Fourth Sunday of Advent |
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Scripture |
39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” 46 And Mary a said, |
Devotional |
What is the significance of Mary’s visit to Elizabeth before the birth of Jesus? I have read and thought about this scripture all week and still do not have any significant thoughts. Roberta Bondi writes in the current issue of Weavings about not being able to write after years of teaching and writing. She says, “What I was being called into was God’s silence.” 1I spent the past week in silence at a house of prayer. so I thought this could be my excuse. I do not wish to compare myself to a disciplined writer like Bondi, because “as a person without even the discipline to floss my teeth regularly,” 2 Is this one of those times God call us to silence so we will be able to experience the coming of Jesus? Wendy Wright reflects on an experience of stillness. I scrawled Father Bruno’s words diagonally at the top of my handwritten page: “Listen to the silence, and you will know that everything is there although nothing is said, all knowledge exists in that depth, that emptiness, and when you finally speak, the word comes out of this silence and carries the silence with it. The word is like an arrow point, it has meaning – but if the word pulls away from the silence, isn’t verified by the silence, then it is empty and dies.” 3 I suspect I will experience the coming of the Christ more in silence and stillness than in words either mine or others. “Stillness. Like its cousins silence and solitude, has long been a pillar of the spiritual life in many traditions.” 4 This week I will attempt to recapture some of that stillness, silence, and solitude from last week. This will be a different world than is close by in the shopping mall and centers. I will also have to exercise more discipline, like Paul Jones and I have discussed on visits to his hermitage. Discipline must begin now. I think I will go floss my teeth. Begin at the easier point. 1 Roberta Bondi, “The Word of God and the Stillness of God”. Weavings December/January2007 p. 43 |