Be Born in Me -
Luke 1:30-38, NIV - But the angel said to her, “Do
not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and
you are to call him Jesus. He will be
great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him
the throne of his father David, and he
will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a
virgin?”
The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born
will be called[b] the Son of God. Even
Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who
was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.”
“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word
to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.
Today I share a reflection from Ronald Rolheiser that was
shared with me by Richard Rohr:
Looking at how Mary gave birth to Christ, we see that it’s
not something that’s done in an instant. Faith, like biology, also relies on a
process that has a number of distinct, organic moments. What are these moments?
What is the process by which we give birth to faith in the world?
First, like Mary, we need to get pregnant by the Holy
Spirit. We need to let the word take such root in us that it begins to become
part of our actual flesh.
Then, like any woman who’s pregnant, we have to lovingly
gestate, nurture, and protect what is growing inside us until it’s sufficiently
strong so that it can live on its own, outside us. . . .
Eventually, of course, we must give birth. . . .
Birth, however, is only the beginnings of motherhood. Mary
gave birth to a baby, but she had to spend years nurturing, coaxing, and
cajoling that infant into adulthood. The infant in the crib at Bethlehem is not
yet the Christ who preaches, heals, and dies for us. . . .
Finally, motherhood has still one more phase. As her child
grows, matures, and takes on a personality and destiny of its own, the mother,
at a point, must ponder (as Mary did). She must let herself be painfully
stretched in understanding, in not knowing, in carrying tension, in letting go.
She must set free to be itself something that was once so fiercely hers. The
pains of childbirth are often gentle compared to this second wrenching.
All of this is what Mary went through to give Christ to the
world: Pregnancy by the Holy Spirit; gestation of that into a child inside of
her; excruciating pain in birthing that to the outside; nurturing that new life
into adulthood; and pondering, painfully letting go so that this new life can
be its own, not hers. . . .
Our task too is to give birth to Christ. Mary is the
paradigm for doing that. From her we get the pattern: Let the word of God take
root and make you pregnant; gestate that by giving it the nourishing sustenance
of your own life; submit to the pain that is demanded for it to be born to the
outside; then spend years coaxing it from infancy to adulthood; and finally,
during and after all of this, do some pondering, accept the pain of not
understanding and of letting go.
Christmas isn’t automatic, it can’t be taken for granted. It
began with Mary, but each of us is asked to make our own contribution to giving
flesh to faith in the world.
Reference:
Ronald Rolheiser, “Mary as a Model of Faith,” reflection on
Luke 11:27–28 (December 7, 2003).
Question: What can you point to as evidence that Christ is
being born/formed in you?
Prayer: Be born in me
Lord, Jesus. Amen
Prayer Focus: Pray
for healing people for whom the Christmas season is a painful time.
Song: Be Born in Me – Francesca Battistelli
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