned bring help to those in her homeland who are subjected to pain from the moment of their birth and may I too join the saints in their praise and petitions for your mercy to shower down, St Theres' rose petals, on us sinners on earth and Holy Souls in Purgatory. Amen