NOTES for Luk 1:45

Look what happens with Elizabeth: Marie (who believed) is already blessed, which means happy, because what she was promised of will come true. But it happens usually differently with us. Let’s suppose that the boss decides to increase our salary, it is doubtful that we shall feel happy without having received this increase! And we shall cross fingers and shall strike our feet on the ground if someone begins to congratulate us before we had received what we are waiting for… and what about Mary? She is really happy: "my soul doth magnify the Lord”. Here is what Jesus brings to this world - happiness; He is even not yet born, His embryo is only a few days old, but are already filled with joy and praises all those who know about Him. Why don’t we have this joy, and why we lose it so easily when we have it? Maybe we shouldn’t be simply called "believers"? Because, unlike Elizabeth and Mary, we already know everything He fulfilled, and more again He is constantly with us.

It is not hard to understand why Mary went to Elizabeth. What had been revealed to Her placed an extremely weighty responsibility on Her, and so created the need to share it with someone close, especially since Mary had been told about Elizabeth that she too had been chosen by God. One can also understand that Elizabeth's son, already in the womb, possessed prophetic sensitivity and therefore responded to Mary's Son in the womb, although this does not fit ordinary consciousness.

But now before us is the inspired prayer that burst from Mary's breast. It sounds like a psalm, and it is no accident that for many centuries it has been a solemn hymn. Mary thanks the Lord because He granted her a share in the triumph of His glory, and we see that what is only still to happen She prophetically experiences as already happening. But if we think about it, this is natural: having received the Holy Spirit, Mary also received His gifts, and one of them is the gift of prophecy.

In today's passage we read about one of the first Gospel encounters between a human being and the Holy Spirit. The first such encounter was undoubtedly the meeting of the young woman named Mary, which resulted in her becoming the Mother of all people (see Luke 1:26-35). It was precisely thanks to the meeting of Mary's spirit, her "yes," with the Holy Spirit that the coming of our Lord into this world, His incarnation, became possible.

And what then? It would seem, what should a pregnant woman do? Whatever she was supposed to do according to the ideas of that time or of our time, Mary rose and "went with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah" (Luke 1:39). She hurried to her relative, about whom the angel had told her. And the logic is astonishing: the Lord told Mary about Elizabeth's pregnancy, and she immediately decides to go help (see Luke 1:36). After all, the angel mentioned it for some reason.

Mary arrives, and Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit. And together with his mother, the infant John is filled with the Spirit. Thus we see that Mary shares and brings the Spirit to those who need Him. Already by the Mother of God this rule is fulfilled: one must share God's gift and not hide it away.

Just as the child leaped in Elizabeth's womb, everything within us rejoices at the thought of Mary, the Mother of our Lord. The feast of her Dormition is one of the brightest feasts, without a shadow of sorrow. It is an example of how a person dies yet does not leave the world, becoming its shield of prayer and remaining in a bond of prayer with the living. For Mary is always with us when we pray to her.

There is a legend that before the death of the Mother of God, before her Dormition, the angel Gabriel appeared to her just as he had in the days of the Annunciation and brought white, fragrant flowers, flowers that recalled the radiance of heaven and eternal life. It may be only a legend, but in it the human spirit speaks with all its love for Mary's holiness, purity, her whole image, and for Mary herself.

Today's reading is devoted to an event described by two evangelists: Matthew (Mt 1:18-23) and Luke (vv. 26-38). It is reasonable to think that Luke used in his Gospel the testimony of the Virgin Mary herself, unlike Matthew, who relied on Joseph's account. In addition, in Luke's presentation the story of the Annunciation is joined to the story of the Virgin Mary's visit to Elizabeth (vv. 39-56). Using such a composition, the evangelist, as it were, compares and relates two events: the birth of John the Baptist and the Nativity of Christ.

At first glance, such a comparison can appear rather conditional: after all, the birth even of such a prophet as John is still incomparable in significance with the birth of the Messiah-Christ. And yet this comparison has its own meaning. For every miracle is nothing other than God's intervention in nature and history, changing, though not completely stopping, the course of natural and social processes. From this point of view, the Nativity of Christ too could be considered an ordinary miracle, if only the word "ordinary" were appropriate in this case. For even the birth of the Messiah-Christ and the entry of the Kingdom into the world are not something absolutely external to this world; otherwise Christ would have had no need to be born, and the Incarnation of God would lose all meaning.

The Kingdom is amazing precisely because it includes our world and does not destroy it. Perhaps for this reason the Incarnation of God was absolutely necessary: by containing Himself within the bounds of human nature, which is by definition limited, God enters the world not from outside, but from within; now His greatness does not prevent Him from becoming wholly, to the end, part of the world He Himself created. Apparently, in a fallen world it was not possible to act otherwise; it was possible to set it right only from within, and God resolves on this step for the sake of His love for people.

But even before this He did not abandon humanity, and above all His people. Every miracle, every theophany, was a step toward the world and toward the human person. Therefore Luke quite rightly relates John's birth to Jesus' birth: all "ordinary" miracles find their meaning only in the main miracle - the birth of the Messiah and the manifestation of the Kingdom.

Continuing his account, the evangelist again and again returns to the main theme of his book: the new, joyful Good News announced to all people. After Zechariah, Mary from the town of Nazareth hears this news.

On the one hand, she continues the line of biblical righteous people and prophets (compare her prayer with the song of Samuel's mother Hannah in 1 Samuel, ch. 2), recognizing in obedience to God both His infinite superiority and His astonishing nearness. On the other hand, she is "blessed among women," that is, the most blessed one, who received the fullness of love and was granted the greatest mercy from God.

In the evangelist's solemn biblical language, the words most often found here are "blessing" and "grace," that is, the good Word and mercy that God gives to people. It appears that in this case these words best describe the gospel message first received two thousand years ago by the Mother of the Lord Jesus.