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MARY THE EUCHARISTIC WOMAN - stephenkhoo - 05-31-2012 11:03 AM
Scripture Reflections
Thursday 31 May, 2012, Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
MARY THE EUCHARISTIC WOMAN
SCRIPTURE READINGS: ZEPH 3:14-18 OR ROM 12:9-16; LK 1:39-56
“Shout for joy, daughter of Zion, Israel, shout aloud! Rejoice, exult with all your heart, daughter of Jerusalem! The Lord has repealed your sentence; he has driven your enemies away. The Lord, the king of Israel, is in your midst; you have no more evil to fear.” Indeed, when the Lord is with us, we have no reason to fear. Like the Israelites, we are imprisoned by our sins and are suffering the consequences of our follies. The Good News is that God has forgiven us and He is setting us free. The words of consolation of the prophet also apply to us for he said, “Zion, have no fear, do not let your hands fall limp. The Lord your God is in your midst, a victorious warrior.” With God on our side, we know we can win every battle.
This prophecy is fulfilled in a very real way with the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is regarded as the visitation of God. Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, the precursor of our Lord under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit prophesied this when he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people, and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David.” (Lk 1:68f) And when Jesus raised the son of a widow at Nain, the crowd who witnessed the miracle exclaimed, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” And “God has visited his people.” (Lk 7:16) Jesus is truly the visitation of God. In the incarnation, Jesus shows Himself as our Emmanuel, God with us. By His incarnation, passion, death and resurrection, we see the mercy and love of God in person.
To perpetuate His presence with us forever, He sends us the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The same Holy Spirit that anointed Him with power to do good when He was on earth, now empowers the Church to continue the work of Jesus and through the ministry of the Church and makes Jesus present in the Sacraments, especially in the Eucharist. The Church, through the work of the Holy Spirit, continues the saving work of Christ. Never again would the Church be left alone. We can sing with the prophet in the responsorial psalm, “My strength and my courage is the Lord.” With joy we will draw refreshing water from Christ’s fountain of salvation.
This was the basis of Mary’s joy when she sang the Magnificat. “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord and my spirit exults in God my saviour; because he has looked upon his lowly handmaid.” Not only Mary, but John the Baptist also leapt for joy. “For the moment your greeting reached my ears, the child in my womb leapt for joy. Yes, blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled.” With the Lord in our midst, we know that all things are possible. The Lord of Hosts will be our warrior who will win the battle against our enemies for us. No matter how bleak or hopeless the situation appears to be, we need not give up hope for we know that the arm of the Lord is not shortened. Mary declared that victory is certain because “He has shown the power of his arm.” This faith in God’s presence in her life is the cause of her perseverance in the face of trials, tribulations, persecution and disappointments. Whether it was at Egypt or at the foot of the cross, Mary knew that God was in charge. Together with her son, she would have said, “Into your hands, I commend my spirit.”
We too need not fear that God is not with us. However, we must learn to let go and trust in Him. We must remember the words of Elizabeth, “Blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled.” Like Mary, we need to live in expectant faith. God is faithful and we can trust in His mercy and love for us.
So what prevents God from working in us? It is our self-reliance, the refusal to trust in Him. We rely on man rather than on God, on our own strength than in God’s power. This is what Mary said, “He has routed the proud of heart. He has pulled down princes from their thrones and exalted the lowly. The hungry he has filled with good things, the rich sent empty away.” How often have we been destroyed by our arrogance and pride! God comes to the aid of those who are humble and who turn to Him in prayer. And what greater strength can we find than in the Eucharist, our source of consolation. Spending time before the Eucharist and receiving Him at mass is the most privileged way of feeling the presence of God in our hearts. Just as the Holy Spirit was the cause of the Incarnation and Elizabeth’s recognition of Jesus in the womb of Mary, so too, through the Eucharist, we once again receive the Spirit of Jesus in our hearts and are filled with joy because Jesus lives in our hearts just as Mary carried Jesus in her womb.
Having received Him in our hearts, we must now become like Mary, a Eucharistic person to others. We are called to also become God’s visitation to others in their lives, bringing them joy, hope and love. Mary in today’s gospel showed herself to be that Eucharistic woman. She did not keep Jesus to herself but without hesitation brought Jesus to Elizabeth and John the Baptist. Pope John Paul II often called Mary the “Eucharistic woman” and Pope Benedict XVI likened the feast of the Blessed Virgin’s visitation to Elizabeth as the first Eucharistic procession in history. What then does it mean to become a Eucharistic person?
Firstly, like Mary, we must give ourselves to others. The whole life of Mary was to give herself in service to God and to His people. She saw herself as the servant of the Lord. Her only concern was people. Even though she was chosen to be the mother of the Messiah, she did not even spend time to savour her election but immediately set out to help her cousin Elizabeth who needed her assistance. We see this generosity of Mary also at the wedding in Cana in Galilee. She went beyond her role as guest in extending her assistance to the wedding couple. If we want to be God’s visitation to others, then charity is the way to help people to encounter God’s love through us. This explains why the social arm of the Church is important in the mission of the Church. It is not enough for the Church to proclaim the Word of God unless it is also accompanied by actions. Service to the poor has always been a priority in the work of evangelization. This is what St Paul wrote, “If any of the saints are in need you must share with them; and you should make hospitality your special care. Treat everyone with equal kindness; never be condescending but make real friends with the poor. Do not let your love be a pretence, but sincerely prefer good to evil. Love each other as much as brothers should, and have a profound respect for each other.” (Rom 12:13,16)
Secondly, we must give Christ to others. More than just giving material things and food to the poor, the real poor are those do not have Christ in their lives. Give them Jesus. The request of the Greeks to Philip remains ever real in the heart of every man, “We wish to see Jesus!” (Jn 12:21) Many are hungering for a true encounter with Jesus. Many never experienced Jesus as a real person and friend. That is why joy is lacking in many of our Catholics because they never encounter Jesus as a person. John the Baptist, even in the womb of Elizabeth, leapt for joy because he met Jesus. Similarly, we see the joy of Mary and Elizabeth when they shared with each other what the Lord had done for them. Sharing Christ with each other, especially testifying His works in our lives, inspire faith and gives people hope. Unfortunately, many of us know how to pray to God only when we are in trouble and when our favours are answered, but we never proclaim to the world as Mary did of God’s marvels in our lives. There is no better way to give Jesus to people than to testify what the Lord has done for us.
By doing what Mary did, we too become missionaries like her. Indeed, Pope Benedict calls Mary as the Mother of Missionaries. He said, “In the Virgin Mary who goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth, we recognize the most limpid example and the truest meaning of our journey of believers and the journey of the Church herself.” We too as Church and as individuals must bring Christ and His message to every man and woman. This requires that we be courageous like her to reach out, be creative and adventurous in making the gospel relevant to the modern man and woman. The work of the New Evangelization demands that we find new ways and means to proclaim Christ to the world. The danger for us Catholics is that we have become complacent. We simply take our numbers for granted but we are not proactively engaging the world; not even our confused and disenchanted Catholics who have left our Church to join other denominations or even other religions. In the name of fidelity to tradition, we have not made radical moves to bring about a creative fidelity to our inherited Catholic Tradition in the way we minister to our Catholics, in catechesis and in the work of evangelization. We need to bring the new and the old from the treasury of our storehouse. Like Mary, we must give the gift of Jesus whom we have received to the world, for Jesus is the answer to all the yearnings of man.