Mary's song makes God sing

Zephaniah 3:14-18; Ps Among you is the great and holy one of Israel; Luke 1:39-56

Here is a song for today: lifesong 

Today in the church we celebrate the Feast of the Visitation.  The gospel relates how Mary sets out in haste to the hill country, to Judah to be with her cousin Elizabeth who is heavy with child of her own.

IT is important to recall the unfolding events prior to this encounter between Mary and ELizabeth.

We all know the events, but just for the sake of revisitation.

The angel Gabriel is sent to Mary, a virgin, to invite her to be the Mother of Jesus, "you shall conceive and give birth to the Son of the Most High..."

Mary's response to the greeting and invitation of the Angel was a question, "how can this be."

We all experience moments like that where an encounter in our life results in questions from us such as how can this be, why has this happen, how will I cope and so on and so forth.

Normal, this reaction is, though the beauty of grace is that the moment Mary accepts the invitation, the moment she surrenders, she is done with the questions, she moves on and moves forward with haste to get on with her life.

Eventually this acceptance and surrender turns to praise, "and Mary said: My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoice in God my savior, for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant..."

We too like Mary cannot get bogged down in the questioning.  We too must be done with the questions and choose to move forward in acceptance and allowing the surrender to give way to praise and thanksgiving.  Thus, we can enter into Mary's song, Mary's magnificent, and as Christ formed in her brings joy and rejoicing to Elizabeth and baby John in the womb, so too our life, Christ being formed in us through our encounters and experiences, will bring joy and rejoicing to those we encounter.


Just as Mary's song makes God sing, so to the song of our life will do the same.

"Fear not Zion, be not discouraged!  The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty savior; He will rejoice over you with gladness and renew you in his love, he will sing joyfully because of you, as  one sings at festivals."