Mary is pregnant. She’s really, really pregnant!
That was the refrain of a homily at the Spanish Mass at St. Nicholas of Tolentine in the Bronx on the 4th Sunday of Advent over 30 years ago. For those of you who also spent time at Tolentine, the homilist was Fr. Joe Girone, (sadly gone to God much too soon).
The vivid bodily image he projected was one of Mary big with child, about to give birth. As we stand on the threshold of the fulfillment of the Promise, on the cusp of Incarnation, it is a fitting image---an apt spiritual symbol. Those of you who were at Tolentine in those years may remember that Joe had a penchant for the dramatic:
In today’s Gospel, what we witness is an encounter between two pregnant women in unusual and unprecedented circumstances. In this iconic Visitation, it is Elizabeth who is big with child—who, though not yet on the verge of labor, is much farther along than Mary, who has only so recently said YES to this journey into the unknown. [“Let it be done to me according to your Word.”] And we can confidently assume that Elizabeth is also farther along on the Wisdom path than young Mary, whom we can only guess travelled the long and perilous distance through hill country to seek counsel from her elder kinswoman. Despite her courageous “yes,” how terribly frightened she must have been after the angel left her. (How frightened have we been after being inspired to say “yes” to a challenge or an adventure only to wither when the inspiration waned?)
Had Mary even told anyone yet? Was Elizabeth the first person whom she would confide in—this woman on the other end of life’s spectrum, whose pregnancy was part and parcel of the angel’s announcement to Mary? Could either of them have imagined how inextricably their lives and legacies, and the lives and legacies of the children in their wombs, would be entwined for all eternity? Perhaps Mary, knowing ahead of time something of what they shared, had a glimmer of an intuition.
And Elizabeth, advanced in age and barren: However much she had longed for a child in her youth, this surprise pregnancy had to have been a mixed blessing. Her worn-out body taxed by all the complex and exhausting changes of gestating new life. (How many exhausting changes in the process of gestating new life have we experienced in our Religious Congregations?) Nevertheless, Elizabeth’s was the body Divinely chosen to bring forth the one who would prepare the way for the long-awaited Savior. Hers was the womb in which the Baptist leapt upon recognition of the Child in Mary’s womb. Hers the tongue that first proclaimed Jesus as Lord. Here, Elizabeth is the Prophet, announcing and confirming Mary’s unique role in salvation history:
“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me….”
Let’s stop right there, and recall how Mary asked the angel in wonderment, “How can this be…?” Or recall the circumstances in our own lives that prompted us to exclaim in jubilant excitement, “How does this happen to me?” Or in agonized lament, “How does this happen to me?” Elizabeth’s exclamation is one of joyful surprise. For both women, though, lament would follow in the ensuing years as they witnessed their sons’ paths of sacrifice, suffering and death in the course of staying true to their respective vocations.
But for now, in this present moment, Elizabeth’s response is joyful:
“And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by God would be fulfilled.”
Blessed are you who believed the Promise and gave your body as instrument of its fulfillment.
The Prophet Elizabeth is not conferring blessing but acknowledging God’s blessing and Mary’s partnership in enabling that blessing to flow into the world, to touch the earth, to transform not only human history, but the whole created order.
In foretelling the coming of the Savior out of hidden, lowly, insignificant Bethlehem, the Prophet Micah concludes that, “after she who was to give birth has borne… (her child’s) greatness shall reach to the ends of the earth; he shall be peace.” Peace, unto the ends of the earth. Later, the author of Hebrews puts these words, addressed to the Creator, in Christ’s mouth: “A body you prepared for me…. Behold, I come to do your will.”
Jesus couldn’t have accomplished God’s will in the flesh without Mary’s prior acceptance of God’s will in her own flesh, her own body. The body God prepared for Jesus was Mary’s. The body God prepared for the one who would lead the way to Jesus was Elizabeth’s. The bodies through which Christ is born in our world today are ours – yours and mine. As our medieval Dominican brother, Meister Eckhart, proclaimed: “We are all meant to be mothers of God…for God is always needing to be born.”
On this 4th Sunday of Advent, we stand on the threshold of fulfillment, the cusp of Incarnation. Maria está embarazada. At the close of this darkest weekend of the year, we stand at the edge of Dawn’s New Light. Christmas is near. By this time, Elizabeth has already given birth to John, and Mary is really, really pregnant—bien embarazada. The Spanish expression for giving birth is dar luz – to give light! What is the light that each of us will bring into the world this Christmas and throughout the New Year?
Sister Kathleen McManus, OP
Sister Kathleen currently teaches at Fordham University in New York, where she lives and works as an independent scholar. Previously, she served as associate professor of theology and director of the M.A. in Pastoral Ministry Program at the University of Portland and served on the international editorial team for the Bloomsbury/T&T Clark Series in Edward Schillebeeckx.