A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. Now you have to in order to get the grasp of this event today, just remember, when whatever this let's begin again. Something extraordinary happened when a Jewish girl up in the North Country got a message that she was to be the mother of the messiah. She became a virgin mother. She was told that her cousin Elizabeth, who was advanced in age, who had been known to be sterile, was now well on in her pregnancy.
Mary left the North Country and went down to Jerusalem and then went to the the house of Zechariah, which isn't far from Jerusalem, to greet her cousin Elizabeth, who was known to have been sterile and now was in her old age and pregnant. So that's where we take up the story of Luke, and I wish you to keep those facts in mind. So Mary set out. You see, remember, she asked the angel. And the angel said, look.
You're going to become a mother and so forth. Mary said, how is this going to happen? And the angel said, Your cousin Elizabeth is pregnant. Now if you want a motive of credibility, there it is. But what did Mary do?
She goes down to see whether her cousin is is going to be a mother or not. So she wasn't a gullible little girl. So Mary set out, proceeding in haste, into the hill country to a town of Judah where she entered the house of Zechariah, who was an old man, and greeted Elizabeth, her cousin. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby in her womb stirred. Elizabeth was filled with the holy spirit and cried out in a loud voice, blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
But who am I that the mother of my lord should come to me? The moment that your greeting sounded in my ears, the baby in my womb stirred for joy. Blessed is she who trusted that the word lord's words in to her would be fulfilled. Then Mary said, this is the Magnificat, and no English translation does it justice. I want to point out that Latin begins magnificat.
What the English begins with, my being. You get the difference? Magnificat means it is praised. It is magnified. It is made big.
The English begins with little old me. Big difference. So Mary said in this English translation, my being proclaims the greatness of the lord, and my spirit finds joy in god, my savior. For he has looked upon his servant in her lowliness. All ages to come will call me blessed.
God who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is from age to age on those who fear him. He has shown might with his arm. He has confused the proud in their inmost thoughts. He has deposed the mighty from their throes and raised up the lowly to high places.
The hungry, he has given every good thing, while the rich, he has sent away empty. He has upheld Israel, his servant, ever mindful of his mercy, even as he promised our fathers, promised Abraham and his descendants forever. Mary remained with her cousin Elizabeth about three months and then returned home. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit.
Amen. The big difficulty, I would say the almost insurmountable difficulty of Saint Luke is not Luke, but ourselves. This story in the first few chapters of Saint Luke, as you know, they've come under the severest criticism even by our great and learned so called Catholic scripture scholars. Remember, what we're talking about here is God becoming man. How how often do you think about God?
You've got you can't do this when you're surrounded with a lot of people and noise and a lot fall to roll. You've got to be exposed to some kind of immensity. Whether it's the immensity of the sky, the sea, the mountains, the desert, the prairies, or whether it be the immensity of your own aridness when you seem to be totally alone. There is no way we can comprehend god. No way.
There is not a single word we can say about god which is literally true, univocally true. Not a single word. Even the little verb is can't be applied univocally to God and to man or the world. Can't be. This is what we're talking about.
God becoming a human being in the womb of a Jewish girl up in Galilee. Now this story is so familiar to us that, you know, it rolls off of us with the proverbial ease ease of the water on the duck's back. But if we only give ourselves a minute to think, what we what are we talking about when we're talking about God? The word is thrown around enough. And now we're saying he became man, human being, in every way human, with an absolutely integrity a a a human nature of the utmost integrity.
That's what we say, and it doesn't faze us. It fazes atheists. That's the reason I admire an atheist because an atheist says that's a lot of hogwash. Because if it's not true, then it is hogwash. And it's worse than that.
Now these texts, if you've read anything about this criticism of St. Luke You know, I said this Cai Staple Lewis says, the one thing you have to be aware and be afraid of and avoid are scripture scholars. Now Lewis was a man who devoted his life to language. He knew all the dangers of words and books and the printed and the written word. He knew all about it.
And he said, beware of scripture scholars. You see, what impresses me here I'm not saying that that the our blessed lady, when she saw Elizabeth spouted out the Magnificat. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying this, that we're dealing here with events that were well known. Well known.
Zacharias was a well known character in the temple. He was not an anonymous person like this little girl coming from Galilee. He was a well known man. His wife was well known, and it was well known that she was sterile. It was public knowledge, and that public knowledge was a great affliction in a Jewish society.
And they were both in advanced age, and Jersey comes along pregnant. And notice, that is what the what the angel or whatever it was happened up in Galilee when this little girl was told she was to be the mother of God. And she says, look. How can this happen? Are you kidding me?
Am I dreaming? And the message comes, well, go down and look at your cousin Elizabeth. Then ask, am I am I are are you dreaming? Go down and look at her. She's pregnant.
Your cousin, that old woman who was sterile. Now this is can't get out of this. This is not this this doesn't rest about this on this text or on that word or or how we we find this phrase or something in the Old Testament. This is based upon public knowledge. And Saint Luke is writing when people were still living who could have been alive at the time.
Look. The greatest thing that ever happened in this world was God becoming man. That's either true or false. There's no gray matter here. Is either true or false.
And if it's false, then let's get rid of it because it certainly has been a terrible affliction to the world. But if it's true that God became man in the womb of a virgin girl named Mary, then it is the greatest thing that ever happened, and it's the greatest thing or ought to be the greatest thing in our lives. In the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. Amen.